Criticisms on the Bar: Including Strictures on the Principal Counsel Practising in the Courts of King's Bench, Common Pleas, Chancery and Exchequer

Front Cover
W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 1819 - Law - 308 pages

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 269 - Equity is a roguish thing : for law we have a measure, know what to trust to ; equity is according to the conscience of him that is chancellor, and as that is larger or narrower, so is equity. "Tis all one as if they should make the standard for the measure we call a foot...
Page 253 - Give me a spirit that on life's rough sea Loves to have his sails fill'd with a lusty wind, Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack, And his rapt ship run on her side so low, That she drinks water, and her keel ploughs air.
Page 29 - Then the law to him Is like a foul, black cobweb to a spider, — He makes it his dwelling and a prison To entangle those shall feed him.
Page 203 - ... a piercing wit quite void of ostentation, high erected thoughts seated in a heart of courtesy, an eloquence as sweet in the uttering as slow to come to the uttering, a behaviour so noble as gave a majesty to adversity...
Page 207 - The chains that confine us to this condition are strong as destiny, and immutable as the eternal laws of God. I have conversed with some men who rejoiced in the death or calamity of others, and accounted it as a judgment upon them for being on the other side, and against them in the contention ; but within the revolution of a few months the same man met with a more uneasy and unhandsome death : which when I saw, I wept, and was afraid ; for I knew that it must be so with all men ; for we also shall...
Page 295 - ... read'st this sullen writ, Which just so much courts thee, as thou dost it, Let me arrest thy thoughts ; wonder with me, Why ploughing, building, ruling, and the rest, Or most of those arts, whence our lives are blest, By cursed Cain's race invented be, And blest Seth vex'd us with astronomy. There's nothing simply good, nor ill alone ; Of every quality Comparison The only measure is, and judge, Opinion.
Page 45 - ... tools, whose edges be very soon turned. Such wits delight themselves in easy and pleasant studies, and never pass far forward in high and hard sciences.
Page 63 - AttorneyGeneral as a sort of ministerial spy — an informer of rather a higher rank than those who have recently become notorious, whose business it is to ferret out and prosecute all who either by their actions or writings are endeavouring to displace the personages to whom he is indebted for his situation, or who are attempting to promote any reform in the system they support.
Page 61 - Of all offices in the gift of the Crown that of Attorney-General is perhaps least to be coveted; for whether the Government be popular or unpopular the person filling that place can scarcely avoid being the object of general dislike: the rank is only fourth or fifth rate, and the manner in which it has been attained is always suspected, though sometimes unjustly: he is pretty sure to be charged with having ascended by the usual steps of political fawning and judicial servility and after all he is...
Page 212 - It has been truly remarked of him, that in transacting the most ordinary forensic business, there was a peculiar grace about his manner, a gentlemanly ease, an unpresuming suavity that won the hearts of all his hearers.

Bibliographic information