where the lawyer would introduce them with hesitation and abandon them without a struggle. When a man has nothing really to say he is assisted greatly by confusion of language, and a total want of arrangement and grammar. Mere stupidity, accompanied by a certain degree of fluency, is no inconsiderable power. It enables its possessor to protract the contest long after he is beaten, because he neither understands his own case, nor the arguments by which he has been answered. It is a weapon of defence, behind which he obtains protection, not only from his adversaries, but from the judge. If the learned person who presides, wearied out with endless irrelevances, should attempt to stop him, he will insist on his privilege to be dull, and obtain the admiration of the audience by his firmness in supporting the rights of the bar. In these points, a sensitive and acute advocate has no chance of rivalling him in the estimation of the by-standers. A young man may, indeed, display correctness of thought, depth of research, and elegant perspicuity in an argument on a special case, in the Court of King's Bench; but few will hear and fewer listen to him; and he will see the proceedings of the day shortly characterised in the newspapers of the morrow as totally destitute of public interest,' while the opposite column will be filled with an elaborate report of a case of assault at Clerkenwell, or a picturesque account of a squabble between a pawnbroker and an alderman!

6

"To address a jury, even in cases of minor importance, seems at first to require talents and acquirements of a superior kind. It really requires a certain degree of nerve, a readiness of utterance, and a sufficient acquaintance with the ordinary line of illustration used and approved on similar occasions. A power of stating facts, indeed, distinctly and concisely is often important to the real issue of the cause; but it is not one which the audience are likely to appreciate. The man who would please them best should omit all the facts of his case, and luxuriate in the common-places which he can connect with it, unless he is able to embellish his statement, and invest the circumstances he relates with adventitious importance and dignity. An advocate of accurate perceptions, accustomed to rate things according to their true value, will find great difficulty in doing either. Most of the. subject-matter of flourish, which is quite as real to the superficial orator as any thing in the world, is thrown far back from his habitual thoughts, and hardly retains a place among the lumber of his memory. Grant him time for preparation, and a disposition to do violence to his own tastes, in order to acquire popularity, and he may approach a genuine artist in the factitious; but, after all, he will run great risk of being detected as a pretender. A single touch of real feeling, a single piece of concise logical reasoning will ruin the effect of the whole, and disturb

the well-attuned minds of an enlightened jury. Even the topics which must be dilated on are often such as would not weigh a feather with an intelligent man out of court, and still oftener give occasion to watery amplifications of ideas, which may be fairly and fully expressed in a few words. It is obvious, therefore, that the more an advocate's mind is furnished with topics rather than with opinions or thoughts, the more easy will he find the task of addressing a jury. A sense of truth is ever in his way. It breaks the fine, flimsy, gossamer tissue of his eloquence, which, but for this sturdy obstacle, might hang suspended on slender props to glitter in the view of fascinated juries. If he has been accustomed to recognise a proportion between words and things, he will, with difficulty, screw himself up to describe a petty affray in the style of Gibbon, though to his client the battle of Holywell-lane may seem more important than the fall of the Roman Empire. If he would enrapture the audience when entrusted to open a criminal case of importance, he should begin with the first murder; pass a wellrounded eulogy on the social system; quote Blackstone, and the precepts of Noah; and dilate on crime, conscience, and the trial by jury; before he begins to state the particular facts which he expects to prove. He disdains to do this-or the favourite topics never occur to his mind even to be rejected; and, instead of winning the admiration of a county, he only obtains a conviction! In addition to an inward repugnance to solemn fooling, men of sterling sense have also to overcome the dread of the criticism of others whose opinion they value, before they can descend to the blandishments of popular eloquence. It is seldom, therefore, that a young barrister can employ the most efficacious mode of delighting his audience, unless he is nearly on a par with them, and thinks, in honest stupidity, that he is pouring forth pathos and wisdom. There is, indeed, an excessive proneness to adopt the tone of the moment, an easiness of temperament, which sometimes may enable him to make a display in a trifling matter without conscious degradation; but he is ashamed of his own success when he grows cool, and was reduced by excessive sympathy to the level of his hearers only for the hour. Let no one, therefore, hastily conclude that the failure of a youth, to whom early opportunities are given, is a proof of essential inferiority to successful rivals. It may be, indeed, that he is below his business; for want of words does not necessarily imply plenitude of ideas, nor is abstinence from lofty prosings and stale jests conclusive evidence of wit and knowledge; but he is more probably superior to his vocation-too clear in his own perceptions to perplex others; too much accustomed to think, to make a show without thought; and too deeply impressed with admiration of the

venerable and the affecting readily to apply their attributes to the miserable facts he is retained to embellish."-London Magazine, pp. 327-330.

It will be admitted on all hands that these are very striking passages, powerfully conceived and graphically expressed. Yet we are inclined to consider want of professional connection as the only cause of failure which lies fairly and completely beyond the candidate's control. It is really (we repeat) more than can reasonably be expected of the most enlightened and discriminating attorney, that he should pick out an untried junior amongst a hundred on circuit or a thousand in town, without some more pressing and personal motive for the selection than a reputation for ability; and the inevitable consequence is, that men of undoubted merit are constantly condemned to witness the success of less deserving competitors, whilst they themselves are pining in disappointment with the melancholy consciousness that their talents are daily deteriorating from disuse. It is also true that, when this first difficulty is partially surmounted, a man may be prevented by taste, feeling, or principle from making the best of his portunities; and that a bold, blustering fellow, will sometimes clear the shallows sooner than a man of cultivated mind and

op

manners, tremblingly alive to considerations of fitness and propriety. Still, if a barrister once gets business enough to give him a fair trial1 and then fails, the chances are a hundred to one that he fails, not from the extent of his capacity but from some weakness in his character, not from the correctness of his taste but its fastidiousness, not from the refinement of his feelings or the elevation of his views, but from the want of strong good sense and a vigorous masculine understanding to qualify him for the ordinary topics of business and the ordinary concerns of life. "The true strong and sound mind," says Johnson, "is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small. Now I am told the King of Prussia will say to a servant, bring me a bottle of such a wine, which came in such a year, it lies in such a corner of the cellars. I would have a man great in great things, and elegant in little things." We would have a man simply equal to his work-par negotiis neque supra—and though we may allow that success in the early

1 A case or two a term is not enough for this purpose, for legal practice is like pheasant shooting-the first three or four birds at the beginning of each season flurry you.

stages of the bar does not imply the possession of any of the highest qualities, still less does it imply the want of them. We therefore find it impossible to agree with Serjt. Talfourd, (nor can he himself intend such expressions to be taken literally,) that a single touch of real feeling, a single piece of concise logical reasoning, will ruin the effect of the whole, or that a sense of truth is ever in the way; and to the objection, that an intelligent man will with difficulty screw himself up to describe a petty affray in the style of Gibbon, it may be replied that there is no earthly reason why he should. Let him only pay due attention to the facts, select the topics best adapted for plain but sound understandings, and trust to the excitement of the moment for the tone-and he will soon drive a mere flashy declaimer, with his got-up oration about crime, conscience and the precepts of Noah, from the field. He may fill less space in the county newspaper, but he will be compensated in briefs; for if attorneys are not always led instinctively to sterling merit, they are certainly not blinded by notoriety. Of the gentlemen who within our recollection have come out in what, for want of a better term, is called the Irish line, we should be puzzled to name two who have derived any solid advantage from their displays. One quality, however, is indispensable, the power of throwing yourself heart and soul into your cause; and perhaps the only sure mode of deciding whether any given individual will succeed at the bar, is to ascertain whether he is endowed with this capacity. He may show a disrelish for the study, or trifle with his profession at the outset, but if he is of an eager, anxious, excitable temperament, and has proved that he can apply in good earnest when he chooses, it is always on the cards that he will get on. Mr. Serjt. Talfourd thus observes upon this quality:

"An advocate should not only throw his mind into the cause, but his heart also. It is not enough that the ingenuity is engaged to elicit strength, or conceal weakness, unless the sympathies are fairly enlisted on the same side. To men of lofty habits of thinking, or of cold constitution, this is impossible, unless the case is of intrinsic magnitude, or the client has been wise enough to supply an artificial stimulus in the indorsement on the brief. Such men, therefore, are only excellent in peculiar cases, where their sluggish natures are quickened, and their pride gratified or disarmed by a high issue

or splendid fee. Persons, on the other hand, who are prevented from saying 'no,' not by cowardice, but by sympathy: whose hearts open to all who happen to be their companions; whose prejudices vanish with a cordial grasp of the hand, or melt before a word of judicious flattery; who have a spare fund of warmth and kindness to bestow on whoever seeks it; and who, energetic in action, are wavering in opinion, and infirm of purpose-will be delightful advocates, if they happen also to possess industry and nerve. The statement in their brief is enough to convert them into partisans, ready to triumph in the cause if it is good, and to cling to it if it is hopeless as to a friend in misfortune. By this instinct of sociality, they are enabled not only to throw life into its details, and energy into its struggles, but to create for themselves a personal interest with the jury, which they turn to the advantage of their clients. It has often been alleged that the practice of the law prepares men to abandon their principles in the hour of temptation; but it will often appear, on an attentive survey of their character, that the extent of their practice was the effect rather than the cause of their inconstancy. They are not unstable because they were successful barristers, but became successful barristers by virtue of the very qualities which render them unstable."-London Mag. p. 333, 334.

In our opinion the quality in question is no proof whatever of inconstancy or instability; on the contrary, it may both coexist and harmonize with the same decision of character, the same elevation of principle, the same energy of purpose and doggedness of will, which made Nelson a hero and Howard a philanthropist. We all know how Nelson, in the early part of his career, fretted himself to death's door about objects utterly disproportioned to the anxiety he wasted on them; and how Howard excited the sincere pity of his friends by his enthusiasism. But there is no necessity for going back to their biography, as a fresh living instance of the peculiarity has been afforded within the year.

"I know you so well (writes Lord Brougham to Mr. Clarkson) and are so fully acquainted with your active and anxious temper, that I am quite certain you would have written as much, and a very great deal more, about anything which was going on respecting any other person, friend, or even stranger, nay, 1 might add, about any dumb animal or any other thing in which you happened to take an interest for the moment. You, like most other men who have rendered great service to their species, can never feel interested