It is further to be remarked, that the Side Bar in Westminster-hall stood, till very lately, within a short space of the wall, and at a few feet on the Palace-yard side of the court of Common Pleas’ steps. Formerly, attorneys stood within this bar every morning during term, and moved the judges for the common rules, called side-bar rules, as they passed to their courts, and by whom they were granted them as of course. These motions have been long discontinued; the rules are applied for and obtained at the rule-office as rules of course; but each rule still expresses that it has been granted upon a “side-bar” motion.
To recur to the [engraving], which exhibits Westminster-hall at no distant period, in a state very dissimilar to its more late appearance. The original print by Mosley bears the following versified inscription:
When fools fall out, for ev’ry flaw,
They run horn mad to go to law,
A hedge awry, a wrong plac’d gate,
Will serve to spend a whole estate,
Your case the lawyer says is good,
And justice cannot be withstood;
By tedious process from above
From office they to office move;
Thro’ pleas, demurrers, the dev’l and all,
At length they bring it to the hall;
The dreadful hall by Rufus rais’d,
For lofty Gothick arches prais’d.
The First of Term, the fatal day,
Doth various images convey;
First from the courts with clam’rous bawl
The criers their attorneys call;
One of the gown, discreet and wise,
By proper means his witness tries;
From Wreathock’s gang—not right or laws
H’assures his trembling client’s cause;
This gnaws his handkerchief, whilst that
Gives the kind ogling nymph his hat;
Here one in love with choiristers
Minds singing more than law affairs.
A serjeant limping on behind
Shews justice lame, as well as blind.
To gain new clients some dispute,
Others protract an ancient suit,
Jargon and noise alone prevail,
While sense and reason’s sure to fail;
At Babel thus law terms began,
And now at Westm——er go on.
The advocate, whose subornation of perjury is hinted at, is in the foremost group; he is offering money to one of “Wreathock’s gang.” This Wreathock was a villainous attorney, who received sentence of death for his criminal practices, and was ordered to be transported for life in 1736. It is a notorious fact, that many years ago wretches sold themselves to give any evidence, upon oath, that might be required; and some of these openly walked Westminster-hall with a straw in the shoe to signify that they wanted employment as witnesses; such was one of the customs of the “good old times,” which some of us regret we were not born in. The “choirister” in a surplice, bearing a torch, was probably one of the choir belonging to Westminster-abbey. To his right hand is the “limping serjeant” with a stick; his serjeantship being denoted by the coif, or cap, he wears; the coif is now diminished into a small circular piece of black silk at the top of the wig, instead of the cap represented in the engraving. The first shop, on the left, is occupied by a bookseller; the next by a mathematical instrument maker; then there is another bookseller; beyond him a dealer in articles of female consumption; beyond her a bookseller again; and, last on that side, a second female shopkeeper. Opposite to her, on the right of the hall, stands a clock, with the hands signifying it to be about one in the afternoon; the first shop, next from the clock, is a bookseller’s; then comes a female, who is a map and printseller; and, lastly, the girl who receives the barrister’s hat into her care, and whose line appears to sustain the “turnovers” worn by the beaus of those days with “ruffles,” which, according to Ned Ward, the sempstresses of Westminster-hall nicely “pleated,” to the satisfaction of the “young students” learned in the law.
Enough has, probably, been said of the engraving, to obtain regard to it as an object worth notice.
The first day of term is occupied, in the common law courts, by the examination of bail for persons who have been arrested, and whose opponents will not consent to the bail justifying before a judge at his chambers. A versified exemplification of this proceeding in the court of King’s Bench, was written when lord Mansfield was chief, and Mr. Willes a justice of the court; a person named Hewitt was then cryer, Mr. Mingay, a celebrated counsel, still remembered, is represented as opposing the bail proposed by Mr. Baldwin, another counsel:
KING’S-BENCH PRACTICE. CHAP. 10. OF JUSTIFYING BAIL.
Baldwin. Hewitt, call Taylor’s bail,—for I
Shall now proceed to justify.
Hewitt. Where’s Taylor’s bail?
1st Bail.————————— I can’t get in.
Hewitt. Make way.
Lord Mansfield.—— For heaven’s sake begin.
Hewitt. But where’s the other?
2d Bail.————————— Here I stand.
Mingay. I must except to both.—Command
Silence,—and if your lordship crave it,
Austen shall read our affidavit.
Austen. Will. Priddle, late of Fleet-street, gent.
Makes oath and saith, that late he went
To Duke’s-place, as he was directed
By notice, and he there expected
To find both bail—but none could tell
Where the first bail lived—
Mingay.———————Very well.
Austen. And this deponent further says,
That, asking who the second was,
He found he’d bankrupt been, and yet
Had ne’er obtained certificate.
When to his house deponent went,
He full four stories high was sent,
And found a lodging almost bare;
No furniture, but half a chair,
A table, bedstead, broken fiddle
And a bureau.
(Signed) William Priddle.
Sworn at my chambers.
Francis Buller.
Mingay. No affidavit can be fuller.
Well, friend, you’ve heard this affidavit,
What do you say?
2d Bail.———Sir, by your leave, it
Is all a lie.
Mingay. Sir, have a care,
What is your trade?
2d Bail.———— A scavenger.
Mingay. And, pray, sir, were you never found
Bankrupt?
2d Bail. I’m worth a thousand pound.
Mingay. A thousand pound, friend, boldly said—
In what consisting?
2d Bail.————Stock in trade.
Mingay. And, pray, friend, tell me,—do you know
What sum you’re bail for?
2d Bail.—————— Truly no.
Mingay. My lords, you hear,—no oaths have check’d him:
I hope your lordships will—
Willes.———————— Reject him.
Mingay. Well, friend, now tell me where you dwell.
1st Bail. Sir, I have liv’d in Clerkenwell
These ten years.
Mingay.—— Half-a-guinea dead. (Aside.)
My lords, if you’ve the notice read,
It says Duke’s-place. So I desire
A little further time t’ inquire.
Baldwin. Why, Mr. Mingay, all this vapour?
Willes. Take till to morrow.
Lord Mansfield.———— Call the paper.
The preceding pleasantry came from the pen of the late John Baynes, Esq. a Yorkshire gentleman, who was born in April, 1758, educated for the law at Trinity college, Cambridge, obtained prizes for proficiency in philosophy and classical attainments, was admitted of Gray’s-inn, practised in his profession, and would probably have risen to its first honours. Mr. Nichols says “his learning was extensive; his abilities great; his application unwearied; his integrity unimpeached. In religious principles he was an Unitarian Christian and Protestant; in political principles the friend of the civil liberties of mankind, and the genuine constitution of his country. He died August 4, 1787, and was buried on the 9th in Bunhill-fields’ burying-ground, near to the grave of Dr. Jebb,” his tutor at college: “the classical hand of Dr. Parr” commemorated him by an epitaph.