“What was its size?” “I should say a sizeable stone.”  “Can’t you answer definitely how big it was?” “I should say it wur a stone of some bigness.”  “Can’t you give the jury some idea of the stone?” “Why, as near as I recollect, it wur something of a stone.”  “Can’t you compare it to some other object?” “Why, if I wur to compare it, so as to give some notion of the stone, I should say it wur as large as a lump of chalk!”

Questioning.—­Sir John Fielding gave a curious instance in the case of an Irish fellow who was brought before him when sitting as a magistrate at Bow-street.  He was desired to give some account of himself, and where he came from.  Wishing to pass for an Englishman, he said he came from Chester.  This he pronounced with a very rich brogue, which caught the ears of Sir John.  “Why, were you ever in Chester?” says he.  “To be sure I was,” said Pat, “wasn’t I born there?” “How dare you,” said Sir John Fielding, “with that brogue, which shows that you are an Irishman, pretend to have been born in Chester?” “I didn’t say I was born there, sure; I only asked your honour whether I was or not.”

Thelwall, when on his trial at the Old Bailey for high treason, during the evidence for the prosecution, wrote the following note, and sent it to his counsel, Mr. Erskine:  “I am determined to plead my cause myself.”  Mr. Erskine wrote under it:  “If you do, you’ll be hang’d:”  to which Thelwall immediately returned this reply:  “I’ll be hang’d, then, if I do.”

Peter the Great, being at Westminster Hall in term time, and seeing multitudes of people swarming about the courts of law, is reported to have asked some about him, what all those busy people were, and what they were about? and being answered, “They are lawyers.”  “Lawyers!” returned he, with great vivacity, “why I have but four in my whole kingdom, and I design to hang two of them as soon as I get home.”

A Sheepish Lamb.—­Counsellor Lamb (an old man, at the time the late Lord Erskine was in the height of his reputation) was a man of timid manners and nervous disposition, and usually prefaced his pleadings with an apology to that effect; and on one occasion, when opposed to Erskine, he happened to remark that “he felt himself growing more and more timid as he grew older.”  “No wonder,” replied the witty but relentless barrister, “every one knows the older a lamb grows the more sheepish he becomes.”

A learned serjeant, since a judge, being once asked what he would do if a man owed him L10, and refused to pay him.  “Rather than bring an action, with its costs and uncertainty,” said he, “I would send him a receipt in full of all demands.”  “Aye,” said he, recollecting himself, “and I would moreover send him five pounds to cover possible costs.”