At the De Goncourt trial (one of my early recollections) I sat next to Irving. I was busily engaged in making a sketch of Benson, who had been brought into the witness box with his latest decoration of broad arrows, and I remember that Irving congratulated me upon my drawing. On another occasion I watched Frank Lockwood (as he was then) listening to a case as one of the general public, pencil in hand, ready to portray anything that struck him. The case before the court concerned an accident to a pedestrian (a Scotchman) who was summoning a carter or the company he represented, for damages. The carter accused the plaintiff of drunkenness on the occasion of the accident, when he alleged that the man was so drunk that he reeled up against the wheel of his cart. I was amused to see Mr. Lockwood make a quick sketch of a drunken highlander attired in a kilt reeling against a cart wheel, with a glimpse of the Strand in the background, and send it up to the judge. In the case of Dr. Lampson, the poisoner, I passed notes to the prisoner who mistook me for Montague Williams' clerk. Williams had defended the man on a previous occasion, but this time the charge was a grave one, for the accused was said to have visited a young relative (who stood between him and a sum of money), and given him poisoned cake which set up such violent symptoms that suspicion rested upon the doctor. The death of the boy, following shortly after, led to the arrest of Dr. Lampson, who was tried and found guilty. One of the earliest cases I attended attracted great attention at the time, owing to the sensational evidence which embroiled Lord Ranelagh in a plot with a Mrs. Borradaile. This was due to the clever and unscrupulous plans of a Madame Rachel Leverson, who successfully obtained money in this way, and who was finally convicted of misdemeanour and obtaining money by false pretences. The case made a considerable furore, because during cross-examination the accused appeared to divulge the fact that the aforesaid lord had bribed her to let him look through the keyhole while her client underwent the process of being made beautiful. The whole affair turned out to be a fabrication. One of my earliest caricatures for _Vanity Fair_ was that of Mr. Justice Hawkins drawn from memory in 1873. He had the reputation then of being the most good-humoured in the Law Courts and the possessor of the hoarsest voice of any judge. He once said it was worth £500 a year to him. The last time I saw Lord Brampton (for he became eventually a law Lord) was after the opening of a Parliament, when the peers and peeresses were waiting for their carriages, and there was a tremendous downpour of rain. Standing with his peer's robes wound round and round his body, the famous judge made a most grotesque figure, in tight little trousers with his silk hat slightly on one side, an eyeglass in his eye, and a big umbrella over all. He resembled a resplendent hawk.