Exchange Yale University 1844.]JAN 2 40E PROSPECTS OF THE AMERICAN LAWYER. 3 The influence he may exert is in truth more extensive than that of the follower of any other profession. Like the stalks of bearded grain before the keen sickle, every one bends before it—itself no less a learner than a teacher. We may with much truth assert that he who ministers at the sacred altar, or that he who leads on the young mind step by step, carries in his respective teachings the evidence of a powerful and extended influence; that the influence of home, of a mother's love and a sister's affection, are too great to be withstood even at the most dazzling temptations; but if the comparison be allowable, that which the legal profession commands is even greater and wider than these. The first mentioned influences are recognized only as inspiring the youthful or unformed mind with vigor and action, and starting into life those powers by which its progress must ever after be governed: it belongs to the latter to take this mind fresh and vigorous from its nursery, and leading it to suit the requirements of the world, to direct the action of its powers either to an honorable distinction or an early grave of oblivion. To the former, we look as to the framers of the vessel, to the latter as its pilot over the sea of active life. As gratifying as the reflection must be to every mind that other minds are affected by its influence, most truly gratifying if to courses of upright action, yet so much greater is the power of human pride and ambition, the legal professor must experience a double gratification on beholding open before him the highest seats and the most secluded bowers of literature. The honored instances we might adduce of those in our own country who have occupied these seats with dignity and grace, should, we think, suffice to allure those, whose distrust alone prevents their attaining similar distinction and usefulness. We might mention the example of a Story, no less conversant with letters than skilled in judicial learning; of a Webster, mighty in his reasoning, majestic in his eloquence, polished, learned, and dignified in his writings; of an Adams, wreathing himself and his country's literature with laurels that shall endure as long as suns shall rise and set. Nor may we without mention, pass over such names as Clinton, Verplanck, Choate, and Legare, who by their eloquent teachings and learned examples, have acted a noble part towards elevating our national taste and manners. These are America's true and faithful sons, these are their deeds in the cause of letters, and this the situation to which any of their profession may exalt themselves. The Literary taste that has dawned so brilliantly upon our young nation, needs to have its rays concentrated and brought to bear upon our national manners. As a young and bold people, we are quick to discern the beautiful, and even to establish for ourselves a standard by which to judge it, than which older nations can boast no better. Yet there hitherto have conspired a variety of causes to oppose and retard the influences of this literary taste upon our national manners, which are only now beginning to be felt; and those obstacles once removed, these influences once in active operation, to every one is made the appeal to assist individually in forming such a literature as shall best comport with the spirit of our Political Institutions. Scanty and meagre indeed, is the number of those devoted lovers of Letters, who by their unrewarded labors, people our land with fabled races and families, or attract to our brotherly notice the wrongs and sufferings, as well as the savage deeds of the red man. Few, very few, have lived, or still live among us to chant their sad dirge over the grave of our departed heroes, or in the majesty of verse to wrap the history of our mountains, our rivers and our waterfalls. The more undisputed then, and unoccupied the grounds the Lawyer may choose to occupy, the more lasting the honors he may attain. Coupling with this literary excellence his knowledge of our national manners and tastes, he becomes peculiarly fitted to make the noble and refined impression on our people of which we stand, like every young people, so much in need. A notion so prevalent, was never so erroneous, as that professional men must be restricted to the limits of ranks and classes, and furthermore, that out of those ranks and classes the legal, by this restriction, must necessarily be the most limited. Apart from the almost absolute necessity imposed upon every member of our society of extending his labor and influence beyond the mere conventional limits of his calling, the educated lawyer, in particular, is appealed to by the varied and important relations he sustains with society around him to engage in every calling, to be all things' not less to learning and science, than to all men.' This we may rightfully demand of him-of the education he has received. He is not merely to be considered the sagacious, selfinterested being an exclusive application to his profession alone is too apt to make him, not merely an agent through 'forms,'' writs' and 'replevins,' not entrusted with his gift of eloquence merely to untangle and tie anew the knottiest points of law; these, though in themselves remotely important, are but indifferent, and even inefficient mediums through which he may become the benefactor of his race; the great code of morals are open to his explanation, the unturned leaves of science yet demand the labors of his investigation; men who have hitherto confided their entire interests to him, yet look to his guidance, and government expects from him the offices of an affectionate and dutiful son. Such are the prospects of, such the claims on the educated lawyer, and it would seem a matter no less of interest than of duty, that he employ all the variety of his influences in upholding causes in every respect of such moment. Burke, Sheridan, Bolingbroke, Guizot, Macaulay, and a host we might mention, each stepped forth for the great work, and have each shared the greatest honors human power can confer. Each has done more to preserve even with vigor, the power and compass of his native language, than all the professed literati of his age. Such men hold not up to their countrymen any hollow, half-meaning intention of devoting themselves exclusively to Law, or Literature, or Political Ethics; you never find them immuring themselves from all contact with society, only to support a reputation which a more unreserved communication would fail to do, but you look into the Forum and they are there, yet not there alone; further observation notes them conversant with high and low, in the court room and the market-house. 1844.] THE PROSPECTS OF THE AMERICAN LAWYER. 5 Wherever, in fact, man is found, there are they; and by means so gradual and imperceptible do they accomplish the great works for which mankind love to honor them. The immortal Shakspeare was a disciple to no doctrine of retired exclusiveness, nor do we believe he would have led a different life had poverty released him from her iron grasp. His study was man, not pampered with the luxury and refinement of a Court, nor even in the ordinary ranks of society. With Pity he held converse over his nightly mug of ale, and he shook the hand of Sympathy in the dank and mould of London cellars. Humanity was the great book which he studied, and Experience, always acknowledged the most thorough master, taught him best how to work upon human feelings. And it is from these same pages, under the teachings of the same master, that these spirits we have mentioned, obtained all that rich fund so lasting in their career of usefulness and honor, which, once possessed of, they employed with a tact and power altogether unknown to the merely literary man, and astonishing to the world. Look back on literary record to its earliest dates, search for those names whose position gives them extraordinary distinction, and they are the names of those whose lives have been spent in close connection with Government and Laws. And we can discover no imparity of reasoning, no error in our observation, when we assert that this same class of men universally are capable of doing the greatest service to the cause of Literature and Science. Hence the necessity of a faithful consideration on their part of the magnitude of their facilities and of directing their abilities in that channel, which shall accomplish the desired end. · No one surely can suppress a smile at noticing the variety and extent of ambition which the limbs of the law' in many parts of our land carry about with them. Men of acknowledged power, who well deserved, and by exertion would have obtained the 'high places' in their countrymen's esteem, have chosen for themselves a rank of which many, justly inferiors, would be ashamed. If talent were not so unscrupulously, so unrighteously sacrificed, to an insatiable thirst for gain, then might such sorry spectacles become more rare. But where a man's soul is, in fact, imbedded in the sink of his desires for 'lucre,' where all the human feelings are merged in the overweening love of a selfish preferment, independent of any advantage to others, our astonishment soon subsides. One is content, and even happy, in gracing the bench of a retail justice; another gleefully scouts the country with his sack of books on his favorite Rosinante, arrogating to himself all the airs of a prince, and a third, leisurely sitting among his dusty tomes, is ready to explain to every passer by the impossibility of a Lawyer's supporting the dignity of his profession, and at the same time, and with the same hands and head, aiding the great cause of Letters. These, however, are but poor samples of the dignity and intrinsic worth of the legal profession. They only form the shades of the picture, without which it would show to great disadvantage, the puny insects on the great wheel of the profession, which, in spite of the immediate 'dust' they create, rolls on with the same force and velocity. We are willing to let them 'plod their weary way' along, till they find rest from their labors' in that everlasting seclusion their extreme sordidness has chosen. But although to the Lawyer more necessarily belongs, for reasons already given, the support of our Literary character, there are other considerations than those of necessity and duty, that should inspire him to the work. Honor and fame are his; his name shall be treasured up in the gratitude of his countrymen, there to live with the glory of the nation. While the toils of active life perplex and weary his spirit, there is for him 'exceeding joy' in 'holding sweet commune' with the spirits of past ages, in giving loose to the reins of his imagination, in foreseeing the pleasure with which his name shall be mentioned by, and the reverence with which it shall be entrusted to Posterity. The wreathes he binds for his country shall rest upon his own brow; never shall his country forget the work of a dutiful son; the devotion he has manifested to Learning will science joyfully recognize, and his monumental stone shall be inscribed with the title of the PATRIOT SCHOLAR. LIFE'S PROMPTINGS. BY W. T. BACON. LIFE has in't nothing that should wake our fears, Its trials are its blessings, he who can See nothing here but evil, and who hears No voice of wisdom sounded out to man From these fierce trials, he who cannot scan Each trial as it rises, and see there Something should rather please in Heaven's great plan,— He is for other regions than that air High and exalted, which earth's "wing'd ones" only dare. We start in life-we come up from the gloom Of some far previous being, vaguely dream'd- He who is true to his own soul-has deem'd The soul's course was right onward-he has run He has laid hold of trials-how ?-as he Who sinks beneath them? never!--they have been He is supported by them through the scene,They purge his eye-sight-give to life a sheen Lent from the far, far world to which we haste,And they have given the soul a grander mien, And prouder looks he o'er the what is past, Then turns his eye right onward-never backward cast. And he too is prepared for what may be Lovely and glorious—with all such to mate,— The grandeur and the glory we all see Round us in Nature, beautiful or great,— The grandeur that we see too, where, elate, Some kindred soul speaks with us as we go,And grandeur too of earth far, first estate, As its great souls through History do showThese come with power-give heart and soul a nobler glow! And if that purest passion of this life Love! holy, heavenly, beating in some heart, Cometh to cheer us in the fiery strife— And of our own high souls becomes a part- O, how this cheers us!-with new life we start On in the race, gain courage every hour And only laugh at clouds that may around us lower. And that high voice that comes to us from all That's o'er or round us, beats too through the soul This the soul hears too, and it bursts the thrall Earth would bind round earth-doth-ay, round the whole !— And loosen'd from this last and worst control, On with still firmer purpose yet we strive, Cheering the soul with visions, while doth roll Through the high heart that bliss by which we live, O, then, fear not, thou bold heart! setting forth In the great race of time the great have run!- And fear not but a great work shall be done Fear not that thou shalt win a glorious name— Ay, with the noblest stand!-immortal!—crown'd with Fame. |