INTELLIGENCE AND MISCELLANY.

Theron Metcalf, Esq. The bar of the county of Norfolk, with which Mr. Metcalf had been connected, in the practice of his profession, adopted the following resolution on his recent appointment to the office of reporter of the supreme court of Massachusetts :

"At a meeting of the Norfolk bar, held on the eighteenth day of December, A. D. 1839, on motion of Meletiah Everett, Esq.,

"Voted, that the bar of Norfolk hold in high estimation the learning, integrity, and professional character of their late member, Theron Metcalf, Esq.,-about to leave the practice of the law. And while they regret his loss to their fraternity, they have reason to rejoice that he has been called to exercise his preeminent talents and distinguished learning in a sphere of more extended usefulness, wherein the profession may be equally benefited.

"Voted, that the secretary present a copy of the above vote to Mr. Metcalf, and cause the same to be published in the Dedham Patriot and the Norfolk Democrat.

I. CLEVELAND, Secretary.

Judicial Eloquence. In the case of Van Kleeck v. Dutch Church of New York, before the New York Court of Errors, in which the validity of a devise by John Harberdinck was in question, the testator is thus described by Mr. Senator Livingston.

"The counsel on both sides have given a latitude to their imaginations, and indulged their fancies with a peep through the long avenue of times past, and conjured up the form and figure of the testator. I also can paint to my imagination, the venerable Hollander, seated in his arm chair, which he brought with him from

Holland, about commencing with his will. I see his anxious countenance and venerable form, slowly yet firmly grasp his pen and commence the solemn writing, with these words: 'In the name of God, amen ;' with much thought and reflection. He bestowed what he then pleased upon his relatives and friends; his brow was melancholy and heavy, until he came to the clause beginning with item, I, the said John Harberdinck, do hereby give, devise and bequeath, unto the minister, elders and deacons of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, of the city of New York, and their successors, forever.' Then a calm serenity came over him; he felt that he had fulfilled the main object of all his earthly exertions, which was to do all the good he could during life, and then when eternity appeared opening before him, he found a pleasing reflection, that he had just completed what was near and dear to his heart; and with a smile on his countenance, and a contented mind, I can see him calmly resign his spirit to his God who gave it. Often have I observed the picture, with the coat of arms suspended on the wall over the pulpit, in the North Dutch Church, in the city of New York, in William Street, said to be of the Harberdinck family. The motto underneath is, Dando Conservat. Until now I have been ignorant of the interpretation: but by becoming acquainted with this will, it appears to me easily construed. By giving he has preserved it."

[From the Law Magazine for November, 1839.]

Anecdotes of Erskine. An action was brought by a gentleman, who, whilst travelling in a stage-coach which started from the Swan with Two Necks, in Lad Lane, was upset and had his arm broken. "Gentlemen of the jury," said Erskine, "the plaintiff in this case is Mr. Beverley, a respectable merchant of Liverpool, and the defendant is Mr. Wilson, proprietor of the Swan with Two Necks in Lad Lane, a sign emblematic, I suppose, of the number of necks people ought to possess who ride in his vehicles."

Pleading for a defendant in a case of breach of promise of marriage, where the lady complainant was on the shady side of

forty, the cunning counsel drolly submitted to the jury that it would have ruined his client to bring home an old-fashioned piece of furniture, where he had not even a place to hang it up in.

When defending a tallow-chandler, under a similar visitation, nothing could exceed the pathos with which Erskine read the loveletters of the simple swain, in which he had written metaphorically of his love burning clear, of his heart being consumed like the wick of a candle,—of the union of wax and spermaceti ;—or the mock solemnity with which he dwelt on the notable conclusion of a Valentine :—“N. B. I have bad news for your brother; tallow is as high as ever!" The laughter in the jury-box augured ill for the fair plaintiff, whose damages were reduced to a fraction.

There were several among his rivals in the front seats at nisi prius, who could fence at the carte and tierce of raillery with wit as keen, and repartee as clever, as his own. Some of these passages deserve to survive the chance hour of pleasantry that gave them birth.

On a trial relating to the patent for a knee-buckle, Erskine held it up and exclaimed, "How would my ancestors have admired this specimen of dexterity!" The one-armed Mingay concluded his speech in reply with: "Gentlemen, you have heard a good deal to-day of my learned friend's ancestors, and of their probable astonishment at his knee-buckles. But, gentlemen, I can assure you, their astonishment would have been quite as great at his breeches."

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In an action against a stable keeper for not taking proper care of a horse, "The horse," said Mingay, who led for the plaintiff, was turned into a stable with nothing to eat but musty hay in the rack. To such feeding the horse demurred."—" He should have gone to the country," retorted Erskine. The jest can only be enjoyed thoroughly by professional readers, being founded on the terms of special pleading; but unprofessional readers may rest assured that it is good as well as technical.

Another of his daily antagonists was Bearcroft, who, for his vein of grave sarcasm, had been chosen Recorder of the Beefsteak Club.

A young gentleman of good family had married a woman of the town. His relatives and acquaintance deserted him. She plunged her husband into debt, and almost ruined him by her extravagance. He mustered courage to defend an action for goods furnished to her at enormous prices. Erskine was counsel for the defendant; and aware of the wife's previous character, was obliged to make it a ground of appeal to the jury. He praised the amiable feelings of the husband, who had sought to restore his wife to the path of virtue, and inveighed against her base ingratitude, to which the plaintiff had lent himself. "For her he gave up his family, and sacrificed all his connexions." When Bearcroft came to reply, he treated Erskine's eulogium of his client's virtue, and the demerits of his wife, as mere burlesque. "My friend reproaches his client's wife with forgetfulness of the debt of gratitude which she owes him, that for her he had given up all his connexions; but the balance of obligation will be found on her side-for, for him, she gave up all mankind."

Erskine usually brought his arguments, says Mr. Espinasse, written at length in a little marble-covered book, from which, even after long experience in his profession, he read and cited his cases. Baldwin, a barrister of considerable standing, distinguished for avarice and jealousy of every rising junior, affected to ridicule Erskine's mode of preparing his arguments, saying on one occasion, with a sneer, that he wished Erskine would lend him his book. "It would do you no harm, Mr. Baldwin," said lord Mansfield gravely, "to take a leaf out of that book, as you seem to want it."

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At the expense of this low practitioner Erskine indulged in one of those jeux-de-mots to which he delighted in turning legal phraseology. Baldwin lived in the house which is now Surgeons' Hall, in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Being told that he had sold his house to the corporation of surgeons, "I suppose," said he, “it was recommended to them from Baldwin being so well acquainted with the practice of bringing in the body." Baldwin's business was almost wholly composed of motions of course, this of bringing in the body forming the chief.

In this forbidden ground, the region of puns, wit's lowest story, Erskine would disport himself with more than boyish glee. He fired off a double barrel when encountering his friend Mr. Maylem at Ramsgate. The latter observed that his physician had ordered him not to bathe, "Oh then," said Erskine, " you are Malum prohibitum." "My wife, however," resumed the other, "does bathe." "Oh then," said Erskine, perfectly delighted, "she is 'Malum in se.'

When a military fever overspread the land, he was called with one voice to the command of the Law Association, composed of the Lincoln's Inn and Temple corps. They had greatly miscalculated his fitness for the command. He could not, we are assured, manœuvre the corps through the most simple movements; and in exercising the battalion, which consisted of six companies, he gave his orders from a card prepared for him by his major, Major Reid. If Erskine ever possessed any military ardor, it was at that time nearly extinguished; he did not enter heartily into the duties of his command, and the parade had no longer any charms for him. A friend wishing to banter him on the subject, told him he had just come from the parade of the excise corps, then the worst in London, and that they appeared to him to be superior to his. "So they ought," said Erskine, "why they are all Cæsars (seizers)." In the same facetious spirit he suggested for the motto of his corps, "Currat lex;" and complaining to Bell of his penmanship, declared that his pothooks were nearly as irregular as the Lincoln's Inn volunteers coming to the "present."

An acquaintance having mentioned a relative's illness, Erskine asked the nature of the complaint. Being told, water on the chest, he answered briskly, for the pun interested him more than the invalid, "Then she's not to be pitied; it is lucky in these times to have any thing in one's chest."

Professor Thibaut. This distinguished jurist, who is called by our correspondent the greatest jurist of Germany, died recently at Heidelberg, at an advanced age.