the year twenty-three,
The magistrates of Banff contra Robert Carr,
I remember well, I was then at the Bar.

Likewise, my Lords, in the case of Peter Caw,
_Superflua non nocent_ was found to be law:
Lord Kennet[22] also quoted the case of one Lithgow
Where a penalty in a bill was held _pro non scripto_.

Lord President brought his chair to the plum,
Laid hold of the bench and brought forward his bum;
In these answers, my Lords, some freedoms have been used,
Which I could point out, provided I chus'd.

I was for this interlocutor, my Lords, I admit,
But am open to conviction as long's I here do sit;
To oppose your precedents I quote you some clauses,
But Tait[23] _a priori_ hurried up the causes.

He prov'd it as clear as the sun in the sky
That the maxims of law could not here apply,
That the writing in question was neither bill nor band
But something unknown in the law of the land.

The question adhere or alter being put,
It carried to alter by a casting vote:
Baillie then mov'd.--In the bill there's a raze,
But by that time their Lordships had called a new case.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Wight: a well-known advocate of the period.
[2] Baillie: Lord Palkemmet.
[3] Afterwards Lord Eskgrove.
[4] The father of James Boswell.
[5] Afterwards Lord Braxfield.
[6] Lord Covington.
[7] Andrew Pringle.
[8] Henry Home, who was notorious for the use of the epithet in the
text.
[9] Sir David Dalrymple, author of the _Annals of Scotland_.
[10] George Brown of Coalston.
[11] Alexander Fraser of Strichen.
[12] James Erskine, who changed his title to Lord Alva.
[13] James Veitch.
[14] Francis Garden, who founded the town of Laurencekirk in
Kincardineshire.
[15] Robert Dundas, first Lord President of that name.
[16] Henry, first Viscount Melville, the friend of Pitt.
[17] A nickname for John Erskine of Carnoch.
[18] Sir Thomas Miller of Glenlee.
[19] John Campbell, raised to the Bench in 1796.
[20] Jas. Burnet of Monboddo, who had a theory that human beings
were born with tails.
[21] James Ferguson of Pitfour. Owing to weak eyesight he wore his
hat on the Bench.
[22] Robert Bruce of Kennet.
[23] Clerk of Session.

It was the first Lord Meadowbank, who wearying of the dry statement of a
case m