'Conrad Buhel of Tübingen, distinguished by his bravery among the captains of Cæsar Maximilian in the Hungarian campaign, was, once in camp, lying on the straw and expecting no evil, when there entered another soldier to whom Conrad had done an injury. Who, when he found him thus lying on his back, said with that noble magnanimity characteristic of the German mind: 'Wert thou not lying helpless, I would stab thee with my sword!' To which Conrad replied: 'Wilt thou do me no injury until I stand up and am ready for fight?' 'Not I,' replied his foe, 'for I hold it base to strike an unarmed man.' 'Then,' replied Conrad, 'I shall lie still all night.' But on the next day he transfixed the other with his spear.'
The same story is told of an eminent Irish lawyer, who had offended the client of a rival pleader. 'Will ye get up till I bate yees?' 'An' would ye strike a man lying down?' 'Divil a bit!' 'Then I'll jist go to slape again.' In the modern stories the foes are reconciled—in the old camp incident all is fierce and characteristic of the bloody feuds of the middle ages, and the final murder of the great-hearted enemy strikes us with a pang. The sed postri die alterum cuspide transfixit seems brutal and ungenerous; but the event, whether literally true or feigned, had no such discord to the readers of those days. It was more essential to establish the thorough bravery of Conrad, than to reward the magnanimity of his foe. Truly, the history of jests is the history of civilization.
In relation to this transmission of the renown of stories of the olden times to lawyers of the later day, we may cite the well-known incident of the honest criminal who, travelling alone on foot, was met by Sir Matthew Hale, and in answer to the questions of the latter, admitted that he was going to a distant court to be tried for his life. The same noble truthfulness is beautifully set forth in the following, Pulchra historia simplicis prætoris et furis, or 'Fine Story of a Simple-hearted Superintendent and Thief.'
'My lord of Stœffel, of that free and excellent nobility which are called barons, had a superintendent of his serfs. And he, when a certain man was accused of theft, and condemned by him to the torture of the cross (ad crucis tormentum damnasset), with rustic simplicity sent the criminal to the church that he might confess his sins, first taking his word that he would return after confession. So he entered the shrine, confessed, and not heeding the privilege of ecclesiastical immunity (i. e., the right of sanctuary), 'whereby he might have escaped, kept his faith with the superintendent (fidem prætori servavit), and again returning underwent extreme punishment. And this I knew from my boyhood, that he went up to the place of punishment with such alacrity, that it would seem as if he truly desired death. But many curses were lavished on the priest to whom he confessed, because he did not warn the imprudent man not to quit the bounds of ecclesiastical freedom!'
There is a whole ballad—nay, a whole history of the middle ages in this story; for among thousands I can recall none as perfectly characteristic of the times. The absolute aristocratic control of the life of a white slave; its abuse by transferring it to the arbitrary will of an upper servant; the blind devotion to feudal service shown in the fidelity of the poor serf, the horrible cruelty of his punishment; and finally, the cowardly supple fawning of the local priesthood, who were always either worms or dragons in their relations to the nobility, are all set forth here in a few lines.
I have said that the eminent lawyers of modern times are greatly favored in the inheritance of old jokes. Judge Jeffries, we are told, in examining an old fellow with a long beard, told him he supposed he had a conscience quite as long as that natural ornament of his visage. 'Does your lordship measure consciences by beards?' said the man; 'that is strange, seeing you yourself are shaven.' Among the monk-Latin tales there is one to the effect that a certain pater, priding himself on his beard, was informed that in a convent of he-goats he certainly deserved to be abbot. The same story, re-made into a gross form, is current in this country, and attributed to an eminent Virginia politician. In the Antidotum Melancholiæ (Frankfort, 1667), it is given in the form of an evidently very old Latin rhyme:
'Si bene barbatum faceret sua barba beatum,
Nullus in hoc circo fuerit felicior hireo.'
There is a modern story current in America, which is often circumstantially narrated, of some individual wearing a fine beard or 'whiskers,' and who is said to have sold them to a vulgar practical joker, who had one shaved off, but suffered the other to remain for a long time on the face of his victim, annoying him meantime with inquiries as to 'my whisker.' It is the true type of a great number of stories which originated in the Southern and South-Western United States, the point of which almost invariably turns on vexing, grieving, or maltreating some victim, who is an inferior as regards wit, fortune, or physique. It is worth remarking that the only really original and characteristic class of jokes which the slave States originated are strongly marked with that cruelty and vulgarity which naturally attend the morbidly vain and semi-civilized man, who is so unfortunate as to have inferiors by fortune entirely in his power. I would ask the reader in confirmation of this to simply turn over the large collection of 'Georgia Major' and 'Simon Suggs' tales, which, emanating from the South, have contributed so much to brutalize and vulgarize the humorous tendencies of that portion of the more Northern public which reads them.
But to return to the story of the half shaven beard. It also is a very old one, being told in its original form as Barba deceptus Judæus—'The Jew deceived by a beard,' and is as follows:
'A nobleman of Frankfort, while being shaved in a barber's shop, was summoned by a Jew to whom he owed money. But at the request of his debtor the Jew consented to forego the arrest until the nobleman's beard should be shaved. Upon which the latter departed unshorn, and ever remained so.'