plead With great eloquence upon what they had
picked up from the opposite counsel. When
acting as a volunteer against the Highland army,
in 1745, he fell into the hands of Colonel John
Roy Stewart, and was nearly hanged as a spy at
Musselburgh Bridge. He was author of several
literary works; but had many strange fancies, in
which he seemed to indulge with a view to his
health, which was always valetudinarian. He had
INTERIOR OF THE JUSTICIARY COURT.*
' he used to measure out the utmost time that was
allowed for a judge to deliver his opinion; and
Lord Arniston would never allow another word tc,
be uttered after the last grain had run, and was
frequently seen to shakeominously this old-fashioned
chronometer in the faces of his learned brethren if
they became vague or tiresome. He was a jovial
old lord, in whose house, when Sheriff Cockburn
lived there as a boy, in 1750, sixteen hogsheads
young one, which followed him like a dog
wherever he went, and slept in his bed. When
it attained the years and bulk of swinehood this
was attended with inconvenience ; but, unwilling
to part with his companion, Lord Gardenstone,
when he undressed, laid his clothes on the floor,
as a bed for it, and that he might find his clothes
warm in the winter mornings. He died at Morningside,
near Edinburgh, in July, 1793.
Robert Dundas of Arniston succeeded Culloden,
in 1748, as Lord President. In his days
it was the practice for that high official to have
a sand-glass before him on the Bench, with which
Dalrymple -said : " I knew the great lawyers of
the last age-Mackenzie, Lockhart, and my OWD
father, Stair-but Dundas excels them all !" (Catalogue
of the Lords, 1767.)
Among the last specimens ot the strange Scottish
judges of the last century were the Lords Balniute
and Hermand.
The former, Claud Boswell ot Balmuto, was.
born in 1742, and was educated at the same'
school, in Dalkeith, with Henry Dundas, afterwards
Lord Melville ; and the friendship formed by the
two boys there, lasted till the death of the peer, in
May, 181 I. He always spoke, even on the Bench,
He died in 1787.
Tn the dnwing visitors are represented as looking down the stairs leading to the cells below.
