pecting no trick, went home believing that they had caught the reverend historian unawares. On another occasion, the Principal threatened to administer a severe lecture to a young Englishman, who was boarding with him, the next time that he stayed out too late at night. He soon transgressed again, probably in Cullen's company. Cullen, knowing what was likely to happen, went to the Principal's early next morning, and walked up to the youth's room, with an exact resemblance of the doctor's step on the stair, and then, seating himself behind the curtain, gave a long and formal admonition to the headachy penitent; after which he retired with the same foottread. In fulfilment of his threat, the Principal approached, sometime afterwards, sat down, and began. After he had gone on a certain time, the culprit, who could not understand why he should get it twice, confessed his sin, and reminded the doctor, that when he had been with him before, he had assured him that he would not err in the same way again. "Oh, no!" said the Principal; "so that dog Cullen has been before me!"-Lord Cockburn's Memorials.

DRINKING ON CIRCUIT.

Lord Cockburn relates the opinion expressed by an old drunken writer of Selkirk, regarding his anticipation of professional success for Mr. Cranstoun, afterwards Lord Corehouse. Sir Walter Scott, William Erskine, and Cranstoun, had dined with this Selkirk writer, and Scott, of hardy, strong, and healthy frame, had matched the writer himself in the matter of whiskey-punch. Poor Cranstoun being delicate, was a bad hand at such work, and was soon off the field. On the party breaking up, the Selkirk writer expressed his admiration of Scott, assuring him that he would rise high in the profession, and adding, "I'll tell ye what, Maister Walter, that lad Cranstoun may get to the tap o' the bar, if he can; but tak my word for it, its no be by drinking."

Cockburn was very fond of describing a circuit scene at Stirling, in his early days at the bar, under the presidency of Lord Hermand. After the circuit dinner, and when drinking had gone on for some time, young Cockburn observed places becoming vacant in the social circle, but no one going out at the door. He found that the individuals had dropt down under the table. He took the hint, and by this ruse retired

from the scene. He lay quiet till the beams of the morning sun penetrated the apartment. The judge and some of his stanch friends coolly walked upstairs, washed their hands and faces, came down to breakfast, and went into Court, quite fresh and fit for work. In these days convivial attainments were points of character; the cautious approval being-" and he is a fair drinker."

A Scottish judge had dined with a party of legal characters at Coalstoun, and on rising, not seeing his way very clearly, stepped out of the dining-room window, which was open to the summer air. The ground at Coalstoun sloping from off the house behind, the worthy judge got a great fall, and rolled down the bank. He contrived, however, to regain his legs, and reach the drawing-room, where, the first remark he made was an innocent remonstrance with his friend, the host, Od, Charlie Brown, what gars ye hae sik lang steps to your front door?"

With Lord Hermand drinking was a virtue: he had a sincere respect for it, indeed a high moral approbation, and a serious compassion for the poor wretches who could not indulge in it, with due contempt of those who could but did. not. No carouse ever injured his health, for he was never ill, nor did it impair his taste for home or quiet, or muddle his head he slept the sounder for it, and rose the earlier and the cooler. It is told that he used very often to go direct from his club to the court on Saturday mornings. When some degenerate youths were once protesting against more wine, he exclaimed mournfully, "What shall we come to at last! I believe I shall be left alone on the face of the earth -drinking claret!"

Hermand, when trying a man at Edinburgh, who had killed a friend in a drunken fray, feeling that discredit had been brought on the cause of drinking, had no sympathy with the tenderness of his temperate brethren, and was vehement for transportation. "We are told," said Hermand, "that there was no malice, and that the, prisoner must have been in liquor. In liquor! Why, he was drunk! And yet he murdered the very man who had been drinking with him! They had been carousing the whole night, and yet he stabbed him! after drinking a whole bottle of rum with him! Good God, my laards! if he will do this when he's drunk, what will he no do when he's sober?"

A SCOTCH VILLAGE.

Lord Gardenston, one of the judges of the Court of Session in Scotland, founded, about a century ago, the present village of Laurencekirk, on his property in Kincardineshire. To encourage strangers to settle in it, he gave free rights (copyhold) at an unusually low rate, and, consequently, got several of them taken by parties of questionable respectability. He built an inn in the village and placed in one of the rooms an album, inviting travellers to write in it any suggestions or observations; and he called frequently to look at the contents. It is said that he felt much nettled on finding in it one morning the following lines:

From small beginnings Rome of old
Became a great and populous city,
Though peopled first, as we are told,

By outcasts, blackguards, and banditti :
Quoth Thomas, "then the time may come
When Lawrencekirk shall equal Rome."

JUDICIAL ABSURDITIES.

Lord Eskgrove, the Scottish judge, is described by Cockburn as cunning in old Scotch law, but a more ludicrous person could not exist. His lordship knew him in the zenith of his absurdity: people seemed to have nothing to do but to tell stories of this one man. To be able to give an anecdote of Eskgrove, with a proper imitation of his voice and manner, was a sort of fortune in society. Scott, in those days, was famous for this particularly. The value of all his words and actions consisted in their absurdity.

A remark of his on the trial of Mr. Fysche Palmer for sedition is one of the very few things that he ever said that had some little merit of its own. Mr. John Haggart, one of the prisoner's counsel, in defending his client from the charge of disrespect of the king, quoted Burke's statement that kings are naturally lovers of low company. “Then, sir, that says very little for you or your client; for if kings be lovers of low company, low company ought to be lovers of kings." 1

He always put the accent upon the last syllable: for example, syllable he called syllabill.

Of his absurdities some amusing specimens are given. In condemning a tailor to death for murdering a soldier by stabbing him, the judge aggravated the offence thus: "and not only did you murder him, whereby he was bereaved of his life, but you did thrust, or push, or pierce, or project, or propel, the lethal weapon through the belly-band of his regimental breeches, which were his Majesty's."

In the trial of Glengarry for murder in a duel, a lady of great beauty was called as a witness. She came into Court veiled. But before administering the oath, Eskgrove gave her this exposition of her duty-" Young woman! you will now consider yourself in the presence of Almighty God, and of this High Court. Lift up your veil; throw off all modesty, and look me in the face."

In pronouncing sentence of death, he would console a prisoner by assuring him that "whatever your religi-ous persua-shon may be, or even if, as I suppose, you be of no persuashon at all, there are plenty of rever-end gentlemen who will be most happy to show you the way to eternal life." In condemning two or three persons to die for burglary and violence, after reminding them that they attacked the house and the persons within it, and robbed them, he came to this climax" All this you did; and, God preserve us! joost when they were sitten doon to their denner!"

Lord Kames, an indefatigable but speculative coarse man, tried Matthew Hay, with whom he used to play at chess, for murder at Ayr, in September, 1780. When the verdict of Guilty was returned, "Mat's checkmate to you, Matthew," cried the judge. This fact Cockburn had from Lord Hermand, who was one of the counsel at the trial, and never forgot this piece of judicial cruelty. Sir Walter Scott is said to have told this story to the Prince Regent.

James Fergusson, Clerk of Session, had a habit of lending emphasis to his arguments, by violently beating with his clenched hand the bar before which he pleaded. Once, when stating a case to Lord Polkanner, with great energy of action, his lordship interposed, and exclaimed, "Maister Jemmy, dinna dunt; ye think ye'ere duntint into me, and ye're just duntin't out of me."

LORD MONBODDO.

Dean Ramsay relates of Lord Monboddo, that on one occasion of his being in London, he attended a trial in the Court of King's Bench. A cry was heard that the roof of the court-room was giving way, upon which judges, lawyers, and people made a rush to get to the door. Lord Monboddo viewed the scene from his corner with much composure. Being deaf and shortsighted, he knew nothing of the cause of the tumult. The alarm proved a false one; and on being asked why he had not bestirred himself to escape like the rest, he coolly answered that he supposed it was an annual ceremony with which, as an alien to the English laws, he had no concern, but he considered it interesting to witness as a remnant of antiquity.

Classical learning, good conversation, excellent suppers, and ingenious though unsound metaphysics, were the peculiarities of Monboddo. It is more common to hear anecdotes about his maintaining that men once had tails, and similar follies, than about his agreeable conversation and undoubted learning.

LORD THURLOW'S START IN LIFE.

Thurlow had travelled the circuit for some years with little notice, and with no opportunity to put forth his abilities; when the housekeeper of the Duke of N was prosecuted for stealing a great deal of linen with which she had been entrusted. An attorney of little note and practice conducted the woman's case. He knew full well that he could expect no hearty co-operation in employing any of the leading counsel; it was a poor case, and a low case; and it could not be expected that they, "the foremost men of all the Bar," would set themselves tooth-and-nail against the Duke, who, in himself, his agents, and his friends, made the greatest part of every high legal and political assemblage in the county. The attorney looked round, therefore, for some young barrister who had nothing to lose, and might have something to win; and he fixed upon Thurlow, who read over the brief with the highest glee, and had an interview with the prisoner. As he entered the court, he jogged a briefless one, and said, in his favourite slang language,-"Neck or nothing, my boy, to-day.