IV
THE LAMP
OF WIT
IV
THE LAMP OF WIT
At the back of this little word “wit” lies the idea of knowledge, understanding, sense. In its manifestation we look for a keen perception of some incongruity of the moment. The murky atmosphere of the court is illuminated by a flash of thought, quick, happy, and even amusing. Wit, wisely used, bridges over a difficulty, smooths away annoyance, or perhaps turns aside anger, dissolving embarrassment in a second’s laughter.
Nor can “(laughter in court),” a derogatory parenthesis unknown in the official law reports, be wholly condemned among human men. “How much lies in laughter, the cipher key wherewith we decipher the whole man!” Laughter may be derisive, unkind, even cruel, or it may be rightly used as a just weapon of ridicule wherewith to smite pretension and humbug. It may be gracious and full of kindliness, putting a timid man at his ease, or instinct with good-humour, softening wrath or mitigating tedious irrelevancy. It may be the due recognition of a witty text preaching a useful truth, that could otherwise be expressed only in a treatise; as when Common Law said unto Chancery, “Truth will leak out even in an affidavit;” or when Erskine replied to Kenyon, who suggested that he should apply to Chancery for relief, “Would your lordship send a dog you loved there?”
From the earliest times wit has been a light to lighten the darkness of advocacy. Cicero was noted for the jests and repartees which punctuated his forensic speeches, and these were held “not foreign to the business of the forum.” Yet, like many a man of wit, he stumbled on occasion through the temptation of the gift, and offended some with malevolent sayings, as Bethell and others have done in our own time. It is easy to forget the poet’s warning about “the medium in all things.”
Pedants and bores resent all forms of wit, but a real humorist rejoices in nothing so much as a good story against himself. Rufus Choate was a man of great eloquence and abounding vocabulary, but he had a true sense of wit. No one enjoyed better the remark of Mr. Justice Wilde, a dry, precise judge who, out of court, on occasion allowed his wit expression. He was asked by a junior if he had not heard that Mr. Worcester had just published a new edition of his dictionary with a great number of additional words. Gripping his young friend’s arm, he said in a perturbed whisper, “No, I had not heard of it. But, for God’s sake, don’t tell Choate!”
Choate had his own wit, which charmed many juries to his clients’ cause. No one could more pleasantly disperse the frowning morality of a common jury by a human simile. What could be more pastoral and poetical than his description of his clients in an Arcadian divorce case? “They were playful, gentlemen of the jury, not guilty. After the morning toil they sat down upon the hay-mow for refreshment, not crime. There may have been a little youthful fondling, playful, not amorous. They only wished to soften the asperities of hay-making.” One can see the jury broadening into sympathy and smiles over the pleasantry of the final phrase.
Often the wit of an advocate will turn a judge from an unwise course where argument or rhetoric would certainly fail. Lord Mansfield paid little attention to religious holidays. He would sit on Ash-Wednesday, to the scandal of some members of the Bar, whose protests made no impression upon him. At the end of Lent he suggested that the court might sit on Good Friday. The members of the Bar were horrified. Serjeant Davy, who was in the case, bowed in acceptance of the proposition. “If your lordship pleases; but your lordship will be the first judge that has done so since Pontius Pilate.” The court adjourned until Saturday.
But the learned Serjeant “Bull Davy,” as he was called on circuit, could never pass a jest, even at the expense of his client. He was defending a criminal against whom the prosecution had opened a very strong case.
“Who is concerned for the prisoner?”