A well-known lawyer, who has not long been dead -Mr. Marryatt-declared that he never opened any book, after he left school, but a law book. But Mr. Marryatt was certainly no instance in favour of such a practice. Once, when addressing a jury, he was speaking of a chimney on fire, and exclaimed"Gentlemen, the chimney took fire-it poured forth volumes of smoke-volumes did I say? Whole encyclopædias!"* This anecdote clearly establishes the propriety of reading nothing but law! The intention of our previous observations must not, however, be mistaken. "The proper study of the Lawyer is Law," as Pope would have said, had his essay been " on Law," instead of "on Man." Any one who hopes to acquire the reputation of a lawyer, must-we are sorry for that class of students who are usually called "blue-bottles," but the fact is so-must study law. When Servius Sulpicius consulted Mucius Scævola on some point of law, he was unable to understand the technical terms that the great jurisconsult employed. "Turpe est," was the observation of the lawyer, “patricio et nobili et causas oranti, jus, in quo versaretur, ignorare.” Several of our most eminent lawyers have felt so much the necessity of the lawyer allowing nothing to interfere with his legal studies, that they have expressed themselves on the subject with a degree of * There have been many absurd anecdotes of Mr. Marryatt's "mistakes" which we believe to be false. The assertion that he once applied for two mandami must be untrue. exaggeration. And this may be seen by comparing their practice with their professions. In this way Sir Matthew Hale, one of our most learned lawyers, and to whose knowledge of divinity and the dead languages Dr. Parr has borne strong testimony, observes, that "the law will admit of no rival, nothing to go even with it." "My ultimate knowledge of the nature of my profession," Sir William Jones observes, in a letter to the Bishop of St. Asaph, "obliges me to assure you that it requires the whole man, and admits of no concurrent pursuits." Lord Ellenborough, in his studentship, applied himself with so much zeal to his professional studies, that he was said to have entered into a recognizance to read nothing, and discuss nothing, but law. But there are few minds which could safely endure such a course of study as this-few which do not absolutely require relief-and, if it is refused, do not lose their strength and sink into imbecility. Sometimes indeed other results follow; and students, whose minds have been incessantly occupied with one subject, have, at last, encountered all the evils that ensue highly-wrought excitement. This should be avoided; but, without doubt, those who study law in the idle, desultory, every-other-day" style of some men, will find that the reward of the husbandman is never to be reaped but by those who have shared his toils. 66 We cannot wonder that at times, the study of the law should excite disgust, especially in individuals of a refined and elegant taste. That taste is shocked at every step: some barbarous phrase-some violent perversion of metaphor-is constantly rising up in mockery before them. Habit, however, will reconcile them to this. "I have heard," says Addison, probably referring to Lord Somers, "one of the greatest geniuses this age has produced, who had been trained up in all the polite studies of antiquity, assure me, upon his being obliged to search into several rolls and records, that, notwithstanding such an employment was, at first, very dry and irksome to him, he at last took an incredible pleasure in it, and preferred it even to the reading of Virgil and Cicero."* When a very eminent special pleader was asked by a country gentleman if he considered that his son was likely to succeed as a special pleader, he replied, 'Pray, Sir, can your son eat saw-dust without butter?" Mr. Canning, who studied the law for some time, seems to have felt in full force the disgust it often raises in highly classical minds. In his poem on "Friendship," he appears to speak from his own experience of the repulsive character of legal studies. "In the study of the law," observes Gray, in a letter to Mr. West, "the labour is long, and the elements dry and uninteresting; nor was ever anybody (especially those that afterwards made a figure in it) amused, or even not disgusted at the beginning." "I have heard it observed," remarks Dugald Stewart, "that those who have risen to the greatest eminence in the profession of the law, have been, in general, such as had at first an aversion to the study." "Oft when condemn'd 'midst gothic tomes to pore, Hear, however, what a great lawyer-and a great man too!—has said of the study of the law :" "Our profession," observes Dunning, "is generally ridiculed as dry and uninteresting; but a mind anxious for the discovery of truth and information, will be amply gratified for the toil in investigating the origin and progress of a jurisprudence, which has the good of the people for its basis, and the accumulated wisdom of ages for its improvement." And, as to the difficulties in his path, the student need only to remember that, before the resolute, obstacles rapidly disappear. "There are few difficulties," observes Mr. Sharpe, "that hold out against real attacks; they fly like the visible horizon, before those who advance. If we do but go on, some unseen path will open among the hills." "Some travellers," says Bishop Hall, "have more shrunk at the map, than at the way: between both how many stand with folded arms!" Lord Mansfield used to say, that the quantity of professional reading necessary, or even useful, to a lawyer, was much less than is generally supposed. But he observed, that "the lawyer should read much, in his own defence, lest, by appearing ignorant on subjects which did not relate to his particular branch of the profession, his ignorance of that branch might be presumed." Mr. Chitty relates the following anecdote, illustrative of the necessity of the lawyer not confining himself to acquiring a knowledge of the principles of only one branch of professional learning. Recently a barrister, practising only in the Courts of Law, very eminent for his legal attainments, advised that there was no remedy whatever against a married woman, who, having a considerable separate estate had joined with her husband in a promissory note for £2500, a debt of her husband; because he was of opinion that the contract of a married woman is absolutely void, and referred to a decision to that effect, (Marshal v. Rutton, 8. T.R. 545,) he not knowing, or forgetting, that in equity, under such circumstances, payment might have been enforced out of the separate estate. And afterwards, a very eminent equity counsel, equally erroneously advised, in the same case, that the remedy was only in equity; although it appeared upon the face of the case, as then stated, that, after the death of her husband, the wife had promised to pay, in consideration of forbearance, and upon which promise she might have been arrested and sued at law. If the common law counsel had properly advised proceedings in equity, or if the equity counsel had advised proceedings by arrest at law, upon promise, after the death of the husband, the whole debt would have been paid. But upon this latter opinion, a bill in chancery was filed, and so much time elapsed before decree, that a great |