Law and Laughter
these?" pointing to his own. "No, my lord," replied the witness, "they were a good deal better and more genteeler."

   As an example of his (Lord Kenyon's) style of ad

   dressing a condemned prisoner we have the following. A butler had been charged and convicted of stealing his master's wine.

   "Prisoner at the bar, you stand convicted on the most conclusive evidence of a crime of inexpressible atrocity—a crime that defiles the sacred springs of domestic confidence, and is calculated to strike alarm into the breast of every Englishman who invests largely in the choicer vintages of Southern Europe. Like the serpent of old, you have stung the hand of your protector. Fortunate in having a generous employer, you might without discovery have continued to supply your wretched wife and children with the comforts of sufficient prosperity, and even with some of the luxuries of affluence; but, dead to every claim of natural affection, and blind to your own real interest, you burst through all the restraints of religion and morality, and have for many years been

    feathering

   your nest with your master's

    bottles

   ."

   Lord Kenyon was warmly attached to George III, who had a high opinion of him; but like many of his lordship's contemporaries, his Majesty strongly deprecated the frequent outbursts of temper on the part of his Chief Justice. "At a levee, soon after an extraordinary explosion of ill-humour in the Court of King's Bench, his Majesty said to him: 'My Lord Chief Justice, I hear that you have lost your temper, and from

   my great regard for you, I am very glad to hear it, for I hope you will find a better one.'"

   Of Lord Chief Justice Tenterden, Lord Campbell asserts that he once, and only once, uttered a pun. A learned gentleman, who had lectured on the law and was too much addicted to oratory came to argue a special demurrer before him. "My client's opponent," said the figurative advocate, "worked like a mole under ground,

    clam et secretè

   ." His figures only elicited a grunt from the Chief Justice. "It is asserted in Aristotle's

    Rhetoric

   —."—"I don't want to hear what is asserted in 
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