never become "a dead letter;" the parliamentary debates must be an unfailing source of interest and instruction.

"I might instance," says Lord Bolingbroke, “in other professions, the obligations men lie under of applying themselves to certain parts of history; and I can hardly forbear doing it in that of the law: in its nature the noblest and most beneficial to mankind, in its abuse and debasement the most sordid and pernicious. A lawyer *, now, is nothing more -I speak of ninety-nine in a hundred at least,-to use Tully's words, "Nisi leguleius quidem cautus, et acutus præco actionum, cautor formularum, auceps syllabarum."-[De Orat. 55.-Pro Muroena, § 11]. But there have been lawyers who were orators, philososophers, historians; there have been Bacons and Clarendons. There will be none such any more, till in some better age true ambition or the love of fame prevails over avarice, and till men find leisure

* “I must laugh with you," says Bishop Warburton, in a letter to Hurd," as I have done with our friend Balguy, for one circumstance. His Lordship (Lord Bolingbroke) has abused the lawyers as heartily as he has done the clergy, only with this difference: he is angry with us for using metaphysics, and with them for not using it. I know why. He has lost many a cause in a court of justice, because the lawyer would not interpret his no facts into metaphysical ones; and been defeated in many an argument in conversation, because divines would not allow that true metaphysics ended in naturalism. I myself, who am but in my elements, a mere ens rationis, simply distilled, have dismounted him ere now."-Warburton's Letters to Hurd-Lett. XLI.

and encouragement to prepare themselves for the exercise of their profession, by climbing up to the 'vantage ground, as my Lord Bacon calls it, of science, instead of grovelling all their lives below in a mean but gainful application to all the little arts of chicane. Till this happens, the profession of the law will scarce deserve to be ranked among the learned professions; and whenever it happens, one of the 'vantage grounds to which men must climb, is metaphysical, and the other historical knowledge; they must pry into the secret recesses of the human heart, and become well acquainted with the whole moral world, that they may discern the whole abstract reason of all laws; and they must trace the laws of particular states, especially of their own, from the first rough sketches to the more perfect draughts; from the first causes or occasions that produced them, through all the effects, good and bad, that they produced *."

The author has not thought it necessary to introduce into the foregoing pages any allusion to the errors and misrepresentations alleged against Hume: that to such a charge he is occasionally liable, cannot be doubted; but they scarcely warrant one in disturbing the opinions of younger readers, who, if they will but master all that is accurate, in this admirable historian, can easily find opportunities of correcting what is erroneous. Professor Millar, M. Laing, Bishop Hurd, Dr. Birch, Dr. Towers, and Mr. Brodie, have all addressed themselves to the task of correcting Mr. Hume;' and a tolerably fair estimate of the last-mentioned writer's work will be found in the Edinburgh Review, No. 71, pages 92, 146—March, 1824.

* Study of History, p. 353, quarto edit.

CHAPTER VII.

DIFFERENT DEPARTMENTS OF THE PROFESSIONEQUITY, CONVEYANCING, AND COMMON-LAW.

LET us suppose the reader, then, upon due deliberation, to have determined on adopting the legal profession. There yet remains a most important inquiry, namely, which of the three leading departments -Conveyancing, Equity, or Common Law, should be selected. Much observation and inquiry, as well as individual experience, have satisfied the author that this is a matter on which practical information has been long felt to be a desideratum. It will therefore be attempted, in this Chapter, to sketch out briefly, but faithfully, these three phases of the profession. They are perfectly distinct from one another; requiring each very different degrees of fitness and preparation *.

*It is amusing to see how confused a notion of the different branches of the possession is professed by even those who have affected an intimate knowledge of them. No less popular a writer,

Strange to say, there have been those who earnestly deprecated applying the principle of the division of labour to the legal profession, as tending only "to narrow and contract the mind in its researches, impede the excrcise of its noblest faculties, reduce it to abstract and confined views of things, and render it incapable of attaining a masterly and comprehensive reach of intellect *." This sub-division of the profession has long, however, been too well settled, for its propriety to be now practically called in question, even did there exist just grounds for dissatisfaction with it. Were it not diverging too far from the object which should be constantly kept in view in such a work as the present, a very interesting account might, perhaps, be given of the causes which have rendered the adoption of this principle absolutely

66

for instance, than Miss Edgeworth, in her interesting novel, Patronage," having evidently bestowed great pains on the deliniation of the character and pursuits of Mr. Alfred Percy, a young barrister vindicating in the preface, her frequent adoption of professional technicalities—appears to be completely in the dark as to the proper province of a barrister-of the walk of life in which she has placed her hero. She has accordingly made him a very mongrel character; now, an attorney, sent into the country to inquire into the management of an estate, &c.; then, a conveyancer, drawing marriage settlements; and finally, a pleading barrister, at one time eloquently haranguing judge and jury, at another drawing pleadings; in which latter capacity, he is represented as drawing, for the same party, in the same suit, both "Replication" and "Rejoinder "-i. e., making his own client both plaintiff and defendant !

• Williams' Study of the Law, p. 105. And see Mr. Starkie's Introductory Lecture at the Inner Temple, Legal Examiner, vol. 2, p. 449.

indispensable in modern times, even admitting it to have been, a century or two ago, otherwise *. Mr. Chitty has well observed "that in the original formation of all independent states, redress for every kind of crime or injury, has, in general, been first afforded in one general court, and without much regard to precise form; but as population, and the intricacy of transactions increased, it was found, that by a division into several different courts, and appropriating particular descriptions of business to each, the judges and practitioners, having more time to attend to their particular departments, necessarily became better acquainted with them, and not only decided more correctly upon the substantial questions, but also framed more appropriate rules and forms of proceedings, and, in the result, more efficiently administered justice, according to the varying nature of each case +."-Can there be a greater distinction between the Conveyancer, and the Special Pleader or Equity Draftsman, than exists in the medical profession, between the Surgeon and Physician, or Accoucheur? The true idea of our profession, with reference to this its tri-partite division, is that of a great stream

See a very interesting Chapter (xix.) in Mr. Babbage's Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, on the Division of MENTAL Labour, as illustrated by the celebrated Tables of M. Prony; and also the just and striking observations of Dr. Copleston, on the principle in question, in his celebrated Reply to the Edinburgh Reviewers, pp. 107-112.

+ Gen. Pr. Law, vol. ii. p. 304.