standing, immense capacity, great and profound learning, he added a powerful wit and an overwhelming eloquence. His wit, though not so frequently exercised as Mr. Curran's, was yet a gem of the first water. A great susceptibility in his temperament subjected him to great gusts of impatience. Mr. Curran, with intent to cure his friend of this imperfection, and also to relieve himself from its effects, coming one day rather late to dinner, to shelter himself from the storm which he found gathering about him, observed, on entering the room, that he was delayed by a melancholy circumstance which took place in Clarendon market, through which he was passing. It was a butcher and a child; the butcher had a bloody knife-Lord Avonmore could not be patient; his extreme feeling took the alarm, What,' he exclaimed, my God! has the villain murdered the child? Oh! good heavens!' His feelings were so wound up that he, by this dreadful anticipation, had neither eye nor ear. He at length perceived a laugh in the room, and, looking at Mr. Curran, What did you not say that the butcher had stabbed the infant to the heart?''No, my Lord, I said he plunged the bloody blade into the throat of a pig." (O'Regan's Memoirs of Curran, p. 89.)

SIR THOMAS PLUMER.

The forcible and familiar manner in which Sir Thomas always delivered his judgments, will be long remembered. In the celebrated case of Cholmondely v. Clinton, he is said to have thus expressed himself: "Testator says to himself, "I'll have the right heir of Samuel Rolle; and be he male, or be he female, he's the man for my money!"

LORD ELLENBOROUGH.

V.

When Lord Ellenborough was Attorney General, he was listening with some impatience to the judgment of a learned judge, afterwards his colleague, who said, in "I ruled that, &c." "You rule!" said the Attorney Ge neral, in a tone of suppressed indignation, loud enough to be heard, however, by many of his brethren of the bar, "You rule! you were never fit to rule any thing but a copy-book!"

ON THE LEGAL CHARACTER.

The exclusive devotion which the study of the law exacts is certainly unfavourable to the general character of its professors. The quaint maxim, that " Lady Common Law must lie alone," is, from the commencement of his career, invariably inculcated upon the mind of the student. "The Law," says Sir Matthew Hale, "will admit of no

rival, nothing to go even with it." "As to the profession of the law," observes Roger North, "I must say of it in general, that it requires the whole man, and must be his North star, by which he is to direct his time, from the beginning of his undertaking it to the end of his life." Nearly the same expressions are made use of by Sir William Jones, in a letter to the Bishop of St. Asaph, "My ultimate knowledge of the nature of my profession obliges me to assure you that it requires the whole man, and admits of no concurrent pursuits; that, consequently, I must either give it up or it will engross me so much that I shall not for some years be able to enjoy the society of my friends or the sweets of liberty." Under a similar impression, the able author of the Pursuits of Literature strongly advises the students of our universities not to mingle the study of the law with their academical pursuits, since they will necessarily be compelled, upon entering the profession, to abandon all other occupations.

Unfortunately these opinions are but too well founded. The science of the law, as it at present exists, demands the painful industry of a long and laborious life. No one who has not attempted to master it can conceive the insurmountable difficulties which continually present themselves to the most diligent mind, making new claims upon

כ

its patience, its resolution, and its energy. It is impossible that even the most assiduous person should arrive at that point of knowledge which would justify him in laying aside his books and resting satisfied in the conviction that he is master of the science. This impression naturally deters the lawyer from the prosecution of other pursuits. He is aware that, in turning the powers of his mind to foreign employments, his professional attainments will but too probably suffer. At all events he is certain that they will suffer in the estimation of others. Perhaps no instance can be pointed out in which a devotion to occupations not within the pale of the profession has not been more or less injurious to the reputation of the person indulging in it. It is true that men of high genius may have surmounted the obstacles which this circumstance has thrown in their way, but they have nevertheless experienced its effects. Even the splendid intellect of Bacon, employed upon subjects alien to his profession, subjected him to censure, as a lawyer. "The several books," says Osborn, in his advice to his son, "incomparable Bacon was known to read, besides those relating to the law, were objected to him as an argument of his insufficiency to manage the place of Solicitor-General, and may lie as a rub in all their ways who, out of a vain glory to manifest a general knowledge, neglect this caution."

Under a conviction, not only that the law does in fact require the devotion of the whole mind, but also that the opinion of the world demands it, it is not surprising that few lawyers venture to trespass beyond the bounds of their profession.. To some, indeed, whose resolution, or whose necessities are not so imperious, this enthralment of the intellects is so irksome that even on the threshold of their studies they abandon them. Others, with superior energy, resolutely gird themselves for the task, and cast aside, without remorse, all other hopes and occupations. Others, again, will attempt to compromise their sterner duties and their pleasures, and endeavour to mingle the sweets of literature with the austerities of the law; an experiment, however, which is seldom attended with success. It is no uncommon spectacle to see men of high talents, disgusted or dispirited, diverging from the study of the law to other pursuits. Of such men we have two wellknown examples in West, the friend of Gray, and in the poet Cowper. The two following extracts so forcibly display the feelings of the writers that it is impossible not to insert them.

"I have lived," says West, "in the Temple till I was sick of it; I have just left it, and find myself as much a lawyer as I was when I was in it. It is certain, at least, that I may study the law bere as well as I could there, my being in