[20] Sir John Leach, late vice chancellor, now master of the Rolls; the peculiar object of dislike to Lord Eldon on account of the comparative dispatch with which he disposed of the causes that were brought before him. [21] Henry Brougham, (pronounced “Broom”) whose continual attacks upon his Lordship, and the court over which he presided, gave mortal offence. [22] Her Ladyship’s frugality is well known. It would be out of place here to repeat the stories of the turbot and turkey. [23] Mr. Hand Clerk of the papers to the late Lord Chancellor, who could never be prevailed on to receive papers, where he could avoid it with any sort of decency. Adverting to the immense accumulation of papers he used to say that the Chancellor could scarcely enter his own house without being in danger of breaking his shins over a bundle of briefs at the door. [24] This being only an interlocutory proceeding, the _supposition may perhaps be entertained_. [25] William Agar and his mansion in the country, near St. Pancrass workhouse, are well known. So inviolable does he maintain his territorial rights, that a poor wretch caught angling in his fish-pond the other day, was, as I hear, transported for that heinous offence. Frowd, of the firm of Frowd and Rose, Carey Street, and Philip Hurd, of the house of Hurd and Johnson, Temple, are notorious as the chief providers of this calf-like lion. [26] George Spence. This gentleman, who lately contrived to get himself returned member of parliament for a few weeks, had the vain effrontery to inform the House of Commons that his sole object in getting there, was to instruct them in legislation on equitable juris-prudence. [27] Witnesses in Chancery are examined upon written interrogations prepared and signed by counsel: a most wretched and ineffectual system of extracting truth. The execution of the commission is entrusted to friends of the solicitors in the cause, and the witnesses are all previously well tutored as to what it is expected of them to swear. The proceedings are always conducted at an inn, where the solicitors, commissioners and witnesses, drown all their animosities in the sociability of the table. Every day is provided at the expense of the litigant parties a dinner, at which the viands and wines are the very best and most expensive that the house can afford. Liberal potations of course produce head-aches, for which there is nothing so wholesome as air and exercise. Business is thus frequently neglected for the sports of the field. Can any censure be too severe for such iniquity? [28] The depositions of witnesses are liable to be suppressed on many trifling grounds, which is another serious grievance arising out of the mode of taking evidence in the Court of Chancery. I was some time ago informed that the omission of the letter “s” at the end of the word “evangelists” in a jurat, actually caused an expense to the plaintiff of about 80_l._