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."