PART II.-CHAPTER XVI. 



OF THE NUMBER OF ATTORNIES IN THIS COUNTIE NOW 

 AND HERETOFORE. 



[A STATUTE was passed in the reign of Edward I. which gave the first authority to suitors in the 

 courts of law to prosecute or defend by attorney ; and the number of attorneys afterwards increased 

 so rapidly that several statutes were passed in the reigns of Henry IV. Henry VI. and Elizabeth, for 

 limiting their number. One of these (33 Hen. VI. c. 7) states that not long before there were 

 only six or eight attorneys in Norfolk and Suffolk, and that their increase to twenty-four was to the 

 vexation and prejudice of those counties ; and it therefore enacts that for the future there shall be 

 only six in Norfolk, six in Suffolk, and tvvo in Norwich. (Penny Cyclo. art. Attorney.) Aubrey 

 adopts the inference that strife and dissension were promoted by the increase of attorneys ; which 

 he accordingly laments as a serious evil. He quotes at some length from a treatise " About 

 Actions for Slander and Arbitraments, what words are actionable in the law, and what not," &c. 

 by John March, of Gray's Inn, Barrister (London, 1674, 8vo.); wherein the great increase of 

 actions for slander is shewn, by reference to old law books. The author urges the propriety of 

 checking such actions as much as possible, and quaintly observes, " as I cannot balk that observa- 

 tion of that learned Chief Justice (Wray), who sayes that in our old bookes actions for scandal are 

 very rare ; so I will here close with this one word : though the tongues of men be set on fire, I 

 know no reason wherefore the law should be used as bellows." Aubrey remarks upon this : " The 

 true and intrinsic reason why actions of the case were so rare in those times above mentioned, was 

 by reason that men's consciences were kept cleane and in awe by confession;'''' and he concludes the 

 chapter witli an extract from " Europcv Speculum" by Sir Edwin Sandys, Knight, (1637,) in which 

 the advantages and disadvantages of auricular confession are discussed. J. B.] 



MR. BAYNIIAM, of Cold Ashton, in Gloucestershire, bred an attorney, sayes, that an hundred 

 ycares since there were in the county of Gloucester but four attorneys, and now (1689) no fewer 

 than three hundred attorneys and sollicitors ; and Dr. Guydot, Physician, of Bath, sayes that they 

 report that anciently there was but one attorney in Somerset, and he was so poor that he went 

 a'foot to London ; and now they swarme there like locusts. 



Fabian Philips tells me (1683) that about sixty-nine yeares since there were but two attorneys in 

 Worcestershire, sc. Langston and Dowdeswell ; and they be now in every market towne, and goe to 

 marketts ; and he believes there are a hundred. 



In Henry 6th time (q. if not in Hen. 7 ?) there was a complaint to the Parliament by 'the Norfolk 

 people that whereas formerly there were in that county but five or six attorneys, that now they are 

 exceedingly encreased, and that they went to markets and bred contention. The judges were 

 ordered to rectify this grievance, but they fell asleep and never awak't since. Vide the Parh'ament 

 Roll. [See the above note. In page 12 (ante) Aubrey states that the Norfolk people are the " most 

 litigious " of any in England. J. B.] 'Tis thought that in England there are at this time near 

 three thousand ;* but there is a rule in hawking, the more spaniells the more game. They doe now 

 rule and governe the lawyers [barristers] and judges. They will take a hundred pounds with a clarke. 



* [There are now upwards of three thousand attorneys in practice in the metropolis alone, to whom the celebrated remark of 

 Alderman Beckford to King George the Third may be justly applied, with the substitution of another word for " the Crown," 

 " the influence of latryert has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished." J. B.] 



