Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 12.pdf/539

502 Johnson: "Sir, it is wrong to stir up law suits; but when once it is certain that a law suit 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 is a good distinction which will be felt by men of just pride. He proceeded : " However, I would not have a lawyer to be wanting to himself in using fair means. I would have him to in ject a little hint now and then to prevent his being overlooked." This is a very tolerant view of professional etiquette. When the great Duchess of Marlborough called at young Murráys's chambers and found him out — we may pre sume he was engaged in drinking champagne with the wits — the imperious dame said, on meeting him next : " Young man! if you want to rise in your profession you must not sup out." Boswell had an uneasy feeling that he must give up supping out, and he put it to Johnson whether a very extensive acquaintance in London might not be preju dicial to a lawyer. Said Johnson : " Sir, you will attend to business as business lays hold of you. When not actually employed you may see your friends as much as you do now. You may dine at a club every day, and sup with one of the members every night, and you may be as much at public places as one who has seen them all would wish to be; but you must take care to attend constantly in West minster Hall, both to mind your business, as it is almost all learnt there (for nobody reads now), and to show that you want to have business. And you must not be too often seen at public places, that competitors may not have it to say, ' He is always at the playhouse or Ranelagh, and never to be found at his chambers.' And then, sir,

there must be a kind of solemnity in the manner of a professional man. I have noth ing in particular to say to you (Boswell) on the subject. All this I should say to anyone. I should have said it to Lord Thurlow twenty years ago." This point about solemnity of manner recalls a saying of Home Tooke. He once remarked to a seri ous and successful friend, " We have reversed the ordinary laws of Nature. You have risen by your gravity; I have sunk by my levity." Sir Matthew Hale once said that it was as great a dishonor as a man were capable of that he should be hired for a little money to say otherwise than he thought. But the truer and juster view of the ethics of advo cacy is well expounded by Johnson. "We talked of the law. Sir William Forbes said he thought an honest lawyer should never undertake a cause which he was satisfied was not a just one." "Sir," said Dr. Johnson, " a lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes unless his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly. The justice or injustice of the cause is to be decided by the Judge. Consider, sir, what is the purpose of Courts of Justice? It is that every man may have his cause fairly tried by men appointed to try causes. A lawyer is not to tell what he knows to be a lie; he is not to produce what he knows to be a false deed; but he is not to usurp the province of the jury and of the Judge, and determine what shall be the effect of evidence, what shall be the result of le gal argument. As it rarely happens that a man is fit to plead his own cause, lawyers are a class of the community who, by study and experience, have acquired the art and power in arranging evidence and of apply ing to the points at issue what the law has settled. A lawyer is to do for his client all that his client might fairly do for himself if he could. If by a superiority of attention, of knowledge, of skill, and a better method