Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 24.pdf/100

 Literature and the Bench LITERATURE and the Bench" was the subject of some witty discussion at one of the delightful dinners of the Authors' Club in London, Dec. 4, and Sir Frederick Pollock was the guest of honor. For the following re port the Green Bag is indebted to a corres pondent who very kindly sent us a clip ping from the London-£>at/y Telegraph. His Honor Judge Parry, himself an author and dramatist of no mean repute, occupied the chair. Proposing the health of the guest, he said the Authors' Club has two interests in Sir Frederick Pollock. They could divide him scien tifically into two parts. In the first place he was a fellow-author — (cheers) — and he had written books some of which it had been his Honor's duty to read — (laughter) — his pleasure to read. (Hear, hear.) He would say this about Sir Frederick's law books — and nobody had a greater detesta tion of law books than he — (laughter) — that there was a style and distinc tion about them which made them almost pleasurable to a humble layman like himself. But there was a mountaineering book which must have appealed to some, a little, slim volume which though his Honor had just moved into a new house, he was able to find (laughter) — "Leading Cases done into English." That little book of poetry — it was poetry — contained a great deal of humanity, and it had often been a mar vel to his Honor why a man who could write such charming occasional verse should have wasted the dreary years of his life on law books. (Laughter and "Hear, hear.") Did they know the story of Dixon and the Great Northern

Railway? This was in the great work now edited by Sir Frederick Pollock, the Law Reports, a dreary work, but, done into verse as he had done it in "Leading Cases done into English," it was one of the most delightful ballads— a ballad of which Ingoldsby himself might have been proud. (Hear, hear.) Judge Parry knew only one subject more painful than an editor, and that was a publisher. Sir Frederick Pollock, however, was not likely to be called upon to edit anything that they might write. His waste-paper basket was occu pied by the judgments of the Court of Appeal, and his blue pencil with the irrelevant remarks of the Master of the Rolls. (Laughter.) It seemed to him to be a fine thing — he spoke as a county-court judge who suffered much from the court above — (laughter) — to be able to edit the Court of Appeal, and he said without hesitation that it was a great thing for the reputation of the Court of Appeal that they had Sir Fred erick Pollock to edit them. (Hear, hear.) Sir Frederick was always very kind to the county-court judges. In the great work which he edited, when a county-court judge was overruled he was always referred to in the Biblical phrase of "a certain judge." (Laughter.) He should like to take that public oppor tunity of thanking Sir Frederick for his editorial kindness. The only suggestion he would make was that when the House of Lords overruled in some work men's compensation case the Court of Appeal, and set back the judgment of the learned county-court judge, he then might mention one's name. It entirely rested with Sir Frederick, said Judge Parry, what the judges were