The ideas which dictated this character, were tenaciously preserved, through successive generations, by the assistance of the stage. That powerful delineator of character bas, from time immemorial, been distinguished by peculiar courtesy to the profession of the law; and the same spirit which dictated Igno'ramus,' is still to be found in modern comedy. A lawyer seems to have been universally considered as fair prize, by the writers for the stage, wherever he was found; and we can scarcely recall to our memory an instance where an ill-favoured quiz, in rusty black, with a great wig on his head, and a bundle of papers tied up in red tape in his hand, has been introduced on the stage, that he was not brought there to raise the laugh of the audience at blundering and absurd technicalities, or to claim their abhorrence for the grossest scoundrelism.

*

The reign of the stage, however, as to matters of fact, is now nearly at an end. The increasing avocations of men, have brought the mass of society into more immediate contact with professional practitioners; and it has been discovered that that which was attributed as the generic character, was only the character of a species. That this species has long been rapidly on the decline, is, we are happy to admit, an undisputed fact; and we regard it as matter of serious interest to our higher feelings, because the existence of that species is disgraceful to human nature, and its reduction is, we rejoice to think, not merely the result of a revenue law, which excludes the necessitous from making an attorney's desk the field of their depredations, but of the general dissemination, through all the ranks of society, of a higher scale of moral feeling, of enlightened sentiment, and cultivated understanding. And they have made but little progress in the science of human nature, who imagine that great or general reformation can be effected by positive enactments, without the assistance of more powerful engines. We have long since learned by experience, the inefficacy of sump

* It is remarkable, in an age when sciolism is, in so high a degree, the characteristic of polished society, that such gross ignorance should prevail of the proper signification of the most common legal words of art. We do not recollect an instance, in modern light reading, of an attempt at playfulness with the language of lawyers, that is not perfectly contemptible. What would be thought, in any refined society, of a person who should talk of the clavicles of the shin, or the patella of the brain; and yet much about as correct is the application of legal terms, that we generally meet with in works of invention. Our great dramatist knew better than to meddle with tools, before he had acquired the art of handling them. We believe it has escaped the observation of the ingenious author of the Essay on the Learning of Shakspeare,' that the bard had certainly read

tuary laws to check the progress of luxury; let us now learn that that system only is effective of radical reform, which is founded on the rectification of the habits of thought, and the principles of conduct.

But there is still one branch of the profession, which it is impossible to contemplate without indignation. The existence of jail-solicitors,' is a matter of necessity, so long as there shall exist a criminal police; because it is fitting-it is just-in the fallibility of human judgement, that the accused should have the assistance of that knowledge of the nature and rules of evidence, which shall enable him to put the accuser to the strictest and most conclusive proof. But it is a scandal to decency, it is a scandal to public order, that a race of men should be deriving a lucrative existence, in the face of day, from the open and habitual practice of defeating the machinery of justice. It is a well-known fact, that the hardened beings who have arrived at a certain degree of proficiency in the vicissitudes of lawless life, are in the habit of treating a commitment as an event of little greater importance, than as involving the loss of some pounds for the solicitor's bill. A novice who should display much dejection on the

"Coke upon Littleton,' or 'Perkins's Profitable Booke on Conveyancing,' Proofs of this occur at every step. Learned reader take a few. • Parolles. Sir, for a cardecue he will sell the fee-simple of his "salvation, the inheritance of it, and cut th' intail from all remainders, • and perpetual succession for it perpetually.'

All's Well, &c. Act IV.
Petruchio. And for that dowry, I'll assure her of
Her widowhood, (be it that she survive me,)
In all my Lands and Leases whatsoever :
Let Specialties be therefore drawn between us,
That Covenants may be kept on either hand.'

Taming of the Shrew. Act II.
S. Dromeo. There's no time for a man to recover his Hair that

grows bald by nature.

Ant. May he not do it by Fine and Recovery.'

Comedy of Errors. Act II.

York. If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's right,

Call in his letters patents, that he hath,

• By his Attorneys General to sue

• His Livery.

K. Richard II. Act II.

Even Shakspeare however is sometimes caught tripping.

Shylock.

Seal me there,

• Your single Bond, and in a merry sport

If you repay me not on such a day,

In such a place, such Sum or Sums as are

'Express'd in the condition;' &c.

If the Bond was single, there could be no condition annexed to it.

occasion, would not fail to be cheered by his better informed associates, with such language as, 'Never fear, lad, Jem 'will get you off? At a random calculation, it can hardly be much beside the truth, to say that three-fifths of the criminals who are committed for capital offences in this country, escape upon technical objections to forms, or minute subtleties on the artificial rules of evidence. If our criminal code is so behindhand with the spirit of the age, as to make it necessary for the Judges themselves to be astute in discovering loop-holes for the escape of the offender, why do we not shake off the trammels of barbarousness, now that we have learned to disown its spirit ? Why do we leave that to be effected by low chicanery and interested cunning, which ought to emanate from the enlightened mind of the nation? But we had almost forgotten that it is of lawyers, and not of law, that we purposed to speak.

One of the multitude of circumstances that distinguish the present age from those which have preceded it, is the accelerated progress of our arrival at manhood. The youths, who, had they lived two centuries ago, must have been content to contemplate, at an obscure distance, the period which should set them in motion on the vortex of the world, are now found active and important at the post of business. As if the span of life was incessantly contracting as the world travels onward down the tide of ages, we grow more and more impatient of the slow pace of time. It might be a curious speculation to trace this fact to its origin. Is it simply the result of an increased intelligence, of an accelerated motion in the machinery of education, and of the advanced state of human knowledge, diminishing the labour of acquirement? Or has it not been, in a greater degree, the consequence of the existing state of political economy, and the extended operations of national wealth and activity, rendering the demand for human labour, in all its modifications, almost before-hand with the supply? Is it not too, in some measure, attributable to the enormously increased expense of education, and of supplying the demands of human existence, which, under the influence of national wealth, and the consequent carelessness of of expenditure, have multiplied to an extent far beyond the capacity of the bulk of parents to supply for any long duration? We shall however leave the solution to the inquisitive: of the fact itself there can be no question. All our ancient academic institutions have been compelled to reform their regulations, to keep pace with the increasing gallop of life. Look at the Universities. Look, as more nearly connected with our present subject, at the Inns of Court. Two centuries ago, barristers were chosen out of those who had studied eight years as Mootemen after leaving the University. Now, our 'young graduates are plunged at once into the mysteries of practice in

the chambers of the special pleader or the equity draftsman, and in two years, at most three, they are candidates for public confidence. One evil, however, has been generated by the forcing system of modern times, and that is a contempt for the severe and patient habits of study, which alone can produce profound attainments. From seeing, every day, men of superficial learning and indolent habits, making their way with success through the world, the impression of the indispensableness of great application, has become fainter and fainter, till the character of a student for the learned professions has become almost blended down with that of the thoughtless multitude, whose only concern is to scamper through the few set hours of business, and then enjoy themselves, for the rest of the day, in any mode of killing time that happens to suggest itself. We fear that Mr. Wright's well-intentioned Advice on the Study of the Law, has much to struggle against from this reigning evil; more perhaps than from any actual impracticability of pursuing the plan which he proposes. The course of reading which he lays down for the leisure hours of the young attorney, is such as is accomplished by few young barristers during the time of their novitiate. A dashing articled clerk, who knows the run of the offices, is au fait at all the mysteries of sham pleas and special originals, and has gone through his stages in Bankruptcy, Chancery, and Conveyancing, would laugh at the idea of arriving at Tidd's Practice,' bythe laborious route of The Law of Nature; 'The Law of Nations,' 'The Feudal Law,' 'The Civil Law, 'The Constitution,' &c. So far, however, from derogating from the propriety of Mr. Wright's recommendations on this account, we think this the very reason that an attempt to infuse a more liberal and extended idea of professional proficiency, deserves the thanks of the públic. Ignorant and illiberal practitioners,' Mr. Wright asserts very justly, there will be, so long, as there are men who spend their youth in idleness or trifling amusements, instead of industriously studying those books from which alone a knowledge of the principles of jurisprudence < can be obtained.' At the same time, we must confess that a youth who really possesses resolution or ardour sufficient to devote himself to severe study, finds himself unsupported by the habit of the age; the order of the day is against him, He gains little credit for what is accounted a work of supererogation. Thus at least it is among the mass. Some young men of studious propensities, may be fortunate enough to be connected with persons whose superior appreciation of the value of time, and of the necessity of intense application, will give a sanction and a stimulus to their aspiring resolutions; and great is the influence of judicious and respected friends, in enabling a young man to set at naught the ridicule of the blan

6

dishments of the world. But generally speaking, the pleasure seeking habit of the age, and the immediate calls of social life, are too powerful to withstand the distant and speculative prospects of hard-earned erudition. The student is attacked too, on delicate grounds. The arguments of his gayer friends have a plausibility about them, which it requires no ordinary address to combat. He is attacked on the score of health as if a hundred constitutions were not ruined by dissipation, where one is enfeebled by study. He is attacked on the score of friendship: his personal regard for his tempters is ingeniously held out as awaiting its test in the compliance with their solicitations. He is attacked on the score of gallantry: and who will venture to incur the odium of preferring the company of musty books to the witcheries of female society? Besides, there is a seductive species of personal importance attached to an extensive intermixture with society, which is but too strikingly contrasted with the humble, undisplaying seclusion of the closet, where the solitary breast of the individual is alone the witness of its own importance, its own activity, and its own emotions. The man who writes for public applause, who secludes himself from social intercourse, to revel in the creation, of his own mind, feels not this; because he possesses a consciousness that the hours of retirement carry their recognition with them, and that it is only a different, a more permanent and extensive mode of intercourse with congenial souls. But the poor candidate for distant and contingent reputation, has none of this support: he feels that he is undervalued by the world; that they and he have no communion of fellowship; and a chilling feeling it is to the heart of a sensitive and ardent youth.

There is scarcely any article of conduct, in which a young man covetous of intellectual growth, and thirsty after knowledge, finds, in general, so much difficulty, as in regulating the degree of his intercourse with society. Opposite incitements are perpetually levying war on each other. On the one hand, a love of study, a deep sense of the magnitude of the object· which is to be accomplished, and a full conviction of the impossibility of succeeding, but by resolute and habitual application, dictate to him the imperious necessity of persisting, even at the expense of much that he would not wantonly sacrifice, in no small degree of seclusion from those scenes, where society, in its more vivid and bewitching forms, at once unnerves the mind for the patient and laborious exercise of intellectual discipline, and fills it with images which are but too apt to intrude uncalled upon the hours of solitary study. On the other hand, besides the natural difficulty attending the pursuit of any course of conduct which deviates from the habits of the world, he cannot but feel that