d would have thee grant a _nolle prosequi_ for
John Atkins, his servant, whom thou hast sent to prison." Whereto the
judge answered, with proper emphasis, "Thou art a false prophet and a
lying knave. If the Lord God had sent thee, it would have been to the
Attorney General, for the Lord God knows that it belongeth not to the
Chief Justice, to grant a _nolle prosequi_; but I, as Chief Justice, can
grant a warrant to commit thee to John Atkins's company." Whereupon the
false prophet, sharing the fate of many a true one, was forthwith
clapped in prison.

Now that so much has been said of Thurlow's brutal sarcasms, justice
demands for his memory an acknowledgment that he possessed a vein of
genuine humor that could make itself felt without wounding. In his
undergraduate days at Cambridge he is said to have worried the tutors of
Caius with a series of disorderly pranks and impudent _escapades_, but
on one occasion he unquestionably displayed at the university the quick
wit that in after life rescued him from many an embarrassing position.
"Sir," observed a tutor, giving the unruly undergraduate a look of
disapproval, "I never come to the window without seeing you idling in
the court." "Sir," replied young Thurlow, imitating the don's tone, "I
never come into the court without seeing you idling at the window."
Years later, when he had become a great man, and John Scott was paying
him assiduous court, Thurlow said, in ridicule of the mechanical
awkwardness of many successful equity draughtsmen, "Jack Scott, don't
you think we could invent a machine to draw bills and answers in
Chancery?" Having laughed at the suggestion when it was made, Scott put
away the droll thought in his memory; and when he had risen to be
Attorney General reminded Lord Thurlow of it under rather awkward
circumstances. Macnamara, the conveyancer, being concerned as one of the
principals in a Chancery suit, Lord Thurlow advised him to submit the
answer to the bill filed against him to the Attorney General. In due
course the answer came under Scott's notice, when he found it so
wretchedly drawn, that he advised Macnamara to have another answer drawn
by some one who understood pleading. On the same day he was engaged at
the bar of the House of Lords, when Lord Thurlow came to him, and said,
"So I understand you don't think my friend Mac's answer will do?" "Do!"
Scott replied, contemptuously. "My Lord, it won't do at all! it must
have been drawn by that wood