"Well, Sir, you may take your leave when you please; (snappishly,) are the next parties ready?"

"If you will not hear, my lord, it is useless to ""Not hear you, Sir! (angrily.) I asked you what cause you had to show? and you can show none."

"It is not my business, my lord; it is my summons."

"Well then, (turning short round to my opponent,) can you show cause?"

"I think I can, my lord, if you will listen

to me."

"And haven't I been listening to you for the last half-hour? go on, Sir."

"The action has been compromised, my lord, but"

"Compromised! then why do you come here? (turning to his clerk,) call in the next. What business have you here?"

Really, my lord"-I began, but in vain. "Can you show cause, Sir?"

"I have already told your lordship that the summons is mine."

"Then can you show cause, Sir?" turning again to the other.

"Not without explaining the case, my lord." "Then, gentlemen, you may go; you may take your order: call in the next."

"On these terms I cannot take it, my lord." "I imposed no terms, Sir; the order is made-call in the next."

"Your lordship will"—

"Be silent, Sir; you can show no causecall in the next summons."

"If your lordship will give me one minute""Silence, Sir; I have decided the point; are the next ready?"

And so we took nothing by our motion, though we retired deeply impressed with the condescending kindness, no less than the profound learning, and calm endurance of the judge. We went to the chambers of Mr. Baron Vaughan, explained the matter to him; and his lordship, with an affability and a kindness that I never can forget, not only settled the immediate point, but perceiving that it involved a personality of feeling between our respective clients, entered into the whole subject with extra-judicial interest, and suggested a course for the perfect arrangement of all remaining difficulties. His lordship's advice

was followed to the letter, and with entire

success.

The dignity of the judicial ermine is not always thus pleasingly illustrated: the preeminent purity and lofty pretensions of the forensic body require occasionally to be vindicated from the bench, in a way less calculated, I confess, to secure our grateful acquiescence. It can only be attributed to a sense of what was due to the corps of which he has been so long a distinguished member, that Lord Abinger, in charging the jury on the trial of a cause lately before him, made use of the following expression in reference to a libellous attack on Mr. Thesiger and a solicitor of the name of Harmar: "It might be very well for Mr. Thesiger to treat that with contempt which Mr. Harmar, moving in the sphere of an attorney, might be called on with equal propriety to defend himself from the effects of." It cannot but have given pain to a man of his lordship's acknowledged urbanity, thus to find himself compelled by a sense of duty, to teach our whole profession a lesson of humility, and check those aspirings which might have led many of us in our ignorance, to place ourselves

in reference to our domestic life, its feelings, and its wrongs, on a level with Mr. Thesiger! Those who do not know how entirely the judicial mind enjoys its existence, separate and apart from the man who owns it, would be apt to mistake this judicial dictum for an illiberal sneer, unworthy of the judge, and foreign to the subject!

We sometimes find ourselves in a position, in which, it must be acknowledged, that temper and self-possession are sorely tried; yet it is one from which, by preserving both temper and presence of mind, we can always extricate ourselves with advantnge. A prudent attorney will never put himself in the witnessbox, if he can avoid it; occasionally, however, it is inevitable, and when he gets there, he is considered fair gamc. I never was in this situation but twice: on one of these occasions I was under the fire of a cross-examination by Scarlett, no very enviable position even for the most honest witness, it must be owned. important letter had been lost in my office; lost by that excess of precaution which one sometimes takes with very important documents; I had locked it up in some drawer for security,

An

and on the eve of trial could not discover where I had placed it; but when engaged in consulting counsel on the case before I commenced the action, nearly three years before the cause was tried, I had introduced a copy of this letter into the statement, and had read the letter to my clerk while he transcribed it. I tendered this copy in evidence: of course Scarlett opposed its admission, for nearly the whole question of damages turned upon it.

"Do you commonly read letters for your clerks to copy, Mr. Sharpe?"

"No, Sir."

"It would be rather an inconvenient practice?" Certainly."

"Did you examine this copy after he had made it?"

"Not that I remember; certainly not to check its accuracy."

"Then you cannot swear to its accuracy?" "I cannot; but I believe it to be accurate." "Why?"

"Because it consists of but five lines, so there is not much room for error; and I had every inducement to be accurate in consulting counsel on the merits of my client's case.”