the volunteer system), I am bold enough to say not only that your "sharp, clever fellows" make your worst attorneys, but that they rarely gain admission to the higher classes of respectable clients this sounds a little paradoxical, but there is sufficient reason for it. The sort of cleverness which obtains this reputation for an attorney, is to be found in every office on very cheap terms. Every common law or chancery clerk (as a piano that has been practised on for two or three years, arrives at its prime) is after a short probation, pre-eminent for it; and no office of any extent in business is without a convenient appendage of this kind, whose special duty it is to set snares and catch an opponent tripping: whenever he or his employer is at fault, the pleader or a junior counsel will soon make a skillful cast for the scent. This conflict of wit for petty advantage often occurs among the subordinates of an attorney's office; and where (though that is very seldom,) the client reaps any real benefit from it, the principal, by reflected honor from his clerk, is voted a "sharp and clever fellow." Among respectable men, however, these paltry contentions are despised, and also discouraged; because they tend to create angry and vindictive feeling, without any counter-balancing advantage, except, perchance, two or three pounds that may be successfully extracted from the pocket of an opponent in the shape of costs, with as much credit, though more safety, than by picking it of a watch and seals. It generally happens that clerks who spend their noviciate, in learning this cleverness, pique themselves so much on the acquisition of it, that they learn but little else; and when they enter upon practice on their own account, have no other accomplishment to bring to their aid. Hence their minds degenerate; their business is low, because it is chiefly in low business that such smartness enables them to shine; and even low and vulgar clients very soon discover, that while in the progress of a cause, these "sharp, clever fellows" are daily met and defeated by pleaders and counsel, if not by attorneys, as sharp and clever as themselves, their sharpness is frequently turned upon their employers, of whose dullness they can render very profitable account! The truth is, that it is only clients of very doubtful honesty, and who have business to transact which demands the protection of those resources to which knavery alone will stoop, that require the aid of these "sharp, clever men;" but such clients are not worth having on any terms, and if you have too many of them, you will secure a reputation for cunning and address that will keep more respectable connexions at a respectful distance. If I were asked to define the professional character to which I should most willingly trust myself, in an affair of delicacy or importance, involved in intricate details of circumstance, and entangled, perhaps, with much of personal and private feeling, I should select a man distinguished by calm energy, a clear head, and sound common sense: if in addition to this, he were gifted with a cheerful disposition, and marked, not by fastidious delicacy of mind, but by that enlarged honesty which is usually intended by "honorable principle," I should consider that he possessed the finest qualities for a useful attorney. Of course there are not many who come up to this standard; but in proportion as they approach it, and as the general nature of their business implies that they keep it constantly in view, a client ma consider himself safe in their hands. If my work were not necessarily anonymous, and anonymous praise, however sincere, goes for nothing, I could with ease name a hundred solicitors that well deserve to be classed with such as I have here described. CHAPTER XII. "Curi pertinacia recte disputari non potest."-CIC. de Fin. BUT I have been tempted into a long digres sion from my immediate subject. I might distinguish and classify clients by as many peculiarities as there are passions in human nature: I wish, however, only to mention some of the more usual varieties. There is a very large and very profitable class that may be described as the " wrong-headed." Wrongheadedness may spring from temper, from timidity, from ignorance, and a multitude of causes. I have already given a few specimens of the class that will illustrate this, but the wrongheadedness to which I am now alluding, is an infirmity of itself, more nearly allied to pride, perhaps, than to any other kindred spirit, but distinguishable in many points even from that. It is an obstinacy of that peculiar character that |