s, however, the Earl of
Tullibardine asking the treasurer whether he had remembered Caesar, the
treasurer quickly recollected the ground of his perturbation, could not
forbear imparting it to his friends, and so the whole jest came to be
discovered.

[Illustration: IZAAK WALTON'S HOUSE (_see page 82_).]

In 1614, L6 12s. 6d. was claimed by Sir Julius Caesar for paving the
part of Chancery Lane over against the Rolls Gate.

Sir Joseph Jekyll, the Master of the Rolls in the reign of George I.,
was an ancestor of that witty Jekyll, the friend and adviser of George
IV. Sir Joseph was very active in introducing a Bill for increasing the
duty on gin, in consequence of which he became so odious to the mob that
they one day hustled and trampled on him in a riot in Lincoln's Inn
Fields. Hogarth, who painted his "Gin Lane" to express his alarm and
disgust at the growing intemperance of the London poor, has in one of
his extraordinary pictures represented a low fellow writing J.J. under a
gibbet.

Sir William Grant, who succeeded Lord Alvanley, was the last Master but
one that resided in the Rolls. He had practised at the Canadian bar, and
on returning to England attracted the attention of Lord Thurlow, then
chancellor. He was an admirable speaker in the House, and even Fox is
said to have girded himself tighter for an encounter with such an
adversary. "He used," says Mr. Cyrus Jay, in his amusing book, "The
Law," "to sit from five o'clock till one, and seldom spoke during that
time. He dined before going into court, his allowance being a bottle of
Madeira at dinner and a bottle of port after. He dined alone, and the
unfortunate servant was expected to anticipate his master's wishes by
intuition. Sir William never spoke if he could help it. On one occasion
when the favourite dish of a leg of pork was on the table, the servant
saw by Sir William's face that something was wrong, but he could not
tell what. Suddenly a thought flashed upon him--the Madeira was not on
the table. He at once placed the decanter before Sir William, who
immediately flung it into the grate, exclaiming, "Mustard, you fool!""

Sir John Leach, another Master of the Rolls, was the son of a tradesman
at Bedford, afterwards a merchant's clerk and an embryo architect. Mr.
Canning appointed him Master of the Rolls, an office previously, it has
been said, offered to Mr. Brougham. Leach was fond, says Mr. Jay, of
saying sharp, bitter things in a bland and courtl