ng a witness with noisy derision, no barrister of Charles
II.'s time could surpass George Jeffreys; but on more than one occasion
that gentleman, in his most overbearing moments, met with his master in
the witness whom he meant to brow-beat. "You fellow in the leathern
doublet," he is said to have exclaimed to a countryman whom he was about
to cross-examine, "Pray, what are you paid for swearing?" "God bless
you, sir, and make you an honest man," answered the farmer, looking the
barrister full in the face, and speaking with a voice of hearty
good-humor; "if you had no more for lying than I have for swearing, you
would wear a leather doublet as well as I."

Sometimes Erskine's treatment of witnesses was very jocular, and
sometimes very unfair; but his jocoseness was usually so distinct from
mere flippant derisiveness, and his unfairness was redeemed by such
delicacy of wit and courtesy of manner, that his most malicious _jeux
d'esprit_ seldom raised the anger of the witnesses at whom they were
aimed. A religious enthusiast objecting to be sworn in the usual manner,
but stating that though he would not "kiss the book," he would "hold up
his hand" and swear, Erskine asked him to give his reason for preferring
so eccentric a way to the ordinary mode of giving testimony. "It is
written in the book of Revelations," answered the man, "that the angel
standing on the sea _held up his hand_." "But that does not apply to
your case," urged the advocate; "for in the first place, you are no
angel; secondly, you cannot tell how the angel would have sworn if he
had stood on dry ground, as you do." Not shaken by this reply, which
cannot be called unfair, and which, notwithstanding its jocoseness, was
exactly the answer which the gravest divine would have made to such
scruples, the witness persisted in his position; and on being permitted
to give evidence in his own peculiar way, he had enough influence with
the jury to induce them to give a verdict adverse to Erskine's wishes.

Less fair but more successful was Erskine's treatment of the commercial
traveller, who appeared in the witness box dressed in the height of
fashion, and wearing a starched white necktie folded with the 'Brummel
fold.' In an instant reading the character of the man, on whom he had
never before set eyes, and knowing how necessary it was to put him in a
state of extreme agitation and confusion, before touching on the facts
concerning which he had come to give eviden