He who looks only to emolument will tremble left detection, an event ever to be dreaded from the scrutinizing accuracy of legal tribunals, and the keen-eyed fufpicion of his opponents, fhould blaft the golden harvefts which he beholds in idea ripening for diftant years. And he whofe confcience is alive to the dictates of Christianity, will recoil at the bare mention of a crime, which he knows would not be unseen by his Almighty Judge; and must ere long be blazoned before men and angels, though obfcured at present by every possible precaution, and committed in the deepest receffes of folitude.

Benevolence in its most enlarged meaning ought to poffefs the breast of the Barrifter. It will incline him not only to be affable and kind and attentive to those who entrust him with the management of their concerns; but rather to advise the adjustment of disputes by amicable arbitration, than by referring them to the decifion of the laws. It will teach him more particularly to discountenance the profecution of fuits which are on the point of taking place between near relations; or which

appear

appear to originate in motives of pique, malice, or revenge. It will lead him to confider himself as the patron of the poor and friendless, the defender of the fatherlefs and the widow. It will co-operate with the fuggeftions of integrity in deterring him from buoying up his client with unfubftantial hopes of fuccefs; and will prompt him to be explicit as to the probable charge as well as event of the caufe; to be moderate in his own demands of recompenfe; and to adopt, as far as may properly be done, fuch methods of conducting the business as afford a prospect of leffening the expence and allaying the animofity of both the contending parties. It will also contribute to fecure him from the danger of becoming abforbed by interested and worldly views; a difpofition not unlikely to be acquired by being perpetually conversant in questions of property; and from gradually contracting a selfish narrownefs of spirit, and a proneness to infift in private life on his own rights with unrelenting rigour, in oppofition to the fuggeftions of kindness and forbearance. It will preserve his natural fenfibility from being blunted, and the warmth of his

affections

affections from being chilled, by habits of familiarity and focial intercourse with men for whom he does not entertain a real friendship. And finally, it will restrain him from indulging a cenforious and distrustful opinion of mankind in general; an opinion which commonly finds eafy accefs into the mind of him, who lives in the daily contemplation of fcenes of fraud, of rapacity, and of violence; and, if it be not radically extirpated, extinguishes every generous fentiment, and petrifies the heart.

As industry in the acquifition and in the application of profeffional knowledge is one of his most prominent duties; he will be on his guard againft indolence, fickleness, irrefolution, immoderate love of amufements, and against every enfnaring and diffipated habit, the natural effect of an overgrown, wealthy, and luxurious capital. He will fortify himself against the contagion of profligate examples. He will beware of being betrayed into a neglect of the public and private duties of religion; or into the scepticism and infidelity too prevalent, if public report is to be credited, among the ftudents and practitioners A a

VOL. I.

of

of the law; and will qualify himself," and be

66

ready, to give to every one that afketh, at "reafon of the hope (d) which is in him."

He will strive to efcape that efprit de corps. which fo often leads profeffional men into unjuftifiable and difgraceful practices; and to wean himself from an improper bias in favour of the particular court to which he is attached, and a groundless diflike to the forms and proceedings of other co-ordinate tribunals. He will evince a proper consciousnefs of the danger to which the man whofe vocation is. controverfy ftands peculiarly exposed, of contracting a daring firmness of forehead; peevish, petulant, and overbearing manners; a cavilling and difputatious turn of mind; and a wafpish and irritable temper. He will not look either on men or on books with an eye difpofed rather to difcover and to dwell on blemishes,. than to contemplate with pleasure and advantage what is deferving of approbation and capable of being inftructive. He will not confider every topic which prefents itself in the intercourfe of familiar converfation, and

(d) 1 Pet. iii. 15.

the

the circle of domestic fociety, as an object of contention. He will not look upon every man who ventures to give an opinion, as throwing down the gauntlet of defiance. If he judges it right to diffent from what he hears, and to ftate the reasons in which his difference of fentiment originates; he will not refort to those captious objections, nor manifest those rhetorical arts, and that reluctance to conceffion, which, if pardonable in the profeffed advocate of a party in a fuit, ill become the candid enquirer after truth, in the unrefervedness of private difcuffion. He will not give vent to cutting and ungenerous farcafins against thofe who differ from him; nor indulge himself, when they are no longer able to resist his arguments, in the oftentatious arrogance of victory.

The Lawyer who is frequently engaged in refifting what he ftrongly fufpects to be juft, of maintaining what he deems to be in strictness untenable, of advancing inconclufive reasoning, and feeking after flaws in the found replies of his antagonists, can be preserved by nothing short of ferious and invariable folicitude from the risk of having the diftinction

A a 2