CURRAN AND THE JUDGE.
Soon after Mr. Curran had been called to the bar, on some statement of Judge Robinson's, the young counsel observed, that "he had never met the law, as laid down by his Lordship, in any book in his library." "That may be, sir," said the Judge; "but I suspect that your library is very small." Mr. Curran replied, "I find it more instructive, my Lord, to study good works than to compose bad ones.[1] My books may be few; but the title-pages give me the writers' names, and my shelf is not disgraced by any such rank absurdities, that their very authors are ashamed to own them." "Sir," said the Judge, "you are forgetting the respect which you owe to the dignity of the judicial character." "Dignity!" exclaimed Mr. Curran; "My Lord, upon that point I shall cite you a case from a book of some authority, with which you are, perhaps, not unacquainted." He then briefly recited the story of Strap, in Roderick Random, who having stripped off his coat to fight, entrusted it to a bystander. When the battle was over, and he was well beaten, he turned to resume it, but the man had carried it off. Mr. Curran thus applied the tale:—"So, my Lord, when the person entrusted with the dignity of the judgment-seat lays it aside for a moment to enter into a disgraceful personal contest, it is in vain when he has been worsted in the encounter that he seeks to resume it—it is in vain that he tries to shelter himself behind an authority which he has abandoned." "If you say another word, I'll commit you," replied the angry Judge; to which Mr. C. retorted, "If your Lordship shall do so, we shall both of us have the consolation of reflecting, that I am not the worst thing your Lordship has committed."