not very familiar even with the cases decided in his own time ; but no man's eminence rested on a more solid foundation. To a competent supply of legal learning he added vast experience, and the comprehension and clearness with which his mind took in the extensive and complicated matters with which he had to deal could not be exceeded. He possessed a quick and subtle apprehension of legal principles, and a natural logic which was never at fault. To all this he added infinite caution, and a patience which could not be tired out. Candour was, with him, rather a necessary consequence of the frame of his mind than a virtue. His understanding was so just that conviction inevitably followed the propounding of sufficient reasons; and he would have shrunk from being guilty of the absurdity of withholding his assent after good grounds for yielding it were presented to him. In his intercourse with his friends he was in a high degree kind and confiding; and in his attachments was wholly devoid of changeableness or caprice. His personal demeanour was eminently conciliating; and, whilst he was universally looked up to as the great light of the day in conveyancing lore, he was in an equal degree loved and esteemed by the whole profession for his kindness and urbanity. ART. XI.-LEGAL EDUCATION. Certare ingenio, contendere nobilitate, LUCRET. THE great importance of the legal profession renders the education of those who are to carry it on a matter of moment in two points of view. So many persons of respectable condition are attracted to its different branches both by the emoluments and the station which it confers, that the instruction of these to qualify them for entering on its duties is a thing of much consequence to the parties; and again, in a public point of view, nothing can more nearly concern the highest interests of the community than the sufficiency of qualification in point of learning and good habits which the candidates for the most important of trusts, the administration of justice, bring to the performance of their eminent functions. In most countries the public seminaries of education, the Universities and Colleges, afford the inestimable benefit of legal tuition. In the Universities which were the earliest founded after the dark ages, and towards the latter portion of that period, the study of the law, that is, the Civil and the Canon Law, which form the groundwork of all other systems, was the chief business of the teachers. It is, nevertheless, certain that the teaching of the Civil Law was the pursuit which gave its origin to the most ancient of Universities, that of Bologna. From the beginning of the twelfth century it was taught there by Irnerius, and it most probably was taught much earlier; for the Emperor Theodosius is believed to have founded this Academical body in the fifth century, and we must conclude that he who first digested the Roman Law would not leave it untaught in an establishment of his own creation. The teaching of Irnerius spread the study through Italy and through Europe; and the fame of the University in which it had taken its rise increased exceedingly, insomuch that early in the thirteenth century 10,000, and a hundred years later 13,000 were educated within its walls. Soon after Irnerius became famous as a teacher, the Canon Law was taught, and the study of it was greatly encouraged by the Church.1 But it was not till two centuries after Irnerius that a theological school was established; though philosophy had been taught from a considerably earlier period. In all the Universities of Europe, however, without any exception, law formed always one of the four faculties into which the teaching of the place is subdivided; even France was no exception, notwithstanding the prohibition in that country of all teaching in the Civil Law for some centuries, owing to the quarrels between the Holy See and its Eldest Son; in all Universities law was one faculty; and the degrees mainly conferred by these venerable seats of 1 Irnerius taught from 1110 at the latest; Gratian's collection of the Decretal was published in 1151. learning were given to proficients in this study. In some Universities this continues to be the case in our day; but in the greater number the name only is preserved; and so little does in this case the appellation answer to the thing signified, that we believe many even well-informed persons in both France and England are wholly ignorant that the title L.L.D. means Doctor in the Lex Legum, that is, in the Civil Law. In granting none of these degrees is there the least knowledge of the Civil Law, or indeed of any law whatever, now required. But this is not all as regards England. In the country where the importance to the public interests of having well educated lawyers is the greatest, the provision for legal education is the smallest. In fact we bestow upon the process of making lawyers a very great and a very unjust compliment, by talking of any such provision, how scanty soever, as having an existence among us. There is no kind of provision whatever made for ascertaining that a person entering into the legal profession either as a civilian in Doctors' Commons, or a barrister in the courts of Westminster, or a proctor in the ecclesiastical courts, has received any education whatever to fit him for those professions, or indeed any education at all. An examination of a certain kind has indeed been recently instituted for attorneys and solicitors, but a person unable to read or write may become a barrister by merely entering his name during five years at one of the Inns of Court and attending twelve times in its dinner hall at the beginning of the dinners eaten on those days for about twelve weeks in the year. His name being on the books five years, he may attend those twelve times during three out of the five years. This circumstance is all that the law requires, to make a barrister of any man however ignorant both of law and of every thing else, together with the payment of certain fees, orders and certain taxes, dues, fees to the Inn of Court, taxes to the government. The question needs hardly be asked, if this course of proceeding is rational or even decent. We believe the honour of it is exclusively our own. We do not suppose such an outrage upon all common sense as well as propriety is perpetrated in any other country. In Scotland, perhaps, the nearest approach to it is made, but Scotland remains still at a great distance behind us in her advance towards the perfection of abuse, the ne plus ultra of mockery on education. For at least the party claiming to be admitted as an advocate must bring certificates of having attended three courses of lectures in the University, one upon the Institutes of Justinian, another on the Pandects (both delivered in Latin), and a third on Scotch law. The professor examines his pupils occasionally on the two former of these subjects. Besides it is something that there are lectures open to the student if he chooses to attend; he generally will choose. In England no such lectures exist; the law student is not required to attend any; if he were required, there are none to attend. Then an examination is gone through before certain of the faculty, that is of the bar, in the Civil law; and another in the Scotch law. Formerly this was a real examination; of late years it has been reduced to little more than a ceremony and form by the very bad practice of the examiners informing the candidate beforehand of the particular titles in which they are severally to examine him. However he must have prepared himself on eight titles of the Civil, and as many of the Scotch law. In England nothing of the kind is done; but, the candidate approaching the benchers' dining table, while their worships are waiting till the interval elapses that separates their wine from their meal, begins to read a sentence of law, put into his hand by the servants of the Inn, and as soon as he has read three words, the bencher, irritated to leave his wine, dismisses him, being satisfied with this " reading of law." Lastly, in Scotland the candidate must prepare and print a Latin Thesis on certain matters of the Civil law on his own selection; and as these productions are canvassed in the profession, the young lawyer always is the real author of his Thesis. This is no great test, indeed, of his proficiency; still it is better than our English no test at all. But though the rules of the profession require no previous study or education whatever, the wants of the practitioner have instituted a custom, of young men, while awaiting their call (to the Bar), engaging themselves either with special pleaders or with conveyancers, or with equity draftsmen, ac cording as they purpose to try their fortune in the common law or in the equity courts. This is the real legal education in England, unless in so far as it has been preceded or is attended by reading privately at home. Yet this is a very unsatisfactory education: for it only consists in the pupil sitting at the pleader's desk and copying precedents at his own pleasure, or drawing pleadings under the pleader's direction, no pleader either in law or in equity considering himself as bound to afford the least instruction by lecturing, or discussing, or reading with his pupils, though it is admitted some of them, exceptions to the rule, do volunteer this assistance to the studies of the young men. But the consequence is, that even those pupils who see and who do most business in the pleader's office, acquire a practical and mechanical rather than a systematic knowledge of the law. Hardly any one reads on principle, or system as he ought, to prepare himself for the desk of the pleader. In former times it was otherwise; men learnt the science of the law, as they still do all other sciences, by reading to acquire a knowledge of its principles, and they came to the bar far better lawyers than some now are when they have risen high in the profession. That this system is a little in the course of improvement at present we are willing to hope. That it must, before long, be entirely new modelled we are quite certain. There have been attempts at the beginning of a new plan, in one or two of the Inns; these must be revised and extended; nor is it possible that many years should elapse without the establishment of regular lectures in the law and the requirement by the Inns of a certain proficiency in candidates for the Bar, gained by attending these lectures. But assuming that provision shall be made for giving easy and regular access to legal instruction, and that a competent knowledge of law shall be required of all who aspire to the honours of the gown, much remains to be considered as to the education of the lawyer. And first of all, in discussing the question how is a man to prepare himself for advancing to the heights of this renowned profession, assuming as a matter of course that he is to make himself master of the law as far as any one can become master of it by reading and by attending a pleader's office, without |