James Williams

“ Gave its judgment for defendant.
Poorer than he was at first,
That unhappy plaintiff cursed,
With a special satisfaction
Cursed the day he brought his action.
Would that he'd in India tarried!
Would that he had never married!
He, alas, is tied for life
Pauper to a pauper wife,
Scarce consoled that on his name
Equity reports shower fame,
Bearing down to endless ages
Dashwood's story on their pages.
[70]
EX PARTE JONES (18 Chancery Division, 109)
Oh for the wily infant who married the widow and made
Profit of coke and of breeze, and never a penny he paid! ”

“ I read old law, and loathed the long dominion
Of fiction over right.
I had consulted Coke and Cruise and Chitty,
The works where ancient learning reigns supreme,
Until exhausted nature, moved with pity,
Sent me a bookman's dream. ”

“ In streets that Dante trod, and past the towers
Aslant toward heaven, and listen to the hours
Chimed by the bells of choirs where Dante prayed.
They cease; then lo! the foot of time seems stayed
Five hundred years and more, I find me bowers
Where sweet and noble ladies weave them flowers
For one who reads Boccaccio in the shade.
The cowlèd students halt by two and threes
To hear the voice come thrilling through the trees,
Then tear themselves away to themes more trite. ”

“ Taking orders for coke that the widow and infant prepared!
Oh for the Court of Appeal, and oh for Lords Justices three!
Oh for the Act that infants from contracts may shake themselves free!
Oh for the common law with its store of things old and new!
Birmingham coke is good and good Coke upon Littleton too.
[71]
FINLAY v. CHIRNEY (20 Queen's Bench Division, 494)
When love-sick man descends to folly
And gets engaged, he must not stray,
The jury takes the part of Polly,
And if he jilts her, he must pay. ”

“ The Court of Common Pleas held inter alia that no action lies against a judge for a judicial decision on a matter within his jurisdiction (10 Common Bench Reports, New Series, 523) .
[44]
How we found our Verdict
We sat in the jury-box, twelve were we all,
And the clock was just pointing to ten in the hall,
His Lordship he bowed to the jury, and we
Bowed back to his Lordship as gravely as he.
The case of De Weller v. Jones was the first,
And we all settled down and prepared for the worst
When old Smithers, Q.C., began slowly to preach
Of a promise of marriage and action for breach. ”

“ Aid me, for duplex querela is an uninviting theme,
And the practice of the Arches raises no poetic dream. [63]
'Tis the Reverend Child Willis, child in name but not in age,
Comes he to the Court of Arches burning with a noble rage,
Filing his duplex querela, claiming for himself thereby
Vicarage of Drayton Parslow, or to know the reason why.
"Reason why?" the bishop answers; "that is not so far to seek.
Little Latin have you, Willis, innocent are you of Greek. ”

“ In pipes not pills, cigars not carbonate.
From breakfast till 'twas dusk at half-past eight
Tobacco cheered this hardened sinner's mind,
The price of it his pockets, disinclined
To add their dime to the collection plate.
The State Attorney claimed the penalty;
"Cigars are no cigars," said the defence,
"But drugs, and we have witnesses to prove it."
"Cigars to be cigars judicially
We notice, and reject the evidence."
So said the Court, and spat, and nought could move it.
[79]
Translations
[81]
Translations GREEK ANTHOLOGY X. 48
Woe to the house whose mistress was a slave! ”

“ But 'tis an evil counsel, for justice must consist
In showing deeds of mercy, in knowledge of the truth,
And executing judgment it executes with ruth.
Pedro Lopez de Ayala.
THE POET AND THE ADVOCATE
Glory and gain thus mixed distract the thought,
We owe to honour all, to fortune nought;
The poet, like the soldier, scorns for pay
Peruvian gold, but seeks the wreath of bay. [95]
How is the advocate the poet's peer?
The poet's glory is complete and clear;
He far outlives the advocate's renown,
Patru is e'en by Scarron's name weighed down. ”

“ Seven! Hoc et nihil præter,
Four are walls and benches three.
Anon.
MARTIAL In Caium
"Lend me sestertia, Caius, only twenty,
'Tis no great thing for you who roll in plenty."
He was an old companion, and his coffers
Were full enough to stand such friendly offers.
"Go, plead in court," said he; "'tis pleadings pay us."
"I want your money, not your counsel, Caius."
Martial, ii. 30.
[90]
In Causidicum
'Tis said that some bold advocate
Has dared to criticise my poem,
His name I have not learned, his fate
Will be a warning when I know him.
Martial, v. 33. ”

“ On Feb. 10 the Lord Keeper ordered that on the following Saturday the Warden of the Fleet should cut a hole through the replication, and put the plaintiff's head through the hole and let it hang about his shoulders with the written side outwards, and lead the plaintiff bareheaded and barefaced round about Westminster Hall, and show him at the bar of all the courts, and so back to the Fleet.—Abridged from Spence's Equitable Jurisdiction, vol. i. p. ”

“ For Jones was the sixth of the strings to her bow
And with five other verdicts she solaced her woe. [46]
Re-examined by Smithers, she won us again,
For the tears of a maid are a terror to men,
Then his Lordship awoke from his nap and explained
How love that is frequent is love that is feigned. ”

“ Is qualified to grant in fee! [55]
Lost is our old supremacy,
Lost is the delicate display
Of learning on pur autre vie;
Too quickly comes the evil day.
L'Envoi
(The Three in Chorus)
Thurlow, to thee we bend the knee,
When law was law, then men were gay,
'Tis down with port and up with tea,
Too quickly comes the evil day.
[J] The Court of Chancery was merged in the High Court of Justice in 1875.
[K] In the days of Lord Lyndhurst the old Court of Exchequer had equitable as well as common law jurisdiction.
[56]
Comœdia Juris
Est omne jus forense quasi comœdia ”

“ An advocate like these his betters?
Then let him not his time employ
To useless ends in learning letters.
Ammianus.
XI. 251
The parties were as deaf as deaf could be,
The judge was far the deafest of the three.
Said plaintiff, "Sir, I ask for five months' rent."
Defendant, "Grinding corn all night I spent." [86]
"Why," quoth the judge, "dispute? Your mother's claim
Is good, and you must both support the dame."
Nicarchus.
XI. 350
Remember justice and her yoke, and know
That 'gainst the wicked votes of "Guilty" go. ”

“ Thou canst not make the path of law less plain.
Agathias.
XI. 376
Once to Diodorus came a client in a state of doubt,
And to that most learned counsel thus he set the matter out:
"Alpha Beta found a slave-girl who had run away from me: [87]
To a slave of his he wed her, though she was my property,
Well he knew she was my chattel; she has had a child or two ”

“ Without an action is—to die! [L]
[L] The decision was to the effect that in most cases an action for breach of promise of marriage does not survive against the representatives of the promiser.
POLLARD v. PHOTOGRAPHIC COMPANY (40 Chancery Division, 345)
"Shall I take your photograph, my pretty maid?"
"You may if you like, kind sir," she said. [72]
"Do you like your photograph, my pretty maid?" ”

“ The allusion is to the "Advocates' Widows Fund," subscribed to by all members of the Scottish bar, married or unmarried. The non-existent widow of the unmarried advocate has been a frequent subject of legal verse. ”

“ We mourn in unremunerated pain
Those brave old days.
[I] See, for instance, the well-known case of Mostyn v. Fabrigas, in which the plaintiff declared that the defendant on the 1st of September, in the year 1771, made an assault upon the said plaintiff at Minorca, to wit, at London, in the parish of St. ”

“ The plaintiff was committed to the Fleet Prison on Feb. 8, 1596, by order of the Lord Keeper, for drawing a replication of sixscore sheets containing much impertinent matter which might well have been contained in sixteen. ”

“ Crown 8vo, cloth, price 2s. 6d.
BRIEFLESS BALLADS
AND
LEGAL LYRICS SECOND SERIES
By JAMES WILLIAMS
"You will think a lawyer has as little business with poetry as he has with justice. Perhaps so. I have been too partial to both." ”