Another remarkable case occurred at Durham. On this occasion, Scott, though a junior counsel, was appointed to lead by his seniors, the case being relative to collieries, and he being a Newcastle man. When Buller the judge, who was a coarse man, and fond of saying abrupt things, saw him, he said, "Sir, you have not a leg to stand upon." Scott answered, "My lord, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, I should sit down on hearing the judge so express himself; but so persuaded am I that I have the right on my side, that I must entreat your lordship to allow me to reply, and I must also express my expectation of gaining a verdict." He replied, and the jury, after consulting six or eight hours, gave the verdict in his favour. When he went to the ball that evening, he was received with open arms by every one.
When he went to Carlisle, Buller sent for him, and told him that "he had been thinking over that case on his way from Newcastle, and that he had come to the conclusion that he was entirely wrong, and that I was right. He had, therefore, sent for me to tell me this, and to express his regret for having attempted to stop me in court. This cause," said Lord Eldon, "raised me aloft."
Yet this man, with all his ability, had already attended the Cumberland assizes for seven years without receiving a brief. After the celebrity of this cause, when he next attended, he received seventy guineas in fees at Carlisle.
So much has been said in parliament, and in the newspapers lately, of Gentlemen of the Turf, and the very dubious nature of that appellation, that the following case comes curiously in point. A question arose as to the winner of the stakes in a race—there having been a condition, that the horses should be ridden by gentlemen; and it was disputed whether the winning horse had been ridden by a gentleman or not. The judge finally addressed the jury in these words—"Gentlemen of the jury, when I see you in that box I call you gentlemen, for I know you are such. Custom has authorized me, and, from your office there, you are entitled to be called gentlemen; but out of that box, I do not know what may be deemed the requisites that constitute a gentleman—therefore I can give you no direction," (a laugh.) The jury returned a verdict that he was not a gentleman. The next morning he challenged the two counsel, Law and Scott. They answered, they could not possibly fight one who had been pronounced by the verdict of a jury to be no gentleman.
Politics now began to rise in the prospects of this intelligent and indefatigable mind. The condition of the English lawyer forms as striking a contrast to that of the Continental jurisconsult, as the English constitution to the despotisms of Europe. Abroad, the lawyer may be a man of whatever extent of attainment, but his sphere is strictly professional; within that range he lives, makes a scanty income, with a still more scanty fame, disputes for forty or fifty years, and dies. France, of late years, is partially an exception, for France now extends the range of her professions; but in all the rest, the existence of the lawyer closely resembles the existence of the quadruped in the mill. In England all is of a different and a higher order. The bar itself is but a step; distinction in the courts is only the first stage of an ascent which may raise the individual to eminence in government, as well as dignity in the high places of his profession—it is the preparative for wearing those honours which form a family, and give a pledge to fortune. As the ancients said of the eagle, that, before he takes his flight for the day, he prepares his wings by plunging them in the mountain stream, the great lawyer has plunged in the depths of his profession only to ascend into a higher range of power and prospect, and there to steer his strong flight to the possession of all that man can desire.
On the formation of the Coalition ministry under North and Fox in 1783, the great seal being in commission, Scott was appointed king's counsel; but in this instance, so important to a young barrister, he yet showed manliness. Saturday was the day on which he was to receive this honour; but on ascertaining the Erskine and Pigot, both his juniors, and who were also to have silk gowns, were to be sworn in on the Friday, he instantly retracted his acceptance, as, "he could not submit to any waiver of his professional rank." The lords-commissioners called him before them, and argued the matter pressingly. But he would not give way. At last, as the patents for the two other counsel had already passed the great seal, they were sworn in on the Friday; but a patent of precedence was given to Scott, by which he took rank before them. The day of his patent was the 4th of June 1783: he was then thirty-two years old. Late in life, a friend asked whether he thought it was important thus to insist on retaining his rank. Eldon, with the experience of half a century, answered with great earnestness, "It was every thing. I owed my future success to it." There is a moral in the words of Wiseman—"The man who begins by humiliation, will soon find that the world will judge of him by his own deed."
Lord Eldon, in one of those conversations, strikingly remarked a similar conduct in the celebrated Lord Collingwood, who had been his schoolfellow. "Medals were given," said his lordship, "on the 1st of June, but not to him. When the medal was sent to him for Cape St Vincent, he returned it, saying that he felt conscious he had done his duty as well on the 1st of June as at Cape St Vincent; and that, if he did not merit the first medal, neither could he merit the second. He was quite right," said Lord Eldon, "he would have both or neither. Both were sent to him."
Parliament now opened to his ambition. Lord Thurlow, at Lord Weymouth's request, offered him Weobly, a borough in his patronage, (extinguished by the Reform Act of 1832.) Scott accepted the offer, on the condition that he should be left independent in his opinions. Thurlow said the "he had stipulated that already." Scott went down to the borough accordingly, made a "long speech," which the electors said they expected from him, "as he was a lawyer: it being also a treat which they had not enjoyed for thirty years." Lord Surrey, (afterwards Duke of Norfolk,) a prodigious reformer—a profession which, however, did not prevent him from constantly dabbling in the intrigues of electioneering—had harangued against him at Hereford, while Scott retorted at Weobly by smartly saying—"That though then unknown to them, he hoped he should entitle himself to more of their confidence, than if, being the son of the first Duke of England, he had held himself out to them as a reformer, whilst riding, as the Earl of Surry rode, into the first town of the county, drunk, upon a cider-cask, and talking in that state of reform!" Lord Surrey had been his client, and on meeting him in France afterwards, good-humouredly said—"I have had enough of meddling with you; I shall trouble you no more."
An odd incident, valuable to those who value foresightedness in this world's affairs, occurred at the time Scott was lodged at the vicar's, Mr Bridges. He had a daughter, a young child, and he said—"Who knows but you may come to be chancellor. As my girl can probably marry nobody but a clergyman, promise me you will give her husband a living when you have the seals." His answer was, "My promise is not worth half-a-crown; but you may have my promise." In after life, the child, then in womanhood, walked one morning into the chancellor's drawing-room, and claimed the fulfilment of his promise. It was duly performed, and she married.
There is perhaps no subject of human interest more entitled to an anxious and solemn curiosity, than the sentiments of a man of powerful and fully furnished mind in the immediate prospect of death. The coming change is so total and so tremendous, alarm and a sense of the unknown are so natural, that to find unpresuming confidence, and virtuous constancy of heart, in that awful time, cheers human nature. William Scott, always distinguished for great capacity and remarkable acquirements, about this period being seized with an illness, which he thought mortal, writes these memoranda on the verge of the grave:—