good stories current about chiefs of the law who are still
alive, the present writer, for obvious reasons, abstains from taking
notice; but one humorous anecdote concerning a lively judge may with
propriety be inserted in these pages, since it fell from his own lips
when he was making a speech from the chair at a public dinner. Between
sixty-five and seventy years from the present time, when Sir Frederick
Pollock was a boy at St. Paul's school, he drew upon himself the
displeasure of Dr. Roberts, the somewhat irascible head-master of the
school, who frankly told Sir Frederick's father, "Sir, you'll live to
see that boy of yours hanged." Years afterwards, when the boy of whom
this dismal prophecy was made had distinguished himself at Cambridge and
the bar, Dr. Roberts, meeting Sir Frederick's mother in society,
overwhelmed her with congratulations upon her son's success, and
fortunately oblivious of his former misunderstanding with his pupil,
concluded his polite speeches by saying--"Ah! madam, I always said he'd
fill an _elevated_ situation." Told by the venerable judge at a recent
dinner of 'Old Paulines,' this story was not less effective than the
best of those post-prandial sallies with which William St. Julien
Arabin--the Assistant Judge of Old Bailey notoriety--used to convulse
his auditors something more than thirty years since. In the 'Arabiniana'
it is recorded how this judge, in sentencing an unfortunate woman to a
long term of transportation, concluded his address with--"You must go
out of the country. You have disgraced _even_ your own sex."

Let this chapter close with a lawyer's testimony to the moral qualities
of his brethren. In the garden of Clement's Inn may still be seen the
statue of a negro, supporting a sun-dial, upon which a legal wit
inscribed the following lines:--

"In vain, poor sable son of woe,
Thou seek'st the tender tear;
From thee in vain with pangs they flow,
For mercy dwells not here.
From cannibals thou fled'st in vain;
Lawyers less quarter give;
The _first_ won't eat you till you're _slain_,
The _last_ will do't _alive_."

Unfortunately these lines have been obliterated.

[31] Robert Dallas--one of Edward Law's coadjutors in the defence of
Hastings--gave another 'manager' a more telling blow. Indignant with
Burke for his implacable animosity to Hastings, Dallas (subsequently
Chief Justice of the Common Pleas) wrote the stinging lines--

"Oft have