Note 342 — A BOOK FOR A RAINY DAY (continued 3)

Tooke did not, therefore, “try the question” of his silver caddy; but had it not been returned he would have done so in his character of the inimitable litigant. “A court of law,” says Hazlitt, in his masterly portrait of Tooke in The Spirit of the Age, “was the place where Mr. Tooke made the best figure in public. He might assuredly be said to be ‘native and endued unto that element.’ He had here to stand merely on the defensive: not to advance himself, but to block up the way: not to impress others, but to be himself impenetrable. All he wanted was negative success; and to this no one was better qualified to aspire. Cross purposes, moot-points, pleas, demurrers, flaws in the indictment, double meanings, cases, inconsequentialities, these were the playthings, the darlings of Mr. Tooke’s mind; and with these he baffled the Judge, dumbfounded the Counsel, and outwitted the Jury. The report of his trial before Lord Kenyon is a masterpiece of acuteness, dexterity, modest assurance, and legal effect. It is much like his examination before the Commissioners of the Income Tax—nothing could be got out of him in either case!”