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fashion, were then called, though both here and there legal barons have been abolished. No one ever suggested that he would not have made a very competent judge; he probably believed the strain would have interfered too much with his literary work, as he did not renew his application, but the fact shows what he thought of his own fitness, and he never rated himself too high. "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." Can you wonder that there is abundance of legal allusion scattered throughout the Waverley

novels?

His two characters who talk most law are both laymen; these of course are Saddletree and Peter Peebles. Councillor Pleydell and old Mr. Fairford are exquisite thumbnail sketches, the last being Scott's father drawn to the life. In the case of Saddletree the points are obscure for another reason: his knowledge is exceedingly inaccurate, and he muddles up the law terms and maxims with genuine comic effect. But you must know the right to see where he goes wrong, and to catch fully the points of the joke.

Let us look at him on the afternoon of the day just before the Porteous Mob Rising; he has taken his meridian with Plumdamas, and this again requires a word of explanation. Old Edinburgh was a lewd, witty, above all, a drunken place; "drams," as the regulation quantity of spirits was named, were taken at every opportunity, and notably on two special daily occasions, morning and noon. His mornin' still lingers in

obscure parts of Scotland; but the meridian is, one would fain hope, extinct; yet, as Scott has elsewhere told us, it was a rite once observed with great solemnity in the Parliament House. As the hour approached, many a clerk, many a writer, consulted his watch, looked at his neighbour, began to fidget, until with a common accord and in formal procession a whole gang defiled out of the ancient hall and solemnly moved across the Parliament Close to John's Coffee House, where the refreshment was taken.

Well, to return to Saddletree: excited by his draught, he bewails to his wife and the people in the shop the fact that he was not trained a lawyer; he is just as good a man, he says, as Duncan Forbes and the

other Arniston chield." Here he refers to Duncan Forbes of Culloden, who was then Lord Advocate, and next year was to become President of the Court of Session. "The Arniston chield" was Dundas of Arniston, then Dean, or official head of the Faculty of Advocates, and next year raised to the bench as Lord Arniston; he was one of a family which gave many eminent lawyers to Scotland. Our amateur cites in favour of his own merits the opinion of the "closehead," and what, you ask, was this? Off the High Street ran, as they still run, long passages, giving access to the upper floors of the tall "lands" or houses. which line the street. The dwellers in those houses would come out at eventide, and congregate at the street entry called the "close-head" to get a breath of com

paratively fresh air and gossip with their neighbours; hence the name of the informal parliament. Our friend proceeds to lament that he had never studied "the Substitutes and Pandex" at Leyden and Utrecht. Of course he means the Institutes and Pandects, and one here notes that Scotch law was so much founded on Roman law that every advocate required some training in the latter. This training it was thought he could only receive abroad, and Utrecht and Leyden were at the period the favourite places of resort. A century previous the aristocratic Scotch lawyer would probably have gone to Bourges, "the Athens of lawyers," where Sir George Mackenzie, the "bloody advocate Mackenzie" of "Wandering Willie's" tale, received his education. When Butler corrects him he wanders into a reference to "Balfour's Practiques" and "Dallas of St. Martin's styles," referring to well-known text-books essential to the library of the Scottish practitioner of the time, though long relegated to the back shelves of legal libraries, their very names almost forgotten in the Parliament House itself.

Lest the reader be wearied, only one other instance will here be given. At the beginning of the trial of Effie Deans objection is taken by her counsel to the relevancy of the indictment. This is heard at length, but the objections are not allowed. "A strange

practice prevailed in the courts at that time; the judges must pronounce an interlocutor, finding the libel relevant. Now, however well it might be drawn, it was

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a point of honour to allege all sorts of objections; to these allegations there were answers, and there followed 'replies,' 'duplies,' 'triplies,' 'quadruplies,' and so forth. And the matter of these?-long extracts from the civil law, citations from 'eminent criminalists,' Carpzovius, Julius, Clarus, Matheus, Gothofredus, and other Dryasdusts, whose very names are long forgotten. There were references to the laws of France, Spain, and Heaven knows where. There were copious illustrations from biblical as well as classical history, and quotations from Scots Acts, wherein alone was materiality. To the jury, to the spectators, to all, save counsel and judges, it must have seemed hopeless jargon, but neither my Lord Advocate nor his opponents forgot their Continental education; they went round the mill with infinite gusto. Remember these debates were verbatim dictate to the clerks of the Court by the various speakers; remember that everybody knew they must end in smoke —and the thing strikes you as ghastly mockery. At last it was over, my lords 'repelled the defences proponed for the panel,' and the Court got seriously to work."*

Although this quotation refers to the trial of Bailie, of Jerviswood, in 1684, that is fifty-two years earlier, it gives a fairly accurate representation of the practice at a later date. No doubt in a comparatively unimportant case like that of Effie Deans, the proceedings were much abbreviated. If the reader cares to consult the old Scotch cases scattered through the twenty-one * Terrors of the Law, 1902.

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