Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 01.pdf/397

356 all the gentlemen of the county on horseback, are waiting to receive him; but still prouder is he when, in the thronged court, with cap on head deferentially raised at each mention of his name, he causes to be read the royal commission; and proudest of all when, seated in awful state, with the sheriff alone by his side—for the Statute 20 Richard II., forbidding "any lord or other of the county, little or great, to sit upon the bench with the justices," is yet in full force—he hears, and often directs, the pleas of the trembling prisoners, charges, and not unfrequently bullies and terrifies, the obsequious jury.

Such, reader, were the judges and such their circuits a few hundred years ago; but, alas! "Ichabod" is written upon all these matters now; the judges and the circuits both survive, but their grandeur and dignity have almost departed.—Chambers' Journal.