be most beneficial to the practitioner; and, as the advocate may profess feelings which he does not feel, and may support a cause which he knows to be wrong; as it is a species of acting without an avowal that it is acting, it may appear at variance with some of our best feelings. It is, however, nothing but appearance. The advocate is in reality an officer assisting in the administration of justice, and acting under the impression that truth is elicited and difficulties disentangled by the opposite statements of able men. He is only troubling the waters, that they may exert their virtues.

4. Satisfied with the principle upon which the profession of an advocate is founded, he enters on his duties.

5. He does not mix himself with the client or the cause, with the slanderer, the adulterer, the murderer, or the traitor, whom it may be his duty to defend. He lends his exertions to all; himself to none.

6. The result of the cause, except as far as he has an opinion of right, independent of the parties, is to him a matter of indifference. It is for the court to decide: it is for him to argue.

7. In general he does not exercise any discretion as to the suitor for whom he is to plead.— If a barrister were permitted to exercise any discretion as to the client for whom he will plead, the course of justice would be interrupted by pre

judice to the suitor, and the exclusion of integrity from the profession. The suitor would be prejudiced in proportion to the respectability of the advocate who had shrunk from his defence, and the weight of character of the counsel would be evidence in the cause. Integrity would be excluded from the profession, as the counsel would necessarily be associated with the cause of his client.

"From the moment," says Erskine, in his defence of Thomas Paine, "that any advocate can be permitted to say that he will or will not stand between the crown and the subject arraigned in the court where he daily sits to practise, from that moment the liberties of England are at an end.

"If the advocate refuses to defend, from what he may think of the charge or of the defence, he assumes the character of the judge; nay, he assumes it before the hour of judgment; and, in proportion to his rank and reputation, puts the heavy influence of, perhaps a mistaken opinion, into the scale against the accused, in whose favour the benevolent principle of English law makes all presumptions, and which commands the very judge to be his counsel."

Our advocate, therefore, does not exercise any discretion; to him it is a matter of indifference, whether he appears for the most unfortunate, or the most prosperous member of the community;

for the poorest bankrupt, or the noblest peer of the realm; for a traitor, or for the King.

8. In some extreme cases he declines to act as advocate when the appearance of opposition is in violation of some of our best feelings.—He will not, like Lucius, proceed in judgment against his

own sons:

"Infelix, utcumque ferent ea fata minores."

In these cases, before he acts or declines to act, he duly weighs his relative duties.

9. He does not exercise any discretion, from his opinion of the goodness or badness of the cause.— Burnet, in his Life of Sir Matthew Hale, says, "If he saw a cause was unjust, he for a great while would not meddle further in it, but to give his advice that it was so. If the parties after that would go on, they were to seek another counsellor, for he would assist none in acts of injustice. If he found the cause doubtful or weak in point of law, he always advised his clients to agree their business. Yet afterwards he abated much of the scrupulosity he had about causes that appeared at first view unjust: there once happened to be two causes brought to him, which by the ignorance of the party, or their attorney, were so ill represented to him, that they seemed to be very bad, but he, inquiring more narrowly into them, found they were really very good and just. So after this he slackened much of his former strictness,

of refusing to meddle in causes upon the ill circumstances that appeared in them at first."

"But what do you think," said Mr. Boswell to Dr. Johnson, "of supporting a case you know to be bad?" Johnson: "Sir, you do not know it to be good or bad till the judge determines it. I have said that you are to state facts fairly; so that your thinking, or what you call knowing, a cause to be bad, must be from reasoning, must be from your supposing your arguments to be weak and inconclusive. But, sir, that is not enough. An argument which does not convince yourself, may convince the judge to whom you urge it; and, if it does not convince him, why, then, sir, you are wrong, and he is right. It is his business to judge; and, you are not to be confident in your opinion that a cause is bad, but to say all you can for your client, and then hear the judge's opinion."

10. He acts for the party by whom he is retained, as long as his services are required, and no longer; and, when no longer required, he may plead for his opponent.-In the case of Mr. Shelly, argued in the Court of Chancery, a few years ago, all the King's counsel were retained against Mr. Shelly. In a cause, some years since, at Carlisle, between a peer and three orphan children of his steward, the peer retained every counsel at the bar; and he succeeded in retaining the property till his death, when it was

returned with interest and costs by his noble successor. Our advocate knows that opulence does not possess this power to oppress its opponent, by sending one brief to a counsel at the commencement of a suit, and then rejecting him.

11. He is ever ready to defend the accused; particularly if the accusation is a pretext to violate the rights and liberties of his countrymen. If in the triumphant establishment of unwelcome innocence, he provokes the powerful, he secures what is far better-his own approbation, and the love and respect of the virtuous. If ever the praises of mankind are sweet," if it is ever allowable to a christian to breathe the incense of popular favour, it is," says an eloquent divine, "when the honest, temperate, unyielding advocate, who has protected innocence from the grasp of power, is followed from the hall of judgment by the prayers and blessings of a grateful people." 12. He is cautious in listening to the complaints of poverty, knowing that true charity its eyes before it raises its hand; but when convinced that justice requires his exertions, he readily assists those who are unable to assist themselves, always with his time, his talents, and attention, and, when necessary, with his purse.

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13. He is anxious to prevent or terminate litigation.-There are more differences settled in his chamber than in Westminster Hall. Where