ways were, and will be, for _they_ are immutable
and eternal; but you had to buffet your way to them through "many a
mile of foaming filth," that harassed, exhausted and choked the
unhappy swimmer long before he could get sight of the offing. Few
beside those who had had the equivocal advantage of being early
familiarised with such gibberish as "special general
imparlance"--"special testatum capias"--"special original"--"testatum
pone"--"protestando"--"colour"--"_de bene esse_," &c. &c. &c. could
obtain a glimmering of daily practice, without a serious waste of
time and depreciation of the mental faculties. Let the thousands who,
under the old system, almost at once adopted and abandoned legal
studies, attest the truth of this remark. There was, in short, every
thing to discourage a gentleman from entering, to obstruct him in
prosecuting, the legal profession. Recently, however, a great change
has been effected. There has been a real reform--a practical,
searching, comprehensive reform of the common law; a shaking down of
innumerable dead leaves and rotten branches; a cutting away of all
the shoots of prurient vegetation, which served but to disfigure the
tree, and to conceal and injure its fruit. Now you may see, in the
common law, a tree noble in its height and figure, sinewy in its
branches, green in its foliage, and goodly in its fruit. May it be
permitted, however, to express an humble hope, that the gardener will
know _when to lay aside_ his knife!"--(P. 20.)

And yet Warren has a knife, too, of his own which he would willingly
employ upon some part of this noble tree--either its old or its new
branches. It is impossible for even the most indulgent commentator not to
perceive that there are in our system of pleading many technicalities,
which, so far from being necessary to the administration of justice, have
no other operation than to retard, to complicate, to defeat the
administration of justice. At p. 738--a very prudent and respectful
distance from the quotation we have just made--we find the following
admission:--

"Such is a faint sketch of the existing system of special pleading,
upon the reform and remodelling of which has been bestowed, during
the last fifteen years, the anxious and profound consideration of
some of the ablest and most experienced legal intellects which were