the other side of the hedge, leaped upon her back, who, running furiously away with him, he could not by any means stop her, until he came to the next town, in which town the owner of the mare lived, and there he was taken and here arraigned." (Bacon's Apothegms.)

LORD MANSFIELD.

The following character of Lord Mansfield is from the pen of Mr. H. Hawkins.

"Of lord Mansfield's intellectual powers, his great comprehension, or his eloquence, it is needless to say a word, as the concurrent testimony of all who could form a judgment of him, has already placed him among the first men of his time; but of the wise and honourable use of those talents it may be permitted to one who perfectly well remembers him, though but in his latter days, to mention that of which he was an ear-witness. Many a time I have heard him deliver the decision of the court on abtruse points of law, with a profundity of reasoning, where scarcely even a well-informed mind could follow him, and with an accuracy and precision of judgment, so satisfactory, as to induce the parties in the cause, when apprised of the issue of their law-suit, to instruct their counsel to make their acknowledgments to the court, as having been the means of restoring peace and harmony to private families, and hav

ing done every thing the parties desired. He was not what was considered a profound lawyer, when the term is applied to technical niceties in pleading, nor did he seem to have any very elevated opinion of that species of knowledge, or of those who possessed it. Mr. Wallace, who had been Attorney-General, and who was deeply versed in that department of legal information, and Mr. Howarth, who, however honourable and praiseworthy his conduct might be, was infinitely inferior to Wallace, happened to die at the same time. When lord Mansfield was told of their death, he scarcely expressed any concern for Mr. Wallace, but very great regret for Mr. Howarth.

"His disregard of the lawyers of the description above mentioned, led him to treat lightly those legal ceremonies which were connected with such attainments. At the making of a Sergeant, he has been known to laugh so heartily, that he was scarcely able to do that which his office required him to do.

"In addition to this instance of lord Mansfield's light estimation of those who were considered, by such as could best judge, as the most skilful, we might subjoin his treatment of Mr. Sergeant Hill, whose name has already been mentioned in this work. I have seen the Sergeant standing up in the court, immoveable as a

statue, and looking at no object, and arguing in support of his client's cause, so wrapt up in the workings of his own mind, as, seemingly at least, to be insensible to any objects around him. In the midst of his argument, which was frequently so perplexed by parenthesis within parenthesis, as to excite the laughter of the whole court, lord Mansfield would interrupt him with, Mr. Sergeant, Mr. Sergeant; he was rather deaf,-the words were repeated without effect; at length, the counsel sitting near him, would tell him that his lordship spoke to him: this roused him. Lord M. would then address him with, The Court hopes your cold is better.' All this was done with a tone, and in a manner which showed that he wished to make the object of his apparent civility in fact an object of ridicule; and so far it must be considered as having succeeded. How far it was perfectly decorous in a judge, sitting in his Court, to indulge this little mischief, for we do not wish to call it by a harsh name, others may decide; but certainly he was very agreeable to the bar in other respects. Indeed, whenever this foible did not show itself, his patient attention, his assisting questions, if I may be allowed the term, and his intuitive comprehension of what was submitted to his understanding, made him an exceedingly pleasant judge to those who were called to argue deep questions before him.

"Of his eloquence in either the House of Lords or Commons, I cannot say anything; but of his speeches in the Court of King's Bench, I can say that they were always pertinent with respect to the subject before him; nothing was said for effect, nothing theatrical. It is known that, when in the House of Commons, he was considered as the antagonist to Mr. Pitt; and the writers of that period of our history inform us, that on very many occasions he shewed himself Pitt's superior, and plucked the laurel from his brows, on questions where, perhaps, the popular feeling was in Pitt's favour, which is very creditable if his judges were cool and dispassionate, as Pitt's speeches depended much on his tone and manner to produce the desired effect; without which many of them would be considered as having but slender claims to attention." (Miss Hawkins's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 253.)

SIR WILLIAM JONES'S FIRST SPEECH IN court.

The following amusing account of Sir William Jones's forensic debut, is given by Miss Hawkins, in her Memoirs, and is from the pen of her brother.

"Of Sir William Jones, the Memoirs have already appeared before the public; but as what I shall say is not generally known, and is perfectly authentic, it may, perhaps, be acceptable.

I remember to have heard him speak as a counsel in the court of King's Bench: the question before the court, arose from private. disagreements in a family, which made a separation between husband and wife necessary; and there being a child, whose interests were to be taken care of, the interference of the court was required. A perfect silence prevailed, the attention of all present being attracted to hear what Linguist Jones,' as he was even then called, would say. Though he could not have been accustomed to hear his own voice in a court of law, for I believe this was his forensic debut, he, nevertheless, spoke with the utmost distinctness and clearness, not at all disconcerted by the novelty of his situation. His tone was highly declamatory, accompanied with what Pope has called, balancing his hands,' and he seemed to consider himself as much a public orator as Cicero or Hortensius could have done. His oration, for such it must be called, lasted, I recollect, near an hour. But the orator, however he might wish to give a grand idea of the office of a pleader, did not, in the course of the business, entirely avoid the ridiculous; for, having occasion to mention a case decided by the court, he stated, in the same high declamatory tone in which he had delivered the whole of his speech, that he found, that it had been argued by one Mr. Baldwin.' Not being very conversant