went. Then came Sir Thomas Davenport.

" 'We cannot have a consultation to-night, Mr. Wordsworth' (Wordsworth, I
think, was the name; it was a Cumberland name), shouted Davenport. 'Don't
you see how drunk Mr. Scott is? it is impossible to consult.' Poor me! who
had scarce had any dinner, and lost all my wine--I was so drunk that I
could not consult! Well, a verdict was given against us, and it was all
owing to Lawyer Fawcett's dinner. We moved for a new trial; and I must
say, for the honour of the Bar, that those two gentlemen, Jack Lee and Sir
Thomas Davenport, paid all the expenses between them of the first trial.
It is the only instance I ever knew, but they did. We moved for a new
trial (on the ground, I suppose, of the counsel not being in their
senses), and it was granted. When it came on, the following year, the
judge rose and said,--

" 'Gentlemen, did any of you dine with Lawyer Fawcett yesterday? for, if
you did, I will not hear this cause till next year.'

"There was great laughter. We gained the cause that time."

On another occasion, at Lancaster, where poor Bozzy must needs be going
the Northern Circuit, "we found him," says Mr. Scott, "lying upon the
pavement inebriated. We subscribed a guinea at supper for him, and a
half-crown for his clerk"--(no doubt there was a large Bar, and that
Scott's joke did not cost him much),--"and sent him, when he waked next
morning, a brief, with instructions to move for what we denominated the
writ of _quare adhaesit pavimento?_ with observations duly calculated to
induce him to think that it required great learning to explain the
necessity of granting it, to the judge before whom he was to move."
Boswell sent all round the town to attorneys for books, that might enable
him to distinguish himself--but in vain. He moved, however, for the writ,
making the best use he could of the observations in the brief. The judge
was perfectly astonished, and the audience amazed. The judge said, "I
never heard of such a writ--what can it be that adheres _pavimento_? Are
any of you gentlemen at the Bar able to explain this?"

The Bar laughed. At last one of them said,--

"My lord, Mr. Boswell last night _adhaesit pavimento_. There was no moving
him for some time. At last he was carried to bed, and he has been dreaming
about himself and the pavement."

The canny old gentleman relishes these jokes. When the Bishop of Lincoln
was moving from the deanery of St. Paul's, he says he asked