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6. He does not interfere after the judge has decided. He knows that perfection in the administration of justice consists in causes being fully heard, deeply considered, and speedily decided. When the cause has been fully heard, the advocate's duty is terminated. "Let not the

counsel at the bar," says Lord Bacon," chop with the judge, nor wind himself into the handling of the cause anew, after the judge hath declared his sentence."

SECTION IV.

HIS DUTIES TO HIS PROFESSION.

1. Having shared the fruits, he endeavours to strengthen the root and foundation of the science of law." I hold," says Lord Bacon," that every man is a debtor to his profession, from the which, as men do of course seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavour themselves, by way of amends, to be a help and ornament thereunto:" and Sir Edward Coke, differing as he did from Lord Bacon upon all subjects, except the advancement of their noble profession, expresses the same sentiment, almost in the same words. "If this," he says, 66 or any. other of my works, may in any sort, by the goodness of Almighty God, who hath enabled me here

unto, tend to some discharge of that great obligation of duty wherein I am bound to my profession, I shall reap some fruits from the tree of life, and I shall receive sufficient compensation for all my labours."

2. He resists injudicious attempts to alter the law. Knowing that zeal is more frequent than wisdom, that the meanest trade is not attempted without an apprenticeship, but every man thinks himself qualified by intuition for the hardest of all trades, that of government, he is ever ready to resist crude proposals for amendment: his maxim is, “to innovate is not to reform.”

Lord Bacon, zealous as he was for all improvement; believing, as he did, in the omnipotence of knowledge, that "the spirit of man is as the lamp of God, wherewith he searcheth the inwardness of all secrets ;" and branding the idolaters of old times as a scandal to the new, says, " It is good not to try experiments in states, except the necessity be urgent, or the utility evident; and well to beware that it be the reformation that draweth on the change, and not desire of change that pretendeth the reformation: that novelty, though it be not rejected, yet be always suspected; and, as the Scripture saith, that we make a stand upon the ancient way, and then look about us, and discover what is the straight and right way, and so to walk in it.'

3. He does not resist improvement of the law.

-Tenacity in retaining opinion, common to us all, is one of Lord Bacon's " Idols of the Tribe," and attachment by professional men to professional knowledge is an "Idol of the Den" common to all professions. "I hate the steamboat," said an old Greenwich pensioner; "it's contrary to nature." Our advocate, therefore, is on his guard against this idolatry. He remembers that the lawyers, and particularly St. Paul, were the most violent opposers of Christianity, and that the civilians, upon being taunted by the common lawyers with the cruelty of the rack, answered, "Non ex sævitiâ, sed ex bonitate talia faciunt homines." He does not forget the lawyer in the Utopia, who, when the Archbishop of Canterbury, venerable for his age and learning, said,

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Upon these reasons it is that I think putting thieves to death is not lawful," the counsellor answered, "That it could never take place in England without endangering the whole nation." As he said this, he shook his head, made some grimaces, and held his peace.*

* Pastoret, a French judge, who wrote on penal lays, "Je voudrois pouvoir défendre l'humanité sans accuser notre législation; mais qu'est la loi positive auprès des droits immuables de la justice et de la nature? Des magistrats même, je ne me le dissimule point, sont opposés aux réformes desirés par la nation entière. Nourris dans une connoissance intime de la jurisprudence pénale, ayant pour elle l'attachement si commun pour des idées anciennes,

4. He is aware that lawyers are not the best improvers of law.-During a debate in the House of Lords, June 13, 1827, Lord Tenterden is reported to have said, "That it was fortunate that the subject (the amendment of the laws) had been taken up by a gentleman of an enlarged mind (Mr. Peel), who had not been bred to the law; for those who were, were rendered dull, by habit, to many of its defects.'

And Lord Bacon says, " Qui de legibus scripserunt, omnes vel tanquam philosophi, vel tanquam jurisconsulti, argumentum illud tractaverunt. Atque philosophi proponunt multa dictu

ils y sont encore attachés par un sentiment plus noble. Leur vertu a souvent adouci la sévérité de la loi, et elle leur rend chères des maximes qu'ils rendent meilleurs, en leur communiquant l'impression d'une ame tendre et vertueuse. Ce n'est pas eux qu'on doit craindre: ils finissent par être justes. Mais ce qu'on doit redoubter, parce qu'elle ne sait ni pardonner ni se corriger, c'est la médiocrité routinière, toujours prête à accabler de reproches ceux qui ont le courage d'élever leurs pensées et leurs observations au-dessus du niveau auquel elle est condamnée. Ce sont des novateurs, s'écrie-t-elle; c'est une innovation, répètent, avec un souris méprisant, les producteurs des idées anciennes. Tout projet de réforme est à leurs yeux l'effet de l'ignorance ou du délire, et les plus compatissans sont ceux qui daignent vous plaindre de ce qu'ils appellent l'égarement de votre raison. L'admiration pour ce qui est, pour ce qui fut, succède bientôt au mépris pour ce qu'on propose. Ils se croient plus sages que nos pères, ajoue-t-on; et avec ce mot, tout paroît décidé."

Jurisconsulti autem,

pulcra, sed ab usu remota. suæ quisque patriæ legum (vel etiam Romanarum, aut Pontificiarum) placitis obnoxii et addicti, judicio sincero non utuntur, sed tanquam e vinculis sermocinentur. Certè cognitio ista ad viros civiles propriè spectat; qui optimè nôrunt quid ferat societas humana, quid salus populi, quid æquitas naturalis, quid gentium mores, quid rerumpublicarum formæ diversæ ; ideòque possint de legibus ex principiis et præceptis, tam æquitatis naturalis quàm politices, decernere."

5. He resists erroneous modes of altering bad law. Lawyers have a tendency, instead of inquiring whether the principle of a law is right, to alter upon the assumption that the principle is well founded. In 1809, Sir Samuel Romilly proposed to alter the law in bankruptcy, by which a creditor has an arbitrary power to withhold his consent to the allowance of the certificate, because it was founded on an erroneous principle. The bill passed the Commons, but was rejected in the Lords, upon a proposal by Lord Eldon, who was then chancellor, that the requisite number and value of signatures should be reduced from fourfifths to three-fifths.

About the same time, Sir Samuel proposed that the law, by which the stealing to the amount of 5s. privately, in a shop, was punishable by death, should be altered; because it was framed upon an erroneous principle, as crime was not

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