SIR THOMAS DENMAN'S EAR.
BELLS.—It has been often remarked, that the ringing of bells in the heart of the city of London during the time of business is a great annoyance. Yesterday, the Lord Chief Justice and the Jury in the Court of King's Bench felt the in- convenience to the full extent. The learned Judge, unable to bear the peal re- iterated, was compelled to send his officer to stop the nuisance.—Daily Paper, Thursday.
See what it is for a lawyer to have an ear ! This is the first Chief Justice England has had who has been capable of being dis- tracted from his quidlibets and quodlibets by bells; and we are disposed to think that the Bar will maintain such weakness to be an argument against the soundness of' the Judge's decisions. The law is a jealous study, and will not admit of a divided worship. The true lawyer sticks to his case like a dog to a bone; he has neither eyes nor ears but for the crotchet in hand ; and if we may judge from the tranquillity with which he pursues his business, without disturbance in the midst of the confusion of Westminster Hall and other courts, he must be inaccessible to external sources of annoyance. DEMOSTHENES spouted on the shore by the sound- ing sea: our bar orators seem to enjoy a similar accompaniment. The noise of bells would never even attract the attention of a mere lawyer : but Sir THOMAS DENMAN has unhappily an ear : the tunes began to jingle into his summing-up : he fell to chanting a little in his delivery. " Home, sweet home," seemed mixed up with his notes; and what with the noisy bar and the boisterous bells, cer- tain combinations of sound kept beating time on his pia meter, till at last he was fairly compelled either to break out into a catch, or silence the music. All the phrase about "often remarked "—and the "great annoyance "—and the mixing up the Jury with the Judge, is simply an excuse for the unhappy fact that the present Chief Justice has an ear.
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