BARTIMEUS WILLARD, one of the early settlers of Egremont, Mass., was a ready wit, a keen satirist and a natural poet. He was one day at Lenox during session of County Court, and the lawyers there were much diverted with his political effusions and sallies of wit. One of the lawyers said to him, " Come, Barty, and take dinner with us; it shan't cost you any thing." He consented, and accompanied the lawyers. One said to him, " Barty, we want you to ask a blessing." Barty, who made no pretension to religion, said, "Well, if I do, I hope you will behave as men should on such an occasipn, and not make a mock of it; and I want some one to return thanks." One was accordingly appointed. All stood up around the table, and Barty began thus : Lord of the climes, Haste on the times When death makes lawyers civil; Lord, stop their clack, And send them back Unto their father devil. Don't let this band Infest our land, Nor let these liars conquer; Oh, let this club, Of Beelzebub Insult our land no longer! They are bad indeed, As the thistle weed, Which chokes our fertile mowing; Compare them nigh To the Hessian fly, Which kills our wheat when growing. Come, sudden death, And cramp their breath, Refine them well with brimstone; And let them there To hell repair, And turn the devil's grin'stone.
They ate but little dinner that day, and the one appointed to return thanks arose, turned on his heel and left. A LAWYER, about to furnish a bill for costs, was requested by his client, a baker, to make it as light as possible. "Ah," said the lawyer, " you might properly say that to the foreman of your establishment, but that is not the way I make my bread."
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THE American negro of our southland makes an ideal witness in many respects. He talks to the jury, and not to the examiner, and, unless he is instructed, he is perfectly willing to argue the case from the witness chair. He is posi tive and hard to confuse on cross-examination. On one occasion the examiner was endeavor ing to learn if he had ever seen a certain person. "No, sah I not since Jesus Christ made me," was extremely convincing as a reply. On another occasion an attorney with a great deal of self-importance, was cross-examin ing an aged negress. His dignity suffered from the following : — "But you are not a young woman?" "Lawd, no, honeyl I'se ole enough to be yah mommy, but, thank God, I isn't." LITERARY
NOTES.
JUDGE PHELPS deserves high rank as a dis coverer in the field of literature, by virtue of his finding, at this late day, a significant Shakes pearean phrase which had been passed over without notice or explanation by commentators. And not only has he discovered such a neglected expression, but, taking that as a text, he has written a series of most interesting papers, which have now been brought together in book form.1 The phrase upon whichJudge Phelpscommeiits so delightfully is an expression of Falstaff — "There 's no equity stirring" (I Henry IV., Act II, scene 2.) Pointing out that the word " equity" is to be found in Shakespeare but three times out side of the present instance, and that in each of these three cases itis used in a different sense—as synonymous, in a general way, with justice; with reference to juridical or technical equity; and in the special sense of concrete equitable right — he finds that, in Falstaff's mouth, it is used in all these three senses at once. It was, indeed, as Dr. Furness remarked to the commentator, a "gag." Bearing directly on the subject in hand is the account, to which, roughly speaking, half of the book is devoted, of the controversy between the courts of equity and of common law, which in the form of the struggle for jurisdiction be tween the ecclesiastical and temporal courts can 'FALSTAFF AND EQUITY: an Interpretation. By Charles E. Phelps. Boston and New York : Houghton, Mifflin and Company. 1901. Cloth: $1.50. (xvi. + 201 pp.)
