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ejaculated the inquirer. "Yes," growled the judge; "ye've heard, nae doot, about _Coke upon Littleton_, but I suppose you never before heard of _Clerk upon Stair_!" When asked by a friend what was the difference between him and Lord Eldon, the Lord Chancellor of England, Eldin replied; "Oh, there's only an 'i' of a difference." * * * * * [Illustration: CHARLES HAY, LORD NEWTON.] Charles Hay (Lord Newton), known in private life as "The Mighty," has been described by Lord Cockburn as "famous for law, paunch, whist, claret, and worth." His indulgence in wine and his great bulk made him slumbrous, and when sitting in Court after getting the gist of a case he almost invariably fell fast asleep. Yet it is strange to find it recorded that whenever anything pertinent to the matter under discussion was said he was immediately wide awake and in full possession of his reasoning faculties. While a very zealous but inexperienced counsel was pleading before him, his lordship had been dozing, as usual, for some time, till at last the young man, supposing him asleep, and confident of a favourable judgment in his case, stopped short in his pleading and, addressing the other judges on the Bench, said: "My lords, it is unnecessary that I should go on, as Lord Newton is fast asleep."--"Ay, ay," cried Lord Newton, "you will have proof of that by and by"--when, to the astonishment of the young advocate, after a most luminous view of the case, he gave a very decided and elaborate judgment against him. Lord Jeffrey himself declared that he only went to Oxford to improve his accent, and according to some of the older members of the Bar of his days, he only lost his Scots accent and did not learn the English. A story of his early days at the Bar is related to the effect that when pleading before Lord Newton the judge stopped him and asked in broad Scots, "Whaur were ye educat', Maister Jawfrey."--"Oxford, my lord."--"Then I doot ye maun gang back there again, for we can mak' nocht o' ye here." But Mr. Jeffrey got back his own. For, before the same judge, happening to speak of an "itinerant violinist," Lord Newton inquired: "D'ye mean a blin' fiddler?"--"Vulgarly so called, my lord," was the reply. * * * * * [Illustration: HENRY COCKBURN, LORD COCKBURN.] Circuit Courts were in Scotland, in the eighteenth and early years of the nineteenth century (as in England and Ire
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