viz., Clarembald, of St. Augustine's, Canterbury; Aymer or Daniel, of Chertsey; and Samson de Totington, of St. Edmund's; eight archdeacons, viz., Robert de Inglesham, of Gloucester; Josceline, of Chichester; Walter Map, of Oxford; Hugh Murdac, of Cleveland; Ralph, of Colchester; Ralph, of Hereford; Nicholas de Sigillo, of Huntingdon; and William, of Totness: besides Ralph de Warneville, treasurer of York; Wimer, and Reginald de Wisebec, two of the king's chaplains; and Master Thomas de Husseburn, a canon of St. Paul's. 66 Henry is said to have attended personally at the judgment of all greater causes in his Court, and to have made frequent progresses to discover and remedy the abuses in the rural jurisdictions. His anxiety on this subject is particularly exemplified in the commissions he issued in 1170 for the investigation of charges brought against the sheriffs and his other officers." (Vol. i. pp. 160, 161.) We should say that Mr. Foss follows throughout on the track of Lord Campbell, with no small eagerness, as it appears to us, to convict his lordship of inaccuracy. But we must say that the perusal of the work of Mr. Foss has tended very much to raise our opinion of the noble and learned lord's book in two important particulars. First, Lord Campbell, out of the same or nearly the same materials, has produced a readable and amusing book, and Mr. Foss has failed to do so; and secondly, Mr. Foss, with full leisure and sufficient learning and no lack of will, in his attempts to prove his predecessor inaccurate, has satisfied us of his general accuracy. We have shown no undue partiality to Lord Campbell as an author; we have not hesitated to point out his errors when we found them; and this was due both to ourselves and to him: but the two works tend to prove that to establish an extensive reputation, something more is wanted than hunting up records and wiping the dust off parchments, useful as these duties are, and that to give a life-like look to the dead, a knowledge of mankind and the having taken an active part in public affairs and great questions, have also their use. Lord Campbell has, however, sometimes laid himself open to a palpable hit. Thus, speaking of an early judicial hero whom Lord Campbell claims as chancellor, he says (Vol. i, p. 43.): "Of his success we know little but the name, there being no description added to it to tell us from what country he sprang or what other office he ever filled; but a charter granted at this time by the Conqueror to the monks of St. Florentine of Andover, is witnessed and authenticated by BALDRICK as king's chancellor." So far in the text; but Lord Campbell, we presume, to relieve its tediousness, adds one of those notes which tend so much to amuse his readers, as follows: "It is said that the poetical name for a belt or girdle was taken from this chancellor, who is supposed to have worn one of uncommon magnificence. Athwart his breast a BALDRICK brave he ware, That shined, like twinkling stars, with stones most precious rare.' A radiant BALDRICK, o'er his shoulders tied, SPENSER. POPE." Mr. Foss maliciously disposes of most of this in the following manner: 66 Galdric, not Baldric, as Dugdale calls him, was chancellor after Bloet's elevation to the episcopal church. An undated charter, to which his name is attached as a witness, gives the church of Andover to the abbey of St. Florentine, is quoted by Dugdale as proving that he was chancellor to William I.; but the simple fact that Bloet, as Bishop of Lincoln, is the first witness to it, is sufficient evidence that it was granted by William II." And to this Mr. Foss adds his note: "Lord Campbell, i. 43., who has evidently not seen the charter, from his calling it one to the monks of the Florentineş of Andover,' adopts Dugdale's name of Baldric. It is therefore with much reluctance that I feel compelled to substitute that of Galdric, the more especially as the fanciful etymology on which his lordship has ventured is thus annihilated, and the poetical quotations from Johnson's Dictionary, which he has introduced as proofs of it, are rendered no longer applicable." (Vol. i. p. 55.) The wipe as to Johnson's Dictionary displays all the venom of the antiquary. But giving Mr. Foss all credit for this and similar proofs of his care and industry, it is surprising how seldom he displaces any portion of his predecessor's work of the least importance. Entertaining an unfavourable opinion of the design of Mr. Foss, and having felt bound to express it, we have en deavoured at the same time to present as agreeable a view of its contents as possible; and we say, with all sincerity, that if we cannot encourage Mr. Foss to pursue his original plan, we hope we shall meet with him again in some other way. ART. IX. THE PROVINCE OF THE BAR IN ENGLAND. No. II. WE resume this subject for the purpose of showing, by reference to authorities and the ancient and recognised principles connected with the administration of the law in this country, the legitimate status of the Bar as an order of practitioners invested with those functions and privileges which have already been ascribed to them.1 In doing this we entirely disclaim the most remote wish to give offence to any portion of the legal profession. We desire only to discuss the subject of professional regulations as we find them. If any alteration in the present division of the duties of the profession be necessary or advisable, it can only be made after fully understanding how all parties now stand both singly and relatively; and it is to this that we wish to draw the attention of our readers. We have already urged that the barrister, in this country, is the recognised professor and expounder of the law of the land, who by ancient and recognised usage is entitled to be heard as an advocate in our courts, or in any branch of the practice of the law where legal knowledge is required; that the creation of another class of practitioners of the law is an 1 See No. I., antè, p. 101. We have already received certain communications on this subject, which we hope in due time to lay before our readers. It is unnecessary for us to observe that this work does not attempt to represent any branch or section of the profession. It is the interest of the public to secure the services of learned, able, and honest lawyers, to do for them what they cannot do so well for themselves. It is only by full INQUIRY that we can ascertain how the exertions of such a class can be best secured. - ED. obvious innovation, and we have also pointed out that attornies and solicitors, who from being mere officers of the Courts have become general practitioners of the law, have in the course of their transition imperceptibly encroached on the legitimate province of the Bar, who cannot at the present day be charged with inefficiency as a body, and on that account ought not to be excluded from the privilege conceded to every other class in the state, that cuique in suâ arte credendum est. The notion of compensation is obviously a most untenable one per se, and wholly beside the question at issue. Serious and gloomy, indeed, would be the prospects of the Bar as a body of professors and practitioners of the law, if the class were to be gradually deprived of their legitimate position, and compensation afforded to some individuals belonging to it-if even the very élite of the Bar at Westminster Hall were to be simultaneously compensated for what belongs to the order. It needs no prophet to discover that as a body of law professors they would soon cease to exist. Questions, however, as to the number of new offices which have been created, or fresh advantages conferred on members of the Bar, or old offices given to them which were formerly conferred on attornies and solicitors, are, after all, of little moment to the great majority of the Bar or the attornies. It is, no doubt, a matter of some consequence to the seeker after office in either branch of the profession, whether the list which is open to him is increased or diminished; but most fortunately for the general prosperity of both branches of the profession, mere offices can be the lot of a very few. Would that we could say that it did not usually fall to such as are in the enjoyment of personal or family influence -to the relations of great men already in office, or on the Bench, or in Parliament; would that we could say that the members of the profession in either branch had not been increased by persons actuated by such considerations onlythat every new species of patronage, from a commissionership to a railway bill, had not summoned fresh candidates who assume the profession of the law as a mere trap to catch the loaves and fishes of patronage. The institution of the Bar in this country, it has been already observed', is for the most part based on no positive law. Except in criminal cases, the right of substituting professional for personal advocacy, in England as in all other civilised countries, has never been deemed to require the sanction of the legislature. Express statutes, indeed, were deemed necessary, even in civil actions, in order to enable the suitor to appoint an agent to appear in his stead to the original summons or citation2, and the right to professional assistance in criminal cases was only fully conceded within these few years; but the existence of an independent order of men expressly devoted to the study and practice of the Common Law, whose services were, with these restrictions, at the disposal of the litigant or the suitor, can be traced back to the sources of the Common Law itself; and the origin of the institutions associated with that order appears to be lost in remote antiquity-in comparison with which the dates of the foundation of the Inns of Court (our juridical universities) appear to belong to a modern era; for our legal antiquarians give all these dates long subsequent to the statute of Merton, whereby parties were allowed to appear by attorney. This question of the immemorial existence of an independent order of advocates and professors of the Common Law, is not merely of antiquarian interest. It obviously involves in it the title to those personal privileges which the barrister of the present day lays claim to, and that position in the state which the Bar as a body have so long held. Without entering at any very great length into the evidences on which the prescriptive rights of the Bar rest, it may suffice to refer to the fact that professors of the Common Law, under the term of countors, narratores, sages gents, &c., occur in our earliest records, in order to surmise-what must be obviousthat the profession of the law could at no period of our history have been adopted without a settled and recognised qualification, which it rested with the order, as in the case of the church, the physicians, the guilds or fraternities of traders, &c., |