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about to sit down, the trembling client, in a brief note, informed him that he had been pleading for the wrong party. This intimation, which would have disconcerted most men, had a very different effect on the advocate, who, with an air of infinite composure, resumed his oration. "Such, my lords," said he, "is the statement which you will probably hear from my learned brother on the opposite side in this cause. shall now, therefore, beg leave, in a few words, to show your lordship how utterly untenable are the principles, and how distorted are the facts, upon which this very specious statement has proceeded." The learned gentleman then went over the whole ground, and did not take his seat until he had completely and energetically refuted the whole of his former pleading.

Law is a very grave matter to the client, but it abounds with its humor, irony, sarcasm, invective, and even scurrility, for the counsel, or at least the special pleader; yet we are made to believe that all these minister to the claims of justice, and the majesty of law. Possibly it is from this cause that law has béen styled one of the liberal professions. It is liberal in more senses than one; none will deny this in respect of its volubility, for when it exhausts the mother-tongue, it then falls back upon the dead languages; let not the simple-hearted, therefore, be deceived by the speciousness of a lawyer's "brief."

We now propose to notice some of the peculiarities of pleading, in connection with briefs-those legal documentary papers, usually more remarkable for their extraordinary expansion and verbosity than anything else. In early times, pleading was carried on without the aid of briefs.

Some one facetiously suggests that a briefless barrister ought never to be blamed, because it is decidedly wrong to abuse a man without a cause.

A lawyer has been compared to an odd sort of fruit-first rotten, then green, and then ripe. There is no little significancy in the similitude-as the history of many a briefless barrister would attest. How often, like the medical practitioner, has he

to suffer from long disappointed ambition and neglect, while the less meritorious are preferred as the favorites of fortune.

A brief has been thus briefly defined, an instrument—

For pay, to prove the honest man a thief,

For pay, to break the widow's heart with grief,

To stifle truth, for lies to gain belief,

That's a brief!

Deeds are said to be preferable to words; but legal deeds. are composed wholly of words; of

Ten thousand words, where ten would serve the need,
Ten thousand meanings, discord meant to breed,

Where none can understand, and few can read

That's a deed.

Oh, Law! There never were such times as these! A barrister could once with ease, have got as many fees, by merely signing pleas, as would have given him something more than bread and cheese; but destiny's decrees have made it feasible no more to get such fees; and if the lawyers please to live, they can no longer live by pleas."

Exparté statements may, and too often do, so essentially violate truth and honesty, that it is to be regretted the learned members of the bar of the nineteenth century are found still so strenuously to insist upon its adoption in legal process. Any one, uninitiated, hearing for the first time the opening up of a case, the examination of a witness, or the summing up of a cause, would, doubtless, be inclined to conclude that lawyers were professionally as great strangers to veracity as the simple Hibernian was to the public stocks: who, on being asked if he ever had any money deposited there, admitted he never had,

Some faint idea of the bulk of the English records may be obtained by adverting to the fact, that a single statute, the Land Tax Commissioners' Act, passed in the first year of the reign of George IV., measures, when unrolled, upwards of 900 feet, or nearly twice the length of St. Paul's Cathedral, within the doors; and if ever it should become necessary to consult the fearful volume, an able-bodied man must be employed during three hours in coiling and uncoiling its monstrous folds!

but confessed to having had his legs there often enough. We subjoin one specimen of a brief.—not of the briefest kind it is true, being long enough and large enough to suit the most garrulous of the profession. It is taken from Butler's Remini

scences:

"The length of legal instruments is often owing to the necessity of providing for a multiplicity of contingent events, each of which may happen, and must, therefore, be both fully described, and fully provided for. Of the nature and extent of this multiplicity, the party himself is seldom aware; sometimes even his professional adviser does not feel it, until he begins to frame the necessary clauses. A gentleman, upon whose will the reminiscent was consulted, had six estates of unequal value, and wished to settle one on each of his sons, and his male issue, with successive limitation over to the other sons, and their respective male issue, in the ordinary mode of strict settlement; and with a provision, that in the event of the death and failure of issue male of any of the sons, the estate devised to him, should shift from him and his issue male, to the next taker and his issue male, and failing there, to the person claiming under the other limitations. It was considered, at first, that this might be effected by one proviso: then by two, and then by six; but upon a full investigation, it was found that it required as many provisos as there can be combinations of the number six; now—

1×2×3×4×5×6=720

Consequently, to give complete effect to the intention of the testator, 720 provisos were necessary.

By a similar calculation, if a deed, which the reminiscent was instructed to prepare, had been executed, the expense of the necessary stamp would have amounted to ninety millions, seven hundred and twenty thousand pounds. Ten persons, each of whom was possessed of landed property, having engaged in a mining adventure, a deed of partnership was to be pre

pared, which was to contain a stipulation that, if any one or more of the intended partners should advance money to another, or others of them, the money lent should be a charge, in the nature of a mortgage, upon the share or respective shares of the borrower, or respective borrowers, and overreach all subsequent charges-and, therefore, the charges were to be considered as mortgages actually made by the deed. Thus, in the contemplation of equity, the estate was actually to be subjected by the deed, to as many possible mortgages as there can be combinations of the number 10. Each of these possible mortgages, being for an indefinite sum, would require the £25 stamp.

25×2×3×4×5×6×7×8×9×10=90,720,000.

Sterne insinuates that attorneys are to lawyers what apothecaries are to physicians-only that they do not deal in scruples!

One day at the table of the late Dr. Pearse (Dean of Ely), just as the cloth was being removed, the subject of discourse happened to be that of an extraordinary mortality among the lawyers. "We have lost," said a gentleman, "not less than six eminent barristers in as many months." The Dean, who was quite deaf, rose as his friend finished his remarks, and gave the company grace: "For this and every other mercy, the Lord's name be praised !" The effect was irresistible.

Having referred to briefs, we are reminded of the opposite. We have not dilated upon "the law's delay." The topic is, however, too trite to talk about-let an instance suffice.

About a hundred years ago, a Scotch gentleman bequeathed to his "poor relations, of whatever degree," the sum of £20,000. In effect, he left them a Chancery suit, which has remained in the family ever since. In the first place, the next of kin disputed the validity of the bequest, but it was established by Lord Chancellor Camden, and 463 persons made out their relationship. Thereupon, in the year 1766, a bill

was filed for the distribution of the money amongst them, which has not been effected to this day.

A yet stranger case was that of the famous "Berkeley suit,' which lasted upwards of 190 years! It was commenced shortly after the death of the fourth Lord Berkeley in 1416, and terminated in 1609. It arose out of the marriage of Elizabeth, only daughter and heiress of the above baron, with Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, their descendants having continually sought to get possession of the Castle and Lordship of Berkeley, which not only occasioned the famous lawsuit in question, but was often attended with the most violent quarrels on both sides, at least during the first fifty years or more.

We have at our hand a case, and as it is a very striking one, we may as well introduce it with the view of adding force to our observations:

A lawyer, retained in a case of assault and battery, was cross-examining a witness in relation to the force of a blow struck: "What kind of a blow was given?" "A blow of the common kind." "Describe the blow." "I am not good at description." "Show me what kind of a blow it was." "I cannot." "You must." "I won't." The lawyer appealed to the court. The court told the witness that if the counsel insisted upon his showing what kind of a blow it was, he must do so. {" Do you insist upon it?" asked the witness. "I do." Well, then, since you compel me to show you, it was this kind of a blow !" at the same time suiting the action to the word, and knocking over the astonished disciple of Coke upon Littleton.

In this connection we have yet another case to present, in which the irritating and too irritable counsel was completely nonplussed. It is as follows:

"I call upon you," said the counsellor, "to state distinctly upon what authority you are prepared to swear to the mare's age ?" Upon what authority ?" said the ostler, interrogatively. "You are to reply to, and not to repeat the questions