William Maconochie (Lord Meadowbank), was an able but curious man. Before he spoke, Cockburn says, it would often have been a fair wager whether what he said would be reasonable or extravagant. All that was certain was, that even his extravagance would be vigorous and original, and he had more pleasure in inventing ingenious reasons for being wrong than in being quietly right. Sir Harry Moncrieff, who was present at his marriage, told that the knot was tied about seven in the evening, and that at a later hour the bridegroom disappeared, and on being sought for, was found absorbed in the composition of a metaphysical essay on “pains and penalties.”
There has been no more famous legal notability in Scotland than John Clerk of Eldin, afterwards Lord Eldin. When Meadowbank was yet Mr. Maconochie, he one day approached his facetious professional brother, Clerk, and after telling him that he had prospects of being raised to the bench, asked him to suggest what title he should adopt.
“Lord Preserve Us!” said Clerk, and moved off.
When pleading before the same learned senator, after he had assumed the judicial title of Lord Meadowbank, it was suggested to Clerk by his Lordship that in the legal document which he had submitted to the Court he might have varied the frequently recurring expression “also,” by the occasional use of “likewise.”
“I beg your pardon, my Lord,” said Clerk, “but the terms are not always synonymous.”
“In every case,” retorted Meadowbank, gruffly.
Clerk still dissented.
“Then cite an instance,” demanded the Judge.
“Well,” remarked Clerk, doubtless chuckling inwardly the while, “your Lordship’s father was a Judge of Session. You are a Judge of Session also, but not likewise.”
Clerk’s ready wit helped him well on many an occasion. In pleading, he frequently dropped into broad Scotch, and once when arguing a Scotch appeal case before the House of Lords, in which his client claimed the use of a mill-stream by a prescriptive right, he contended that “the watter had run that way for forty years.”