actual practice in giving opinions or conducting causes, we must lay it down as clear that a foundation should by all means be laid broad and deep of general learning. The classics are chiefly to be studied, no other means existing of making the taste pure and attaining a proficiency in the oratorical art. But the sciences are of much importance. The moral sciences evidently cannot be two carefully studied by those whose occupation it is to reason upon evidence, and probabilities, to address the feelings and the passions, to discuss points of duty, to discriminate between shades of guilt. The business of practical lawyers lies very mainly among questions of morals. But physical science, too, demands their care. No one can be ignorant how many cases are always coming before courts of justice, which turn upon principles of natural philosophy and niceties in the mechanical and chemical arts. Lawyers and judges of the highest eminence have frequently been heard to declare, that far from considering any portion of the time which they had spent in learning the different branches of physical science thrown away, they only lamented daily not having laid in a larger provision of such knowledge, aware how well they could find the means of turning it to account. It may fairly be questioned if any benefit can result to practical men from the extravagant degree of attention paid at Cambridge to pure mathematics, or to the niceties of the ancient metres at Eton and Oxford; but indeed it is equally questionable if such excessive refinements are at all profitable in any other department of exertion, even with a view to the cultivation of the sciences or of letters themselves; and in aid of this doubt comes the known fact of so very minute a percentage of wranglers and first-class men ever in after-life distinguishing themselves in scientific or in literary pursuits; nay, as the generally known fact of very few if any of these classes, after leaving the banks of Cam and of Isis, ever looking at either a mathematical or a classical book. But these are extravagant actings on a good principle; excesses to which sound doctrine is uselessly, even hurtfully, carried by the zeal of the learned. No man can doubt that a familiar acquaintance with mathematical principles, mathematical methods of demonstration, the doctrines of mechanical and of chemical science is of un

speakable importance to the practical lawyer, whether conducting causes at the Bar or deciding them on the Bench. If any one doubted this before hearing Lord Tenterden try a patent cause, all his doubts must then have vanished for ever. After that he was more likely to overvalue than to underrate this accomplishment.

But next, the branches of knowledge not cultivated at schools and colleges are also of eminent use to lawyers. No man can be an excellent lawyer without a knowledge of history; especially the history of his own country. But also no accomplished lawyer can be without a general knowledge of the legal systems of other countries. They who have studied the ablest legal arguments in our courts in modern times especially must be aware what sources of both reasoning and illustration the comparative view of other systems has afforded. This is in truth almost the only particular in which our lawyers of the present day surpass the learned and elaborate ones of old.

An acquaintance with the lighter literature of the country is also highly beneficial to the advocate-to him especially who has to address either a parliamentary tribunal or a jury. Generally speaking, our older lawyers (we mean of modern times) have been confined in their reading to Shakspere, as indeed the sameness of their quotations appeared to testify. Yet even this modicum of the English classics had its advantages, and their making provision of it was a testimony to the advantages of such classical knowledge. Sir Vicary Gibbs, it was said, had never read but two books out of the profession since he quitted Cambridge, where he took a good degree. In the one he was fortunate enough; it was Shakspere. Not so felicitous did he turn out to be in his second choice; it was Damberger's travels, which he had painfully studied, and even indexed. But unluckily it turned out to be a very clumsy fabrication, no such journey into Central Africa having ever been undertaken, nor any such traveller having existed.

It has often been questioned whether the student derives any benefit from those lighter studies, sufficient to compensate the risk he incurs of having his mind drawn away to the mere flowery paths of literature from the arid and tedious road of

the law. But we must consider that the studies in question are to precede his devoting himself chiefly to his professional studies; and even if they be continued during his preparation for the Bar, they are likely to form rather a wholesome and invigorating relaxation from more severe pursuits than a distraction. It may safely be affirmed, that unless a young man have the fixed desire of becoming a good lawyer, either from ambition, or from narrow circumstances (by far the best preparation for Westminster Hall), or from both, he will never master the science of the law; and with such a resolution to govern and to guide him, he may safely be entrusted with access to the classics whether of ancient times or of

his own.

Another question has been made touching the advantages of a plan much favoured by the students both for the Scotch and English Bar, that of attending debating societies. It seems strange that any doubt should be raised on this point. Give a youth as much book learning as can be poured into him, make him even expert in all the details of pleading or of practice that he can gain from attending a pleader's or an attorney's office, even with all natural capacity to boot, he must come into Westminster Hall or the Parliament House utterly incapable of opening his mouth, and making the stores of his learning, the fruits of his study, available, if he never has heard the sound of his own voice in public since he quitted the grammar-school. That this practice of debating may be carried to excess, no one can doubt. The means may

become an end; the charms of discussion and of eloquence may absorb the spirit of the student, and he may become far more anxious to acquire superficially what may fit him for the club-room, than to learn deeply what will fit him for the Bar. Nay the proceedings of parliament seem to furnish examples of such mischiefs created by a premature habit of debate. But the risk of these is a necessary evil; for some practice must be had before public speaking can be acquired. It is an art which any one can learn if he pleases. He will excel in it according to his genius; but he may acquire it to a certain degree of perfection; as all may learn to draw, though few Raphaels and Michael Angelos have appeared. It will tend greatly to prevent the bad effects of debating șo

cieties in giving a careless and worthless fluency, the vice of our age, if the student makes it his rule to write as much as possible before he delivers his arguments or his remarks. He need not always repeat the very speech he has written. But having deliberately and laboriously written it, he will both have well mastered the subject, and will have considered the language in which his thoughts should be expressed. He may then speak better in every respect than if he never had employed his pen to prepare himself, although he should not get by heart and recite all he had written. No one need be ashamed to pursue this course. It has led to make the most finished orators in all ages; and men of business, above the mere tricks of the rhetorician, have adopted the plan. Lord Grenville upon all important occasions wrote a speech when he intended to take part in debate, but he scarcely ever committed it to memory, or delivered it as he had written it. Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox followed no such course; neither of them in all probability ever wrote a sentence which he delivered. But Mr. Pitt must have studied composition with great pains, and he certainly, never having frequented any place of debate, felt somewhat anxious as to his success when he should for the first time try the experiment of his powers. He had in all probability not only written a good deal of note or dissertation on the subjects of his various reading, but had made speeches alone. In order to ascertain how he should feel, and how succeed, before an audience, he went disguised with the late Lord St. John, who then lived in the same Chambers (Old Square, Lincoln's Inn), to the debating club or theatre kept by a Mrs. Cornellis, where persons were allowed to speak in masks. His self-possession was complete, his success was very great, and all anxiety as to the final result was at an end.

Although we have given an unhesitating opinion in favour of debating societies, we must qualify it by adding that those are greatly to be preferred which either entirely or almost entirely confine the subjects of their discussion to points of law. It is quite easy to mingle jury speaking with legal argument; because cases may be drawn, like special verdicts, stating the evidence in detail, and leaving the conclusion in point of fact to be the question propounded, instead of the

legal inference as a special verdict or case does. The advantage is manifest of this restriction. Any such society which admits all general questions of morals, of evidence, and especially of politics, is most likely to beguile the student from his law books, beside exposing him to the hazard of acquiring a loose, tawdry, and popular style of speaking.

The necessity of attending a draftsman or a special pleader cannot be a matter of any doubt at all. But it has often been questioned whether before being called to the Bar, the candidate for practice should not also be a pleader below the Bar for some few years. Indeed, when the vast numbers, daily increasing, who frequent the circuits, are considered, there seems some ground for the opinion, now so prevalent, that if a barrister merely goes the circuit and takes no other steps to make himself known, his prospect of acquiring business is slender. Accordingly it has become a saying that "there be three roads to success in the common law: pleading, sessions, and miracle." As no one would trust the third chance, of which indeed the examples upon authentic record are but few, we may presume that this is the sound opinion, and that if the probation of pleading before admission be avoided, sessions for several years, perhaps for many, must be attended as well as circuit. In former times our chancery lawyers went sessions. Sir Samuel Romilly did so for upwards of a dozen years, as he also attended circuit regularly, he and Mr. Perceval travelling together. Now, indeed, the unfortunate separation of Law and Equity has taken place to the great injury of both branches of the profession, and of Equity considerably more than of Law, as we have had occasion to show in treating of Jurisprudence at large.

After a gentleman is called to the Bar, his study of the law does not end; it rather takes a new course, and is to be more actively and successfully pursued. He has hitherto only known the law from books, and from written pleadings, but is now to see how it works; how its principles are applied to practice; he is to acquire what the very learned lawyers like Heineccius, and Voet, and Vinnius term, in purely classical language, the habitus practicus interpretandi leges, applicandique casibus obenientibus, and which