92 



LITERARY DIVERSION. 



a shrewd and able man as his lord- 

 ship. He forthwith took his cue. 

 " What fine poetry," said the Chan- 

 cellor, " is in Isaiah !" " Very fine," 

 replied the man, " especially when 

 read in the original Hebrew." 

 "And how well Jeremiah wrote!" 

 "Surely," said the man. "What 

 a genius, too, was Ezekiel !" " Do 

 you like him ?" said the man ; "I'll 

 tell you a secret 1 am Ezekiel /" 



LORD BROUGHAM'S CHAN- 

 CELLORSHIP. 



Lord Brougham had a great 

 horror of hearing the almost inter- 

 .minable speeches which some of 

 the junior counsel were in the habit 

 of making, after he conceived every- 

 thing had been said which could 

 be said on the real merits of the 

 case before the court by the gen- 

 tlemen who preceded them. His 

 hints to them to be brief on such 

 occasions were sometimes extremely 

 happy. Once, after listening with 

 the greatest attention to the speeches 

 of two counsel on one side, from 

 ten o'clock until half-past two, a 

 third rose to address the court on 

 the same side. His lordship was 

 quite unprepared for this additional 

 infliction, and exclaimed, " What ! 



Mr. A , are you really going to 



speak on the same side ?" 



u Yes, iny lord, I mean to tres- 

 pass on your lordship's attention 

 for a short time." 



"Then," said his lordship, look- 

 ing the orator significantly in the 

 face, and giving a sudden twitch of 



his nose "then, Mr. A , you 



had better cut your speech as short 

 as possible, otherwise you must not 

 be surprised if you see me dozing ; 

 for really this is more than human 

 nature can endure." 



The young barrister took the 

 hint : he kept closely to the point 

 at issue a thing very rarely done 

 by barristers and condensed his 

 arguments into a reasonable com- 

 pass. 



NATURAL PORTRAITS. 



The Entomological Magazine 

 (vol. i. p. 518) states, that " on the 

 reverse of Hipparchia Janira (a 

 butterfly), may be traced a veiy 

 tolei'ably defined profile, and some 

 specimens, no very bad likeness, of 

 Lord Brougham. The Caricature 

 Plant in Kew Gardens has been 

 observed to represent on its fantas- 

 tically variegated leaves the same 

 remarkable profile ; and a more 

 permanent likeness than either is 

 pointed out to visitors to the island 

 of Arran, sculptured by nature on 

 the rugged peaks of Goatfell. 



LITERAEY DIVERSION, 



About the middle of the seven- 

 teenth century the scribes, or rather 

 those whose ambition was not of 

 the most soaring order, used to 

 divert themselves, and rack their 

 inventive powers, by torturing and 

 twisting their verses into odd de- 

 vices and shapes, expressive of the 

 themes they discussed as might 

 be expected, to the serious detri- 

 ment of their poetic merit. Many 

 of these fantastic performances were 

 of grotesque or even ludicrous de- 

 scription, such as fans, and toilet- 



glasses, and frocks, for love songs ; 

 wine-glasses, bottles, and flagons, 

 for drinking songs : pulpits, altars, 

 and tomb-stones, for religious ver- 

 ses and epitaphs ; and even flying 

 angels, Grecian temples, and Egyp- 

 tian pyramids, for patriotic effu- 

 sions. 



Another species of literary diver- 

 sion may be noticed in the curious 

 combination of words, mostly in 

 Lathi, by some of the early writers, 

 in which, however, their wit is less 

 discernible than their patient inge- 



