Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 09.pdf/444

 Samuel Johnson on Law and the Lawyers. the judge's opinion." Boswell : " But, sir, does not affecting a warmth when you have no warmth, and appearing to be clearly of one opinion when you are in reality of an other opinion, does not such dissimulation impair one's honesty? Is there not some degree of danger that a lawyer may put on the same mask in common life, in the inter course with friends?" Johnson: "Why.no, sir. Everybody knows you are paid for af fecting warmth for your client; and it is therefore properly no dissimulation; the mo ment you come from the bar you resume your usual behaviour. Sir, a man will no more carry the artifice of the bar into the common intercourse of society, than a man who is paid for tumbling upon his hands will continue to tumble upon his hands when he should walk upon his feet." Boswell once having asked Johnson if he would not allow that there were men of merit at the bar who never got practice, Johnson replied : " Sir, you are sure that practice is got from an opinion that the person em ployed deserves it best; so that, if a man of merit at the bar does not get practice, it is from error, not from injustice. He is not neglected. A horse that is brought to market may not be bought, though he is a very good horse; but that is from ignorance, not from intention." Boswell having once said to Johnson that law was a subject on which no one could write well without practice, Johnson said : "Why, sir, in England, where so much money is to be got by practice of the law, most of our writers upon it have been in practice, though Blackstone had not been much in practice when he published his Com mentaries. But upon the Continent the great writers on law have not all been in practice; Grotius, indeed, was, but Puffendorf was not, Burlamqui was not." The following discussion between Johnson and Boswell on the subject of legal morality will be read with some interest: "When we had talked of the great consequence which

407

a man acquired by being employed in his profession, I suggested a doubt of the justice of the general opinion that it is improper in a lawyer to solicit employment; for why, I urged, should it not be equally allowable to solicit that as a means of consequence as it is to solicit votes to be elected a member of Parliament? Mr. Strahan had told me that a countryman of his and mine, who had risen to eminence in the law, had, when first mak ing his way, solicited him to get him em ployed in city causes. Johnson : • Sir, it is wrong to stir up lawsuits; but when once it is certain that a lawsuit is to go on, there is nothing wrong in a lawyer's endeavoring that he shall have the benefit rather than another." Boswell : ' You would not solicit employment sir, if you were a lawyer? ' Johnson : ' No, sir, but not because I should think it wrong, but because I should disdain it." This was a good distinction, which will be felt by men of just pride. He proceeded: 'However, I would not have a lawyer to be wanting in himself in using fair means. I would have him to inject a little hint now and then to pre vent his being overlooked.'" Johnson's views of law reporting in his day were very pessimistic: "The English reports in general are very poor; only the half of what has been said is taken down, and ofthat half much is mistaken; whereas, in Scotland, the arguments on each side are deliberately put in writing, to be considered by the court. I think a collection of your cases upon subjects of importance, with the opinions of the judges upon them, would be valuable." Talking of the chancellorship, Johnson admitted that the holder of that office was not appointed to that office be cause he was fittest for it. The following observations of the doctor, as illustrating the pointed aphorism of a modern French statesman, that the demand for final option is the essence of stupidity, are full of significance: "The more prec edents there are, the less occasion is there for laws: that is, the less occasion is there