decision was dictated by the
clerk, and duly signed by the judge, who left the bench highly diverted
with the fright he had given his young friend." Such scenes enacted in
court _now_ would astonish the present generation, both of lawyers and
of suitors.

We should not do justice to our Scottish Reminiscences of judges and
lawyers, if we omitted the once celebrated Court of Session _jeu
d'esprit_ called the "Diamond Beetle Case." This burlesque report of a
judgment was written by George Cranstoun, advocate, who afterwards sat
in court as judge under the title of Lord Corehouse. Cranstoun was one
of the ablest lawyers of his time; he was a prime scholar, and a man of
most refined taste and clear intellect. This humorous and clever
production was printed in a former edition of these Reminiscences, and
in a very flattering notice of the book which appeared in the _North
British Review_, the reviewer--himself, as is well known, a
distinguished member of the Scottish judicial bench--remarks: "We are
glad that the whole of the 'Diamond Beetle' by Cranstoun has been given;
for nothing can be more graphic, spirited, and ludicrous, than the
characteristic speeches of the learned judges who deliver their opinions
in the case of defamation." As copies of this very clever and jocose
production are not now easily obtained, and as some of my younger
readers may not have seen it, I have reprinted it in this edition.
Considered in the light of a memorial of the bench, as it was known to
a former generation, it is well worth preserving; for, as the editor of
_Kay's Portraits_ well observes, although it is a caricature, it is
entirely without rancour, or any feeling of a malevolent nature towards
those whom the author represents as giving judgment in the "Diamond
Beetle" case. And in no way could the involved phraseology of Lord
Bannatyne, the predilection for Latin quotation of Lord Meadowbank, the
brisk manner of Lord Hermand, the anti-Gallic feeling of Lord Craig, the
broad dialect of Lords Polkemmet and Balmuto, and the hesitating manner
of Lord Methven, be more admirably caricatured.

FULL COPY OF THE FINDING OF THE COURT IN
THE ONCE CELEBRATED "DIAMOND BEETLE
CASE[47]."

_Speeches taken at advising the Action of Defamation and
Damages,_ ALEXANDER CUNNINGHAM, _Jeweller in
Edinburgh, against_ JAMES EUSSELL, _Surgeon there_.

"THE LORD PRESIDENT (Sir ILAY CAMPBELL).--Your Lordships