July 22. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



71 



in the days when George III. was King, which 

 some future Macaulay, when seeking to reproduce in 

 his vivid pages the form and pressure of the time, 

 may cite from ' N. Sf Q.,' ivithout risk of leading 

 his readers to any very inaccurate conclusions." 

 Now, highly as we may estimate "N. & Q.," it may 

 be doubted whether the future historian would be 

 likely to look to them under the date of June 10, 

 1854, for what was already recorded in the lives 

 of Lord Eldon and Lord Langdale; but if he did he 

 would assuredly be " led to very inaccurate con- 

 clusions" by T. A. T.'s Florentine version : for, in 

 the first place, the lines are not the " picture of 

 Chancery-practice" but of four Chancery-prac- 

 titioners of the time of George IV., in whose re- 

 gency, if not his reign (as I rather believe), the 

 verses were written ; and (which is of more im- 

 portance) T. A. T. blunts two points of the epi- 

 gram by applying to Mr. Leach one of the cha- 

 racters of Mr. Hart, and vice versa. 



Then (Vol. x., p. 18.), another correspondent, 

 O. B., offers a corrected version, which is still 

 more erroneous, for it repeats the same mistake 

 as to Leach and Hart, and adopts another mode 

 (by Mr. Hardy) of substituting Mr. Bell speaking 

 so well, which has no point at all, for " Mr. Cook 

 quoting his book," which was really a sharp one. 



As the account given of this pleasantry in the 

 Quarterly appears, as we have said, to have had 

 the sanction of the author, it may be as well to 

 transcribe it. 



" It happened that Mr. Vesev, the reporter, being sud- 

 denly called out of the Court of Chancery, requested Mr., 

 now Sir George Rose, to take a note of the argument, 

 which he did, accurately enough it is said, in the follow- 

 ing lines : — 



' Mr. Leach made a speech, 



Angry, neat, and wrong ; 

 Mr. Hart, on the other part, 



Was right, but dull and long. 

 Mr. Parker made that darker, 



Which was dark enough without ; 

 Mr. Cook quoted his book, 

 And the Chancellor said, I doubt.' " 



Quart. Rev., Sept. 1852. 



The following was, I believe, the occasion 

 of these lines : — A certain witty barrister, now 

 a Master in Chancery, was asked by a friend, 

 a reporter, to watch a cause for him in his ab- 

 sence, and make out a short report of it. The 

 barrister so deputed forgot his undertaking, and 

 paid little attention to the debate till it was too 

 late, when he scribbled off the metrical report in 

 question, which was as follows. All the charac- 

 ters are well remembered by the Chancery bar : — 



" Mr. Leach made a speech, 

 Angry, neat, but wrong ; 

 Mr. Hart, on the other part, 

 Was prosy, dull, and long. 



Mr. Bell spoke very well, 

 Though nobody knew about what ; 



Mr. Trower talked for an hour, 

 Sat down fatigued and hot. 



Mr. Parker made the case darker, 

 Which was dark enough without ; 



Mr. Cook quoted his book, 

 And the Chancellor said, I doubt." 



N". E. N. 



Lincoln's Inn. 



T. A. T. and O. B. write Leech. Leach is the 

 right name. He afterwards filled the ofl5ces of 

 Vice-Chancellor of England and Master of the 

 Rolls. Hart was promoted to the offices of Vice- 

 Chancellor of England and Lord Chancellor of 

 Ireland. As to Mr. Parker, see Twiss's note to 

 the passage extracted, ending 



" Parker happened to chime with * darker.' If the 

 counsel had been a Mr. Rayner, the report would as- 

 suredly have run ' made the case plainer.' " 



Referring to the concluding passage of T. A. T.'s 

 note, I know not what weight the Macaulay of 

 the twenty-first or twenty-second century may 

 give to my friend Rose's extempore squib, but I 

 will express my earnest hope that the Lord Chan- 

 cellor of that day may be as able, as honest, and 

 as agreeable a judge as Lord Eldon was, and that 

 he may have as learned, intelligent, and powerful 

 a bar as practised before him at the time we are 

 speaking of. To the counsel already named must 

 be added the (I believe I may say) unrivalled Sir 

 Samuel Romilly, their cotemporary. Mr. Wil- 

 liams, of the common law bar, afterwards Mr. 

 Justice Williams, one of the most formidable as- 

 sailants of Lord Chancellor Eldon, both in the 

 House of Commons and in the Edinburgh Review, 

 appeared as counsel in the Court of Chancery 

 upon some common law matter. As he left the 

 court at the close of the day, he said, "Your Lord 

 Chancellor is an abundantly agreeable judge." 

 Twiss has fully discussed Lord Eldon's judicial 

 character in his third volume. J. W. Faereb. 



Here is another forensic jocularity which I find 

 in an old law book : 



" A woman, having a settlement, 

 Married a man with none ; 

 The question was, he being dead. 

 If that she had was gone. 

 Quoth Sir John Pratt, ' Her settlement 

 Suspended did remain 

 Living the husband, but him dead, 

 It did revive again.' 

 Chorus of Puisne Judges, — 



Living the husband, but him dead. 

 It did revive again." 



H.M. 



Peckham. 



