FORENSIC WIT.

THE LAWYERS' GLEE.

(Lord Campbell's "Lives of the Chief Justices," 1849, II. 183.)

A woman having a settlement
Married a man with none;

The question was, he being dead,
If what she had was gone?

Quoth SIR JOHN PRATT, the settlement
Suspended did remain,

Living the husband; but him dead,
It doth revive again.

Chorus of Puisne Judges.

Living the husband; but him dead,
It doth revive again.

Chief Justice Pratt's decision with regard to suspension was reversed by Chief Justice Ryder, which produced another glee (Ibid).

A woman having a settlement,
Married a man with none:
He flies and leaves her destitute;
What then is to be done?

Quoth RYDER, the Chief Justice,
In spite of SIR JOHN PRATT,
You'll send her to the parish
In which she was a brat.

Suspension of a settlement

Is not to be maintained;

That which she had by birth subsists
Until another's gained.

Chorus of Puisne Judges.

That which she had by birth subsists

Until another's gained.

Sir John Pratt was Chief Justice of the King's Bench from 1718 to 1724; and Sir Dudley Ryder from 1754 to 1756.

Some years ago an action was brought, at Cardiff Assizes, by a rich plaintiff against a poor defendant, who was unable to pay counsel, when Abraham Moore, Esq., of Exeter, a barrister, volunteered to defend him. Upon this the following epigram was written, entitled "Dives and Lazarus," which is ascribed to Jekyll, and which appeared in the "British Press " for July 3, 1812 ("Spirit of the Public Journals," 1813, XVI. 235):

Dives, the Cardiff Bar retains,

And counts their learned noses,
Whilst the defendant Lazarus

On Abraham's breast reposes.

Mr. Scarlett, afterwards Lord Abinger, counsel for a Mr. Cole, defendant in a breach of promise case, tried at the Lancaster Spring Assizes in 1818, pleaded that some love-letters, likely to damage his client's case, could not be admitted in evidence, not being stamped: the judge overruled this, and a young counsel wrote and handed round the following ("Notes and Queries," 2nd S. I. 148 and 418):

ness.

"Tis said o'er his cheek the scarlet blush stole,
As he asked for a stamp to a deed black as cole;
If requests such as these in "the Pleas" are admitted,
Our fair countrywomen will quite be outwitted:
Unless in their reticules blank stamps they carry,
And take a receipt for each kiss till they marry.

The same lawyer's name caused a joke of similar character in a trial, about the year 1827, in which Grimaldi, the famous clown, was a witThe anecdote is given in the "Life of Grimaldi," by Dickens. Sir James Scarlett commenced his examination by saying, "Dear me ! Pray, sir, are you the great Mr. Grimaldi, formerly of Covent Garden Theatre?" The witness reddened and replied, "I used to be a pantomime actor, sir." Sir James paused a few seconds, and looking up in his face said, "And so you really are Grimaldi, are you?" The witness got redder and redder. "Pray don't blush, Mr. Grimaldi, there is not the least occasion for it," said Sir James. This, of course, made Grimaldi blush more and more, though he replied, "I'm not blushing, sir." The spectators tittered, and Sir James, smiling blandly, said, “I assure you, Mr. Grimaldi, that you are blushing violently." Grimaldi was angry and nervous, but he had his wits about him, and replied, "I beg your pardon, sir, but you are really quite mistaken. The flush which you observe on my face is a Scarlet one, I admit, but I assure you that it is nothing more than a reflection from your own." The people shouted with laughter, and Sir James bantered the witness no more. The following" Retort Legal," by the witty James Smith, is amusing ("Memoirs, Letters, &c., of the late James Smith," 1840, I. 264):

"What with briefs and attending the court, self and clerk,
I'm at my wits' end," muttered Drone, the attorney.

66

I fear 'tis a medical case," answered Shark

"You're so terribly tired by so little a journey.”

The cause of lawsuits is well put by Samuel Bishop (Works, 1796, Ep. 161):

In indenture or deed,

Tho' a thousand you read,

Neither comma nor colon you'll ken:
A stop intervening

Might determine the meaning;

And what would the lawyers do then?

Chance for change of construction gives chance for new flaws;
When the sense is once fix'd, there's an end of the cause.

ON BISHOP BLOMFIELD.

("Memoir of Charles James Blomfield, D.D.," 1863, I. 95.)

Dr. Blomfield (Bishop of London) was successively Rector of Chesterford, of Bishopsgate, and Bishop of Chester. The following epigram, on his promotion to that see in 1824, was written by one of the boys of the Grammar School of his native town, Bury S. Edmund's :

Through Chester-ford to Bishops-gate

Did Blomfield safely wade;
Then leaving ford and gate behind,
He's Chester's Bishop made.

ON NASH, THE ARCHITECT, WHO INTRODUCED THE USE
OF ROMAN CEMENT IN LONDON HOUSES.

Augustus at Rome was for building renown'd,
And marble he left what but brick he had found;
But is not our Nash, too, a very great master?
He found London brick, and he leaves it all plaster

This is an adaptation of another epigram, on the creation of papermoney in time of war; found in the "Spirit of the Public Journals for 1806," X. 153:

Of Augustus and Rome the poets still warble,
That he found it of brick and left it of marble:

So of Pitt and of England, they say, without vapour,
That he found it of gold, and he left it of paper.

INSCRIPTION FOR THE ENTRANCE OF A" GENTLE"WOMAN'S GARDEN.

(From a Manuscript.)
Pan speaks.

Let no rash hand invade these sacred bowers,
Irreverent pluck the fruit, or touch the flowers;
Fragrance and beauty here their charms combine,
And e'en Hesperia's garden yields to mine;
For tho' no golden apples glitter round,

A dragon yet more furious guards the ground.

This seems to have been suggested by the inscription on the portico of the Villa Ludovisia, at Frescati, near Rome; a dragon being borne in the arms of the Borghese family. It is given in Mons. Blainville's Travels:

Thessala quid Tempe? Quid quævis Adonidis hortos?
Hæc tibi pro cunctis Villa Draconis erat.
Hesperidum nostris quantum viridaria cedunt
Custos est tanto mitior ore Draco.

ON GIBBON.

In Lord Sheffield's edition of Gibbon's "Miscellaneous Works," is engraved the well-known shade portrait of the historian, which, from its unfortunate singularity, gave occasion in 1797 to a severe poetical attack upon the then dead original, by an Oxonian. This satire produced at a later period the following epigram by C. :

What valiant scribe, from Isis' hallow'd glade,
Dares thus to arms this Shadow of a Shade?

Does blund'ring Chelsum breathe th' envenom'd strain?
Has mitre-hunting Davis risen again?

"Tis great, 'tis noble to insult the dead,

And heap reproaches o'er a prostrate head.

Aye, strike the fall'n, 'tis all that Dulness can,

And spurn the Shadow who had'st fear'd the Man.

Dr. Chelsum, and Henry Edwards Davis of Balliol College, were writers against Gibbon both were men of learning, but they fell into some inaccuracies, of which Gibbon was not slow to avail himself. Davis is supposed to have desired to bring himself into notice, as an opponent of the anti-Christian historian, with a view to advancement in the Church, but he died at an early age.

The point is similar in an epigram, "On Mr. Mason's Abuse of the late Dr. Johnson, in his Memoirs of W. Whitehead" ("Gentleman's Magazine," LXXVIII. Part I. 429):

When Johnson spake, poor Mason's wrath was dumb;
But, Johnson silenc'd, prattles o'er his tomb:
Thus, at some eagle slain, once frighted crows,
With dastard vengeance, aim their puny blows:
Mason! what wreath shall grace that critic's head,
Who fear'd the living, but insults the dead?

On the general subject of attacks upon the dead, Moschion, a Greek dramatist, writes in strains of striking power. The translation is by Cumberland (" Observer," No. 105):

Wound not the soul of a departed man!
"Tis impious cruelty; let justice strike
The living, but in mercy spare the dead.
And why pursue a shadow that is past?
Why slander the deaf earth that cannot hear,
The dumb that cannot utter? When the soul
No longer takes account of human wrongs,

Nor joys nor sorrows touch the mouldering heart,
As well you may give feeling to the tomb,

As what it covers-both alike defy you.

The poet Hayley has a fine sonnet addressed to Gibbon on the publication of his second and third volumes in 1781. The latter part is prophetic of the lasting fame of the history :

Thou may'st deride both Time's destructive sway,

And baser envy's beauty-mangling dirk;

Thy gorgeous fabrick, plann'd with wise delay,

Shall baffle foes more savage than the Turk:
As ages multiply its fame shall rise;

And earth must perish ere its splendour dies.

Upon few men of literature have so many epigrams been written as upon Gibbon. The tone which he adopted in his history towards Christianity, is the point on which they generally turn. The two following are specimens (“Notes and Queries," 3rd S. IX. 45 and 84): Enthusiasts, Lutherans, and Monks,

Jews, Syndics, Calvinists, and Punks,
Gibbon an Atheist call;

Whilst he, unhurt, in placid mood,
To prove himself a Christian good,
Kindly forgives them all.

Which was answered thus:

To smile, or to forgive, we ask thee not;
Thy hatred we prefer, and cherish well:
No Christian hesitates thy name to blot,
Obscene, mendacious, sneering infidel!