Originally published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine (Harper and Brothers) vol.19 #111 (Aug 1859).
The dullness of law documents is proverbial. "As dull as a law book" is every body's comparison; and some evil-disposed persons even say, "As prosy as a lawyer." But there they are wrong; and the gentlemen of the bar have, as they usually have, the best of their lay brethren. "Bar wit" is the sharpest of wit, as any one who has enjoyed the privilege of attending a bar dinner, or any other social gathering of "attorneys and counselors at law," will readily admit. Indeed, the readers of Harper's Magazine need hardly be supposed in doubt upon this point, for many of the best things served up for their delectation by the Drawer-man have been contributed by members of the legal fraternity—that numerous brotherhood whose shingles hang thickest upon the houses of all American towns, and whose voices resound loudest at every American political meeting.
The Drawer-man claims a monopoly of American judge and jury stories, and warns trespassers off his premises with ominous threats of man-traps and spring-guns. We propose, therefore, to leave that field to its present occupant, and to confine ourselves in this paper to a collection of diverse waifs and estrays of gossip from the gentlemen of the long robe of Great Britain.
The profession of the law is in England, almost more than among ourselves, the great avenue to political place, honors, and emoluments. It is, in fact, the only road by which men of tact and industry, but lacking hereditary rank, may hope to arrive at once at wealth, fame, and titles. Among the men now famous in British history as Government leaders and administrators few can be found who have not studied and practiced the law; and many of the most celebrated were eminent as lawyers long before they became eminent as statesmen. But many years of briefless waiting have been and are necessary ere this eminence is reached. Of Scott, afterward Lord Eldon, it was said that "he waited the exact number of years it cost to take Troy (ten), and had formed his determination to pine no longer, but leave the law to become junior partner in a grocery business, when Providence sent an angel, in the shape of Mr. Barber, with the papers of a fat suit and a retaining fee." His first success was rapidly followed by a heavy business and prosperity which never left him till he was Lord Chancellor.
Lord Erskine was first in the navy, then in the army, for a little while a chaplain, and finally studied law. He had for some years so little to do, that when a friend met him in Westminster Hall, and congratulated him on his good looks and high spirits (which never forsook him in his most desperate straits), he replied, "I ought to look well, for I am like Lord Abinger's trees, I have nothing to do but to grow."
Thurlow, afterward Lord Chancellor, was the son of a poor curate; and for many years after he was called to the bar was wholly unknown. He had to resort to the most extraordinary expedients to pay his expenses; such as once pretending to buy a horse, riding him on trial to the next assize town, and returning him with a threat against the dealer to bring a suit against him for attempt to swindle by selling him a broken-winded hack. When he accidentally found an opening for the display of his talents he astonished the bar, and never after lacked briefs.
Kenyon was doomed, term after term, to sit on the back benches, unknown, with scarcely any chance of success. But he would not be discouraged. He studied diligently; constantly increased his knowledge of the law; and at last fortune favored him. He was not eloquent; but he had perseverance, industry, and indomitable resolution; and by these qualities raised himself (a noble example for struggling youth), step by step, from obscurity to honor—from the desk of a stingy attorney to the presidency of the first court of justice in Britain.
Pratt, afterward Lord Camden, though the son of a Chief Justice of the King's Bench, struggled with bitter poverty for eight or nine years, and at last determined to give up the law, when a friend to whom he had communicated his resolve got him retained as junior counsel to himself in an important suit, and then willfully absented himself, thus throwing the entire duties of the defense on Pratt. The latter so distinguished himself that he at once secured the admiration and the business of the court. Mr. Holroyd, afterward an eminent judge, was spoken of when in his fortieth year as a "rising young man." Murray, the celebrated Lord Mansfield, one of England's greatest lawyers, of whom Pope wrote that noted distich:
"Blest as thou art, with all the power of words,
So known, so honored, in the House of Lords,"[1]
was for many years in the greatest straits, hardly known as a lawyer, and unable to support himself by his profession. He was only continued in it by the liberality of a rich friend, who, hearing of his difficulties, allowed him two hundred pounds per year till he got into business.
Dunning (Lord Ashburton) studied intensely, lived poorly—taking dinner and supper together to economize time and money—and yet for many years he remained unknown. But once in business he soon became a leader at the bar, and died, at the age of fifty-two, worth one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. He was three years at bar without receiving so much as a hundred guineas, all told. During the last twelve years of his life his practice brought him in from fifty to sixty thousand dollars per year.
These, and many other examples, show what patience and industry are necessary, even to genius, to accomplish great results. Young men may treasure them as comforters in those dark hours which almost always precede the dawn of a great success.
We hear with surprise of the enormous fees and incomes of leading American lawyers, such as Webster, Choate, David Paul Brown, and others; but the practice of eminent British gentlemen of the long robe is more remunerative than even that of their American brethren. Sir Samuel Romilly realized an income of upward of $75,000 in the last years of his life; Sir Charles Wetherell received $35,000 for opposing the Municipal Corporations Bill at the bar of the House of Lords; the late Lord Truro's retaining fee in an important cause was $15,000; and these instances by no means stand alone.
But besides fortune, a good position at the bar brings with it an enviable place in the most intelligent and desirable society. Lawyers have been the best club men; and the clubs of London have become famous for the wit and wisdom which they have, in times past, brought together under one roof. Even that exclusive old clique which called itself "The Sublime Society of Beef-steaks," with its "gridiron of 1735 standing out in proud relief from the ceiling of the refectory," and its funnily conceited motto of "Beef and Liberty"—even this, the most snobbish and conservative of clubs, which had no less a man than a drunken and half-paralytic duke for its honored president, gathered its brightest members from the bar. Wilkes, Sergeant Prime (not witty himself, but the cause of wit in others), "Frog" Morgan—so called because he was in the habit of quoting constantly in his arguments in Court "Croke Elizabeth, Croke James, Croke Charles," said Croke being a reporter who lived in those three reigns—Horne Tooke, and many others more or less famous, were among its members. Cobb was a lawyer, better known in his time as a playwright, and the author, among others, of an Indian Drama called Ramah Drug, and an English opera, the Haunted Tower.
"What a misnomer it was," said Arnold, a fellow "steak," to him, "to call your opera the Haunted Tower! Why, there was no spirit in it from beginning to end."
"The drama was better named Ramah Drug," exclaimed another, "for it was literally ramming a drug down the public throat."
"True," rejoined Cobb, "but it was a drug that evinced considerable power, for it operated on the public twenty nights in succession."
"My good friend," said Arnold, "that was a proof of its weakness, if it took so long in working."
"You are right," retorted Cobb, "in that respect; your play (Arnold had brought out a play which did not survive the first night) had the advantage of mine, for it was so powerful a drug that it was thrown up as soon as it was taken."
The raillery of the Sublime Society was merciless. One Bradshaw was fond of boasting of his descent from the regicide of that name. To whom Churchill, the poet, said, "Ah, Bradshaw, don't crow; the Stuarts have been amply revenged for the loss of Charles's head, for you have not had a head in your whole family since."
Sheridan was a Beef-steak, and introduced his brother-in-law, Linley, whose peculiarity was a fondness for telling jokes of which he always forgot the point. He published a biography of his friend Leftly, which, coming up before the society for review, was found to open with the following Johnsonian passage respecting his hero's birth: "His father was a tailor and his mother a seamstress; a union which, if not first suggested, was probably accelerated by the mutual sympathies of a congenial occupation." This, and another passage, excited general applause. The second was a sober truism, stated with admirable seriousness: "It is a well-known fact that novelty itself, by frequent repetition, loses much of its attraction."
The study of the law does not seem favorable to purity or elegance of style, or exactness of expression. Poor Linley was not alone in his grandiloquence. Mr. Marryatt, a brother of the novelist, once, addressing a jury, and speaking of a chimney on fire, exclaimed, "Gentlemen, the chimney took fire—it poured out volumes of smoke—volumes did I say?—whole encyclopedias!" "When I can not talk sense I talk metaphor," said Curran; and many of his brethren imitate him. Mr. (afterward Sir R.) Dallas exclaimed in one of his speeches, "Now we are advancing from the starlight of circumstantial evidence to the daylight of discovery; the sun of certainty has melted the darkness, and we have arrived at the facts admitted by both parties;" and Kenyon once addressed the Bench: "Your lordships perceive that we stand here as our grandmother's administrators de bonis non; and really, my lords, it does strike me that it would be a monstrous thing to say that a party can now come in, in the very teeth of an act of Parliament, and actually turn us round, under color of hanging us upon the foot of a contract made behind our backs!"
The technical phrases of British law documents form, however, a serious clog in clearness of expression. Many of the commonest terms of the English and Scotch courts must be worse than Greek to laymen. Thus, when in Scotland a judge wishes to be peremptory in an order, he "ordains the parties to condescend;" when he intends to be mild, he "recommends them to lose their pleas." If a man thinks proper to devise his estates for the benefit of the poor, he is considered to mortify them. Witnesses are brought into court upon a diligence, and before they can be examined they must be purged. If a man loses his deceased elder brother's estate, it is called a conquest; and there are current such elegant expressions as "blasting you at the horn," "poinding your estate," and "consigning you to the fise," to which such phrases as "villains in gross," "seized in fee," and "docking an entail," are mere trifles. Of the last term, by-the-way, there is a good story. A physician reproaching a lawyer with what Mr. Bentham would have called the "uncognoscibility" of law technicalities, said:
"Now, for example, I could never comprehend what you meant by docking an entail."
"My dear doctor," replied the barrister, "I don't wonder at that; but I will explain: it is what your profession never consent to—suffering a recovery."
Besides club gatherings it was, and still is, customary on the principal circuits in England to hold at certain intervals a court for the trial of all breaches of professional etiquette. The court is held at the circuit table after the dinner cloth is cleared, and the junior member of the circuit presides as recorder; the others, not being prosecutors or culprits, acting as jury. The trial takes place on presentment made by any member of the circuit. If the accused is found guilty he is fined, and the penalty is paid into the wine fund of the mess. Some of the presentments are absurd enough, but all tend to maintain good humor among the rival barristers. An eminent advocate, who has a namesake an eminent comedian, was lately presented on circuit for having inserted the following outrageous puff of himself in a prominent newspaper: "Mr. — delighted us exceedingly on Monday. We do not remember to have seen so much genuine wit displayed ["on the stage" was here erased] without the slightest coarseness. He is the smartest individual in his line whose performances we have ever witnessed." A fine of half a crown was forthwith imposed on this vain-glorious paragraph writer. The papers announce the execution of one John Smith, who had been convicted of murder. On whatever circuit there is a Mr. John Smith, he is immediately found guilty of being hanged, and fined for so heinous an offense. When Lord Abinger was at the bar, he presented Mr. Richardson, a great pleader, afterward raised to the bench, for "being the most eminent special pleader of the day!" So grave an offense demanded severe punishment, and Mr. R. was accordingly amerced in a dozen of wine.
Mr. Sergeant Hill was very absent-minded, and this made him the target of many a practical joke on his circuit. He once argued a point of law for some time at nisi prius; and intending to hand his papers to the judge, gravely drew forth a plated candlestick from his bag and presented it to the bench. Some one, it appeared, had substituted a "traveler's" bag for the Sergeant's own. Hill was much delighted when, as not unfrequently occurred, he got the better of his persecutors. So pleased was he on one such occasion, at a party given by the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, that, on retiring, he by mistake gave a shilling to his excellent host, and, to the amazement of his friends, shook hands in the most friendly way with the servant at the door.
Chief among the wits was Jekyll, a man who had a retort ready for all comers. At a public dinner the bottle had passed freely, and Jekyll, who was slightly elevated, having just emptied his, called to the servant, "Here, away with this marine." A General of the Marines, sitting near the lawyer, felt his dignity touched, and said, "I don't understand what you mean, Sir, by likening an empty bottle to a marine?" "My dear General," replied Jekyll, "I mean a good fellow who has done his duty, and who is ready to do it again."
To a Welsh Judge, famous as well for his neglect of personal cleanliness as for his insatiable desire for place, he said, "My dear Sir, as you have asked the Ministry for every thing else, why have you never asked them for a piece of soap and a nail-brush?" Kenyon, before mentioned, was somewhat noted for parsimony. Some one told Jekyll that he had been down in Lord Kenyon's kitchen, and saw his spits shining as bright as if they had never been used. "Why do you mention his spit?" retorted the humorist; "you must know that nothing turns upon that." A rascally little attorney named Else addressed him: 'Sir, I hear that you have called me a pettifogging scoundrel. Have you done so?" "Sir," was the reply, with a look of contempt, "I never said you were a pettifogger or a scoundrel; but I said that you were little Else." Garrow was examining an old spinster, for the purpose of proving the tender of a certain sum of money having been made; but found some difficulty in making out his case. Jekyll, who was watching the proceedings, wrote the following, and threw it over to his professional brother:
"Garrow, submit—that tough old jade
Will never prove a tender maid."
Erskine, himself a wit of whom many good stories are remembered, once complained to Jekyil "that he had a severe pain in his bowels, and had tried remedy after remedy without being cured." "Get yourself made Attorney-General," was Jekyll's advice; "then you will have no bowels at all."
Erskine was as good at an impromptu as Jekyll himself. Dining one day with Sir Ralph Payne he was seized with a sudden illness which obliged him to retire till the cloth was cleared. On his return Lady Payne asked anxiously how he felt. He took up pencil and scribbled this couplet in answer:
"'Tis true I am ill, but I can not complain,
For he never knew pleasure who never knew Payne."
To Mr. Espinasse and a Mr. Lamb he remarked once that habit and the practice of public speaking gave a man great confidence when pleading in court. "I protest I don't find it so," replied Mr. Lamb, "for though I've been a good many years at the bar, with my fair share of business, I don't find my confidence increase; indeed the contrary is my case." "Why," replied Erskine, "it's nothing wonderful that a Lamb should grow sheepish." One night Erskine was coming out of the House of Commons and was stopped byamember who asked, "Who's up, Erskine?"
"Windham."
"What's he on?"
"His legs," shouted Erskine as he hurried out.
He was counsel in a suit brought to recover the value of a quantity of whalebone; and found one of the witnesses so stupid as not to know the difference between thick and long whalebone. Driven to desperation he at length exclaimed, "Why, man, you do not seem to know the difference between what is thick and what is long. Now I will explain; you are a thick-headed fellow, but you are not a long-headed fellow." Being counsel for defendant in the case of Robinson vs. Tickell, he opened his speech to the bench with "Tickell, my client, the defendant, my lord," when the Judge interrupted—"Tickel him yourself, Brother Erskine, you can do it better than I." Having gained an important suit for a coal-mining company whose counsel he was, they invited him to a splendid dinner given in honor of the victory. Called on for a toast, he gave, "Sink your pits, blast your mines, dam your rivers."
Erskine rarely received a rebuff, in which particular he was more lucky than Dunning (Lord Ashburton), who, in his cross-examinations, though he sometimes gave good shots, as often got as good as he sent. Asking a witness why he lived at the very verge of the court, the ready reply was, "In the vain hope of escaping the rascally impertinence of Dunning."
A witness with a Bardolphian nose coming in Dunning's way, he said to him, "Now, Mr. Coppernose, you have been sworn. What do you say?"
"Why, upon my oath," replied the witness, "I would not exchange my copper nose for your brazen face."
He was remarkably ugly. A client of his once inquired for him at a coffee-house. The waiter did not know such a person.
"Go up stairs," said the client, "and see if there is a person there with a face like the knave of clubs; and if so, tell him he is wanted."
The waiter went up, and at once found Dunning.
Examining a woman in court, he asked of a certain man, "Was he a tall man?"
Witness. "Not very tall, your honor; much about the size of your worship's honor."
Dunning. "Was he good-looking?"
Witness. "Quite the contrary; much like your worship's honor; but with a handsomer nose."
Dunning. "Did he squint?"
Witness. "A little, your honor; but not so much as your worship, by a good deal."
Whereupon Dunning declared himself satisfied, and sent the witty old woman down. He was very coarse, which led "honest Jack Lee" to give him the following severe rub: Dunning was telling, one day in court, that "he had just bought some good manors in Devonshire."
"I wish, then," said Jack, "that you had brought some of your good manners here with you."
Lawyers not seldom get back their own. Jeffreys, who was notoriously coarse to witnesses, once called out, "Now, you fellow in the leathern doublet, what have you been paid for swearing?"
The man looked steadily at him, and said, "Truly, Sir, if you have no more for lying than I for swearing, you might wear a leathern doublet too."
Sergeant Cockle, in a suit for the rights of a fishery, asked a witness, "Dost thou love fish?"
"Ay," replied he, with a grin, "but not with Cockle sauce."
It is the business of a lawyer to be ready-witted; and it may be that he whose wit is sharpened in daily encounters deserves little credit for readiness. This does not detract, however, from the merit of such as this passage of Jekyl: Lord Ellenborough, who was a severe judge, was one day at an assize dinner, when some one offered to help him to some fowl. "No, I thank you," said his lordship; "I mean to try that beef."
"If you do, my lord," said Jekyl, instantly, "it will be hung beef."
Chief Justice Holt once, during the Revolution, committed to jail one of the fortune-telling impostors, then called French prophets. Next day a disciple of this man called at the Judge's house and demanded to see him, astonishing the servant by ordering him to say that he "must see him, because he came from the Almighty!" This extraordinary message being delivered, Holt desired the man to be shown in, and asked him his business.
"I come from the Lord, who bade me desire thee to grant a nolle prosequi for John Atkins, his servant, whom thou hast thrown into prison!"
"Thou art a false prophet and lying knave!" returned the Chief Justice. "If the Lord had sent thee, it would have been to the Attorney-General; for the Lord knoweth it is not in my power to grant a nolle prosequi."
A tedious preacher had preached the assize sermon before Lord Yelverton. He came down, smiling, to his lordship, after the service, and, expecting congratulations on his effort, asked, "Well, my lord, how did you like the sermon?"
"Oh, most wonderfully," replied Yelverton; "it was like the peace of God, it passed all understanding; and, like His mercy, I thought it would have endured forever."
Curran once got out of a serious scrape by an execrable pun. He had incurred a rich Irish farmer's displeasure by a severe cross-examination in Court; and some days afterward, being out fox-hunting, his horse and the chase carried him into a potato field owned by this man. Seeing him there, the man came up and said:
"Oh! sure you're Counselor Curran, the great lawyer. Now then, Mr. Lawyer, can you tell me by what law you are trespassing upon my ground?"
"By what law, Mr. Malony?" replied Curran. "Why by the lex tally-ho-nis, to be sure."
The pun so delighted Mr. Malony that he let its author off for the trespass. Curran used to tell a story of Lord Coleraine, in his time the best-dressed man in England, and a very punctilious fashionable. Being one evening at the Opera, he noticed a gentleman enter his box in boots, and vexed at what he thought an unpardonable breach of decorum, said to him: "I beg, Sir, you will make no apology."
"Apology!" cried the stranger, "for what?"
"Why," rejoined his lordship, pointing down at the boots, "that you did not bring your horse with you into the box."
"It is lucky for you, Sir," retorted the stranger, "that I did not bring my horsewhip; but I will pull your nose for your impertinence."
The two were immediately separated, but not before exchanging cards and settling for a hostile meeting. Coleraine went to his brother George to ask his advice and assistance. Haying told the story, "I acknowledge," said he, "that I was the aggressor; but it was too bad to threaten to pull my nose. What should I do?"
"Soap it well," was the cool fraternal advice, "then it will slip easily through his fingers."
One of Curran's butts in Dublin was a certain Sergeant Kelly, known from an unconscious but laughable peculiarity of his as Counselor Therefore. He was an incarnate non sequitur, and never spoke without convulsing the Court. "This is so clear a point, gentlemen," he once told a jury, "that I am convinced you felt it to be so the very moment I stated it. I should pay your understandings but a poor compliment to dwell on it even for a minute; therefore I shall now proceed to explain it to you as minutely as possible." Meeting Curran one morning near St. Patrick's Cathedral, he said to him, "The Archbishop gave us an excellent discourse this morning. It was well written and well delivered; therefore I shall make a point to be at Four Courts to-morrow at ten."
We must close our gossip with a story of one of the Irish members, who have been the source of so much fun in the British House of Commons. A young man, making his maiden speech, in the excitement of the close and the warmth of his Hibernian heart, addressed the Chair, "And now my dear Mr. Speaker"—which brought the House down with a general laugh. Sheridan increased the fun no little by coolly observing that "the honorable member was perfectly in order; for, thanks to the ministers, nowadays every thing is dear."
1. Which was funnily parodied by Colley Cibber:
"Persuasion tips his tongue whene'er he talks,
And he has chambers in the King's Bench walks."