Amongst Elizabethan Judges who aimed at sprightliness on the Bench, Hatton merits a place; but there is reason to think that the idlers, who crowded his court to admire the foppishness of his judicial costume, did not get one really good _mot_ from his lips to every ten bright sayings that came from the clever barristers practising before him. One of the best things attributed to him is a pun. In a case concerning the limits of certain land, the counsel on one side having remarked with explanatory emphasis, "We lie on this side, my Lord;" and the counsel on the other side having interposed with equal vehemence, "We lie on this side, my Lord,"--the Lord Chancellor leaned backwards, and dryly observed, "If you lie on both sides, whom am I to believe?" In Elizabethan England the pun was as great a power in the jocularity of the law-courts as it is at present; the few surviving witticisms that are supposed to exemplify Egerton's lighter mood on the bench, being for the most part feeble attempts at punning. For instance, when he was asked, during his tenure of the Mastership of the Rolls, to _commit_ a cause, _i.e._, to refer it to a Master in Chancery, he used to answer, "What has the cause done that it should be committed?" It is also recorded of him that, when he was asked for his signature to a petition of which he disapproved, he would tear it in pieces with both hands, saying, "You want my hand to this? You shall have it; aye, and both my hands, too." Of Egerton's student days a story is extant, which has merits, independent of its truth or want of truth. The hostess of a Smithfield tavern had received a sum of money from three graziers, in trust for them, and on engagement to restore it to them on their joint demand. Soon after this transfer, one of the co-depositors, fraudulently representing himself to be acting as the agent of the other two, induced the old lady to give him possession of the whole of the money--and thereupon absconded. Forthwith the other two depositors brought an action against the landlady, and were on the point of gaining a decision in their favor, when young Egerton, who had been taking notes of the trial, rose as _amicus curiae_, and argued, "This money, by the contract, was to be returned to _three_, but _two_ only sue;--where is the _third_? let him appear with the others; till then the money cannot be demanded from her." Nonsuit for the plaintiffs--for the young student a hum of commendation.