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 have the petition of Alexander Cunningham against Lord Bannatyne’s interlocutor.  It is a case of defamation and damages for calling the petitioner’s Diamond Beetle an Egyptian Louse.  You have the Lord Ordinary’s distinct interlocutor, on pages 29 and 30 of this petition:—­’Having considered the Condescendence of the pursuer, Answers for the defender,’ and so on; ’Finds, in respect that it is not alleged that the diamonds on the back of the Diamond Beetle are real diamonds, or anything but shining spots, such as are found on other Diamond Beetles, which likewise occur, though in a smaller number, on a great number of other Beetles, somewhat different from the Beetle libelled, and similar to which there may be Beetles in