the ability of the legal profession, tend to separate it more and
more from the people, and to place it in a distinct class. The French
lawyer is simply a man extensively acquainted with the statutes of his
country; but the English or American lawyer resembles the hierophants of
Egypt, for, like them, he is the sole interpreter of an occult science.

The station which lawyers occupy in England and America exercises no
less an influence upon their habits and their opinions. The English
aristocracy, which has taken care to attract to its sphere whatever is
at all analogous to itself, has conferred a high degree of importance
and of authority upon the members of the legal profession. In English
society lawyers do not occupy the first rank, but they are contented
with the station assigned to them; they constitute, as it were, the
younger branch of the English aristocracy, and they are attached to
their elder brothers, although they do not enjoy all their privileges.
The English lawyers consequently mingle the taste and the ideas of the
aristocratic circles in which they move with the aristocratic interests
of their profession.

And indeed the lawyer-like character which I am endeavoring to depict is
most distinctly to be met with in England: there laws are esteemed not
so much because they are good as because they are old; and if it be
necessary to modify them in any respect, or to adapt them the
changes which time operates in society, recourse is had to the most
inconceivable contrivances in order to uphold the traditionary fabric,
and to maintain that nothing has been done which does not square with
the intentions and complete the labors of former generations. The
very individuals who conduct these changes disclaim all intention of
innovation, and they had rather resort to absurd expedients than plead
guilty to so great a crime. This spirit appertains more especially to
the English lawyers; they seem indifferent to the real meaning of what
they treat, and they direct all their attention to the letter, seeming
inclined to infringe the rules of common sense and of humanity rather
than to swerve one title from the law. The English legislation may be
compared to the stock of an old tree, upon which lawyers have engrafted
the most various shoots, with the hope that, although their fruits may
differ, their foliage at least will be confounded with the venerable
trunk which supports them all.

In America there are no nobles or