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.
Parliament House.] LORD HERMAND. I73
never fully recovered the shock, and died in July,
1824.
George Fergusson, Lord Hermand, succeeded
Lord Braxfield in 1799, and was on the Bench
during all the political trials connected with the
West Country seditions of 1817. He and Lord
Newton were great cronies and convivialists ; but
the former outlived Newton and all his old lastcentury
contemporaries of the Bar, and was the
last link between the past and present race of
Scottish lawyers. On the Bench he was hasty and
sarcastic. He was an enthusiast in the memories
of bygone days, and scorned as ?priggishness? the
sham decorum of the modem legal character.. He
with the strongest broad Scottish accent, and when
there was fond of indulging in pungent jokes. He
was made a judge in 1798, and officiated as such
till 1822. In the March of that year his friend
and kinsman Sir Alexander Boswell of Auchinleck
was mortally wounded in a duel with James
Stuart of Dunearn, about a mile from Balmuto
House, whither he was borne, only to die ; and the
venerable senator, who was then in his 83rd year,
he lugged in the subject, head and shoulders, in
the midst of a speech about some dry point oflaw
; nay, getting warmer every moment he spoke
of it, he at last fairly plucked the volume from his
pocket, and, in spite of all the remonstrances of?
his brethren, insisted on reading aloud the whole
passage for their edification. He went through the.
task with his wonted vivacity, gave great effect to
every speech, and most appropriate expression to.
every joke. During the whole scene Sir Walter
Scott was present-seated, indeed, in his official
capacity-close under the judge.?? He died at hislittle
estate of Hermand, near Edinburgh, in 1827~
I when in his 80th year.
is thus mentioned in ? Peter?s Letters to his Kinsfolk
:?-? When ? Guy Mannefmg ? came out the
judge was so delighted with the picture of the life
of the old Scottish judges in that most charming.
novel, that he could talk of nothing else but Pley--
dell, Dandie, and the high jinks, for many weeks.
He usually carried one volume of the book about.
with him; and one morning, on the Bench, his
~ love for it so completely got the better of him that
RUINS IN PARLIAMENT SQUARE AFTER THE GREAT FIRE, IN NOVEMBER, I824
