Note 27 — TRANSLATIONS FROM JUVENAL. (continued 2)

North has left the following account of this great lawyer's prejudices. "He was an upright judge, if taken within himself; and when he appeared, as he often did, and really was, partial, his inclination or prejudice, insensibly to himself, drew his judgment aside. His bias lay strangely for, and against, characters and denominations; and sometimes, the very habits of persons. If one party was a courtier, and well dressed, and the other a sort of puritan, with a black cap and plain clothes, he insensibly thought the justice of the cause with the latter. If the dissenting, or anti-court party was at the back of a cause, he was very seldom impartial; and the loyalists had always a great disadvantage before him. And he ever sat hard upon his lordship, in his practice, in causes of that nature, as may be observed in the cases of Cuts and Pickering, just before, and of Soams and Bernardiston elsewhere, related. It is said he was once caught. A courtier, who had a cause to be tried before him, got one to go to him, as from the king, to speak for favour to his adversary, and so carried his point; for the Chief Justice could not think any person to be in the right, that came so unduly recommended." Life of Lord Keeper Guilford, p. 61.