I the lowest at the Bar; and then, my
lord, I have not your lordship's voice of thunder--I have not your
lordship's rolling eye of command."

* * * * *

[Illustration: ROBERT MACQUEEN, LORD BRAXFIELD.]

Robert Macqueen (Lord Braxfield), the prototype of Stevenson's "Weir of
Hermiston," was known as the "hanging judge"--the Judge Jeffreys of
Scotland; but he was a sound judge. He argued a point in a colloquial
style, asking a question, and himself supplying the answer in his clear,
abrupt manner. But he was illiterate, and without the least desire for
refined enjoyment, holding in disdain natures less coarse than his own;
he shocked the feelings of those even of an age which had less decorum
than prevailed in that which succeeded, and would not be tolerated by
the working classes of to-day. Playing whist with a lady, he exclaimed,
"What are ye doin', ye damned auld ...," and then recollecting himself,
"Your pardon's begged, madam; I took ye for my wife." When his butler
gave up his place because his lordship's wife was always scolding him:
"Lord," he exclaimed, "ye've little to complain o'; ye may be thankfu'
ye're no mairred to her."

His most notorious sayings from the Bench were uttered during the trials
for sedition towards the end of the eighteenth century, and even some of
these are too coarse for repetition. "Ye're a very clever chiel," he
said to one of the prisoners; "but ye wad be nane the waur o' a
hangin'." And to a juror arriving late in Court he said, "Come awa,
Maister Horner, come awa and help us to hang ane o' they damned
scoondrels." Hanging was his term for all kinds of punishment.

To Margarot, a Baptist minister of Dundee--another of the political
prisoners of that time--he said, "Hae ye ony coonsel, man?"--"No,"
replied Margarot. "Dae ye want tae hae ony appointed?" continued the
Justice-Clerk. "No," replied the prisoner, "I only want an interpreter
to make me understand what your lordship says."

* * * * *

We have already referred to Lord Moncreiff's piety, and to it must be
added his great simplicity of nature. Like many of his predecessors, he
had a habit of making long speeches to prisoners on their conviction;
but his intention was to help them to a better mode of life, not to
aggravate their feelings by silly or coarse remarks. This habit,
however, led him occasionally into enunciating principles which rather
astonished his