“Kindly sit down, Mr. Strang; Mr. Bruce is before the Court just now. I shall gladly hear you afterwards.”
“I am sitting, my Lord,” explained Strang, to the utter discomfiture of the astounded judge, and amidst the roars of laughter of all the members of the bar.
It was of these two able fellows that a waggish brother-barrister made the impromptu epigram—
“To the heights of the law, though I hope you will rise,
You will never be judges, I’m sure of a(s)size.”
Lawyers, like editors, have been frequently made the butt of the satirist; but illustrations of their wit and humour, such as are here deduced—and they could be multiplied almost to any extent—show how well able they have been to hold their own—yea, to rout the enemy. Jeffrey was frequently more than equal to the occasion. When addressing a jury in a certain trial, he had occasion to speak freely of a military officer who was a witness in the cause; and having frequently described him as “this soldier,” the witness, who was present, could not restrain himself, but started up, and called out—
“Don’t call me a soldier, sir; I am an officer!”
“Well, gentlemen of the jury,” proceeded Jeffrey, “this officer who, according to his own statement, is no soldier,” etc.
And what cause could the livelier of them not extract fun from? At a jury trial in the town of Jedburgh, in which Moncrieff, Jeffrey, and Cockburn were engaged as counsel, while the former was addressing the jury, Jeffrey passed a slip of paper to Cockburn, with the following case for his opinion:—