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and defendant were frequently in the habit of obliging each other
with temporary loans, without taking written acknowledgements of
them. Everything seemed plain as the day, and the jury thought there
was an end of the case.
When the counsel of the defendant blandly admitted that he
had not the smallest intention of disputing that his client had had
the money, and proceeded to unfold the nature of his defence, the
countenance of Mr Snap, the plaintiff's attorney fell. He descerned
at once that they were nonplussed, and nervously awaited the
catastrophe. None of the defendant's witnesses broke down in their
severe cross-examination. They all agreed as to the chaff about the
genuineness of the banknotes, the subject talked about during dinner,
and the songs sung afterwards. Some slight discrepancy in their
evidence on trivial points was thought by the judge to tell rather in
their favour, and without throwing the smallest doubt on the
truthfulness of the evidence adduced in support of the plaintiff's claim,
he summed up dead against the latter. Thereupon the jury gave a
verdict for the defendant without leaving the box, and victory was
celebrated by another dinner, at which the guests complimented each
other on the able way in which they had withstood the searching
cross-examination of the plaintiff's counsel.
It has long been recognised that the famous trial of Bardell v. Pickwick was based
by Dickens on the Melbourne/Norton trial which he had reported on for The Morning
Chroniclebut perhaps we do not always realise just how close to the absurd reality
Dickens's fictitious trial was. Sergeant Buzfuz's hilarious treatment of Mr Pickwick's
correspondence with Mrs Bardell seems utterly preposterous, but listen to Sir William
Follett, the cousel for Captain Norton, the plaintiff, dealing with Lord Melbourne's
correspondence with Mrs Norton. After admitting that only three notes have been found,
all relating to the hours when Melbourne might call on Mrs Norton, Sir William continues:
But there is something in the style even of these trivial notes
to lead at least to some thing like suspicion. Here is one of them: "I
will call about Vfe past 4 or 5 o'clock. Yours, Melbourne". There is no
regular beginning of the letters; they don't commence with "My dear
Mrs Norton", or anything of that sort, as is usual in this country
when a gentleman writes to a lady. Here is another "How are you?"
Again no beginning, as you see. "How are you? I shall not be able
to call today, but probably shall tomorrow. Yours, &c. Melbourne".
This is not the note of a gentleman to a lady with whom he
may be acquainted. The third runs: "There is no house today. I shall
call after the levée, about 4 or V2 past. If you wish it later let me
know. I shall then explain to you about going to Vauxhall. Yours,
&c., Melbourne" They seem to import much more than the words
convey. They are written cautiously, I admit - there is no profession
of love in them, they are not loveletters, but they are not written
in the oridinary style of correspondence usually adopted between
intimate friends.
As to Buzfuz's, florid oratory, that, it seems, also had an original. This was not,
in fact, the style of Sir William Follett but rather that of an Irish barrister called Charles
Phillips who specialised in "criminal conversation" cases such as the Melbourne/Norton
one or the case of Guthrie v. Sterne (1826) in which he anticipated Buzfuz with the
following flower of rhetoric:
