Part 47 (1/2)

'My friend Trevor ,' added Trottets that the question before a Court is not, what is this, that, or the other; which he may think proper to call justice; but, what is the law?'

'To be sure, sir;' continued Stradling 'It is that which, as a lawyer, you must attend to; and that only'

'I will cite you an exareat landed property B was an ihbour A had an estate in the county of ---- that lay in a ring-fence: a ed to B This meadoas convenient for A to purchase; and he sent his steward, as an attorney, to make proposals B rejected theed to C, but that was farmed by B The advice was followed

The lease of B expired the following year; and a new one was denied by A, unless B would sell his ht the e For this purpose A refused payment, and provoked B to commence an action The law he knew very as on the side of B: but that was of little consequence

Plaintiff B brought his action in Trinity Term Defendant A pleaded a sham plea: asserted plaintiff had been paid for hisvacation was thus got over, and next ters at law Plaintiff B files his answer, and gets the injunction dissolved: but A had his writ ready and becah all the Courts: from KB to the Exchequer-chamber; and from the Exchequer-chaht error into Parlias His attorney, of course, would not stir a step further; and the fool was ruined He was afterward arrested by his attorney for payment of bill in arrear; and he now lies in prison, on the debtors'-side of Newgate'

'How you stare, Mr Trevor!' added Stradling 'Every word true We all know a great lord who has carried I cannot tell how es,' said I, 'acquainted with the whole of these proceedings?'

'How could they be ignorant of theainst defendant A in all the Courts'

'And did they afford the plaintiff no protection?'

'They protect! Why, Mr Trevor, you i your tale to a Cady, who decides according to his notions of right and wrong; and not pleading in the presence of a bench of English judges, who have twice ten thousand voluuides which leave them no opinion of their own It is their duty to pronounce sentence as the statute-books direct: or, as in the case I have cited, according to precedent, time immemorial'

'And this is what you call law?'

'Ay! and sound law too'

'Why then, daht to stop short, sir'

'It appears toin a cursed dirty as well as thorny road,' said I, with a sigh

'Why, to own the truth,' added Trott: and, unless you can turn back and look at it with unconcern, I should scarcely advise you to proceed'

'I shall certainly reconsider the subject!'

'A pair of lawyers, like a pair of legs, are apt to bespatter each other: but they nevertheless reood friends and brothers If you send your spaniel into a ht to take care, when he comes out, that he does not shake the filth he has collected over his master'

'I wonder, sir, that you should continue one of a profession which you treat with such unsparing severity'

'And I, sir, do not wonder at your wonderings Life is a long road; and he must have travelled a very little way indeed who expects that it should be all a bowling-green Pursue your route in which direction you will, law, trade, physic, or divinity, and prove to me that you will never have occasion to shake off the dust froainst it, and I will then pause and consider You are of the sect of the Perfectibles'

'And you of the cast of the Stand-stills'

'Oh no I conceivein a round-about Like the globe they inhabit, men are continually in motion: but they can never pass their circle'

'And do you suppose you know the limits of your circle?'