o a quiet, learned, and comprehensive mind. The two former are
qualifications Gradus possesses in a very superior degree, and he proved
he was in no wise deficient in his opponent's great requisite; I
suppose we must call it confidence; but another phrase would be more
significant. Scarlett is a great tactician; and in defending his client,
never hesitates to take

1 We hear that an allusion in page 359 of this work has
been supposed to relate to a near relative of the respected
Chief Justice: if it bears any similitude, it is the effect
of accident alone; the portrait being drawn for another and
a very different person, as the reference to altitude might
have shown.

2 See the castigation he received in the Courier of Friday.
Dec. 10, 1824, for his total ignorance of the common terms
of art.

"----that trick of courts to wear
Silk at the cost of flattery."

_James Shirley's Poems_.

~359~~what I should consider the most unfair, as they are ungentlemanly
advantages. But there

"be they that use men's writings like brute beasts, to make
them draw which way they list."

_T. Nash's Lenten Stuff_, 1599.

His great success and immense practice at the bar is more owing to
the scarcity of silk-gowns{3} than the profundity of his talents. The
perpetual simper that plays upon his ruby countenance, when finessing
with a jury, has, no doubt, its artful effect; although it is as foreign
to the true feelings of the man, as the malicious grin of the malignant
satirist would be to generosity and true genius. Of his oratory, the
_aureum flumen orationis_ is certainly not his; and, if he begins a
sentence well, he seldom arrives at the conclusion on the same level:
he is always most happy in a reply, when he can trick his adversary
by making an abusive speech, and calling no witnesses to prove his
assertions. Our friend Gradus obtained a verdict, and after it the
congratulations of the court and bar, with whom Scarlett is, from his
superciliousness, no great favourite. Owen Feltham, in his Resolves,
well says, that "arrogance is a weed that ever grows upon a
dunghill."{4} The contrast between Scarlett and his great opponent, Mr.
Serjeant Copley,

3 Generally speaking, the management of two-thirds of the
business of the court is entrusted to _four silk-gowns_, and
about twice as many _worsted_ robes behind the bar.