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stem; which stem, for some dimension and space, is entire and continued, before it break and part itself into arms and boughs; therefore the nature of the subject requires, before we pursue, the parts of the former distribution, to erect and constitute one universal science, which may be the mother of the rest; and that in the progress of sciences, a portion, as it were, of the common highway may be kept, before we come where the ways part and divide themselves.”*

Our lawyer, therefore, studies the law of laws -“ justitia universalis,"—the fixed poles, which, however the law may turn, stand immoveable.

7. He studies human nature.-He remembers the maxim, "Pour diriger les mouvemens de la poupée humaine, il faudroit connoître les fils qui la meuvent." He remembers the words of Lord

*And in his entrance on the science of Human Nature, he thus speaks to the same effect:

"Now let us come to that knowledge, whereunto the ancient oracle directeth us, which is the knowledge of ourselves: which deserves the more accurate handling by how much it toucheth us more nearly. This knowledge is to man the end and term of knowledges; but of nature herself, a portion only. And generally let this be a rule, that all divisions of knowledges be so accepted and applied, as that they may rather design forth and distinguish sciences into parts, than cut and

Bolingbroke: "I might instance, in other professions, the obligations men lie under of applying themselves to certain parts of history, and I can hardly forbear doing it in that of the law; in its nature the noblest and most beneficial to mankind, in its abuse and abasement the most sordid and the most pernicious. A lawyer now is nothing more, I speak of ninety-nine in a hundred at least, to use some of Tully's words, ' nisi leguleius quidam cautus, et acutus, præco actionum, cantor formularum, auceps syllabarum:' but there have been lawyers that were orators, philosophers, historians: there have been Bacons and Clarendons. There will be none such any more, till in some better age, true ambition or the love of fame prevails over avarice; and till men find leisure and encouragement to prepare themselves for the exercise of this profession, by climbing up to the

pull them asunder into pieces; that so the continuance and entireness of knowledges may ever be preserved. For the contrary practice hath made particular sciences to become barren, shallow, and erroneous, while they have not been nourished, maintained, and rectified, from the common fountain and nursery. So we see Cicero the orator complained of Socrates, and his school, that he was the first that separated philosophy and rhetoric; whereupon rhetoric became a verbal, and empty art."

vantage ground' of science, instead of grovelling all their lives below, in a mean but gainful application to all the little arts of chicane. Till this happen, the profession of the law will scarce deserve to be ranked among the learned professions and whenever it happens, one of the vantage grounds to which men must climb, is metaphysical, and the other historical knowledge. They must pry into the secret recesses of the human heart, and become well acquainted with the whole moral world, that they may discover the abstract reason of all laws: and they must trace the laws of particular states, especially of their own, from the first rough sketches to the more perfect draughts; from the first causes or occasions that produced them, through all the effects, good and bad, that they produced."

8. He studies the law which he is to practise, with due consideration of the law of other countries, and, that he may practise with effect, he is not unmindful that eloquence is to knowledge what colours are to a picture.

9. He is careful of his times of recreation.— He never forgets the old adage, "Tell me your amusements, and I will tell you what you are." He knows that the employment of times of recreation, is susceptible of every variety between the lowest sensuality and the highest intellectual pleasures between the "silence of Archimedes in his study, and the stillness of a sow at her

wash;" between the drunken revelries of Jefferies, and the calm occupations of Sir Matthew Hale.

"When a magistrate," says the author of the life of the Chancellor de l'Hôpital," returned to his family, he had little temptation to stir again from home. His library was necessarily his sole resource; his books his only company. To this austere and retired life, we owe the Chancellor de l'Hôpital, the President de Thou, Pasquier, Loisel, the Pithous, and many other ornaments of the magistracy."

10. When his name is up, his industry is not down. He does not think it virtuous to plead by his credit, but by his study. This is the duty of the good advocate; but commonly physicians, like beer, are best when old; and lawyers, like bread, when they are new and young.

11. He relies with confidence upon the power of industry and integrity.-He does not doubt the truth of the old maxim, " Good counsellors never lack clients." Long suffering is a lesson in every part of our lives; in no part of life is it more necessary than in the arduous profession of the law the greatest men it has produced have, at some period of their professional lives, been ready to faint at their long and apparently fruitless journey; and they would have fainted, had they not been supported by a confidence in the power of character and industry by which they broke out into light and glory at the last, exhibiting the

splendid spectacle of great talents long exercised by difficulties, and high principles never tainted by any of the arts by which men sometimes become basely rich, or dishonourably great.*

12. He considers how his profession may tend to warp his mind.-He remembers the words of Lord Bacon: "We every one of us have our particular den or cavern, which refracts and corrupts the light of nature; either because every one has his respective temper, education, acquaintance, course of reading and authorities, or from the difference of impressions, as they happen in a mind prejudiced or prepossessed, or in one that is calm and equal." As the divine, from constantly teaching, is in danger of being wise in his own conceit; the physician, from constantly seeing man in an abject state, of losing his reverence for human nature; the soldier, of being ignorant, debauched, and extravagant; so against the idols of lawyers, moral and mental, our lawyer will be upon his guard.

* "I have heard it observed, that those men who have risen to the greatest eminence in the profession of law, have been in general such as had at first, an aversion to the study. The reason probably is, that to a mind fond of general principles, every study must be at first disgusting, which presents to it a chaos of facts apparently unconnected with each other. But this love of arrangement, if united with persevering industry, will at last conquer every difficulty; will introduce order into what seemed on a superficial view

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