WESTMINSTER HALL AND THE LAW COURTS.
Adjoining the Houses of Parliament is this vast old hall. For almost five hundred years has it stood, its curiously carved roof unsupported by column or pillar. Here royal banquets, as well as Parliaments, have been held, and more than one court of justice. Here was the great trial of Warren Hastings. It was empty now of everything but echoes and the long line of statuary on either side, except the lawyers in their long, black gowns, who hastened up and down its length, or darted in and out the three baize doors upon one side, opening into the Courts of Chancery, Common Pleas, and the Exchequer. Our national curiosity was aroused, and we mounted the steps to the second, which had won our sympathies from its democratic name.
There were high, straight-backed pews of familiar appearance, rising one above the other, into the last of which we climbed, a certain Sunday solemnity stealing over us, a certain awkward consciousness that we were the observed of all observers, since we were the only spectators—a delusion of our vanity, however. In the high gallery before us, in complacent comfort, sat three fat, drowsy old women (?) in white, curling wigs, and voluminous gowns, asking all manner of distracting questions, and requiring to be told over and over again,—after the manner of drowsy old women,—to the utter confusion of a poor witness in the front pew, who clung to the rail and swayed about hopelessly, while he tried to tell his story, as if by this rotary motion he could churn his ideas into form. Not only did he lose the thread of his discourse,—he became hopelessly entangled in it. Scratch, scratch, scratch, went the pens all around him. Every word, as it fell from his lips, was pounced upon by the begowned, bewigged, bewildering judges, was twisted and turned by the lawyers, was tossed back and forth throughout the court-room, until there arose a question in our minds, as to who was telling the story. All the while the lawyers were glaring upon him as though he was perjuring himself with every word—as who would not be, under the circumstances? And such lawyers! They dotted the pews all around us. The long, black gowns were not so bad; they hid a deal of awkwardness, I doubt not. But the wigs! the queer little curly things, perched upon every head, and worn with such a perverse delight in misfits! the small men being invariably hidden beneath the big wigs, and the large men strutting about like the great Panjandrum himself with the little round button at the top! The appearance of one, whose head, through some uncommon development, rose to a ridge-pole behind, was surprising, to say the least. It was not alone that his wig was too small, that a fringe of straight, black hair fell below its entire white circumference; it was not alone that it was parted upon the wrong side, or that, being mansard in form, and his head hip-roofed, it could never, by any process, have been shaped thereto; but I doubt if the wearing of it upside down, added to all these little drawbacks, could conduce to the beauty or dignity of any man. Unmindful of this reversed order of nature, its happy possessor skipped about the court-room, nodding to his brethren with a blithesome air, to the imminent peril of his top-knot, which sustained about the same relation to his head as the sword to that of Damocles. He speered down upon the poor witness. He pretended to make notes of dreadful import with a screaming quill, and, in fact, comported himself with an airy unconsciousness delightful to see.
In regard to the proceedings of the court, I only know that the point under discussion concerned one Johnson, and a pump; and Mr. Pickwick's judge sat upon the bench. Whether he was originally round, red-faced, with gooseberry eyes, I do not remember; but all these pleasing characteristics he possessed at this present time, as well as a pudgy forefinger, with which to point his remarks.
"You say," he repeated, with a solemnity of which my pen is incapable, and impressing every word upon the poor man in the front pew with this same forefinger, "that—Bunsen—went—to—the—pump?"
"Johnson, my lord," the witness ventured to correct him, in a low tone.
"It makes no difference," responded the judge, irate, "whether it is Bunsen or Jillson. The question is, Did—Jillson—go—to—the—pump?"
Whom the gods destroy they first deprive of their five senses. Four, at least, of the poor man's had departed some time since. The fifth followed. "Johnson went, my lord," he replied, doggedly. Having found one point upon which his mind was clear, he clung to it with the tenacity of despair.
"Johnson! who's Johnson?" gasped the bewildered judge, over whose face a net of perplexed lines spread itself upon the introduction of this new character. In the confusion of denials and explanations that followed, we descended from our perch, and stole away; nor are we at all sure, to this day, as to whether Johnson did or did not really go to the pump.
ST. PAUL'S.