cure a grant or a will, by which nature is outraged, and villany rewarded. Religion itself may have been treacherously employed at the side of the death-bed to devour the widow's portion, or plunder the orphan. In these, and many other like cases, the attempt to unravel the fraud, and expose the injury, is full of delicacy, and may incur severe displeasure among friends, and yield a triumph to enemies. But it is on such occasions, that the advocate rises to a full sense of the dignity of his profession, and feels the power and the responsibility of its duties. He must then lift himself to thoughts of other days, and other times; to the great moral obligations of his profession; to the eternal precepts of religion; to the dictates of that voice, which speaks within him from beyond the grave, and demands, that the mind. given by God shall be devoted to his service, without the fear, and without the frailty of man. But whatever may be the dignity and the brilliancy either of fame or fortune, which the profession holds. out to those, who strive for eminence in the law, the student should never imagine that the ascent is easy, or the labour light. There cannot be any delusion cherished more fatal to his ultimate success than this. Young men of gay and ardent temperaments are apt to imagine, that little more is necessary than to read a few elementary books with reasonable diligence, and the rewards are already within their grasp. They fondly indulge the belief, that fluency of speech, a kindling imagination, ready wit, graceful action, and steady self-confidence will carry them through every struggle. If they can but address a court or jury without perturbation, and state their points with clearness and order, the rest may fairly be left to the workings of their own minds upon the excitements of the occasion. That because the hour is come and the trial is come, the inspiration for the cause will come also. Whoever shall indulge in such visionary views, will find his career end in grievous disappointment, if not in disgrace. I know not, if among human sciences there is any one, which requires such various qualifications and extensive attainments, as the law. While it demands the first order of talents, genius alone never did, and never can, win its highest elevations. There is not only no royal road to smooth the way to the summit; but the passes, like those of Alpine regions, are sometimes dark and narrow; sometimes bold and precipitous; sometimes dazzling from the reflected light of their naked fronts; and sometimes bewildering from the shadows projecting from their dizzy heights. Whoever advances for safety must advance slowly. He must cautiously follow the old guides, and toil on with steady footsteps; for the old paths, though well beaten, are rugged; and the new paths, though broad, are still perplexed. To drop all metaphor, the law is a science, in which there is no substitute for diligence and labour. It is a fine remark of one, who is a brilliant example of all he teaches, that "it appears to be the general order of providence, manifested in the constitution of our nature, that every thing valuable in human acquisition should be the result of toil and la A basmell. bour."* The student, therefore, should, upon his first entrance upon the study, weigh well the difficulties of his task, not merely to guard himself against despondency on account of expectations too sanguinely indulged; but also to stimulate his zeal, by a proper estimate of the value of perseverance. He, who has learned to survey the labour without dismay, has achieved half the victory. I will not say with Lord Hale, that "the law will admit of no rival, and nothing to go even with it;" but I will say, that it is a jealous mistress, and requires a long and constant courtship. It is not to be won by trifling favours, but by a lavish homage. Many causes combine to make the study of the common law, in the present day, a laborious undertaking. In the first place, it necessarily embraces the reasoning and doctrines of very remote ages. It is, as has been elegantly said, "The gathered wisdom of a thousand years;" + or, in the language of one of the greatest of English judges, it is not "the product of the wisdom of some one man, or society of men, in any one age; but of the wisdom, counsel, experience, and observation of many ages of wise and observing men." It is a system having its Chancellor Kent's Introductory Discourse, p. 8. Why has this finished discourse been withdrawn from his Commentaries? Teignmouth's Life of Sir W. Jones, 100. Lord Hale in preface to Rolle's Abridgment, 1 Coll. Jurid. 266. foundations in natural reason; but at the same time built up and perfected by artificial doctrines adapted and moulded to the artificial structure of society. The law, for instance, which governs the titles to real estate, is principally derived from the feudal polity and usages, and is in a great measure unintelligible without an intimate acquaintance with the peculiarities of that system. This knowledge is not, even now, in all cases easily attainable; but must sometimes be searched out amidst the dusty ruins of antiquity, or traced back through black-lettered pages of a most forbidding aspect both in language and matter. The old law, too, is not only of an uncouth and uninviting appearance; but it abounds with nice distinctions, and subtile refinements, which enter deeply into the modern structure of titles. No man, even in our day, can venture safely upon the exposition of an intricate devise, or the effect of a power of appointment, or of a deed to lead uses and trusts, who has not, in some good degree, mastered its learning. More than two centuries ago Sir Henry Spelman* depicted his own distress upon entering upon such studies, when at the very vestibule he was met with a foreign language, a barbarous dialect, an inelegant method, and a mass of learning, which could be borne only upon the shoulders of Atlas; and frankly admitted, that his heart sunk within him at the prospect. The defects of a foreign tongue, and barbarous dialect, and inelegant order, have almost entirely disappeared, and no longer vex the * Preface to his Glossary. The passage is partially quoted in 1 Blackstone's Com. 31, note. student in his midnight vigils. But the materials for his labour have in other respects greatly accumulated in the intermediate period. He may, perchance, escape from the dry severity of the Year Books, and the painful digestion of the Abridgments of Statham, Fitzherbert, and Brooke. He may even venture to glide by the exhausting arguments of Plowden. But Lord Coke, with his ponderous Commentaries, will arrest his course; and faint and disheartened with the view, he must plunge into the labyrinths of contingent remainders, and executory devises, and springing uses, and deem himself fortunate, if after many years' devotion to Fearne, he may venture upon the interpretation of that darkest of all mysteries, a last will and testament. So true it is, that no man knows his own will so ill, as the testator; and that over-solicitude to be brief and simple, ends in being profoundly enigmatical. Dum brevis esse labero, obscurus fio. In the next place, as has been already hinted, every successive age brings its own additions to the general mass of antecedent principles. If something is gained by clearing out the old channels, much is added by new increments and deposits. If here and there a spring of litigation is dried up, many new ones break out in unsuspected places. In fact, there is scarcely a single branch of the law, which belonged to the age of Queen Elizabeth, which does not now come within the daily contemplation of a lawyer of extensive practice. And all these branches have been spreading to an incalculable extent since that period by the changes in society wrought by |