THE BAR AND SOLICITORS.

Ir is a mistake very frequently made to suppose that "business habits" are not necessary to a professional man; many unprofessional folk, and a few of the younger sort of professional men themselves, are so far committed to this wrong way of thinking as even to think it unprofessional to be business-like. There are, it is true, some professional men—the greatest number might, perhaps, be found among artists who are de leur naturel incapacitated from observing times and seasons, keeping appointments, caring for other people's time, and respecting those other principles which have become established as absolutely necessary among men who have much business to transact; but such men, unless they be of some exceptional profession,-e.g., an artist's-are sure to find out sooner or later that, if they would succeed in their professional career, they must include in the plan of their conduct a liberal quantity of business habits and

business principles, which not only do not derogate from the dignity of their profession, but enhance it, and alone enable them, in conjunction with their special aptitude for the same, to attain to the higher grades of it. A great genius, if not directed by a certain amount of method, is more likely than not to be a useless acquisition to the world: it is like a splendid horse that has not been broken; its natural action and form may be admired, but unless it have undergone a process of training, its existence is next to no profit to the world at large.

On those professional men whose very professions seem to cast out the idea of business ways being attached to them, the world will be content to wait ; but these professions are few in number, and it may be taken for certain, as a general rule, that professional business will not come to professional men who are not also business-like: the doctor who would win the confidence of a large number of patients, the barrister who would fain see attorneys resort more and more to his chambers, the clergyman who would successfully undertake the care of a large parish, the officer who would effectually deal with the men placed under his authority, and with the powers who have placed them there, must assuredly combine, with other necessary qualities, this one of business-likeness.

It is proposed now to consider what special business habits are necessary to particular professions, and to illustrate, by means of anecdotes and biographical

references, the influence of the possession or otherwise of these habits. In conformity with the plan carried out in treating of other callings, the means by which a candidate can obtain admission to the profession of which he seeks to become a member, will also be detailed.

THE BAR.

The aspirant to a wig and gown should well consider and settle with himself, before he takes steps towards satisfying his aspirations, whether his forte, his genius, his taste, or whatever else he may call it that leads him on, be real or spurious; whether the desire be merely prompted by the idea that he should like to speak and influence, as he hears other men speak and sees them exert influence, as counsel, or whether he have actually the power innate, and only wanting training, so to speak, and influence. Lord Erskine, when yet a subaltern in a marching regiment, and a married man with two children, was stationed with his company at Maidstone, and at the time of the assizes happened to go into the Crown court, where Lord Mansfield was trying prisoners. Having been asked by Lord Mansfield to sit on the bench, Erskine told his lordship afterwards at dinner, that having listened to all the speeches of counsel during the whole day, he felt persuaded he could have made a better speech than any of them in any of the cases that had been tried. From that moment he determined, in spite of a late

beginning, and after Lord Mansfield's warning to him not to deceive himself, to embrace the profession of the law. He felt not merely the wish to excel, but the power to do so, and how he succeeded, history tells very well.

Supposing, then, that after strict self-examination on this point, the aspirant to legal honour is satisfied he has the law-genius within him, it will behove him to consider whether he possesses those other qualities of capacity for hard work, perseverance, and last, not least, the pecuniary means to enable him to pursue his natural calling. Really hard work, of the sort that makes the brain to sweat and the mind to ache, lies before the traveller ere he can come in sight of, much less enjoy, the pleasures of the oasis. A man, also, who cannot bear to suffer the process of waiting, who cannot endure disappointment, nor keep up a stout heart in spite of difficulties and the delay of business in coming to him, had better not attempt the path of law. "Drink deep or touch not the Pierian spring," is as true, or more so, of law as it is of poetry. Again, the law is a very jealous mistress, and but scantily rewards those of her votaries who also worship at other shrines. Should a student or a barrister, to eke out his means or for his own recreation, choose to stray into the paths of literature, unless it be in that driest and dustiest one in which "precedents," 66 cases," ""legal maxims," and the like are found, he will find, if it be known that he does so, that those

priests of justice who are friendly to him will warn him of his imprudence, and those who are indifferent or unfriendly will give him a push downward, by applying to him a traditional saying, that "a man cannot be a lawyer and a littérateur at the same time." Apart from this, however—for it is quite possible for a man to amuse himself, as some scholars have done, by merely substituting one kind of labour for another, "to scorn delights, and live laborious days"-it is certain that a large amount of attention and time spent in another direction than the main one, will be punished by the jealous goddess herself,-in other words, there is so much to be learned and remembered, to say nothing of much that has to be learned only in order to be unlearned again, before one can be anything like a proficient in legal knowledge, that there is really no time left for other things.

The questions of waiting and perseverance are very much matters of temperament; not so the question of pecuniary means. That is an absolute point, which, if it be not settled in some way or other before a man is committed to any particular course of action, will infallibly prove a drag-it may be, a fatal drag-on all his after-career. Some men there are, at the bar as at college, who cannot live under an income of five or six hundred a year, independently of their practice; but while this amount is by no means necessary to a law student or a young barrister, there is a minimum of means which cannot be infringed upon without