BARCAROLES FOR BRIEFLESS BARRISTERS
Air—“The Sea! the Sea!”
The Fee! the fee! the welcome fee!
The new! the fresh! the scarce to me!
Without a brief, without a pound,
I travel the circuit round and round.
I draw with the pens at each assize,
If ink before me handy lies.
I’ve got a fee! I’ve got a fee!
I’ve got what I so seldom see;
With the judge above, and the usher below,
I wait upon the last back row.
Should a silk gown come with argument deep,
What matter! I can go to sleep.
I love (oh, how I love) to bide
At some fierce, foaming, senior’s side.
When every mad word stuns the court,
And the judges wish he’d cut it short,
And tell him the case of So-and-So,
His argument doth to atoms blow.
I never hear Chancery’s dull, tame jaw,
But I love the fun of the Common Law,
And fly to the Exchequer, Bench and Pleas,
As a mouse flies back to a Cheshire cheese!
For the cheese it always seem’d to me,
Especially if I got a fee!
My whiskers are white, my head is bald,
Since the dreary hour when I was call’d.
The Steward he whistled as out he told
The fees at my call from a packet of gold.
And never was heard of a step so wild
As took to the bar the briefless child.
I’ve liv’d since then, in term and out,
Some thirty years, or thereabout;
Without a brief, but power to range
From court to court by way of change.
And death, whenever he comes to me,
Will find me most likely without a fee.
A Sore Point.—First Articled Clerk. “Well how did your private theatricals go off?”
Second Ditto. “Pre’y well. My moustache went off at once, but nothing would induce the pistol to go off in the duel scene!”—(Dropping the subject.)—“How’s your mother?”
Song for the Burglar to his “Pal” who “Peached.”—“Never again with you, Robbin’.”
Suitors’ Sufferings.—As law is to rheumatism, so is equity to gout. The fusion of law and equity may be said to form the counterpart of rheumatic gout.
“Behind the Scenes.”—First Judge. “Breach of promise still running?”
Second Judge. “Going wonderfully. No standing room. “What are you doing?”
First Judge. “A building contract. Wretched business: not a soul in the place!”
A Spring Circuit.—Jumping through the hoops held for the riders round a circus.
Suitable Site for a Police “Court.”—The area.