CH. I.] LAWYERS OF PAST TIMES. 13 knowledge for his province;" and Clarendon, the wise and faithful servant of the Crown, doomed, like the great historian of Greece, to be the victim of ingratitude; and Hale, the depth of whose legal learning was only equalled by the fervour of his piety; and Somers, not more celebrated as a lawyer than a statesman, whose name is identified with that Revolution, to which we owe the safeguards of our liberties and rights; and Hardwicke, the oracle of equity; and Mansfield, whose eloquence and power of argument were such that, before he adorned the bench, he alone was thought worthy to cope with Chatham in debate, and who afterwards, as Chief Justice of England for thirty-two years, laid the deep and strong foundations of our commercial law; and Erskine, the orator of the forum, whose solitary statue in the hall where he sat for a brief period as chancellor, attests the homage paid to his unrivalled power as an advocate; and Grant, the closest of reasoners, and most patient and excellent of judges; and Stowell, the profound jurist of modern times, whose judgments have commanded the admiration of the world, and whose comprehensive thoughts found utterance in language so fastidiously appropriate, that not a word can be altered without detriment to the sense. But he soon finds how true, as applied to the profession in which he is engaged, are the words of the Preacher: "The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all." Whereas formerly the chief concern of the student was to prepare himself for the demands which he fondly hoped would soon be made upon his intellect and skill, he now learns that the grand difficulty is not in undertaking causes, but in finding opportunity to do so. Months succeed months, and years are added to years, while he waits in vain for occupation. Unemployed and disheartened, he is obliged to sit in enforced idleness in the solitude of his chambers, or attend the courts of law in the character rather of a spectator than a counsel. For no case is entrusted to his care, and he begins at last to wonder that he ever cherished the thought of success in his profession. He gradually learns to contemplate failure as his appointed lot, and almost to acquiesce in the verdict which seems to be pronounced against his capacity for the bar.1 He will not resort to unworthy means for his advancement, and he feels, therefore, that he is almost powerless to assist himself. He cannot, like a tradesman, advertize his wares and solicit custom. He is like a vessel on the strand, which cannot float until the tide flows and ripples round her. But the flowing of the tide must be caused by no underhand agency of his own, if he is careful to observe the honourable rule, and what ought to be the usage of his calling. All that he can do is to be ready for the summons whenever it may come, and prove his fitness whenever he is tried. But, in the meantime, how have the visions of his early youth melted into air! His heart is sick with hope deferred. He no longer fixes his eye upon the mountain tops, to which he once thought he was destined to climb. He feels, by sad exseparates him from perience, what a weary interval them, and is thankful if he can make any progress in the 1 It is seldom found at the present day that those in whose hands rests the destiny of an advocate, agree in opinion with old Fuller, who says, "Commonly physicians, like beer, are best when they are old, and lawyers, like bread, when they are young and new."— Holy State, bk. iii. ITS ARDUOUS REQUIREMENTS. 15 CH. I.] rough and barren ground over which he is obliged to toil. And even if he has a glimmering of success, nothing can be more likely to quench his ardour and extinguish his lofty aspirations, than the kind of cases. which he will find committed to his care. Larcenies at sessions, special pleadings at chambers, and undefended actions on bills of exchange in court, will most probably be all that he will be entrusted with for years. There is need, therefore, of strong hope, and much patience, and steady perseverance in him who seeks to climb by the ladder of the law. But it is cheering to think how many travellers have passed on before him and attained success. They have had like difficulties and trials to overcome, and the remembrance of their triumphs inspires hope and sustains exertion. To the student, therefore, who is about to engage in the conflict of the courts, it cannot be uninteresting to know something of those who have preceded him in the race in other countries and in distant ages, nor unprofitable to learn in what discipline they were trained, and by what means so many of them gained an illustrious name. And the more we accustom ourselves to consider the calling of an advocate in the light and with the feelings with which antiquity regarded it, and the less we regard it as a profession followed merely for the sake of gain, and damaged, as no doubt it is in public estimation, by too much of careless indifference to the truth or justice of a cause undertaken for a fee, the more likely shall we be to satisfy its requirements, and render its exercise an ornament as well as a blessing to society. D'Aguesseau has called the profession of an advocate" as ancient as the magistracy, and as necessary as justice;" and this is no mere figure of rhetoric or flight of fancy. It is the statement of a simple truth. From the period when men first adopted the forms of civil polity, the principle of advocacy must have existed, though the name may have been unknown. For what is it in theory, but the aid afforded by those whom God has gifted with the means and power, to such as are petitioners for right? Nay! what is the press itself but a mighty advocate at the bar of nations? And when did a time exist when there were not to be found the weak, the timid, and the oppressed, who either dared not, or could not, plead their own cause without assistance, at the footstool of justice? Even when the appeal was not to justice but to power, how often, in the infancy of the world, must the suppliant have needed the agency of a friend to stand between him and vengeance, and solicit mercy and pardon? That friend thereby became his advocate. All whom inability or diffidence prevented from speaking for themselves, because they were "not eloquent, being slow of speech, and of a slow tongue," must, like Moses, have required an Aaron to stand forward as the spokesman on their behalf. It was this feeling which wrung from Job, in the depth of his anguish, the bitter cry, "O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbour!" We cannot, however, expect to find, in the infancy of civilisation, any formal recognition of the necessity of the office of an advocate as a distinct calling or profession. In those remote ages, when the transactions of life were of the simplest character, and education had not wrought such wondrous difference in the use of intellect as now exists between man and his fellow man, it might well be thought that the surest mode of elicit 1 "La fonction d'avocat est beaucoup plus ancienne que le titre d'avocat."-Boucher d'Argis, Hist. abrégée de l'Ordre des Avocats. CH. I.] TRIAL SCENE IN HOMER. 17 ing the truth between contending parties, was to bring the accuser and the accused face to face, and let each tell his own story, with such proofs as he could adduce, without allowing another to interfere. In that earliest account of a trial, where inquisition is made for blood, which Homer has given us in his description of the shield made by Hephaestus, at the request of Thetis, for Achilles, the parties are represented as pleading themselves before the judges, each his own advocate.1 "The people thronged the forum, where arose The price of blood, for having slain a man, The other claiming still the fine as due : Both eager to the judges made appeal. The crowd, by heralds scarce kept back, with shouts On smooth and polished stones, a sacred ring, Of office held, to hear and judge the cause; While in the midst two golden talents lay, The prize of him who should most justly plead." 'Iliad, xviii. 497-508. 2 It may be worth while to add the translation which Hobbes of Malmesbury gives of the same passage:— "And full of people was the market-place, Assembled at the hearing of a cause. A man was slain. And this then was the case: The other said that nothing he had paid; And have their proofs before the judges laid: And in the midst of gold two talents lie, |