Criticisms on the Bar Author:John Payne Collier Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: MR. MARRY AT, - The law to him Is like a foul black cobweb to a spider ; He makes it his dwelling, and a prison To entangle those that feed him. Webste... more »r's Duchess of Malfy, A. 1. Those who think with Bishop Hall, " woe to the weal where many lawyers thrive," would augur very ill of the state of this country from the fact, that there is, perhaps, no profession at present so much over-stocked in all its departments as the law; shoals of attornies are sworn in daily ewry succeeding term, and the number of barristers called by the various societies is very nearly, if not quite in proportion. That part of the area of our Courts, especially of the King's Bench, devoted to the accommodation of the latter, nS is more than twice as large as the space appropriated to solicitors, suitors, and the public; yet in term-time it is crowded to excess, and whether the business of the day be important or trifling makes little or no difference to those who fill it: the great majority do not attend to profit by displays of genius, learning, or ingenuity, in an eloquent speech or a logical argument, but to collect and register insignificant points of practice or pleading—whether such and such a rule is made absolute in the first instance, or whether such and such facts warrant an action of assumpsit or trespass. They pick up law as pidgeons pick up peas, To deal it forth again—as Heaven doth please. An appeal as to the correctness of what I have advanced, might safely be made to the margin-crammed note-books, which these indefatigable gentlemen always carry about them. Some listless supporters of wigs and gowns, it is true, are only lawyers in externals —mere idlers and loungers, who stroll down to Westminster-Hall, because they have nothing to do any where else—to loll uponthe b...« less