us course! May
he be landed high and dry upon the envied eminences of social life!
But--by Jupiter!--if nature had given _us_ the pencil of the artist, we
would not have let go our hold, though the seals of office were ten times
as large and ten times as brilliant as they are, and were dangled before
us within arm's-reach. You might have lifted us softly and gently, and
placed us as with a mother's arms, even upon the broad woolsack, we would
not have dropped that pencil. No; we would have said to the boisterous
prosperities of life--Here is that which will make station indifferent; if
to food and raiment men must needs add the charms of variety, here is that
which will gild even obscurity with an assured and tranquil pride!

As we have intimated, we do not feel disposed to blame our author that he
speaks often of his "glorious," his "noble" profession. The golden hue of
sunrise is rightly cast upon the pinnacles and towers of that city the
traveller is toiling to reach. What narrow and squalid streets, what blind
alleys, what there is of filth and ruin in the great capital of
intelligence, he may find out afterwards for himself. There was a time
when we, too, were younger than we are, and saw the proud city at the same
advantageous distance, when, dazzled by the view of its more conspicuous
ornaments, we might have been tempted to make the same exclamations, and
to use the same flattering phraseology. At that time, if any one had
thrown a shadow of moral blame on the very principle and universal
practice of the profession of advocacy, we should have indignantly
repelled the accusation, we should have rushed to its defence, perhaps we
even did attempt to throw our little shield before its huge and very
vulnerable body. But now--when some years have rolled over our heads, and
we have learned to think more calmly, if not more wisely--when we have
caught a glimpse of the men who fill high places, and stood near enough to
discover that they were of earth's common mould--when the actual din of
forensic oratory, deafening and monotonous, has rung in our ears, and we
have sat and watched the solemn juggle, and the stale hypocrisy with which
that legal strife called a trial is conducted--now, if any teacher of
ethics should denounce the demoralizing principle of advocacy--the
principle we mean of contending for any client, or any cause, that craves
fee in hand--we should no longer be eager to thrust ourselves between him
and the