mons:--"Mr.
Erskine delivered a most animated speech in the House of Commons on the
causes and consequences of the late war, which lasted thirteen hours,
eighteen minutes, and a second, by Mr. John Nichol's stop-watch. Mr.
Erskine closed his speech with a dignified climax: 'I was born free,
and, by G-d, I'll remain so!'--[A loud cry of '_Hear! hear_' in the
gallery, in which were citizens Tallien and Barrere.] On Monday three
weeks we shall have the extreme satisfaction of laying before the public
a brief analysis of the above speech, our letter-founder having entered
into an engagement to furnish a fresh font of I's."[32]

From the days of Wriothesley, who may be regarded as the most
conspicuous and unquestionable instance of judicial incompetency in the
annals of English lawyers, the multitudes have always delighted in
stories that illustrate the ignorance and incapacity of men who are
presumed to possess, by right of their office, an extraordinary share of
knowledge and wisdom. What law-student does not rub his hands as he
reads of Lord St. John's trouble during term whilst he held the seals,
and of the impatience with which he looked forward to the long vacation,
when he would not be required to look wise and speak authoritatively
about matters concerning which he was totally ignorant. Delicious are
the stories of Francis Bacon's clerical successor, who endeavored to get
up a _quantum suff_. of Chancery law by falling on his knees and asking
enlightenment of Heaven. Gloomily comical are the anecdotes of Chief
Justice Fleming, whose most famous and disastrous blunder was his
judgment in Bates's case. Great fun may be gathered from the tales that
exemplify the ignorance of law which characterized the military, and
also the non-military laymen, who helped to take care of the seals
during the civil troubles of the seventeenth century. Capital is Roger
North's picture of Bob Wright's ludicrous shiftlessness whenever the
influence of his powerful relations brought the loquacious, handsome,
plausible fellow a piece of business. "He was a comely fellow," says
Roger North, speaking of the Chief Justice Wright's earlier days, "airy
and flourishing both in his habits and way of living; and his relation
Wren (being a powerful man in those parts) set him in credit with the
country; but withal, he was so poor a lawyer that he used to bring such
cases as came to him to his friend Mr. North, and he wrote the opinion
on the paper, a