jests among the members of the Bar.

Sir George Rose, in absence of the regular reporter of Lord Eldon's decisions, was requested to take a note of any decision which should be given. As a full record of all that was material, which had occurred during the day, Sir George made the following entry in the reporter's notebook:

This jeu d'esprit, flying about Westminster Hall, reached the Chancellor, who was very much amused with it, notwithstanding the allusion to his doubting propensity. Soon after, Sir George Rose having to argue before him a very untenable proposition, he gave his opinion very gravely, and with infinite grace and felicity thus concluded: "For these reasons the judgment must be against your clients; and here, Sir George, the Chancellor does not doubt."

The following was Lord Eldon's answer to an application for a piece of preferment from his old friend Dr. Fisher, of the Charter House:

"Dear Fisher,—I cannot, to-day, give you the preferment for which you ask.—I remain, your sincere friend, Eldon." Then, on the other side, "I gave it to you yesterday."

According to his biographer, Lord Eldon caused a loud laugh while the old Duke of Norfolk was fast asleep in the House of Lords, and amusing their lordships with "that tuneful nightingale, his nose," by announcing from the woolsack, with solemn emphasis, that the Commons had sent up a bill for "enclosing and dividing Great Snoring in the county of Norfolk!"

Like Lord Thurlow, Lord Eldon was in close intimacy with George III in the days when his Majesty's mind was supposed to be not very strong. "I took down to Kew," relates his lordship, "some Bills for his assent, and I placed on a paper the titles and the effect of them. The king, being perhaps suspicious that my coming down might be to judge of his competence for public business, as I was reading over the titles of the different Acts of Parliament he interrupted me and said: 'You are not acting correctly, you should do one of two things; either bring me down the Acts for my perusal, or say, as Thurlow once said to me on a like occasion, having read several he stopped and said, "It is all d—d nonsense trying to make you understand them, and you had better consent to them at once."'"

It is not often, but it sometimes happens that a judge finds himself in conflict with members of the public who are under no restraint of professional privilege or etiquette. Some maintain the dignity of the Court by fining and committing for contempt. Occasionally this may be necessary, but it has been found that delicate ridicule is often more effective. An attorney, pleading his cause before Lord Ellenborough, became exasperated because the untenable points he continually raised were invariably overruled, and exclaimed, "My lord, my lord, although your lordship is so great a man now, I remember the time when I could have got your opinion for five shillings." With an amused smile his lordship quietly observed, "Sir, I say it was not worth the money."

The same judge used to be greatly annoyed during the season of colds with the noise of coughing in Court. On one occasion, when disturbances of this kind recurred with more than usual frequency, he was seen fidgeting about in his seat, and availing himself of a slight cessation observed in his usual emphatic manner: "Some slight interruption one might tolerate, but there seems to be an industry of coughing."

As an illustration of figurative oratory a good story is told of a barrister pleading before Lord Ellenborough: "My lord, I appear before you in the character of an advocate for the City of London; my lord, the City of London herself appears before you as a suppliant for justice. My lord, it is written in the book of nature."—"What book?" said Lord Ellenborough. "The book of nature."—"Name the page," said his lordship, holding his pen uplifted, as if to note the page down.

Moore relates the story of a noble lord in the course of one of his speeches saying, "I ask myself so and so," and repeating the words "I ask myself." "Yes," quietly remarked Lord Ellenborough, "and a d—d foolish answer you'll get."

The comparison of a father and son who have both ascended the Bench has afforded a good story of a famous Scottish advocate which is told later, and the following is an equally cutting retort from the Bench to any assumed superiority through such a connection. A son of Lord Chief Justice Willes (who rose to the rank of a Puisne Judge) was checked one day for wandering from the subject. "I wish that you would remember," he exclaimed, "that I am the son of a Chief Justice." To which Justice Gould replied with great simplicity, "Oh, we remember your father, but he was a sensible man."

When hanging was the sentence, on conviction, for crimes—in these days termed offences—which are now punished by imprisonment, some judges from meting out the sentence of death almost indiscriminately came to be known as "hanging judges." Justice Page was one of them. When he was decrepit he perpetrated a joke against himself. Coming out of the Court one day and shuffling along the street a friend stopped him to inquire after his health. "My dear sir," the judge replied, "you see I keep just hanging on—hanging on."

A Chief Justice of the "hanging" period, whose integrity was not above suspicion, was sitting in Court one day at his ease and lolling on his elbow, when a convict from the dock hurled a stone at him which fortunately passed over his head. "You see," said the learned man as he smilingly received the congratulations of those present—"you see now, if I had been an upright judge I had been slain."