Responsible, various, and arduous duties of an Attorney and Solicitor-Integrity-Truth and Honour-Manners-Pre- liminary Education-Mode of studying Law-Conduct during Clerkship—London and Country Practitioners— Caution required in selecting books-Great changes of the Specimen of Scriblerus's Reports (Stradling v. Stiles)...... 519-523 Curious Specimen of vivá voce Pleadings in the English Courts INTRODUCTION. No profession requires, for its successful prosecution, such sedulous and scientific initiation, as that of the Bar; for it is notorious, that its members must depend, from first to last, almost exclusively upon their personal qualifications. A professional 'connexion' is certainly a vast advantage, as securing both early and extensive employment; but of what avail, if it bring business for the discharge of which its possessor is incompetent? A connexion' serves in such a case only to advertise, with fatal effect, his ignorance and presumption *; causing it to be reported, of him who has so signally disappointed his friendly clients, Hic niger est; HUNC tu, Romane, CAVETO! As for great family connexions — they are often little else, to the law-student, than a splendid incumbrance. He may depend upon it, that the support and influence of a single respectable attorney, * The prosperity of fools, says the Wise Man, shall destroy them. B In will be of more consequence to him than all the members of the House of Lords put together: and that single attorney, if luckily secured, can be retained only by ability and incessant industry. almost every other profession a man may succeed, as it were, by deputy; may play Bathyllus to Virgil*; may rely on many adventitious circumstances; but, at the Bar it is far otherwise; "Proprio Marte" is the motto of all: there the candidate must strip, take his place at the post, and start fair with his competitors-the Honourable son of an earl, straining and panting beside the ignoble son of a peasant-in the desperate race towards the goal of professional distinction. What signifies it to the student, that the "blood of all the Howards" rolls in his veins, if he is distanced, or perhaps knocked up at starting, but to enhance the agonies of defeat? Hos ego versiculos feci-tulit alter honores," &c. "I have chosen for my sons, or rather, they have chosen for themselves," continued Mr. Percy, "professions which are inde pendent of influence, and in which it would be of little use to them. Patrons can be of little value to a lawyer or physician. No judge, no attorney, can push a lawyer up beyond a certain point; he may rise like a rocket, but he will fall like the stick, if he be not supported by his own inherent powers. Where property or life is at stake, men will not compliment, or even be influenced by great recommendations. They will consult the best lawyer and the best physician, whoever he may be."-PATRONAGE, by Miss Edgeworth --a tale worthy the perusal of the youthful student. En passant, to give the devil his due, the admirable illustration of the rocket is taken from Tom Paine. And this personal fitness, moreover, is inexorably exacted by a profession full of peculiar and extraordinary difficulty in the acquisition and use of its learning. The vast extent, the "variety almost infinite," the subtlety, complexity, and minuteness of knowledge required by the exigencies of daily practice-knowledge which must be thoroughly mastered, or it had better be wholly let alone-the necessarily brief intervals of preparation for the discharge of the most arduous and responsible duties; the quick detection, the often public and perilous exposure of incompetence :-surely it is melancholy that THIS should be the profession so signally destitute of any appropriate, systematic, and uniform method of tuition. Where is such to be looked for? There are, to be sure, Downing College and Trinity Hall, at Cambridge; Lectures very recently founded at the Inner Temple, King's College, the Law Institution, and London University, in the Metropolis; Pleaders', Conveyancers', and Equity Draftsmen's Chambers, * "A learned man in the laws of this realm," says Sir Edward Coke, in the preface to his Book of Entries, "is long a-making; the student thereof, having sedentariam vitam, is not commonly long lived (of this Sir Edward was himself a melancholy instance, being cut off at the premature age, alas ! of eighty-five); the study abstruse and difficult, the occasion sudden, the practice dangerous." This was pretty well for 1614: what would he say in 1835 ? +"Of all the professions in the world that pretend to book learning, none is so destitute of institution as that of the common law."-Roger North's Disc. on the Study of the Law. |