HYGHEST COURT OF LAW IN YE KYNGDOM. YE LORDS HEARYNG APPEALS.
Thursday, June 7, 1849.
Up, and to the House of Lords, where a Committee of Privileges touching a disputed Peerage, but I did only go for a Sight of the Inside of the House, well worth seeing; and the Carving, and Gilding, and Blazoning, a rich Feast to the Eye. There present none but my Lord Brougham and my Lord Campbell, and three or four other Lords, but a smaller Muster do often serve for a Court of Appeal; for their Lordships do trust all their Law Business to the Law-Lords' Hands. Counsel speaking at the Bar of the House, and the Clerks of the House before them at the Table, all in their Wigs very stately, but my Lords lolling on the Benches, free and easy, they only having the Right to make themselves at Home, yet droll to see the Officers of the House forced to stand, but some of them leaning against the Stems of the gilt Candlesticks, fast asleep on their Legs. Did think I should go to sleep too, if I stayed much longer, and about to depart; but glad I did not; for presently the Counsel made an End, and then my Lord Brougham examining a Witness was almost the best Sport that I ever had in my Life. The Witness, one of the Attornies for the Claimant of the Title, and Lord Brougham suspecting some Trickery in the Case, and good Lack! how he did bait and ferret him to draw it out, asking the most peremptory Questions, and sometimes a second before the first could be answered, firking with Impatience like one smarting with Stinging Nettles: which was great Mirth. It did well-nigh cause me to laugh outright, and commit a Breach of Privilege, to hear him in a Fume, echo the Witness's Answers, and cry Eh? What! How! Why? and Wherefore? and demand how he could do this, or came not to do the other, and how was that, and so forth, and then set his Memory right, next made a short Speech, then give a little Evidence of his own, and again go back to the Examination. It seemed that the Pretender to the Peerage had been helped with Money to maintain his Suit by certain Persons, and my Lord did strive to worm out of the Lawyer their End therein: but to no Purpose; for he had met with his Match; so forced to content himself with a Quip on the Chances of the Witness's Client. Then another Witness examined; a Chirurgeon, whom Lord Brougham did make merry with for his jolly good-natured Looks, and did jest upon concerning his Vocation: and the other did bandy Jokes with my Lord, and gave him as good as he brought. Methinks such Bantering is strange of a Peer, and one that hath been Lord Chancellor and used to sit on the Woolsack, or anywhere else but the Box of an Omnibus. But strange, how sober a Speech in summing up the Evidence my Lord did make after all; and no Doubt he can be reasonable and quiet when he pleases. Save a few words from Lord Campbell, not a Syllable spoke but my Lord Brougham; wherefore methinks he must have been thoroughly happy, having had nigh all the Talk to himself. But the highest Court of Law in the Realm numbering so few, put me much in mind of the Army in Bombastes Furioso.
