The judge thereupon chuckled with infinite delight; and beckoning to the clerk who attended on the occasion, he said, 'Are ye no Rabbie H----'s man ?' 'Yes, my lord.' 'Wasna Jemmie----leein' ?' 'Oh no, my lord.' 'Ye're quite sure ?' Oh yes.' 'Then just write out what you want, and I'll sign it; my faith, but I made Jemmie stare.' So the decision was dictated by the clerk, and duly signed by the judge, who left the bench highly diverted with the fright he had given his young friend." Such scenes enacted in court _now_ would astonish the present generation, both of lawyers and of suitors.
We should not do justice to our Scottish Reminiscences of judges and lawyers, if we omitted the once celebrated Court of Session _jeu d'esprit_ called the "Diamond Beetle Case." This burlesque report of a judgment was written by George Cranstoun, advocate, who afterwards sat in court as judge under the title of Lord Corehouse.

Cranstoun was one of the ablest lawyers of his time; he was a prime scholar, and a man of most refined taste and clear intellect.

This humorous and clever production was printed in a former edition of these Reminiscences, and in a very flattering notice of the book which appeared in the _North British Review_, the reviewer--himself, as is well known, a distinguished member of the Scottish judicial bench--remarks: "We are glad that the whole of the 'Diamond Beetle' by Cranstoun has been given; for nothing can be more graphic, spirited, and ludicrous, than the characteristic speeches of the learned judges who deliver their opinions in the case of defamation." As copies of this very clever and jocose production are not now easily obtained, and as some of my younger readers may not have seen it, I have reprinted it in this edition.
Considered in the light of a memorial of the bench, as it was known to a former generation, it is well worth preserving; for, as the editor of _Kay's Portraits_ well observes, although it is a caricature, it is entirely without rancour, or any feeling of a malevolent nature towards those whom the author represents as giving judgment in the "Diamond Beetle" case.

And in no way could the involved phraseology of Lord Bannatyne, the predilection for Latin quotation of Lord Meadowbank, the brisk manner of Lord Hermand, the anti-Gallic feeling of Lord Craig, the broad dialect of Lords Polkemmet and Balmuto, and the hesitating manner of Lord Methven, be more admirably caricatured.
FULL COPY OF THE FINDING OF THE COURT IN THE ONCE CELEBRATED "DIAMOND BEETLE CASE[47]." _Speeches taken at advising the Action of Defamation and Damages,_ ALEXANDER CUNNINGHAM, _Jeweller in Edinburgh, against_ JAMES EUSSELL, _Surgeon there_.
"THE LORD PRESIDENT (Sir ILAY CAMPBELL) .-- Your Lordships have the petition of Alexander Cunningham against Lord Bannatyne's interlocutor.

It is a case of defamation and damages for calling the petitioner's _Diamond Beetle_ an _Egyptian Louse_.