_Baldwin._ Hewitt, call Taylor’s bail,--for I
Shall now proceed to justify.
_Hewitt._ Where’s Taylor’s bail?
_1st Bail._------------------ I can’t get in.
_Hewitt._ Make way.
_Lord Mansfield._---- For heaven’s sake begin.
_Hewitt._ But where’s the other?
_2d Bail._---------------------- Here I stand.
_Mingay._ I must except to both.--Command
Silence,--and if your lordship crave it,
_Austen_ shall read our affidavit.
_Austen._ _Will._ _Priddle_, late of Fleet-street, gent.
Makes oath and saith, that late he went
To Duke’s-place, as he was directed
By notice, and he there expected
To find both bail--but none could tell
Where the first bail lived--
_Mingay._ --------------- Very well.
_Austen._ And this deponent further says,
That, asking who the second was,
He found he’d bankrupt been, and yet
Had ne’er obtained certificate.
When to his house deponent went,
He full four stories high was sent,
And found a lodging almost bare;
No furniture, but half a chair,
A table, bedstead, broken fiddle
And a bureau.
(Signed) _William Priddle._
Sworn at my chambers.
_Francis Buller._
_Mingay._ No affidavit can be fuller.
Well, friend, you’ve heard this affidavit,
What do you say?
_2d Bail._----Sir, by your leave, it
Is all a lie.
_Mingay._ Sir, have a care,
What is your trade?
_2d Bail._------- A scavenger.
_Mingay._ And, pray, sir, were you never found
Bankrupt?
_2d Bail._ I’m worth a thousand pound.
_Mingay._ A thousand pound, friend, boldly said--
In what consisting?
_2d Bail._------- Stock in trade.
_Mingay._ And, pray, friend, tell me,--do you know
What sum you’re bail for?
_2d Bail._------------- Truly no.
_Mingay._ My lords, you hear,--no oaths have check’d him:
I hope your lordships will--
_Willes._---------------- Reject him.
_Mingay._ Well, friend, now tell me where _you_ dwell.
_1st Bail._ Sir, I have liv’d in Clerkenwell
These ten years.
_Mingay._---- Half-a-guinea dead. (_Aside._)
My lords, if you’ve the notice read,
It says _Duke’s-place_. So I desire
A little further time t’ inquire.
_Baldwin._ Why, Mr. _Mingay_, all this vapour?
_Willes._ Take till to morrow.
_Lord Mansfield._------------ Call the paper.
The preceding pleasantry came from the pen of the late John Baynes, Esq.
a Yorkshire gentleman, who was born in April, 1758, educated for the law
at Trinity college, Cambridge, obtained prizes for proficiency in
philosophy and classical attainments, was admitted of Gray’s-inn,
practised in his profession, and would probably have risen to its first
honours. Mr. Nichols says “his learning was extensive; his abilities
great; his application unwearied; his integrity unimpeached. In
religious principles he was an Unitarian Christian and Protestant; in
political principles the friend of the civil liberties of mankind, and
the genuine constitution of his country. He died August 4, 1787, and was
buried on the 9th in Bunhill-fields’ burying-ground, near to the grave
of Dr. Jebb,” his tutor at college: “the classical hand of Dr. Parr”
commemorated him by an epitaph.
* * * * *
One of the best papers in Mr. Knight’s late “Quarterly Magazine,” of
good articles, is so suitable to this day, legally considered, that any
one sufficiently interested to sympathize with “the cares and the fears”
of a young lawyer, or, indeed, any one who dares to admit that a lawyer
may have bowels, as well as an appetite, will suffer the _Confessions of
a Barrister_ to be recorded here.