quashed."
Having met at supper the famous Dr. Brocklesby, he entered into familiar conversation with him, and there was an interchange of stories just a little trenching on the decorous. It so happened that the doctor had to appear next morning before Lord Mansfield in the witness-box; and on the strength of the previous evening's doings the witness, on taking up his position, nodded to the Chief Justice with offensive familiarity as to a boon companion. His lordship taking no notice of his salutation, but writing down his evidence, when he came to summing it up to the jury thus proceeded: "The next witness is one Rocklesby or Brocklesby, Brocklesby or Rocklesby—I am not sure which—and first he swears he is a physician."
Lord Chief Baron Parker, in his eighty-seventh year, having observed to Lord Mansfield who was seventy-eight: "Your lordship and myself are now at sevens and eights," the younger Chief Justice replied: "Would you have us to be all our lives at sixes and sevens? But let us talk of young ladies and not old age."
Trying an action which arose from the collision of two ships at sea, a sailor who gave an account of the accident said, "At the time I was standing abaft the binnacle."—"Where is abaft the binnacle?" asked
Lord Mansfield; upon which the witness, who had taken a large share of grog before coming into Court, exclaimed loud enough to be heard by all present: "A pretty fellow to be a judge, who don't know where abaft the binnacle is!" Lord Mansfield, instead of threatening to commit him for contempt, said: "Well, my friend, fit me for my office by telling me where
abaft the binnacle is
; you have already shown me the meaning of
half-seas over
."
On one occasion Lord Mansfield covered his retreat from an untenable position with a sparkling pleasantry. An old witness named ELM having given his evidence with remarkable clearness, although he was more than eighty years of age, Lord Mansfield examined him as to his habitual mode of living, and found he had been through life an early riser and a singularly temperate man. "Ay," remarked the Chief Justice, in a tone of approval, "I have always found that without temperance and early habits longevity is never attained." The next witness, the elder brother of this model of temperance, was then called, and he almost surpassed his brother
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