lord; there is all the difference in the world between these two
words. Let us take an instance: your worthy father was a judge on that
Bench; your lordship is 'also' a judge on the same Bench; but it does
not follow that you are a judge 'like wise.'"

When Meadowbank was about to be raised to the Bench he consulted John
Clerk about the title he should adopt. Clerk's suggestion was "Lord
Preserve Us." The legal acquirements of James Wolfe Murray were not held
in high esteem by his brethren of the Bar, and when he became a judge
with the title of Lord Cringletie, Clerk wrote the following clever
epigram:

"Necessity and Cringletie
Are fitted to a tittle;
Necessity has nae law,
And Cringletie as little."

The only man on the Bench for whom John Clerk retained a respectfulness
not generally exhibited to others in that position was Lord President
Blair. After hearing the President overturn without any effort an
argument he had laboriously built up, and which appeared to be regarded
as unsurmountable by the audience who heard it, Clerk sat still for a
few moments, then as he rose to leave the Court he was heard to say: "My
man, God Almighty spared nae pains when He made your brains."

When he ascended the Bench in his sixty-fifth year, and when his
physical powers were declining, he received the congratulations of his
brother judges, one of whom expressed surprise that he had waited so
long for the distinction. "Well, you see, I did not get 'doited' just as
soon as the rest of you," replied the new-made judge.

Like the generation preceding his, Clerk was of a very convivial
disposition. Of him the story is told that one Sunday morning, while
people were making their way to church, he appeared at his door in York
Place in his dressing-gown and cowl, with a lighted candle in his hand,
showing out two friends who had been carousing with him, and in the firm
belief that it was about midnight instead of next mid-day. At the
termination of a Bannatyne Club dinner, where wit and wine had contended
for the mastery, the excited judge on the way to his carriage tumbled
downstairs and, _miserabile dictu_, broke his nose, an accident which
compelled him to confine himself to the house for some time. He
reappeared, however, with a large patch on his olfactory member, which
gave a most ludicrous expression to his face. On someone inquiring how
this happened, he said it was the effect of his studies. "Studies!"