The Virginian

A LAWYER.

An honest lawyer is the life
guard of our fortunes, the best col-
lateral security for our estate, a
trusty pilot to steer one through
the dangerous (and oftentimes ines-
itible) ocean of contention ; a true
priest of justice, that neither saert
fres to fraud nor covetousness.
and in this outdoes those of higher
function ; that he can make people
honest that are sermon proof.

He is an infallible anatomist of mind
and thumb, that will presently search
a cause to the quick, and find out
the peccant humor, the little lurking
beast, though masked in never
so far pretenses; one that practices
Law so as not to forget the gos-
pel; but always wears a conscience
as well as a gown ; he weighs the
cause more than gold; and if that
will not bear the touch, in a gener-
ous strain parts with the fee.

Though he knows all the criti-
cisms of his faculty, and the utmost
directions of practice, yet he
never useth them unless in a de-
fen-sive way, to countermine the
plots of knavery, for he affects not
the devilish skill of out-battling
right, nor aims at the shameful
glory of making a bad cause good,
but with equal contempt, hates the
wain-study and the dog's eloquence,
& disdains to grow great by crimes.
or build himself a fortune on the
spoils of the oppressed, or the ruin
of the widow and orphan. He has
more reverence for his profession.
than to debauch it to unrighteous
purposes, and had rather be dumb.
than suffer his tongue to pimp for
injustice, or dip his pen in
bolster up a cheat with the legerde-
main of law craft.

He is not faced like Janus, to take
a retaining fee from plaintiff, and
afterwards a backhanded bribe from
the defendant, nor so double-tongued
that one may purchase his pleading.
and the other at the same or a lar-
ger price, his silence ; but when he
undertakes a business he espouses it
in earnest, and does not follow a
cause, but manages it. A mollify-
ing letter from the adversary's po-
tent friend, a noble treat, or the re-
mora of a lusty present from the
great, has no influence to make him
slacken his proceedings : for he is
so zealous for his client's interest.
that you may sooner divorce the sun
from the eclipse, than draw him from
his integrity, yet still is his pat-
ron only usque ad aras, (as far as
just ;) for if once he find the busi-
ness smells rank, St. Mark's treas-
ure, or the mines of Potosi, are too
small a fee to engage him one step
further.

As his profession is honorable, So
his education has been liberal and
genial. for different from that of
some pettifogging and purse.
milking law drivers, whose breeding
like the cuckoo's is in the nest of a.
other trade, where they learn
wrangling and knavery in their own
causes, to spoil other men, and.
with sweetened mingled ingredients of me-
chanic fraud, compound themselves
(though simple enough.) instruments for villany. But his green
years were seasoned with literature
and can give better proofs of his
university learning, than his reckoning up the colleges, and boasting
his name in the buttery-book; he
understands logic (the method of
right reasoning,) and rhetoric.
(the art of persuasion,) is well seen
in history, (the free school of pru-
dence.) and no stranger to the eth-
ics & politics of the ancients. He
is skilled in other languages be-
sides declaration. Latin, and Nor-
man gibberish : he read Plato and
Tully before he saw either Littleton
or the Statute book, and grounded
in the principles of nature, and cus-
toms of nations, came (like Columbus ) to the study of our common
municipal law, which he found to
be multorum annorum opus, a task
that requires all the nerves of in-
dustry, and therefore employed his
time at the Inns of Court, better
than in hunting after new fashions,
starting fresh mistresses, haunting
the play-houses, or acquiring the
other little town accomplishments,
which render their admirers fine
men in the opinion of fools, but egre-
gious fops in the judgment of the
wise.

In his study, he traffics not on-
ly with the infantry of epitomes,
abridgments, diminutive collectors
in duodecimo, but draws his
knowledge from the original spring,
digesting the whole body of the law.
in a laborious and regular method,
but especially aims to be well
versed in the practice of every court,
and rightly to understand the art of
good pleading as knowing them to
be the most useful to unravel the
knotty intrigues of the cause. and
reduce to an issue, yet hates to pes-
ter the court with circumlocutions, nega-
tive pregnant, departures and mul-
tiplied inconveniences.

He never goes about with feigned
allegations to cast a mist before the
eyes of justice, that she may mis.
take her road, and assign the child
to the wrong mother: endeavors not
to pack a jury by his interest to the
under sheriff ; nor to balk an evi-
dence with a multitude of sudden en-
snaring interrogatories; nor main-
tains any correspondence with the
Knights of Asiatia. or Ram-alley
notchers. He cannot prosecute a suit
in equity, without seeking to create
a whirlpool where one order shall
beget another. and the poor Client
be swung round like a cat before
execution.) from decree to rehearing.
from report to exception, & vice ver-
sa, till his fortune is ship wrecked.
and himself drowned for want of
white and yellow earth to wade
through. He never studies delays.
to the ruin of a family, for the lucre
of ten groats, nor by drilling quirks
spins out a suit more lasting than
buff. depending a whole revolution
of Saturn, and entailed on the third
and fourth generation. He does
not play the empiric with his client.
and put him on the wrack to make
him bleed more freely, casting him
in a swoon with frights of a judg-
ment. and then reviving him again
with a cordial of writ of error, or
the dear charm of an injunction, to
keep the wrangle (quarrel) alive as
long as there are any vital spirits
in the pouch. He can suffer his
neighbors to lie quiet about him
without perpetual alarms of actions
and lawsuits. or conjuring up
dormant titles to every common yards
seat, and making the fall fine years
purchase, merely for lying within ten
miles of him.

He delights to be an arbitrator,
not an incendiary, and has beatus
pacificus oftener in his mouth than
currat lex. He never inveigles any
into endless suits for trifles, nor animates them to undo themselves and
others, for damage feasant, or in-
significant trespasses, pedibus ambo
lando, but (as Telephus's sword was
the best cure for the wound it made,)
advises people to compose their as-
saults and slanders over the same
ale that begot them ; nor does he, in
weighty cases, extort unreasonable
fees ; for whatever the foul-chapped rabble may suggest, a lawyer's
profession is not mercenary ; the
money given him is only an honorary gratuity for his advice & trou-
ble or a grateful acknowledgement of
our obligations for his well intended
endeavors, and the old emblem. of
the bramble's tearing the sheep's
fleece that run to it for shelter in a
storm, can make no reflection upon
him, whose brain is as active, and his
tongue as voluble, for a penniless
pauper as, when oiled with the au-
rum potabile of a dozen guineas.

In a word, whilst he lives he is
the delight of the court, the orna-
ment of the bar, the glory of his
profession, the patron of innocen-
cy the upholder of right, the
scourge of oppression, the terror of
deceit, and the oracle of his country,
and when death calls him to the bar
of heaven by a habeas corpus cum
causis, where he finds his Judge his advocate, non suits the devil. obtains a
verdict without costs, and
continues still one of the Long
Robe in Glory.