cess. The duty of the lawyer to his client is to advise, to assist and protect him with the best ability, skill, learning, courage and vigilance of which he is capable. He must spare himself no labor, he must shrink from no preparation, which will the better enable him to render this service. And all communications made to him in confidence must be sacredly respected. It has been well said, that the mystic rose which in olden times was placed over the door of the banquet room, to warn all the guests against carrying elsewhere what they might chance to hear at the table, is to be regarded as a permanent sign over every lawyer's door. The profession of the law imposes obligations, but it imposes no obligation which is at variance with the highest social, civil and religious obligations which rest upon men. There is no code of legal ethics which requires the lawyer to say what he does not believe, to advocate a cause that he knows is wrong, to defend an act that he knows is dishonest. If he has been imposed upon and deceived, and finds himself engaged in a case where he is expected to co-operate with a scoundrel he may honorably throw up his engagement and retire from the case. I hold it to be the rule that "no lawyer can honorably take or hold any professional function, the exercise of which will shock an enlightened conscience." Alexander Hamilton laid down for himself the strict principle never to 'undertake the defense of an accused person, of whose guilt, after a full and fair disclosure of the facts, he was in his own mind well assured. It is said of Mr. Lincoln that when he found his clients had practiced gross deception upon him he forsook their cases in mid passage. On one occasion while engaged in the trial of an important criminal case, he discovered he was on the wrong side, and informed the counsel associated with him that he should not address the jury. His associate however addressed the jury and obtained a verdict, but Mr. Lincoln declined to receive any part of the fee of nine hundred dollars which the client paid. Erskine, however, thought that an advocate had no right to decline the defense of one accused of crime. "If the advocate refuses to defend, from what he may think of the charge or of the defense, he assumes the character of the judge ** before the time 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 favor the benevolent principle of English law makes all presumptions, and which commands the very judge to be his counsel." Is was in accordance with this belief that Erskine undertook the defense of Paine, notwithstanding so to do was to make himself the object of bitter vituperation and calumnious clamor. "Little indeed did they know me," he exclaims, "who thought such calumnies would influence my conduct." Rufus Choate while accepting the theory that in a criminal case a lawyer was not at liberty to withhold his services absolutely, was at the same time of the opinion that it was not his duty to go into court, and contrary to his convictions assert what he did not believe to be true, or take a line of defense which he considered untenable. For this reason he declined to defend Professor Webster in the famous trial for the the murder of Dr. Parkman. I think that both the judgment and the conscience of the profession reject the extreme opinion which was expressed by Lord Brougham in Queen Caroline's case when he said: "An advocate-by the sacred duty of his connection with his client, knows in the discharge of that office but one person in the world-that client-and none other. To serve that client by all expedient means; to protect that client at all hazards and costs to all others (even the party already injured), and amongst others to himself, is the highest and most unquestioned of his duties." The lawyer should never forget that he is a sworn officer of the law, a minister of justice, and for him to tamper with the purity of the administration of justice to serve a client is to violate his professional honor. 1 LITERATURE. Many able and successful lawyers have given their attention exclusively to the law, seemingly believing, as certain Mahommetan disciples are said to believe of the Koran, that there is nothing written outside of it which is good. O'Connor, for instance, was never much of a reader outside of his profession. And once when a young man wrote to him for advice about a course of reading, at the same time enumerating a long list of books that he had already read, the distinguished lawyer wrote in reply that he himself not only had not read but had not known even by name half of the books his correspondent had read, and that he would therefore not undertake to advise him what to read, but he could safely advise him to read less and to think more. It is sometimes spoken as a reproach to the profession that its members know little or nothing but law. There may be altogether too much truth in the charge, yet how easy it would be to marshal an array of the names of those who have been eminent in law and also of great attainments in letters-such names as those of Lord Bacon, Lord Mansfield, Lord Stowell, Lord Brougham, Lord Coleridge, Sir William Blackstone, Chancellor Kent, Joseph Story, and Rufus Choate. The reason why lawyers as a class devote themselves. so assiduously and exclusively to the law, is because of the immensity of the field of legal learning which they are obliged to cultivate, the cultivation of which seems to leave no time for letters or science. And yet, the lawyer makes a mistake who gives his attention exclusively to the law. Lord Brougham while Chancellor was asked by a father what books he would especially recommend to his son who was beginning the study of the law. "Tell him to read Dante," replied the Chancellor. "But my son is beginning law," rejoined the father. "Tell him to read Dante. If he would be a good lawyer, he must be at home in literature." It is said of James T. Brady, an eminent advocate of the New York bar, now dead, that he relieved the tedium of his professional labors by refreshing his intellect over the pages of Tacitus, Livy, Thucydides, Pope, Shakespear and Tasso, while he read critically the great Greek dramatists, Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Rufus Choate made it a rule which he adhered to even in the most busy portion of his professional career, to get an hour every day for Latin or Greek. It is said of him that, on one occasion, being unexpectedly detained in New York, he stepped into a book store, about ten o'clock in the morning, and inquired for the department of the classics. Being directed to them he began his researches and continued them until seven in the evening when he was interrupted that the store might be closed. For nine hours with neither food nor drink, had he continued his investigation, and when asked what he had found, replied, that he had been greatly interested over several Greek books that he had never read, and especially over a seven volume edition of the famous commentary on Homer by the Greek bishop Eustathius of the twelfth century. The present Lord Chief Justice of England has ascribed his success and present position largely to the study of the classics. When in this country three years ago, in an address to the students of Yale College, he thus spoke of himself: "I have done many foolish things in my past life, but I do owe to the hours spent most wisely among the classics the position I now occupy. I have made it a religion, as far as I could, never to let a day pass without spending some time of it upon my Latin and Greek, and I heartily believe that my success was materially aided by those classics which have been the study of my life." Such words from the Lord Chief Justice should make a deep impression upon the minds of all, and it will be well if their repetition here shall induce any of you to follow the example thus commended. The lawyer should value literature for literature's sake, and not alone for what he can get out of it that may aid him in his professional work. He should value it for the helpful relaxation it affords to one worn out by professional work, for the intellectual delights that may there be found. One has thus expressed the mental enjoyment which he experienced when he first read Homer. "Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; He stared at the Pacific, and all his men The great Chancellor d' Aguesseau, at the very summit of the jurisprudence of France, in a letter to his sons, wrote thus: "I was born in the republic of elegant letters ; there I grew to be a man; there I passed the happiest years of my life; and to it I come back as a wanderer on sea revisits his native land. SUCCESS IN THE PROFESSION. But what shall I say as to the secret of success? In the Proverbs of Solomon it is written, " Seest thou a man diligent in business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men." The men of profound learning in the law have always been men of great industry. That which is called genius is largely a capacity for hard work. While in Yale College, John C. Calhoun was ridiculed by his fellow students for his intense application to work, but it is only through such application that men make great attainments. The young men of to-day may learn wisdom from the example afforded by the lives of the great men of former times. Sir Edward Coke studied laboriously while a student in the Inner Temple. It is said of him that every |
