“Lord Auchinleck said the great point for a judge is to conduct a cause with safety and expedition, like a skillfull pilot. ‘The Agents always endeavour to keep a cause afloat. But I keep my eye upon the haven, and the moment I have got him fairly in order I give one hearty push, and there he’s landed.’” * * * * * “Boswell said when we see a man of eminence we desire nothing more than to be of his acquaintance; we then wish to have him as a companion; and when we have attained that we are impatient till we gain a superiority over him. Such is the restless progress of man!” * * * * * “A sailor, who had been long out at sea, was on his return asked by a companion what sort of voyage they had. ‘Why,’ said he, ‘a very good one; only we had prayers twice. But one of the times there was no more occasion for them than if you and I should fall down and pray this minute.’” LORD LOUDOUN.[175] * * * * * “My Lord Stair,[176] who wrote a very bad hand, sent once to my Lord Loudoun a written commission to be read to Sir Philip Honeywood.[177] Lord Loudoun received the letter at the British Coffee-house, where he was sitting after dinner with some friends taking a very hearty bottle; and whether the wine made him see double or no, so it was that he read the commission very distinctly. Next morning he went to wait on Sir Philip Honeywood, and being then quite cool and in his sober senses he could not read a word of it, and neither could Sir Philip. Lord Loudoun could not go back to Lord Stair and tell him his hand was not legible, so Sir Philip trusted to Lord Loudoun’s memory of what he had read the day before, and could not then read at all, a most curious fact. When the Duke of Cumberland was told of it he said, ‘Loudoun, why did you not stay and dine with Sir Philip, and then you would both have read it.’” LORD LOUDOUN. * * * * * “Mr. Clark, uncle to Baron Clark, a most curious mortal, who had been bred a surgeon, had travelled over the greatest part of the world, and always walked. He had the misfortune to break one of his legs, and two pieces of the bone came out of it. He had them drest, and made hafts to a knife and fork of them. When he was dying he sent for Doctor Clark[178] and the Baron.[179] ‘Now, gentlemen,’ said he, ‘this knife and fork will be the most valuable part of my executory, and I’ll leave them to any of you two who shall give me the best inscription to put upon them. The Doctor, who was a fine classical scholar, tried a good many times, but at length the baron fairly got the better of him by a most elegant and well-adapted inscription,— ‘Quæ terra nostri non plena laboris?’” LORD AUCHINLECK. * * * * *