doubtless entitle those who practised it to the severest reprobation; but, in diplomatic transactions, we are to conclude it is amply justified by the principles of state reason, since personages* have not disdained to resort to it, who, in all other occurrences, manifested a strong repugnance to the arts of dissimulation.

The Athenians forbade that the names of Harmodius and Aristogiton, who had delivered their country from the tyranny of Hippias and Hipparchus, should ever be given to slaves. If our legislature had decreed, at the commencement of the French revolution, that none should receive pensions for their diplomatic services but those whose merits in that department were publicly acknowledged by our enemies, we have no doubt that the ambassadors of this country would have made a greater figure in the eyes of Europe than they have done for these last ten years.

* Sir William Temple (see his Works, col. I. p. 266) and Lord Horatio Walpole (see Core's Memoirs of that Nobleman, p. 465) have both conceived, that the best intelligence was to be obtained in the convivial intercourse of the table; and though the latter was a most rigid economist, yet for that purpose the same table was always kept in his absence by his secretary.-We have been informed, as an indisputable fact, that an application which a certain ambassador made in the morning to Talleyrand, was in the evening granted to his secretary, whose good fortune it was to meet him at a friend's house, and who, in the freedom of familiar conversation, had the skill to seize the favourablę moment of urging his request.

In short, then, "exoriantur legati," among us, who will shew to Europe at large, that the perfection of diplomatic wisdom and skill does not consist in a scrupulous adherence to antiquated usages and formalities, and to principles borrowed from less enlightened times; but in a general knowledge of the world and the ways of men, in a behaviour equally calculated to soften. national pride and prejudices, and to win confidence and esteem, and in that energy, decision, and firmness, which can alone lay the foundation of successful conduct, in public as well as private affairs.

ESSAY X.

ON THE DUTIES OF ATTORNIES.

IF the importance of a man in the scale of civil society be weighed according to his power of injuring or benefiting his fellow-citizens, and such a mode of estimate is pretty generally formed, it will then appear, that those who follow the profession of an Attorney or solicitor in our courts of law and equity, may reasonably arrogate to themselves no small pretensions to public notice. To demonstrate the justness of this observation, we shall proceed to deduce the origin and nature of the legal functions of an Attorney; and then presume to suggest a line of conduct for his adoption, which would not impoverish his usual stock of gains, and yet entitle him to the respect and gratitude of his country.

An Attorney at law, so called from attornatus, which word implies, to be put in the turn of another, corresponds to the procurator or proctor of the civilians or canonists. In periods when each man took upon him

self to avenge his private wrongs, summary justice could be easily exercised: every suitor was then (according to the old Gothic constitution) obliged to appear in person to prosecute or defend his suit, unless the king's letters patent authorised his absence: but as soon as the litigious spirit of men increased, and we may suppose that very soon to have happened, it was found expedient to permit Attornies to prosecute and defend any action in the absence of the parties to the

suit*.

To modern times however we must look for the exertions of that corps being called forth by suitable encouragements; for our ancestors had such frequent recourse to the simple dictates of nature and reason, in the adjustment of their disputes, that an act of Parliament passed in the 33d year of the reign of Henry III. expressly states, that before that period there had not been more than six or eight Attornies in Norfolk or Suffolk; in which time, it remarks, great tranquility reigned+; but the number had increased to twenty

* This convenient mode of proceeding was first recognised in Statute Westminster, II. cap. x. agreeably to that in the Roman law: cum olim in usu fuisset, alterius nomine agi non posse, sed quia hoc non minimam incommoditatem habebat, cœperunt homines per procuratores litigare.

+ Quo tempore magna tranquillitas regnabat.-See Blackstone's Com

four, to the great prejudice and inconvenience of both counties. It therefore enacted, that there should be only six Attornies in Norfolk, six in Suffolk, and two in the city of Norwich.

It is a truth as rare as it is glorious, that England is perhaps the only country upon the face of the earth, in which justice, civil and criminal, is administered with purity; and happy should we be to add, that cheapness and dispatch were likewise the inseparable concomitants of our judicature; but the fact is not to be denied, however it may be lamented, that the volumes of our law books are swollen to such an enormous extent, that few purses can procure them; and are so contradictory one to another in their sense, that still fewer capacities can digest them. When one volume therefore brings us out of a labyrinth, the next perhaps plunges us into another, more difficult to unravel than the famous Cretan maze. In short, such is the multiplicity and intricacy of the statutes, the variety of reports, the nicety of conveyancing, the dexterity of pleading, and the confusion, uncertainty, and expence, which these occasion, that after the defendant in a cause has

mentaries, vol. III. p. 25. The learned editor, Mr. Christian, adds, that as it does not appear this statute was ever repealed, it might be curious to enquire how it was originally evaded.---Note 11.