osition Bench, where Brougham and Stanley
were sitting next each other, and, addressing the latter in the hearing
of the former, I said, 'Has our noble and learned friend told you the
disappointment he suffered this morning? He thought he had a visit from
the Leader of the Protectionists to offer him the Great Seal, and it
turned out to be only Campbell come to bore him about a point of Scotch
law.' _Brougham_: 'Don't mind what Jack Campbell says; he has a
prescriptive privilege to tell lies of all Chancellors, dead and
living.'"

According to the same authority, Brougham was at one time very anxious
to be made an earl, but his desire was entirely quenched when Lord John
Russell gave an earldom to Lord Chancellor Cottenham. He is said to have
been so indignant that he either wrote or dictated a pamphlet in which
the new creation was ridiculed, and to which was appended the
significant motto, "The offence is rank."

The common feeling with regard to Sir James Scarlett's (Lord Abinger)
success in gaining verdicts led to the composition of the following
pleasantry, attributed to Lord Campbell. "Whereas Scarlett had contrived
a machine, by using which, while he argued, he could make the judges'
heads nod with pleasure, Brougham in course of time got hold of it; but
not knowing how to manage it when he argued, the judges, instead of
nodding, shook their heads."

And it is Lord Campbell who has preserved the following specimen of a
judge's concluding remarks to a prisoner convicted of uttering a forged
one-pound note. After having pointed out to him the enormity of the
offence, and exhorted him to prepare for another world, added: "And I
trust that through the merits and the mediation of our Blessed Redeemer,
you may there experience that mercy which a due regard to the _credit
of the paper currency_ of the country forbids you to hope for here."

Campbell married Miss Scarlett, a daughter of Lord Abinger, and was
absent from Court when a case in which he was to appear was called
before Mr. Justice Abbot. "I thought, Mr. Brougham," said his lordship,
"that Mr. Campbell was in this case?"--"Yes, my lord," replied Mr.
Brougham, with that sarcastic look peculiarly his own. "He was, my lord,
but I understand he is ill."--"I am sorry to hear that, Mr. Brougham,"
said the judge. "My lord," replied Mr. Brougham, "it is whispered here
that the cause of my learned friend's absence is scarlet fever."

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