with the delightful
consciousness of having performed your duties well, and may lay your
heads on your pillows, saying to yourselves 'Aut Caesar, aut nullus.'"
And this was his remark on detecting the trick of an attorney to delay a
trial: "This is the last hair in the tail of procrastination, and it
must be plucked out."

Among other failings attributed to this Lord Chief Justice was the
extreme penuriousness he practised in his domestic arrangements and his
dress. His shoes were patched to such an extent that little of their
original material could be seen, and once when trying a case he was
sitting on the bench in a way to expose them to all in Court. It was an
action for breach of contract to deliver shoes soundly made, and to
clinch a witness for the pursuer he suddenly asked, "Were the shoes
anything like these?" pointing to his own. "No, my lord," replied the
witness, "they were a good deal better and more genteeler."

As an example of his (Lord Kenyon's) style of addressing a condemned
prisoner we have the following. A butler had been charged and convicted
of stealing his master's wine.

"Prisoner at the bar, you stand convicted on the most conclusive
evidence of a crime of inexpressible atrocity--a crime that defiles the
sacred springs of domestic confidence, and is calculated to strike alarm
into the breast of every Englishman who invests largely in the choicer
vintages of Southern Europe. Like the serpent of old, you have stung the
hand of your protector. Fortunate in having a generous employer, you
might without discovery have continued to supply your wretched wife and
children with the comforts of sufficient prosperity, and even with some
of the luxuries of affluence; but, dead to every claim of natural
affection, and blind to your own real interest, you burst through all
the restraints of religion and morality, and have for many years been
_feathering_ your nest with your master's _bottles_."

Lord Kenyon was warmly attached to George III, who had a high opinion of
him; but like many of his lordship's contemporaries, his Majesty
strongly deprecated the frequent outbursts of temper on the part of his
Chief Justice. "At a levee, soon after an extraordinary explosion of
ill-humour in the Court of King's Bench, his Majesty said to him: 'My
Lord Chief Justice, I hear that you have lost your temper, and from my
great regard for you, I am very glad to hear it, for I hope you will
find a better one.'"