strict settlement; and with a provision, that in the event of the death and failure of issue male of any of the sons, the estate devised to him should shift from him and his issue male to the next taker and his issue male; and, failing these, to the persons claiming under the other limitation, with a further proviso that such next taker's estate should then shift, in like manner, to the taker next after him, and the persons claiming under the other limitations. It was considered, at first, that this might be effected by one proviso; then, by two; and, then, by six: but upon a full investigation it was found that it required as many provisos as there can be combinations of the number six; now 1 × 2 × 3 × 4 × 5 × 6 × 672=20; consequently, to give complete effect to the intention of the testator, 720 provisos are necessary. By a similar calculation, if a deed, which the reminiscent was instructed to prepare, had been executed, the expense of the necessary stamps would have amounted to ninety millions, seven hundred and twenty-two thousand pounds. Ten persons, each of whom was possessed of landed property, having engaged in a mining adventure, a deed of partnership was to be prepared, which was to contain a stipulation that if any one or more of the intended partners should advance money to any other or others of them, the money lent should be a charge, in the nature of a mortgage, upon the share or respective shares of the borrower or respective borrowers, and overreach all subsequent charges, and therefore the charges were to be considered as mortgages actually made by

the deed. Thus, in the contemplation of equity, the estate was actually to be subjected by the deed to as many possible mortgages as there can be combinations of the number 10. Each of these possible mortgages being for an indefinite sum would require the £25 stamp. Now 25 × 2 × 3 × 4 × 5 × 6 × 7 x 8+ 9+ 10=90,720,000.

CHAPTER VII.

MORALITY OF LAW AND LAWYERS.

Mr. Dymond on legal prostitution-Lords Erskine, and Brougham, Mr. Coleridge, and Dr. Johnson, on the Duties of an Advocate-Roman Law-a Defence of Advocacythe Art of Obtaining a Verdict-the Eloquence of Truth, or Jack Lee and the Wooden Leg-Lord Brougham's powers of Animal Magnetism-Boswell and Johnson on Legal Morality-Dr. Garth Satire on the Legal ProfessionMilton and Character of a Lawyer-Wilkes v. Sir F. Norton -what Attorneys are done with when they die-a Family Chancery Suit-Singular Trial-Judge Buller-Curiosities of the Law-Singular Wager-Law of Betting-a man hanged for cutting down trees-Anomalous State of the Law of Libel, illustrated by curious cases.

FROM a manuscript in the Harleian collection, we learn that, in Queen Elizabeth's time, "it is reported that there was but one serjeant at the common pleas bar (called Serjeant Benlowes), who was ordered to plead both for the plaintiff and defendant, for which he was to take of each party ten groats only, and no more; and to manifest his impartial dealing to both parties, he was, therefore, to wear a parti-coloured gown, and to have a black cap on his head, of imperial justice, and under it a white linen coyfe, of inno

cence. This, if we do not greatly mistake, is an instance extreme in degree, but similar in kind to that custom in which a certain class of writers and thinkers have deemed the immorality of the legal profession mainly to consist. "When a barrister," says Mr. Dymond, "arrives at an assize town on the circuit, and tacitly publishes that (abating a few and only a few cases) he is willing to take the brief of any client; that he is ready to employ his abilities, his ingenuity, that any given cause is good, or that it is bad; and when, having gone before a jury, he urges the side on which he happens to have been employed with all the earnestness of seeming integrity, and truth, and devotes the faculties God has given him, in promotion of its success-when we see all this, and remember that it was the toss of a die whether he should have done exactly the contrary, I think that no expression characterizes the procedure but that of intellectual and moral prostitution." "I confess I have imbibed an opinion," says Mr. Benjamin D'Israeli, "that it is the duty a counsel owes his client to adjust him by all possible means, just or unjust, and even to commit a crime for his assistance or extrication."

On the duties of an advocate, great advocates have spoken out. "If the advocate," said Erskine, on a memorable occasion,† "refuses to defend, from what

Within the last twenty years there was only one Barrister practising at the Ely sessions, and he used to argue both sides.

His defence of Tom Paine.

he may think of the charge or the defence, he assumes the character of a judge: nay, he assumes it before the hour of judgment, and in proportion to his rank and reputation puts the heavy weight of, perhaps, a mistaken opinion into the scale against the accused, in whose favor the benevolent principle of the English law makes all favorable presumptions, and which commands the very judge to be his counsel." Addressing the house of lords in defence of a royal client, Mr. Brougham said, "I once before took leave to remind your lordships-which was unnecessary, but there are many whom it may be needful to remind-that 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 no other. To save that client by all expedient means, to protect that client at all hazards and cost to others, and, among others, to himself. is the highest and most unquestioned of his duties; and he must not regard the alarm, the suffering, the torment, the destruction which he may bring upon any others; nay, separating even the duties of a patriot from those of an advocate, he must go on reckless of the consequences, if his fate should unhappily be to involve his country in confusion for his client."

Mr. Coleridge, whose views in ethical questions were especially enlarged and liberal, did not altogether concur in these assertions. "There is, undoubtedly," he says, "a limit to the exertions of an advocate for his client. He has a right-it is his bounden duty-to do everything for his client, that