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Upon hearing the witches in Macbeth say, "We are doing a deed without a name,” a lawyer in the pit exclaimed, "Then it's not worth a farthing."

The lawyer in Hogarth insists that an elector who had lost his arm, cannot be sworn, as he cannot take the book in his hand.

20. He does not suppose all his fellow-creatures under the influence of bad passions, from the effects of vice which he daily witnesses.Against this tendency Lord Bacon warns all students; saying, "As the fable goes of the basilisk, that if he see a man first, the man dies; but if a man see him first, the basilisk dies; so it is with frauds, impostures, and evil arts; if a man discover them first, they lose their power of doing hurt; but if they prevent, then, and not otherwise, they endanger."

The young physician, when he attends the hospitals, sees the ruins of human nature: bodies laid up in heaps, like the bones of a destroyed. town, hominis precarii spiritus et male hærentis, men whose souls seem borrowed, and kept there by art and the force of medicine; whose miseries are so great, that few people have charity or humanity enough to visit them; or, visiting them, to do more than pity, in civility, or with a transient prayer but the young man does not, from these sad scenes, infer that all men are thus afflicted. So, our lawyer does not, in his haste,

say that all men are liars. When he assists in punishing the robbers, he does not forget the good Samaritan, who bound up the wounds of the way-faring man; and, when called upon to censure the sins of the woman at the feast, he is not unmindful that she may have her store of precious ointment to pour on the feet of her master.

SECTION II.

HIS DUTY TO HIS CLIENT.

1. In considering his duty to his client, he reflects upon the propriety of his acting; upon the person for whom he should act; and his mode of acting.

2. He considers the principle upon which the profession of an advocate is founded.-From our tendency to err, the utmost caution is requisite in the discovery of truth, both in the natural and moral world. "If," says Lord Bacon, " you infer that the rays of celestial bodies are hot, because the rays of the sun excite heat, remember that the rays of the moon are cold. If you infer that the blood of animals is warm, because human blood is warm, remember that the blood of fish is cold. Examine, therefore, before you decide. Try all

things; weigh all things. When the different sons of Jesse were brought before Samuel in the house, he asked for David, who was absent in the field."

If this caution ought, in general, to be observed in the discovery of truth, what vigilance must be requisite when deciding upon human conduct? Who can tell all the windings and turnings, all the hollownesses and dark corners of the mind? It is a wilderness in which a man may wander more than forty years, and through which few have passed to the promised land. Wisdom, therefore, is always anxious to assist its own judgment by the opinions of others: "Lord Bacon lit his torch at every man's candle."

Requisite as caution is, in forming a correct judgment upon human conduct in general, what difficulties attend the discovery of truth in a court of justice, amidst a conflict of passions endeavouring to mislead, and where sensibility is often least able to do justice to itself. When the general feeling of the public respecting the dilatoriness of the Chancellor D'Aguessau was respectfully communicated to him by his son, "My child," said the Chancellor, "when you shall have read what I have read, seen what I have seen, and heard what I have heard, you will feel that if on any subject you know much, there may be also much that you do not know; and that something even of that you know may not, at the

moment, be in your recollection. You will then, too, be sensible of the mischievous and often ruinous consequences of even a small error in a decision, and conscience, I trust, will then make you as doubtful, as timid, and consequently as dilatory, as I am accused of being." To aid the judge, therefore, in eliciting the truth, it has been deemed expedient, that he should hear the opposite statements of experienced men, who, in a public assembly, may be more able than the suitors to do justice to the causes upon which their interests depend.

3. He examines the reasons in favour and in opposition to this principle.-That the judge should be assisted by hearing every reason which can be urged, appears indisputable. If a judge is called upon to decide on any doubtful question, in chemistry, for instance, would it not be desirable that he should hear the conflicting sentiments of the same chemist, or of two eminent chemists? Or in a doubtful question of insanity, to hear the opposite sentiments of the same physician, or of two eminent physicians? Opposite statements by the same individual is the process in our own minds, and to which, after having heard all and weighed all, we are obliged to resort; and it is a process not unknown in former times. When Alexander was feasting one night where Calisthenes was at the table, it was moved by some after supper, for entertainment sake, that

Calisthenes, who was an eloquent man, might speak of some theme or purpose, at his own choice: which Calisthenes did; choosing the praise of the Macedonian nation for his discourse, and performing the same with so good manner, as the hearers were much ravished: whereupon Alexander, nothing pleased, said, "It was easy to be eloquent upon so good a subject." "But," saith he, "turn your style, and let us hear what you can say against us:" which Calisthenes presently undertook, and did with that sting and life, that Alexander interrupted him, and said, "The goodness of the cause made him eloquent before, and despite made him eloquent again."

In the Harleian MSS., in the British Museum, it is said that Elizabeth, Queen of England, was a princess most entirely beloved of the people, for during her government pure justice and mercy did overflow in all courts of judicature. “And in this peereless Queen's reigne it is reported that there was but one Serjeant at Law at the Common Pleas bar (called Serjeant Benlowes) who was ordered to plead both for the plaintiff and defendant, for which he was to take of each party ten groats only and no more; and to manifest his impartial dealing to both parties, he was therefore to wear a party-coloured gown, and to have a black cap on his head, of imperial justice, and under it a white linen coyfe, of innocence."

The statements by opposite advocates may not

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