ng a young barrister overpowered
with nervousness, gave him time to recover himself by saying, in the
kindest possible manner, "Excuse me for interrupting you--but for a
minute I am not at liberty to pay you attention." Whereupon the Judge
took up his pen and wrote a short note to a friend. Before the note was
finished, the young barrister had completely recovered his
self-possession, and by an admirable speech secured a verdict for his
client. A highly nervous man, he might on that day have been broken for
life, like Ellenborough's victim, by mockery; but fortunate in appearing
before a judge whose witty tongue knew not how to fashion unkind words,
he triumphed over his temporary weakness, and has since achieved well
deserved success in his profession. Talfourd might have made a jest for
the thoughtless to laugh at; but he preferred to do an act, on which
those who loved him like to think.

When Preston, the great conveyancer, gravely informed the judges of the
King's Bench that "an estate in fee simple was the highest estate known
to the law of England," Lord Ellenborough checked the great Chancery
lawyer, and said with politest irony, "Stay, stay, Mr. Preston, let me
take that down. An estate" (the judge writing as he spoke) "in fee
simple is--the highest estate--known to--the law of England. Thank you,
Mr. Preston! The court, sir, is much indebted to you for the
information." Having inflicted on the court an unspeakably dreary
oration, Preston, towards the close of the day, asked when it would be
their lordship's pleasure to hear the remainder of his argument;
whereupon Lord Ellenborough uttered a sigh of resignation, and answered,
'We are bound to hear you, and we will endeavor to give you our
undivided attention on Friday next; but as for _pleasure_, that, sir,
has been long out of the question.'

Probably mistelling an old story, and taking to himself the merit of
Lord Ellenborough's reply to Preston, Sir Vicary Gibbs (Chief of the
Common Pleas) used to tell his friends that Sergeant Vaughan--the
sergeant who, on being subsequently raised to the bench through the
influence of his elder brother, Sir Henry Halford, the court physician,
was humorously described by the wits of Westminster Hall as a judge _by
prescription_--once observed in a grandiose address to the Judges of the
Common Pleas, "For though our law takes cognizance of divers different
estates, I may be permitted to say, without reserve or qualificatio