Curiosities of law and lawyers

Contents

CHAP.

I. ABOUT LAWYERS GENERALLY I

II. ABOUT JUDGES l6

Preface

On lately retiring, after half a century's practice of the Law, my companions, in Grand Divan assembled, bound me over to complete for their use a Repertory of Good Things relating to our common profession, which I had long been preparing, and of which they had read and heard snatches. "These presents" contain this fond memorial of departed joys. There are many favourite sayings, standard illustrations, golden sentences, exploits of legal heroes, jests, explanations of curious and memorable doctrines and incidents, which make up the " natural history " of the Lawyer Tribe. I have with great care selected and assorted these, and trust they will be found to amuse, if not edify, Lawyers, as well as their numerous Clients.

C. J.

k.

CURIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYERS.

Chapter I. About Lawyers Generally

HOW LAWYERS GET TO HEAVEN.

There is a pleasant story of a lawyer, who, being refused entrance into heaven by St. Peter, contrived to throw his hat inside the door ; and then, being permitted by the kind saint to go in and fetch it, took advantage of his being fixed to his post as doorkeeper to refuse to come back again.

THE LAWYER'S PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.

Adolphus, the criminal lawyer, says that the judges in his time were much impressed with the following table of degrees. The three degrees of comparison in a lawyer's progress are : getting on ; getting on-er (honour) ; getting on-est (honest). The judges, he says, acknowledged there was much sad truth in this jingle.

THE LAWYER'S PATRON SAINT.

St. Evona, or Ives, of Brittany, a famous lawyer in 1 300,

was lamenting that his profession had not a patron saint to

look up to. The physicians had St. Luke ; the champions

had St. George ; the artists each had one ; but the lawyers

had none. Thinking that the Pope ought to bestow a

saint he went to Rome, and requested his Holiness to

give the lawyers of Brittany a patron. The Pope, rather the church of St. John de Lateran blindfold, and after he had said so many Ave Marias, the first saint he laid hold of should be his patron ; and this solution of the difficulty the good old lawyer willingly undertook. When he had finished his Ave Marias, he stopped short, and laid his hands on the first image he came to, and cried out with joy, " This is our saint — this be our patron." But when the bandage was taken from his eyes, what was his astonishment to find, that, though he had stopped at Michael's altar, he had all the while laid hold, not of St. Michael, but of the figure under St. Michael's feet — the devil !

This St. Evona of Brittany, it is said in Carr's account of the Netherlands, 1684, was so dejected at the choice of a patron saint, that in a few months he died, and coming to heaven's gates, knocked hard. Whereupon St. Peter asked who it was that knocked so boldly. He replied that he was St. Evona, the advocate. "Away, away ! " said St. Peter ; here is but one advocate in heaven ; here is no room for you lawyers." " Oh, but," said St. Evona, " I am that honest lawyer who never took fees on both sides, nor pleaded in a bad cause ; nor did I ever set my neighbours together by the ears, nor lived by the sins of the people." " Well, then," said St. Peter, " come in !" He became the patron saint himself.

This story puts one in mind of Ben Jonson going through a church in Surrey, and seeing poor people weeping over a grave, whereupon he asked one of the women why they wept. " Oh," said she, " we have lost our precious lawyer, Justice Randall. He kept us all in peace, and always was so good as to keep us from going to law — the best man that ever lived." " Well," said Ben Jonson, " I will send you an epitaph to write upon his tomb," which was —

God works wonders now and then : Here lies a lawyer — an honest man.

WHY LAWYERS TAKE UP BAD CASES.

One of the most famous French advocates, Langlois, was asked by the President of the Parliament of Paris why

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he took upon him to plead bad causes. He answered, with a smile, that he did it because he had lost a great many good ones.

It was said by Alexander ab Alexandro, a famous Neapolitan lawyer about 1500, that when he saw it was impossible for advocates to support their clients against the power and favour of the great, it was to no purpose to take so much pains in studying the law, for the issue of suits depended, not on the justice of the cause, but on the favour and affection of a lazy and corrupt judge, whom the laws suppose to be a good and upright man. — Bayle's Diet.

Laud relates in his diary, that when he was standing one day, during dinner, near his unfortunate master, then Prince Charles, the prince, who was in cheerful spirits, talking of many things as occasion offered, said that if necessity compelled him to choose any particular profession of life, he would not be a lawyer ; " for," he said, " I can neither defend a bad cause, nor yield in a good one."

ROMAN AND DUTCH ADVOCATES— ON THEIR VOCATION.

By the Roman laws every advocate was required to swear that he would not undertake a cause which he knew to be unjust, and that he would abandon a defence which he should discover to be supported by falsehood or iniquity. [Cicero's oration pro Milone is a striking instance of the strict observance of this rule!] This is continued in Holland at this day; and if an advocate brings forward a cause there which appears to the Court clearly iniquitous, he is condemned in the costs of the suit; the examples will, of course, be very rare: more than one has, however, occurred within the memory of persons who are now living. The possible inconvenience that a cause just in itself might not be able to find a defender, is obviated in that country by an easy provision : a party who can find no advocate, and is nevertheless persuaded of the validity of his cause, may apply to the Court, which has in such cases a discretionary power of Digitized by Microsoft® authorizing or appointing one. — Quarterly Review, Jan. 1831. .

And the same course as that last mentioned is said to have been always followed in Scotland.

A SUBTLE LAWYER.

They used to say of Wise, a lawyer of Lincoln's Inn, a very subtle and acute man in all business he undertook, that he was like a mouse among joint-stools : one may see where he moves and runs, but no man knows where to hit him. — Camden Soc. (No. 5), 35.

THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE.

In the Romish procedure relating to the canonization of saints, one prominent official who takes part in the business is called the devil's advocate. When the canonization is proposed, it lies on the part of the Church to set forth all the virtues of the saint, the miracles his bones have wrought, and all the merits that can be ascribed to the deceased. And, on the other hand, the function of the devil's advocate is to find flaws in all this evidence, to slight the good deeds, to doubt the miracles, and to rake up all the evil that can be said or thought against the deceased, so as to show there is no good ground for the canonization. Hence a devil's advocate is often an apt description of any one who makes unscrupulous accusations and abuses worthy characters.

HE WHO IS HIS OWN LAWYER IS A FOOL.

Mr. Cleave, when tried before Lord Lyndhurst in the Court of Exchequer, acted as his own counsel, and began his speech by remarking that before he sat down he feared he should give an awkward illustration of the truth of the old adage, namely, that he who acts as his own counsel has a fool for his client. The judge at once remarked, " Oh, Mr. Cleave, don't you mind that adage : it was framed by the lawyers"

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THE SECRET OF SUCCESS IN LAWSUITS

A veteran attorney, Mr. Selwin, who once stood as candidate for Chamberlain of London, after retiring from business, on being asked by his niece what were the requisites for success in litigation, replied as follows: " Why, it depends on a number of circumstances : first you must have a good case ; secondly, a good attorney ; thirdly, a good counsel ; fourthly, good witnesses ; fifthly, a good jury ; sixthly, a good judge ; and, lastly, good luck."

FIRST BOOK FOR A LAWYER'S LIBRARY.

Macklin, the actor, told a company that he at first designed his son for the law, and for this purpose entered him in the Temple, where he procured chambers and a library above what he could afford, considering the uncertainty of his income. " And what book, sir," said the veteran actor, " do you think I made him begin with ? Why, sir, I'll tell you— the Bible— the Holy Bible." " The Bible, Macklin, for a lawyer ! " exclaimed his friend. " Yes, sir, the properest and most scientific book for an honest lawyer, as there you will find the foundation of all law as well as all morality."

AN IRONICAL DEFINITION OF A LAWYER.

Lord Brougham is said in an ironical way to have defined a lawyer as " a learned gentleman who rescues your estate from your enemies, and keeps it to himself."

BUT FEW HONEST LAWYERS.

Lord Clarendon (the second) in his diary (Jan. 1689), says, " I was at the Temple with Mr. Roger North and Sir Charles Porter, who are the only two honest lawyers I ever met with."

OUR LAWYER ENGAGED ON THE OTHER SIDE. An opulent farmer applied to an attorney about commencing a lawsuit, but was told that the latter could not undertake it, being already engaged on the other side. At the same time he said he would give the client a letter of recommendation to a professional friend, which he did. The farmer is said out of curiosity to have opened the letter, and read as follows :

Here are two fat wethers fallen out together ; If you'll fleece one, I'll fleece the other, And make 'em agree like brother and brother.

The perusal of this letter, it is said, opened the eyes of the clients, and cured them at once.

THE PORTION OF A JUST LAWYER.

The following was considered gravely humorous in 1740, as " Didius," in the Gentleman 's Magazine of that' date, writes to that journal : " I was in company with two or three friends some time ago, when the discourse turning upon the subject of lawyers, many severe things were said of that body of men, and the ill practices they are often guilty of. But a grave gentleman replied that it was far from an equitable proceeding to condemn the whole for the faults of some, since he personally knew several worthy men of the profession, who constantly endeavored to compose differences, instead of promoting strife ; and repeated to us ' The Portion of a Just Lawyer,' as follows : ' Whilst he lives, he is the delight of the court, the ornament of the bar, a pattern of innocency, the glory of his profession, a terror to deceit, the oracle of his country ; and when death calls him to the bar of Heaven by the de habendo corpus cum causd, he finds the. judge his advocate, nonsuits the devil, and continues one of the long robe in glory.' "

CLIENTS WHO LOSE AND CLIENTS WHO WIN.

" I was mightily delighted with the whim I was shown on a sign at a village not far from this capital ; though it is too serious a truth to excite one's risibility. On one side is painted a man stark naked, with this motto : ' I am the man who went to law and lost my cause.' On the reverse is a fellow all in tatters, looking most dismally,

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with this motto : ' I am the man who went to law and got my cause.'

" This brings to my mind a passage reported of the Scottish king, James I., who soon after his accession to the English throne would needs be present in court while a notable cause was pending. Those on the plaintiff's side having finished what they had to say, it proved so much to the king's satisfaction, that he cried out, 'It is a plain case,' and was going, when somebody said to him, ' Please to stay, sir, and hear the other side.' He did so, and the defendant's party made their case no less plain to His Majesty's conceptions ; whereupon the monarch departed in a passion, crying, ' Rogues all ! rogues all!' The late renowned Czar, Peter the Great, being in England in term-time, and seeing multitudes of people swarming about the Great Hall wherein are held the three superior Courts of Judicature, is reported to have asked some about him who all those busy people were, and what they were about. Being answered, ' They are lawyers, sir.' ' Lawyers !' returned he, with great signs of astonishment, ' why, I have but two in my whole dominion, and I design to hang one of them the moment I get home !' " — Fog's Journal, 1737.

LITIGANTS AND LAWYERS.

Hudibras with masterly skill and humour states the old, old story of litigants and lawyers :

He that with injury is grieved,

And goes to law to be relieved,

Is sillier than a sottish chouse

Who, when a thief has robb'd his house,

Applies himself to cunning men

To help him to his goods again :

When all he can expect to gain

Is but to squander more in vain.

For lawyers, lest the fcarffefendant And plaintiff dog should make an end on't, Do stave and tail with writs of error, Reverse of judgment, and demurrer, To let them breathe awhile, and then Cry whoop, and set them on again : At last with subtil cobweb cheats They're caught in knotted law, like nets,i

CURIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYERS.

In which, when once they are embrangled, The more they stir, the more they're tangled ; And while their purses can dispute, There's no end of th' immortal suit.

THE BUSY LAWYER.

Mr. Dunning when at the bar being in very great business, was asked how he contrived to get through all his work. He replied : " I do one-third of it ; another third does itself; and I don't do the remaining third."

Lord Thurlow was once asked how he got through his business as Lord Chancellor. He answered, " Oh, just as a pickpocket gets through a horsepond : he must get through!"

COMPARATIVE LEARNING OF LAWYERS.

Serjeant Hill's opinion was asked by Nichols, whether Dunning was as learned as Serjeant Glyn. " No," was the answer ; "everything which Dunning knows, he knows accurately ; but Glyn knows a great deal more."

Glyn was reputed the best-read lawyer in Westminster Hall, and took a leading part on Fox's Libel Bill.

LAWYERS AS TRIMMERS.

Sir James Mackintosh, when speaking of " the versatile politicians who had the art and fortune to slide unhurt through all the shocks of forty years of a revolutionary age," says, " the Marquess of Winchester, the Lord Keeper, who had served Henry VII., and retained office under every intermediate government till he died in his ninety-seventh year, with the staff of Lord Treasurer in his hands, is perhaps the most remarkable specimen of this species pr^erved in history." But more scandal was excited in his own time by William Herbert, whom Henry VIII. created Earl of Pembroke. Having followed all the fantasies of that monarch, and obtained from him the dissolved monastery of Wilton, he was a keen Protestant under Edward VI., and one of

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the first to acknowledge and to desert Queen Jane. Mary having restored Wilton to the nuns, he is said to have received them "cap in hand;" but when they were suppressed by Elizabeth, he drove them out of the monastery with his horsewhip, bestowing upon them an appellation which implied their constant breach of the vow they had taken. — 3 Mackintosh's Hist, of England, 155-

POPULAR PREJUDICE AGAINST LAWYERS.

In 1450 Jack Cade's rebellion broke out, which was specially aimed against the Chancellor and all concerned with the profession of the law. The measures at first taken to suppress it were most inefficient, and the King and his court were obliged to seek protection in Kenilworth Castle, London opening its gates to the insurgents. The Chancellor took the chief management of affairs, and the rebels having received a repulse, he succeeded in dispersing them by offering a general pardon and setting a price on Cade's head, which was earned by Iden of Kent. Many supposed that Cade had been set on to try the disposition of the people towards the right heir to the crown. He pretended to be a son of Mortimer, who had married the daughter of the Duke of Clarence, elder brother of John of Gaunt ; and in this belief thousands nocked to his standard. The Duke of York, the real heir through a daughter of Mortimer, at last openly set up his claim, for which there was now a very favorable opportunity, from the intellectual weakness of the King — from the extreme unpopularity of the Queen, whose private character was open to great suspicion, and who was considered a devoted partizan of France — from the loss of the foreign possessions which had so much flattered the pride of the English nation — from the death and discomfiture of the ablest supporters of the reigning dynasty — from the energy and popularity of the pretender himself — and from the courage, the talents, and the resources of his numerous adherents. The claims of the rival houses being debated in the Temple Gardens, the red and white roses there plucked became the opposing emblems; and men took different Digitized by Microsoft® sides according to their judgment, their prejudice, and their interest. — i Camp. Chanc, 352.

The Chancellor, Simon de Sudbury, being the author of the abhorred capitation tax in 1380, in the rebellion which ic excited was the first victim. John Ball, the famous seditious preacher, inveighed bitterly against him by name, and, in reference to his aristocratic birth, the often-quoted lines were made which, Hume says, " in spite of prejudice, we cannot but regard with some degree of approbation."

When Adam delved, and Eve span, Where was then the gentleman ?

The army, or rather mob, 100,000 strong, under Tyler and Straw, having taken post at Blackheath, and threatening general destruction — more especially to lawyers, and all who were supposed to have been instrumental in imposing the tax, or who resisted the demands for its repeal, the Chancellor took refuge in the Tower of London. They pursued him thither, attacked his fortress, and it being feebly defended,' they soon stormed it. They instantly seized him, and dragged him to Tower Hill, with the declared intention of executing him there as a traitor. In this extremity he displayed great courage and constancy, and addressing the multitude, reminded them of his sacred character, and tried to rouse them to some sense of justice and humanity. All these appeals were ineffectual ; after many blows, his head was struck off, and his dead body was treated with barbarous indignity. In the riots of 1 780 a similar spirit was displayed, and siege was laid to the Inns of Court with the intention of exterminating the whole race of lawyers, that " the skin of an innocent lamb " might no longer be converted into an indictment. — 1 Camp. Lives of Chanc, 283.

DOCTOR COW-HEEL, THE CIVILIAN.

Cowel, author of the Institutions and the Interpreter, was an eminent civilian in his day, and during the contest between the civilians and the common lawyers he was the champion of the civilians, and countenanced by

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James I. A great oracle of the common law (Coke) was pleased in derision to call him Doctor Cow-heel. And Fuller in his "Worthies" remarks of this nickname: " a cow-heel, I assure you, well dressed, is good meat, that a cook, when hungry, may lick his fingers after it." Fuller observes that " many slighted Cowel's book who used it, it being questionable whether it gave more information or offence. But a higher offence was charged upon him, that he made the king to have a double prerogative, the one limited by law, the other unlimited ; which being complained of in Parliament, his book was called in and condemned."

THE OLD SPIDER OF THE LAW.

The Earl of Hardwicke (Lord Chancellor) and Lord Holland, though frequently in office together, seldom agreed in any measure, and not unfrequently opposed each other's bills from mere pique. Lord Hardwicke had opposed a bill of Lord Holland's, when Mr. Fox, in the Upper House -with some acrimony. Mr. Fox, in commenting on a private bill of Sir F. Delaval to enable him to sell an estate for the payment of his debts, threw out the following sarcasm on the Chancellor : " But where am I going? Perhaps I shall be told in another place, that this is a money bill, and shall be contravened upon this ground. How it can be so I know not. But this I know, that touch but a cobweb of Westminster Hall, and the old spider of the law is out upon you with all his younger vermin at his heels."

LAWYERS ABUSED IN HOUSE OF LORDS.

When Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Bill was in the House of Commons, Fox, afterwards Lord Holland, saying that one clause gave unheard-of power to parents on the marriage of minors, proceeded to lay open the chicanery and jargon of the lawyers, and the pride of their mufti, and drew a most severe picture of the Chancellor under the application of the story of a gentlewoman at Salisbury, who having a sore leg sent for a country surgeon, who pronounced that it must be cut off.

The gentlewoman, unwilling to submit to the operation, sent for another more merciful, who said he could save her leg without the least operation. The surgeons conferred. The ignorant one said : " I know it might be saved, but I have given my opinion : my character depends upon it, and we must carry it through." The le,g was cut off!

VULGAR PREJUDICE AGAINST LAWYERS.

Lords Mansfield, Camden, Loughborough, Ashburton, and Grantley, once having taken part in a discussion in the House of Lords, on a bill to disfranchise Cricklade for bribery, Lord Fortescue broke forth and bewailed the degraded dignity of the House, lowered and tarnished by a profusion of lawyers. It was no longer a House of Peers, he said, but a mere court of law, where all the solid honourable principles of truth and justice were shamefully sacrificed to the low pettifogging chicanery and quibbles of Westminster Hall. That once venerable and august assembly now resembled a meeting of attorneys in a Cornish Court acting as barristers; the learned Lord on the woolsack seemed full of nothing but contradictions and law subtleties and distinctions and all that. The Chancellor was not deterred from his obstructive course by these observations ; yet notwithstanding all his efforts, the bill was carried.

MORE HITS AT LAWYERS.

The sprightly Howell wrote in 1655: "Law is not only a pickpurse, but a purgatory. You know the saying they have in France. Translated it means : The poor clients are the birds, Westminster Hall the field, the judge the net, the lawyers the rats, the attorneys the mice of the Commonwealth. I believe the saying was spoken by an angry client. For my part, I like his resolution who said he would never use lawyer nor physician but upon urgent necessity. I will conclude with this rhyme :

Pauvre plaideur,

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COBBETT'S HORROR OF BEING A LAWYER'S APPRENTICE.

" Gracious Heaven !" exclaimed William Cobbett, who preferred enlisting as a common soldier to legal occupations ; " if I am doomed to be wretched, bury me beneath Iceland snows, and let me feed on blubber, — stretch me under the burning line, and deny me the propitious dews, — nay, if it be thy will, suffocate me with the infected and pestilential air of a democrat's club-room ; but save me, whatever you do, save me from the desk of an attorney!"

HOW A SERJEANT WOULD LEARN TO BE A FRIAR.

Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas More in his youth wrote a ballad on the following story, then current: A serjeant was employed to recover a sum of money from a spendthrift who had taken sanctuary in a friend's house, where he confined himself so closely that the bailiff found it impossible to arrest his prisoner, and the creditor to obtain his money. At length it occurred to the serjeant to disguise himself as a friar, and by this means to gain access to the object of his search. He did so, and was successful. He dismissed the maid who ushered him to the room where the intended prisoner remained. The serjeant then disclosed his mace, and claimed his prisoner, who resented the base advantage taken, called him thief, and belaboured him ; so that they fought and tore each other's hair and clothes, and tumbled and yelled. The mistress and maid had to return, who took the part of the debtor and kicked the serjeant out. The ballad has this stanza:

Wise men alway affirm and say

The best is for each man Diligently for to apply

Such business as he can, And in no wise to enterprise

Another facultie.

A man of law that never saw

The ways to buy and sell, Weening to rise by merchandise,

I pray God speed him well.

This ballad Sir- Thomas More used to sing at the table of Archbishop Morton with great applause. — Wood's Athen., Oxon.

MORALITY OF LAWYERS AND PREACHERS.

Dean Swift preached an assize sermon in Ireland, and afterwards dined with the judges. He had in his sermon considered the use and abuse of the law, and pressed rather hard on those counsellors who plead causes which they know in their consciences to be wrong. When dinner was over and the wine circulated, a young counsellor retorted upon the Dean ; and after several warm contentions, the counsellor remarked, " If the devil was to die, I'm sure a parson could be found who for a little money would preach his funeral sermon." " Yes," said Swift, " I would gladly be the man, and I would then give the devil his due, just as I have this day done with his children."

THE LAWYERS' BELIEF IN CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.

In 1766 it was said that a meeting of lawyers, at Lord Mansfield's, was called to take into consideration the alarming growth of perjury, which had become " so very rife in our courts of justice as to threaten the most dangerous consequences. It was determined at this meeting that nothing short of capital punishment was sufficient to deter persons from the commission of this crime, and it was agreed that a bill should be prepared to make perjury in any court of justice, etc., a capital offence punishable with death." — 17 Lady's Magazine, 66y.

THE LAWYER'S HATRED OF CHANGE.

Roger North gives an instance of the lawyer's absurd attachment to mere forms. In his days the Court of Common Pleas used to sit in Westminster Hall, close to the great door, in order that suitors and their train might readily pass in and out. When the wind was in the north this situation was found very cold, and it was proposed to move the court further back, to a warmer place. "But Digitized by Microsoft®

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the Lord Chief Justice Bridgman," says North, " would not agree to it, as it was against Magna Charta, which says that the Common Pleas shall be held in certo loco, or in a certain place, with which the distance of an inch from that p|ace is inconsistent, and all the pleas would be coram non judice. That formal reason hindered a useful reform ; which makes me think of Erasmus, who, having read somewhat of English law, said that the lawyers were doctissimum genus indoctissimorum hominum!'

One of the most extraordinary reasons which any lawyer has alleged against effecting law reforms is that assigned by the Chancellor d'Aguesseau. He was once asked by the Duke de Grammont whether he had ever thought of any regulation by which the length of suits and the chicanery practised in the courts could be terminated. " I had gone so far," said the Chancellor, " as to commit a plan for such a regulation to writing ; but after I had made some progress, I reflected on the great number of advocates, attorneys, and officers of justice whom it would ruin : compassion for these made the pen fall from my hands. The length and number of lawsuits confer on gentlemen of the long robe their wealth and authority: one must continue, therefore, to permit their infant growth and everlasting endurance." — C. Butler's Mem.