As I was very early in court, I obtained a seat by the side of the judge, Sir Alexander Macdonald, and saw and heard everything to the greatest advantage. In that place I remained the whole day, except when, on being assured that my seat should be kept for me, I went home to tea, but soon returned to the scene of action, where I staid all night; as I could not bear to go away without hearing the great orator’s reply to the defendant’s counsel. As I was desirous that the plaintiff should gain her cause, I had been alarmed to find by the speech of the eloquent advocate for the defendant, how much could be said on both sides, and was therefore anxious to hear by what means his arguments could be rendered powerless; therefore, though listening with delighted attention and wonder to the powerful cross-examination, I wished it over: but witness, on the defendant’s side, succeeded to witness; the audience became gradually smaller and smaller, and although Lord Brougham with his usual eloquence and felicity of expression has said, “that juries declared they found it impossible to remove their looks from Mr. Erskine when he had, as it were, rivetted and fascinated them by his first glance,” I am obliged to confess that some of this Norfolk jury began visibly to nod, and it seemed likely, that, except the judge, the high sheriff, the barristers, the officers of the court, and myself, there would soon be no hearers left awake, and the beams of rising day were forcing themselves through the windows!
The observant Erskine took the hint, so palpably given, and coming up to me, he kindly said, “go home! go home! I shall not reply to-night; but you had better be here by eight in the morning,” and soon after the court adjourned to that hour.
When I reached the terrace of the castle[[14]] my steps were arrested, and even the necessity of sleep forgotten, by the sight of the most splendid sunrise I had ever beheld! I did not pause to gaze on it alone, and I should not have paused in my narrative, in order to mention so irrelevant a circumstance, had not my companion been one whom I never again beheld; one whom I have pleasure in recalling to my memory, and of whom I have lately been agreeably reminded by Dr. Bowring’s amusing memoir of Jeremy Bentham. I allude to the late George Wilson, who for many years went the Norwich Circuit, and to whom I was made known at an early age, and by whom my love of attending courts was good humouredly encouraged. When impaired health (rather than age) obliged this amiable and intellectual man to quit the bar, he retired into Scotland, his native country, and I think he took up his abode in the delightful city of Edinburgh, where he died a few years ago, lamented and regretted by all who had the privilege of his acquaintance. It is a satisfaction to me to have had the oportunity of paying even this little tribute to his memory.
I was in court again by half-past seven, but too late to obtain a seat, and I stood many hours, in a painful position, but I was soon made unconscious of it by the eloquence of Erskine; for during those hours he spoke, and hushed a court, crowded even to suffocation, into the most perfect stillness. Never was the power of an orator over his audience more evident or more complete.
The plaintiff gained her cause, and her advocate new laurels; for I know that those best qualified to form a correct judgment on the subject, namely, his brother lawyers, who were present, declared that they had “never before heard Mr. E. so great in reply.”
Fortunate, therefore, were those who heard him that day, as never again was he heard to equal advantage. A few months afterwards he was made Lord Chancellor, and when, while talking to him at a party in London, I told him I was every day intending to go into the Court of Chancery, in hope of hearing him speak in his new capacity—his reply was, “Pray do not come! you will not hear anything worth the trouble. I am nothing now; you heard the last and best of me at Norwich last year!”
This was indeed too true; and those powers of forensic eloquence for which he was so celebrated, he could exercise no longer. His audiences, in future life, were almost wholly different from his former ones, and those attractions so peculiarly his own, were not necessary on the judgment-seat, in the Court of Chancery, and would have been in a measure thrown away in the House of Lords.
Fortunate, therefore, I repeat it, were those who heard him in the Right-of-Way cause at Norwich, and when he forcibly reminded me of the portrait of Garrick so admirably drawn by the pen of Sheridan in his unequalled monody—a portrait which might have been supposed to be that of the Honorable Thomas Erskine, for his indeed were
“The grace of action, the adapted mien,
Faithful as nature to the varied scene;