His ignorance of law was soon shewn at the Lancaster assizes. Mr Leslie Stephen is inclined to view the story as being not very credible. Yet we fear the authority is indisputable. 'We found Jemmy Boswell,' writes Lord Eldon, 'lying upon the pavement--inebriated. We subscribed at supper a guinea for him and half a guinea for his clerk, and sent him next morning a brief with instructions to move for the writ of _Quare adhaesit pavimento_, with observations calculated to induce him to think that it required great learning to explain the necessity of granting it. He sent all round the town to attorneys for books, but in vain. He moved, however, for the writ, making the best use he could of the observations in the brief. The judge was astonished, and the audience amazed. The judge said, 'I never heard of such a writ--what can it be that adheres _pavimento_? Are any of you gentlemen at the bar able to explain this?' The Bar laughed. At last one of them said, 'My Lord, Mr Boswell last night _adhaesit pavimento_. There was no moving him for some time. At last he was carried to bed, and he has been dreaming about himself and the pavement.' Lord Jeffrey once assisted Bozzy to bed in similar circumstances. 'You are a promising lad,' he told him next morning, 'and if you go on as you have begun, you may be a Bozzy yourself yet.' No wonder that we find him hesitating about going on the spring northern circuit, which would cost him, he says, fifty pounds, and oblige him to be in rough company for four weeks. His only piece of promotion came from Lord Lonsdale. Pitt had been brought in by this nobleman for the pocket-borough of Appleby, and Bozzy had hopes of a Parliamentary introduction that way. Carlyle of Inveresk found this worthless patron of the unfortunate office seeker 'more detested than any man alive, as a shameless political sharper, a domestic bashaw, and an intolerable tyrant over his tenants.' Penrith and Whitehaven were in fear when he walked their streets; he defied his creditors; and the father of the poet Wordsworth died without being able to enforce his claims. The author of the _Rolliad_ describes his power as 'Even by the elements confessed, Of mines and boroughs Lonsdale stands possessed; And one sad servitude alike denotes The slave that labours and the slave that votes.'