Note 16 — NOTE. THE CLERKS OF PENICUIK AND MAXWELLS OF MIDDLEBIE.

It has been often told how John Clerk, in an appeal before the House of Lords, when twitted for his pronunciation by Lord Mansfield,—“Mr. Clerk, do you spell water with a double t?”—replied, “Na, my laird, we spell wăter wi’ yae t, and we spell manners wi’ twa n’s.” The following is less known:—A young advocate in the Court of Session had ventured, in the vehemence of pleading, to exclaim against some deliverance of the Court, “My lords, I am astonished,” whereupon my lords contracted their judicial brows. But Clerk, who by this time was one of them, is reported to have said, “Dinna be ill at the laddie! it’s just his inexperience. Gin he had kenned ye, my lairds, as lang as I hae, he wad no been astonished at onything ye might dae.” It was his father who, on the occasion of Johnson’s visit to the Parliament House, clapped a shilling in Boswell’s hand with “Here’s till ye for the sight o’ your Bear!”