the Chancellorship offered him by Elizabeth as he would not desert the old faith. He was attacked again and again for nonconformity, but his profound knowledge of legal technicalities enabled him on each occasion to escape the net spread for him. He was an Englishman loyal to the core, and Catholic as he was opposed in 1555 the violent proceedings of Queen Mary’s Parliament. The Attorney-General filed a bill against him for contempt, but “Mr. Plowden traversed fully, and the matter was never decided.” “A traverse full of pregnancy,” is Lord Coke’s enthusiastic comment. On his death in 1584 they buried him in that Temple Church whose soil must have seemed twice sacred to this oracle of the law. An alabaster monument whereon his effigy reposes remains to this day. A less distinguished contemporary was William Bendloes (1516-1584), “Old Bendloes,” men called him. A quaint legend reports him the only Serjeant at the Common Pleas bar in the first year of Elizabeth’s reign. Whether there was no business, or merely half-guinea motions of course, or the one man argued on both sides, or whether the whole story be a fabrication, ’tis scarce worth while to inquire. I pass to more modern times. William Davy was made Serjeant-at-law in 1754. His wit combats with Lord Mansfield are still remembered. His lordship was credited with a desire to sit on Good Friday; our Serjeant hinted that he would be the first judge that had done so since Pontius Pilate! Mansfield scouted one of Davy’s legal propositions. “If that be law I must burn all my books.” “Better read them first,” was the quiet retort. In recent days two of the best known Serjeants were Parry and Ballantine, the first a profound lawyer, the second a great advocate, but both are vanished from the scene. Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. London & Edinburgh TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: Text in italics is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. Superscripted text is preceded with a carat character: behav^d. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation, and punctuation have been standardized.