Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 14.pdf/534

 Lord Bowen. tlemen," said the defendant's counsel, " it is true that they have sworn my client fired at the bird, that it fell dead, and that he bagged it. It is of no use to deny that. But how does it appear that the bird was killed by the shot? What proof is there that it did not die of fright? " And the jury thought there was none. Brilliant, versatile, vivacious, overflowing with " intellectual conviviality " and playful wit, no wonder Bowen was a persona grata in London society. How gracefully could he turn a compliment! Sbme ladies on a Swiss tour had been climbing to a perilous eminence on an Alpine crag. "You have solved, ladies," said Bowen, "the problem which perplexed the schoolmen — how many angels can stand on the point of a needle." "Good phrases," as Beatrice says in " Much Ado About Nothing," "are and ever were commendable," and Bowen was an excellent phrase-maker. The unadorned plainness of speech of a brother judge troubled him. "There is a distressing nudity," he said, "about A. L. Smith's language." " Struck with sterility " was one of the happy expres sions he coined to describe premises not rate able for unproductiveness. A lecture which he delivered on " Education " is strewn with such flowers as these : The " system of com petitive examination is a sad necessity. Knowledge is wooed for her dowry, not her diviner charms "; " You may polish the pew ter till it shines without its becoming silver "; "Instruction ladled out in a hurry is not edu cation "; " In ancient times, when duty to the state was the keynote of civilisation, education was that culture of mind and body which tended to turn out the ideal citizen." A jurist he once playfully defined as " a man who knows something about the law of every country except his own," and at an other time remarked of volunteers : " Volun

489

teers are not, I believe, liable to go abroad except in case of invasion." Someone had mentioned a work entitled "Defence of the Church of England, by a Beneficed Clergyman." Bowen suggested, "In other words, a Defence of the Thirtynine Articles, by a bona fide holder for value." "On another occasion," says Sir H. Cun ningham in his admirable sketch of the judge, "reference was made to the fact that a pub lisher, who was popularly credited with driv ing somewhat hard bargains with authors, had built a church at his own expense. ' Ah! ' Bowen exclaimed, ' the old story! Sanguis martyrum semen eeelesia.'" The plaintiff in a certain case claimed a right to a piece of uninclosed land, and grounded his claim on the fact that his don key had been habitually pastured upon it. The judge at the close of the argument in quired whether the plaintiff claimed the land through his accredited agent, the donkey. "Yes, my Lord," was Bowen 's prompt reply; "my contention is Qui facit per asinunt facit per sc." His jeux d'esprit, classical and otherwise, are charming. Here is a specimen given by Sir Henry Cunningham — a poetical request for a lift to the then Lord Chancellor's break fast in 1883, addressed to his friend Mat hew, now the Lord Justice : "My dear J. C, Will you be free, To carry me, Beside of thee, In your buggee, To Selborne's tea, If breakfast he, Intends for we, On 2 November next D. V., Eighteen hun dred eighty-three A.D., For Lady B., From Cornwall G., Will absent be, And says that she, Would rather see, Her husband be, D dash dash D, Than send to London her buggee, For such a melancholy spree, As Selborne's toast and Selborne's tea." "What a libel on me! " adds Lady Bowen.