James Williams

(Spirit of Lord Eldon speaks) This England is gone staring mad, She hath abolished Chancery,[J]

On hospitable thoughts intent To me the Inner Temple sent An invitation,

ARCHILOCHUS. Neobule, yesternight Saw I thee in beauty dight,

A case at chambers left for my opinion Had taxed my brain until the noon of night, I read old law, and loathed the long dominion

I go from colonnade to colonnade In streets that Dante trod, and past the towers Aslant toward heaven, and listen to the hours

(21 New England Reports, 228 [Massachusetts, 1893]) [On a complaint for keeping open a tobacconist's shop on Sunday, contrary to the law of Massachusetts, it was held that the court will take judicial notice that tobacco and cigars are not drugs and medicines, and will exclude the testimony of a witness who offers evidence that they are.] Against the statutes of the Old Bay State

(12 Chancery Division, 776) Captain Dashwood, who had been In the service of the Queen,

(18 Chancery Division, 109) Oh for the wily infant who married the widow and made Profit of coke and of breeze, and never a penny he paid!

(20 Queen's Bench Division, 494) When love-sick man descends to folly And gets engaged, he must not stray,

(1 Queen's Bench Division, 189) "Five hundred pounds as stake I'll lay," Says Hampden, "that by such a day

[The plaintiff was committed to the Fleet Prison on Feb. 8, 1596, by order of the Lord Keeper, for drawing a replication of sixscore sheets containing much impertinent matter which might well have been contained in sixteen. On Feb. 10 the Lord Keeper ordered that on the following Saturday the Warden of the Fleet should cut a hole through the replication, and put the plaintiff's head through the hole and let it hang about his shoulders with the written side outwards, and lead the plaintiff bareheaded and barefaced round about Westminster Hall, and show him at the bar of all the courts, and so back to the Fleet.--Abridged from Spence's Equitable Jurisdiction, vol. i. p. 376.] 'Gainst Weldon Mylward files a bill, But doth his replication fill

(40 Chancery Division, 345) "Shall I take your photograph, my pretty maid?" "You may if you like, kind sir," she said.

(2 Probate Division, 192) Aid me, Muses! my endeavour is to sing a woful song, How a very learned bishop in the Arches Court went wrong.

Est omne jus forense quasi com[oe]dia; Hic advocatus maximas partes agit Laudatus undique a procuratoribus,

I sat by the fire and watched it blaze, And dreamed that she wrote me a letter, And for that dream to the end of my days

We sat in the jury-box, twelve were we all, And the clock was just pointing to ten in the hall, His Lordship he bowed to the jury, and we

Ah! justice is a virtue bepraised and full of worth, It castigates the sinner, and peoples all the earth, And kings with care should guard it--instead they now forget

We took a hundredweight of books To Windermere between us, Our dons had blessed our studious looks,

In days of old did law and rime A common pathway follow, For Themis in the mythic time

Not in contempt but to our sport inclined Smile on us, shades of Judges short and tall Portrayed on windows of the Temple Hall;

Those brave old days when King Abuse did reign We sigh for, but we shall not see again. Then Eldon sowed the seed of equity

I am a "coach" in Roman law by fate, But Nature must have meant me for a poet, And while I struggle with a rule or date,

Somewhere in a distant star, Cities of Cocaigne there are, Paradises of the Bar.

A thousand doubts and pleadings in a day Are filed in Empress Reason's court supreme By angry Love--his eyes with anger gleam.

(Tried in Minnesota in 1892) Kind reader, tarry here, nor miss The law of Minneapolis.

Glory and gain thus mixed distract the thought, We owe to honour all, to fortune nought; The poet, like the soldier, scorns for pay

"Cada puta hile."--Don Quixote, i. 46. Without my dinner here I lie, And all because that proctor

We crawled about the nursery In tenderest years in tether, At six we waded in the sea

Tell me, proud Rome, why dost these edicts read, These many laws by prince or people made, Or answers by the prudent duly weighed,

X. 48 Woe to the house whose mistress was a slave! So say old saws, my own in aid I crave;