"Necessity and Cringletie
Are fitted to a tittle;
Necessity has nae law,
And Cringletie as little."
The only man on the Bench for whom John Clerk retained a respectfulness not generally exhibited to others in that position was Lord President Blair. After hearing the President overturn without any effort an argument he had laboriously built up, and which appeared to be regarded as unsurmountable by the audience who heard it, Clerk sat still for a few moments, then as he rose to leave the Court he was heard to say: "My man, God Almighty spared nae pains when He made your brains."
When he ascended the Bench in his sixty-fifth year, and when his physical powers were declining, he received the congratulations of his brother judges, one of whom expressed surprise that he had waited so long for the distinction. "Well, you see, I did not get 'doited' just as soon as the rest of you," replied the new-made judge.
Like the generation preceding his, Clerk was of a very convivial disposition. Of him the story is told that one Sunday morning, while people were making their way to church, he appeared at his door in York Place in his dressing-gown and cowl, with a lighted candle in his hand, showing out two friends who had been carousing with him, and in the firm belief that it was about midnight instead of next mid-day. At the termination of a Bannatyne Club dinner, where wit and wine had contended for the mastery, the excited judge on the way to his carriage tumbled downstairs and, miserabile dictu, broke his nose, an accident which compelled him to confine himself to the house for some time. He reappeared, however, with a large patch on his olfactory member, which gave a most ludicrous expression to his face. On someone inquiring how this happened, he said it was the effect of his studies. "Studies!" ejaculated the inquirer. "Yes," growled the judge; "ye've heard, nae doot, about Coke upon Littleton, but I suppose you never before heard of Clerk upon Stair!"
When asked by a friend what was the difference between him and Lord Eldon, the Lord Chancellor of England, Eldin replied; "Oh, there's only an 'i' of a difference."
CHARLES HAY, LORD NEWTON.
Charles Hay (Lord Newton), known in private life as "The Mighty," has been described by Lord Cockburn as "famous for law, paunch, whist, claret, and worth." His indulgence in wine and his great bulk made him slumbrous, and when sitting in Court after getting the gist of a case he almost invariably fell fast asleep. Yet it is strange to find it recorded that whenever anything pertinent to the matter under discussion was said he was immediately wide awake and in full possession of his reasoning faculties. While a very zealous but inexperienced counsel was pleading before him, his lordship had been dozing, as usual, for some time, till at last the young man, supposing him asleep, and confident of a favourable judgment in his case, stopped short in his pleading and, addressing the other judges on the Bench, said: "My lords, it is unnecessary that I should go on, as Lord Newton is fast asleep."—"Ay, ay," cried Lord Newton, "you will have proof of that by and by"—when, to the astonishment of the young advocate, after a most luminous view of the case, he gave a very decided and elaborate judgment against him.