Gossip of an old French Lawyer. the great lawyers of ancient and modern times, including among the latter those of Lord Cowper, Yorke, Somers, Kenyon, Alvanley, and Eldon. On the wainscoted walls you have the names of the Readers of the Temple, for more than two centuries back; and portraits of great benefactors. Here, too, the bar assembles for occasions of state and festivity, and for ancient celebra tions — some very curious — which are still kept up with that instinct of hereditation which belongs to no country but England. Everywhere about you — in short, in the names of avenues and walks, in the designa tion of buildings, in the objects of curiosity or interest or veneration — you have the names and associations of the law before you. The profession is here in its corporate dignity and impressiveness. It has about it all those influences which Mr. Burke thought so valuable in the structure of a State. It bears the impress of its name and lineage, and inspires everywhere a consciousness of its ancient and habitual dignity. The past is everywhere connected with the present, and you feel that the profession is an inher itance derived from forefathers and to be transmitted to posterity. While many of the members of the Inns are of course engaged away from their Inn daily, at the courts or in Parliament, and in the excitements and toils of business, here they always return as for a " higher conver
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sation; " and when within the Temple close, are as completely sequestered from the mighty world of London that is rolling on without them, as though they were beneath the venerable shades of Oriel or Christ Church and looking upon the tranquil cur rents of the Isis before them. In some senses the courts themselves are subordinate to these foundations. A person is admitted to the bar, not by motion in court, as with us, but by being called to the bar by the Inn where he has studied. The Inns, therefore, and not the courts, regulate the whole subject of admissions to the bar; and having this controlling power, are in truth masters of the courts themselves. It will be readily understood from all this, that these Inns, numbering some thousands of persons, are complete communities, with laws and customs and officers. Each foun dation is governed by a small committee called Benchers, selected always from the most influential and eminent members of the profession. Every member of the bar lives under restraints in all ways professional. He is surrounded by his professional brethren, and guarded everywhere by their watchful observedness. A controlling and valuable in fluence exercises itself upon his professional life, and he could not lose his reputation at his Inn and remain at the bar at all. — Liv ingston's Monthly Law Magazine.
GOSSIP OF AN OLD FRENCH LAWYER. SOMEHOW or other the legal profession has always been considered as a fair butt for the wit of those who are jealous of its intellect or envious of its gains. The fa miliar picture of a cow pulled by the horns by the pursuer, and held by the tail at the instance of the defender, while the " lawyer" quietly fills his pail with her milk, is one whose truth to nature has been maintained,
sometimes in ignorant earnest, sometimes in conscious jest, by many writers and speakers in almost every age. But the fact that we readily forgive the satire is the best proof of its want of application; and we are never slow to welcome a joke, even at our own ex pense, if it serve to stir a little of the dust which is too apt to gather in the " purlieus" where much of our work lies. Indeed, the
