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LETTERS. 207 



who am certainly no very competent judge, that there is 

 a uniform mode or art of pleading in our courts, which 

 is in itself faulty, and is, moreover, a bar to the higher 

 excellences. You know, before a barrister begins, in 

 what manner he will treat the subject ; you anticipate 

 \i\s positiveness, his complete confidence in the stability 

 of his case, his contempt of his opponent, his voluble 

 exaggeration, and the vehemence of his indignation. All 

 these are as of course. It is no matter what sort of a 



face the business assume : if Mr be all impetuosity, 



astonishment and indignation on one side, we know he 

 would not have been a whit less impetuous, less aston- 

 ished, or less indignant, on the other, had he happened to 

 have been retained. It is true, this assurance of success, 

 this contempt of an opponent, and dictatorial decision in 

 speaking, are calculated to have effect on the minds of a 

 jury ; and if it be the business of a counsel to obtain his 

 ends by any means, he is right to adopt them ; but the 

 misfortune is, that all these things are mechanical, and 

 as much in the power of the opposite counsel as in your 

 own; so that it is not so much who argues best, as who 

 speaks last, loudest, or longest. True eloquence, on the 

 other hand, is confident only where there is real ground 

 for confidence, trusts more to reason and facts than to 

 imposing declamation, and seeks rather to convince than 

 dazzle. The obstreperous rant of a pleader may, for 

 awhile, intimidate a jury ; but plain and manly argu- 

 ment, delivered in a candid and ingenious manner, will 

 more efiTectually work upon their understandings, and 

 will make an impression on which the froth of declama- 

 tion will be lost. I think a man who would plead in 

 this manner, would gain the confidence of a jury, and 

 would find the avenues of their hearts much more open, 

 than a man of more assurance, who, by too much confi- 

 dence where there is much doubt, and too much vehe- 

 mence where there is greater need of coolness, puts his 

 hearers continually in mind that he is pleading for hire. 

 There seems to me so much beauty in truth, that I could 

 wishour barristers would make a distinction between 

 cases, in their opinion well or ill founded, embarking their 



