1856.] Kate Osborne. 195- 



without purpose of flattery I say it — all raen already concede distin- 

 guished talent and ability ? " 



" I believe, Mrs. Sinclair," replied Clinton, " that I did not speak of 

 the ' worthy and eminent ' in the profession ; I was speaking only of the 

 rich ; and, unfortunately, it so happens, that the eminent and most 

 worthy are most seldom among the rich of our profession. A few of the 

 more miserly, or unscrupulous, acquire wealth ; and those instance?:, 

 occupying the whole field of public vision, impress the public mind with 

 the belief, that before the lawyer lies an el dorado, whose golden coast 

 his * argosie ' can not fail to find ; while, in truth, a great majority of 

 even the worthy and the eminent are found in moderate, nay, even in 

 humble circumstances of pecuniary fortune. Such men, with minJs 

 absorbed in their studies of this stupendous science, and their time con- 

 sumed in the business of others, can command neither time nor thought 

 for attention to their own ; and thus they rise to eminence, more fre- 

 quently at the expense of fortune than by its acquisition." 



"And is not that very eminence itself worthy of the loftiest ambition 

 of noblest manhood? " said the widow, warming with the interest of the 

 conversation. 



" If you speak of true eminence in the science of law — most assuredly 

 it is, " Clinton earnestly replied; for his mind, too, was becoming tho- 

 roughly roused. And he continued — ''To grapple with the sturdiest 

 principles of logic, and wrest therefrom the soundest principles of law; 

 to smite the flinty and frowning front of the Horeb of moral science with 

 the master rod of philosophy, and from its pure and peaceful fountains 

 draw the grateful elements of social right and reciprocal duty, and apply 

 them to the wants and welfare of men — is the noblest prerogative of 

 human genius : and this is to be a Lawyer : — such were Cicero, and 

 Holt, and Hale, and Kent, and Marshall! But, to be a pettifogjzer I " 

 and here again the delicate lip of the speaker slightly curled, as he 

 repeated, " to be a pettifogger, is to lurk in an ambush of technical 

 forms, to lie in wait in the tangled under-brush of precedents, in order 

 to waylay and assassinate the spirit of legal truth ; it is to yelp and 

 bark, like some querulous cur. at the heels of the law, only hoping to 

 make it stumble by distracting its attention from the straight onward 

 course of justice. And, as the pettifogger is ever the most turbulent 

 and officious, ever the most querulous and quibbling, ever the most 

 bustling and browbeating, the uninitiated public gapingly deem him the 

 ablest, and accord to him professional eminence. Now, dear madam, I 

 leave you to judge, whether, in a life -long contest with such competitors 

 as these, the eminence itself be worth the tedious and toilsome winning." 



