When even the opposing counsel concedes you are in the right, what, surely, can go wrong?

The temptation to display one’s prowess unopposed can be irresistible.

Sadly, as the below account from the Belfast News-Letter of September 2, 1814 shows, no case is ever too good to lose – advice as true now as then:

Irish barristers of this time prided themselves on their punning skills, and, for all his many faults, John Toler, Lord Norbury, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in Ireland, was a high master of the art, and a good rhymer as well.

More on his linguistic dexterity to come.

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