Page:A book of the west; being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall.djvu/328

254 towards witnesses, he commenced his cross-examination thus, mildly:—

"Pray, my good woman, what sized man was he?"

"Short and stumpy, sir; almost as small as your honour."

"Humph! What sort of a nose had he?"

"Well now, what I should ca' a snubby nose, like your own, sir, only not quite so cocked up like."

"Humph! His eyes?"

"He 'd gotten a bit o' a cast in 'em, sir, like your honour's squint."

"Go down, woman. That will do."

Presently affairs took a turn. Dunning worked his way into notice by adopting violent radical or democratical views, and became the friend of the notorious Wilkes, who also had a squint, and he acted as junior counsel in the famous prosecution of the publishers of No. 45 of the North Briton, which contained strictures on the speech from the throne, at the close of the session of 1763. It was in this case that Dunning firmly established his reputation as a close and subtle reasoner, and he could ever calculate on being employed by his party. From this date no member of the bar obtained a larger number of briefs. I have already told, in my Old Country Life, a story illustrative of the way in which he managed the defence of a man on trial for murder. In 1766 he won the recordership of Bristol, he was appointed Solicitor-General in 1767, and in the general election of 1768 he was elected member for Calne.

"Among the new accessions to the House of