imposes in ordinary cases. There are some cases which a professional man ought not to undertake at all. This is indeed acknowledged by numbers of the profession. The obligation to reject them is of course founded upon their contrariety to virtue. How then shall a legal man know whether he ought to undertake a cause at all, but by some previous consideration of its merits. This must really be done if he would conform to the requisitions of morality. There is not an alternative and "absurd" or "impracticable" as it may be pronounced to be, we do not shrink from explicitly maintaining the truth. Impracticable ! it is at any rate not impracticable to withdraw from the profession or to decline to enter it. A man is not compelled to be a lawyer: and if there are so many difficulties in the practice of professional virtue, what is to be said? Are we to say, Virtue must be sacrificed to a profession-or, The profession must be sacrificed to virtue? The pleader will perhaps say that he cannot tell what the merits of a case are until they are elicited in court: but this surely would not avail to justify a disregard of morality in any other case. To defend one's self for an habitual disregard of the claims of rectitude, because we cannot tell, when we begin a course of action, whether it will involve a sacrifice of rectitude or not, is an ill defence indeed. At any rate, if he connects himself with a cause of questionable rectitude, he needs not and he ought not to advocate it, whilst ignorant of its merits, as if he knew that it was good. He ought not to advocate it further than he thinks it is good.

There is one consideration under which a pleader may assist a client even with a bad cause, which is, that it is proper to prevent the client from suffering too far. I would acknowledge, generally, the justice of the opposite party's claims, or, if it were a criminal

case, I would acquiesce in the evidence which carried conviction to my mind; but still, in both, something may remain for the pleader to do. The plaintiff may demand a thousand pounds when only eight hundred are due, and a pleader, though he could not with integrity resist the whole demand, could resist the excess of the demand above the just amount. Or if the prosecutor urges the guilt of a prisoner and attempts to procure the infliction of an undue punishment, a pleader, though he knows the prisoner's guilt, may rightly prevent a sentence too severe. Murray, the grammarian, had been a barrister in America: "I do not recollect," says he, "that I ever encouraged a client to proceed at law when I thought his cause was unjust or indefensible; but in such cases, I believe it was my invariable practice to discourage litigation and to recommend a peaceable settlement of differences. In the retrospect of this mode of practice, I have always had great satisfaction, and I am persuaded that a different procedure would have been the source of many painful recollections."'*

One serious consideration remains-the effect of the immorality of legal practice upon the personal character of the profession. "The lawyer who is frequently engaged in resisting what he strongly suspects to be just, in maintaining what he deems to be in strictness untenable, in advancing inconclusive reasoning, and seeking after flaws in the sound replies of his antagonists, can be preserved by nothing short of serious and invariable solicitude, from the risk of having the distinction between moral right and wrong almost erased from his mind." Is it indeed so? Tremendous is the risk. Is it indeed so? Then the custom which entails this fearful risk must infallibly be bad.

* Memoirs of Lindley Murray, p. 43. † Gisborne.

Assuredly no virtuous conduct tends to erase the distinctions between right and wrong from the mind.

It is by no means certain, that if a lawyer were to enter upon life with a steady determination to act upon the principles of strict integrity, his experience would occasion any exception to the general rule, that the path of virtue is the path of interest. The client who was conscious of the goodness of his cause, would prefer the advocate whose known maxims of conduct gave weight to every cause that he undertook. When such a man appeared before a jury, they would attend to his statements and his reasonings with that confidence which integrity only can inspire. They would not make, as they now do, perpetual deductions from his averred facts; they would not be upon the watch, as they now are, to protect themselves from illusion, and casuistry, and misrepresentation. Such a man, I say, would have a weight of advocacy which no other qualification can supply; and upright clients, knowing this would find it their interest to employ him. The majority of clients, it is to be hoped, are upright. Professional success, therefore, would probably follow. And if a few such pleaders, nay if one such pleader was established, the consequence might be beneficial and extensive to a degree which it is not easy to compute. It might soon become necessary for other pleaders to act upon the same principles, because clients would not entrust their interests to any but those whose characters would give weight to their advocacy. Thus even the profligate part of the profession might be reformed by motives of interest if not from choice. Want of credit might be want of practice; for it might eventually be almost equivalent to the loss of a cause to entrust it to a bad man. The effects would extend to the public. If none but upright men could be effi

cient advocates, and if upright men would not advocate vicious causes, vicious causes would not be prosecuted. But if such be the probable or even the possible results of sterling integrity, if it might be the means of reforming the practice of a large and influential profession, and of almost exterminating wicked litigation from a people-the obligation to practise this integrity is proportionately great: the amount of depending good involves a corresponding amount of responsibility upon him who contributes to perpetuate the evil.

CHAPTER VI.

PROMISES.-LIES.

PROMISES.-Definition of a promise-Parole-Extorted promises-John Fletcher.

LIES.-Milton's definition-Lies in war: to robbers: to lunatics to the sick-Hyperbole-Irony-Complimentary untruths-"Not at home."

A PROMISE is a contract, differing from such contracts as a lawyer would draw up, in the circumstance that ordinarily it is not written. The motive for signing a contract is to give assurance or security to the receiver that its terms will be fulfilled. The same motive is the inducement to a promise. The general obligation of promises needs little illustration, because it is not disputed. Men are not left without the consciousness that what they promise, they ought to perform; and thus thousands, who can give no philosophical account of the matter, know, with certain assurance, that if they violate their engagements they violate the law of God.

Some philosophers deduce the obligation of promises from the expediency of fulfilling them. Doubtless fulfilment is expedient; but there is a shorter and a safer road to truth. To promise and not to perform, is to deceive; and deceit is peculiarly and especially condemned by Christianity. A lie has been defined to be "a breach of promise;" and, since the Scriptures condemn lying, they condemn breaches of promise.

Persons sometimes deceive others by making a promise in a sense different from that in which they know it will be understood. They hope this species of deceit is less criminal than breaking their word, and wish to gain the advantage of deceiving without its guilt. They dislike the shame but perform the act. A son has abandoned his father's house, and the father promises that if he returns, he shall be received with open arms. The son returns, the father" opens his arms to receive him, and then proceeds to treat him with rigor. This father falsifies his promise as truly as if he had specifically engaged to treat him with kindness. The sense in which a promise binds a person, is the sense in which he knows it is accepted by the other party.

It is very possible to promise without speaking. Those who purchase at auctions frequently advance on the price by a sign or a nod. An auctioneer, in selling an estate says, "Nine hundred and ninety pounds are offered." He who makes the customary sign to indicate an advance of ten pounds, promises to give a thousand.-A person who brings up his children or others in the known and encouraged expectation that he will provide for them, promises to provide for them. A shipmaster promises to deliver a pipe of wine at the accustomed port, although he may have made no written and no verbal engagement respecting it.

Parole, such as is taken of military men, is of imper