rate for the
litigants--and it would appear also for the attorneys, for while
witticisms of the Bench and Bar abound, very few are recorded of the
attorney and his client. "Law is law" wrote the satirist who decided not
to adopt it as a profession. "Law is like a country dance; people are
led up and down in it till they are tired. Law is like a book of
surgery--there are a great many terrible cases in it. It is also like
physic--they who take least of it are best off. Law is like a homely
gentlewoman--very well to follow. Law is like a scolding wife--very bad
when it follows us. Law is like a new fashion--people are bewitched to
get into it. It is also like bad weather--most people are glad when they
get out of it."

From very early times there have appeared on the Bench expounders of the
law who by the phrase "for the most part" must be acquitted of Mr.
Justice Darling's charge of having no sense of humour; judges who, like
himself, have lightened the otherwise dreary routine of duty by
pleasantries which in no way interfered with the course of justice. One
of the earliest of our witty judges, whose brilliant sayings have come
down to us, was Henry VIII's Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas More, who lost
his head because he would not acknowledge his king as head of the
Church. To Sir Thomas Manners, Earl of Rutland, who had made a somewhat
insolent remark, the Lord Chancellor quietly replied, 'Honores mutant
mores'--Honours change manners. Sir Thomas's humour was what may be
called _quiet_, because its effect did not immediately show itself in
boisterous merriment, but would undoubtedly remain long in the
remembrance of those to whom it was addressed. Made with as much
courtesy as irony, is it likely his keeper in the Tower would ever
forget his remark? "Assure yourself I do not dislike my cheer; but
whenever I do, then spare not to thrust me out of your doors." Nor did
his quaint humour desert him at the scaffold: "Master Lieutenant," said
he, "I pray you see me safe up; for my coming down let me shift for
myself." Even with his head on the block he could not resist a humorous
remark, when putting aside his beard he said to the executioner, "Wait,
my good friend, till I have removed my beard, for it has never offended
his highness."

Another judge of the sixteenth century, Sir Nicholas Bacon, who
resembled Sir Thomas More in the gentleness of his happiest speeches,
could also on occasion exhibit an unnecessary coarseness