25 April 1807

Letter V

VI Bail-baiting

II. Inadequacy

Long before the inquiry has reached any useful stage - i.e. before it has extracted out of the man an assertion which if false would be particular enough to subject him to conviction as for perjury. Patience has taken his leave of Justice. Ah, my Lord, how have I seen L d Mansfield yawn! it makes me yawn even to think of it. How have I seen a poor Counsel - a Junior too frequently is for business of this sort - snubbed for, perseverance! I had rather have been the Bail, though it had been a Jew Bail, than the Advocate.

Sometimes, to beguile the time, mirth is resolved upon, and perjury is assumed, a widow's cruize[?] an inexhaustible source - of pleasantry. Then fly out the King's Benchians, or Common-Pleas-ians, from the four desks perhaps at once - "The gentleman will burn for the money" (the gentleman a Jew Bail with a gold-laced coat on) stands upon a record - (and my Lord the lace was really a broad one I remember the coat) not indeed in the Table-talk, but in the Bench-talk, of Lord Mansfield. After so good a joke, and so-much merriment as was raised by it, rejection it is needless to say was not to be thought of. Bail, Jew or Christian, perjured on the Old testament or the New - take a leaf out of the book of Falstaff - witty thyself or not be the cause that wit is in others[?] learned, so they be learned men, Solventur risu tabula, tu missas abibis.