Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 12.pdf/307

 278

nearly an inch broad with enamel in the mid dle and massive gold ends; on the former was engraved — as was the case with all of them — a motto specially chosen for the occa sion. The one I selected was Ex Sese, which my friends kindly suggested was intended for Ex C. C., as a memento that I had emanated from the criminal courts. The Chancellor's and the Judge's rings were about one third of an inch in breadth, but luckily for me, not very thick — as I had to pay for them. The greater number I never saw, for the gold smith always undertook to distribute the gifts to those who by immemorial custom had claim to them. "The ceremonial " continues Serjeant Rob inson, " is very simple. You go in full offi cial dress with your ' colt ' (a young profes sional friend) before the Chancellor in his private room, where the Queen's Writ con ferring the rank upon you is read. The oath of allegiance is then administered by the Chan cellor, after which you kneel clown before him and he pins the coif (a patch of black silk with a white crimped border) on the top of your wig and you become a Serjeant-atLaw." For the rest, we learn that the " colt " then stepped forward and presented the rings, the Chancellor congratulated the new Serjeant, and the affair was over.

Doubtless the best known bearer of the title is Charles Dickens' famous character Serjeant Buzfuz, indefatigable pleader for Mrs. Bardell in the famous case of Bardell v. Pickwick. And by the way some one has pointed out that the Serjeant, clever as he was, was not so clever as he might have been in translating Mr. Pickwick's note : " Chops and tomato sauce " into a love missive. He might, as this critic says, have scored a dis tinct point by calling attention to the fact that another name for the tomato is the loveapple. But there have been real Serjeants hardly less interesting than Buzfuz, if not so famous. One was Serjeant Arabin, a shrewd quaint little man whose odd saying and comical blunders were once put into a book under the title of " Arabiniana." A sample is given in his remark to a garrulous witness : " My good man, don't go on gabbling so. Hold your tongue and answer the question that is put to you." And another, after he became a judge : "Prisoner at the Bar, if ever there was a clearer case than this of a man robbing his master, this case is that case." One might relate anecdotes of Serjeant Cockle also, who was called " the Almighty of the north; " and of Serjeant Davy who did and said many amusing things — but enough.

THE CALENDAR OF SCOTTISH CRIME. I.

DISCUSSIONS on Sir Walter Scott's rank in literature generally hinge only on his poetry and romances. His work as a historian has been eclipsed by the brilliancy and profusion of his novels. But the aid he lent to the right understanding of history, especially to the domestic history of his own country, must not be measured merely by what came from his own pen. He was the guiding spirit of more than one literary and

historical society — his favorite Bannatyne Club, to wit — through the publications of which every ordinary reader has the means of attaining a general, or, if he chooses, a minute impression of the social state of the country and the habits of different classes during the progress from the middle ages to modern times. The true spirit of history can never be drawn from professed chronicles, which in early times were nearly always