press this. What nobler objects might not the physician, above all professional men, have in view! What far more dignified demeanour might he not justly assume! The Lawyer, in general, is originally induced to make choice of his profession by a feeling of aptitude for ita consciousness, too often, of that hardness and cold-heartedness which are essential to his being a means indifferently of right, or of the most cruel wrong, of that sharpness and cunning which can unsparingly turn every event to his client's, and therefore to his own, purpose, and of that rapacity for money which cares not how it is got, if lawfully got. The most honourable men in the profession are the most ready to acknowledge this, and to rejoice at the lustration which has been begun. -See Plate XV., in which may be seen some of the hardness and sharpness of the hacknied lawyer, mixed with better qualities. The Clergyman, it is to be feared, is, in too many instances, originally induced to make choice of his profession by a feeling of inaptitude for it or at least of what all but himself and friends would - deem inaptitude. He is, not unfrequently, a dependent member of some aristocratic family, educated as if, through favour only, he were one day to be provided for, independent of all fitness and merit. His requisites are, too often, some mere forms of study, and that external appearance of averseness to sensual indulgence which frequently ensures its reality, its excess, or its perversion. Hence, he sometimes presents a countenance in which sensuality, strongly characterized in every feature, is covered with a transparent film of sanctity, of which the composure extends no deeper than the skin. The most sincere and honourable men in the clerical profession are precisely those who most deeply deplore this. See Plate XVI., in which some small degree of pleasurable indulgence is thus slightly varnished over. Plate XVII. illustrates the effects of a quiet and noiseless trade, in a Weaver; and Plate XVIII. illustrates those of a turbulent and boisterous one, in a Miner. |