cheese. The old man insists on trying this cause immediately. So the indictment is framed, —

"The dog of Cydathenus doth present
Dog Labes, of Æxone, for that he-
Singly, alone - did swallow and devour

One whole Sicilian cheese, against the peace."

The trial goes on, speeches are made pro and con; and the old dicast votes an acquittal for the first time.

TERENCE

has his joke on the lawyers in "Phormio, the Parasite." He makes a father consult three lawyers together as to the feasibility of setting aside a judgment of the court. upon certain affairs of his son. One advises him that the decree will certainly be reversed; another that it assuredly cannot be reversed; and the third declares it an intricate question, and that he needs time to deliberate. The questioner leaves in despair, saying he is much more at a loss than before.

ANONYMOUS.

This very prolific and talented author, in an obscure play entitled "Sir Thomas More," found in the collection of the Shakspeare Society, and supposed to have been composed about the close of the sixteenth century, introduces us to a merry scene in court. Lifter is haled before the court on a charge of picking a pocket. Smart, the complainant, appears in person, and by Suresbie, as his attorney. The attorney takes the novel ground that the complainant was to blame for carrying so much money as ten pounds, the sum he lost, about him :

"I promise ye, a man that

goes abroade

With an intent of trueth, meeting such a bootie,
May be provokte to that he never meante.
What makes so many pilferers and fellons,
But such fond baites that foolish people lay
To tempt the needie, miserable wretche?"

While the jury are out, Sir Thomas More, then sheriff, offers the prisoner, if he will pick the attorney's pocket, to bring him safely off from this accusation. This is done, and the purse is handed to Sir Thomas. The jury find the prisoner guilty. He is sentenced to die; and according to custom, a subscription is taken to buy him a burial-place. When Suresbie looks for his purse, it is, of course, gone; and he makes great outcry, alleging it contained seven pounds. Thereupon Sir Thomas quotes to him his own views above given on carrying about so much money, in hæc verba. His purse is returned to him; and we conclude, although it is not expressly stated, that the prisoner is let off. This incident is founded on facts related in a Life of Sir Thomas.

Justice was more speedy in those days than now, if we may believe what the sheriff says of some criminals sentenced to execution:

"Bring them away to execution;

The writt is come aboove two houres since:
The cyttie will be fynde for this neglect."

After Sir Thomas is made chancellor, expecting a visit of ceremony from the learned Erasmus, he dresses up his servant Randall in his robes of office, and passes him off on the scholar as the chancellor. The cheat is discovered when Erasmus addresses the fictitious chan

cellor in Latin, and is answered in English, rather comOn More's fall, he declares that

monplace at that.

"halting souldiers and poore needie schollers Have had my gettings in the Chancerie ;"

and laughs to himself,

"To thinke but what a cheate the crowne shall have
By my attaindour!”

On the scaffold, to the executioner, who asks his forgiveness, he gives his purse, saying, "I had rather it were in thy power to forgive me, for thou hast the sharpest action against me; the law, my honest freend, lyes in thy hands now; here's thy fee; and my good fellowe, let my suite be dispatchted presently; for 'tis all one payne, to dye a lingering death, and to live in the continual mill of a lawe suite."

GREENE.

In Robert Greene's "London and England," we find a client"fain to lay his wife's best gown to pawn" for a lawyer's fees. Thrasibulus borrowed forty pounds of a usurer, "whereof he received ten pound in money and thirty pound in lute strings, whereof he could by great friendship make but five pound." By the obligation, the money was to be repaid between three and four o'clock of a certain afternoon; but the usurer held the debtor with "brabbling" (quarrelling) "till the clock strook." Held, that the debtor lost his lands which he had "bound in recognizance" for the loan. So Alcon lost his cow which he pledged to the usurer, because he broke a day. In this instance the interest was eighteen pence a week, and the "usury" was the cow's milk.

In the same dramatist's "James the Fourth," a lawyer, a merchant, and a divine rate one another as being responsible for the civil disorders of the time. The divine tasks the lawyer :

Clauses, and subtle reasons to except?" "It is your guise

To coin provisos to beguile your laws,

To make a gay pretext of due proceeding,

When you delay your common pleas for years.” "You fleece them of their coin, their children beg, And many want, because you may be rich." "The law, say they, in peace consumed us, And now in war we will consume the law."

MIDDLETON,

in "The Phoenix," has a very amusing character, Tangle, "an old, crafty client, who, by the puzzle of suits and shifting of courts, has more tricks and starting-holes than the dizzy pates of fifteen attorneys; one that has been muzzled in law like a bear, and led by the ring of his spectacles from office to office; some say he's as good as a lawyer; marry, I'm sure he's as bad as a knave; if you have any suits in law he's the fittest man for your company; has been so towed and lugged himself, that he is able to afford you more knavish counsel for ten groats than another for ten shillings; "an old, busy, turbulent fellow; a villainous law-worm that eats holes in poor men's causes."

Then ensues the following scene between Tangle and two suitors, who have come to him for advice:

"First Suitor. May it please your worship to give me leave?

Tangle. I give you leave, sir: you have your veniam. Now fill me a brown toast, sirrah.

First Suit. Has brought me into the court; marry, my adversary has not declared yet.

Tang. Non declaravit adversarius, sayest thou? what a villain's that! I have a trick to do thee good: I will get thee out a proxy, and make him declare, with a pox to him.

First Suit. That will make him declare, to his sore grief; I thank your good worship; but put case he do declare?

Tang. Si declarasset if he should declare there—

First Suit. I would be loath to stand out to the judgment of that court.

Tang. Non ad judicium, do you fear corruption? then, I'll relieve you again: you shall get a supersedeas non molestandum, and remove it higher.

First Suit. Very good.

Tang. Now, if it should ever come to a testificandum, what be his witnesses?

First Suit. I little fear his witnesses.

Tang. Non metuis testes? more valiant man than Orestes.

First Suit. Please you, sir, to dissolve this into wine, ale, or beer. (Giving money.) I come a hundred mile to you, I protest, and leave all other counsel behind me.

Tang. Nay, you shall always find me a sound card: I stood not a' th' pillory for nothing in '88; all the world knows that. Now let me despatch you, sir. I come to you presenter.

Second Suit. Faith, the party hath removed both body and cause with a habeas corpus.