him out of all reason. “He has taken up far too much of your Lordship’s time,” sympathised a friend. “Time,” said Cockburn with bitter emphasis, “Time! long ago he has exhaustit _Time_, and has encrotch’d upon—Eternity.” A touch of Scots adds force to such remarks. This is a good example. [Illustration: JOHN INGLIS, LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COURT OF SESSION, From a Painting in the Parliament House, by permission of the Faculty of Advocates] One day the judge, whilst rummaging in an old book shop, discovered some penny treasure, but he found himself without the penny! He looked up and there was the clerk of court staring at him through the window. “Lend me a bawbee,” he screamed eagerly. He got the loan, and in the midst of a judgment of the full court he recollected his debt; he scrambled across the intervening senators, and pushed the coin over: “There’s your bawbee, Maister M., with many thanks.” At one time the possession of the correct “burr” was a positive hold on the nation. Lord Melville, the friend and colleague of Pitt, ruled Scotland under what was called the Dundas despotism for thirty years. He filled all the places from his own side, for such is the method of party government, and he can scarce be blamed, yet his rule was protracted and endured, because he had something more than brute force behind him. For one thing, he spoke a broad dialect, and so came home to the very hearts of his countrymen. When he visited Scotland he went climbing the interminable High Street stairs, visiting poor old ladies that he had known in the days of his youth. Those returns of famous Scotsmen have furnished a host of anecdotes. I will only give one for its dramatic contrasts. Wedderburn was not thought a tender-hearted or high-principled man, yet when he returned old, ill and famous he was carried in a sedan chair to a dingy nook in old Edinburgh, the haunt of early years, and there he picked out some holes in the paved court that he had used in his childish sports, and was moved well-nigh to tears. He first left Edinburgh in quite a different mood. He began as a Scots advocate, and one day was reproved by Lockhart (afterwards Lord Covington), the leader of the bar, for some pert remark. A terrible row ensued, at which the President confessed “he felt his flesh creep on his bones.” It was Wedderburn’s _Sturm und Drang_ period. He had all the presumption of eager and gifted youth, he tore the gown from his back declaring he would never wear it again in that court. We know that he was presently off by the mail coach for London, where he began to climb, climb, climb, till he became the first Scots Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain.