"Ye Barristers of England
Your triumphs idle are,
Till ye can match the names that ring
Round Caledonia's Bar.
Your John Doe and your Richard Roe
Are but a paltry pair:
Look at those who compose
The flocks round Brodie's Stair,
Who ruminate on Shaw and Tait
And flock round Brodie's Stair.
* * * * *
"But, Barristers of England,
Come to us lovingly,
And any Scot who greets you not
We'll send to Coventry.
Put past your brief, embark for Leith,
And when you've landed there,
Any wight with delight
Will point out Brodie's Stair
Or lead you all through Fountainhall
Till you enter Brodie's Stair."
Outram: Legal and other Lyrics.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE JUDGES OF SCOTLAND
From the Institution of the Court of Session by James V of Scotland till well into the nineteenth century, it was the custom of Scottish judges when taking their seat on the Bench to assume a title from an estate—it might even be from a farm—already in their own or their family's possession. So we find that nearly every parish in Scotland has given birth to a judge who by this practice has made that parish or an estate in it more or less familiar to Scottish ears. Monboddo, near Fordoun, in Kincardineshire, at once recalls the judge who gave "attic suppers" in his house in St. John Street, Edinburgh, and held a theory that all infants were born with tails like monkeys; but under the modern practice of simply adding "Lord" to his surname of Burnet, we doubt if his eccentric personality would be so readily remembered. Lord Dirleton's Doubts, Lord Fountainhall's Historical Observes, carry a more imposing sound in their titles than if those one-time indispensable works of reference had been simply named Nisbet on Legal Doubts, and Lauder on Historical Observations of Memorable Events.
The selection of a title was an important matter with these old judges. When Lauder was raised to the Bench, his estate to the south-east of Edinburgh was called Woodhead; but it would never have done for a Senator of the College of Justice to be known as "Lord Woodhead," so the name of the estate was changed to Fountainhall, and as Lord Fountainhall he took his seat among "the Fifteen" as the full Bench of judges was then termed.