PRELIMINARY, INTERMEDIATE

AND

FINAL EXAMINATIONS

FOR SOLICITORS.

Mr. J. ERLE BENHAM

Lectures daily, at his Chambers,

20, DEVEREUX COURT, TEMPLE,

Om, all, the subjects, required to, enable, Candidates to. pass the abers Examinations... Fer particulars, &c. address as alone, or to the care of Messrs. Butterworth, 7, Flut Street, Her Majesty's Lave. Publishers.

Preliminary Examination Journal

AND

STUDENT'S LITERARY MAGAZINE.

CHAPTER I.

SPECIAL EXAMINATION NOTICES FOR 1874.

Preliminary Examination for Solicitors.

PURSUANT to the Judges' orders, the next Preliminary Examination in General Knowledge will take place on Wednesday the 11th, and Thursday the 12th of February, 1874. In addition to the ordinary subjects (including an elementary knowledge of Latin), the Special Examiners have selected the following books in which candidates will be examined :

In LATIN: Cicero, De Amicitiâ; or, Virgil, Æneid, Book X. In GREEK: Homer, Iliad, Book XXIV. In MODERN GREEK: BEVTOTS 'Iσropía τñs 'Aμepins Bißriov . In FRENCH: Henri Conscience, Le Lion de Flandre, Tome I.; or, Corneille, Le Cid. In GERMAN: Wilhelm Hauf, Das Wirthshaus im Spessart; or, Schiller, Don Carlos, Acts I., II. and III. In SPANISH: Cervantes, Don Quixote, cap. xv. to xxx. both inclusive; or, Moratin, El Sí de las Niñas. In ITALIAN: Manzoni's I Promessi Sposi, cap. I. to VIII. both inclusive; or, Tasso's Gerusalemme, 4, 5 and 6 cantos; and Volpe's Eton Italian Grammar.

Each candidate will be examined in one language only, according to his selection. Candidates will have the choice of either of the abovementioned works.

Intermediate Examination, under 23 & 24 Vict. c. 127, s. 9.

The works selected for the year 1874 are- -CHITTY on Contracts, chapters 1, 2 and 3, with the exception, in chapter 3, of section 1, relating to Contracts respecting Real Property; 8th or 9th edition. WILLIAMS on the Principles of the Law of Real Property; 8th, 9th or 10th edition. HAYNES' Outlines of Equity; 3rd edition. Candidates will also be examined in Mercantile Bookkeeping generally.

Final Examination for Solicitors.

Candidates will be examined in- Common and Statute Law and Practice of the Courts; Conveyancing; Equity and Practice of the Courts. These are optional:- Bankruptcy and Practice of the Courts; Criminal Law; and Proceedings before Magistrates.

Preliminary Examination for the Bar.

The Preliminary Examinations for the Bar are held every Saturday during each legal term, and once in the week next preceding each legal term. The subjects of Examination are-(a) The English language; (b) The Latin language; and (c) English history.

For further particulars as to all the above Examinations, Forms of Notices, &c., see No. XI. of this Magazine.

PP

CHAPTER II.

EMINENT LAWYERS.

COBBETT says, "Perseverance is a prime quality in every pursuit. Youth is, too, the time of life to acquire this inestimable habit. Men fail much oftener from want of perseverance than from want of talent and good disposition as the race was not to the hare but to the tortoise, so the meed of success in study is not to him who is in haste, but to him who proceeds with a steady and even step. It is not to a want of taste, or of desire, or of disposition to learn, that we have to ascribe the rareness of good scholars, so much as to the want of patient perseverance." When we consider what has enabled many men to achieve great success, the reasonableness of these remarks is most apparent. Undoubtedly, perseverance is essential to everyone-be he lawyer, doctor or cleric; but as we propose to ascertain how far this power has entered into the careers of the most distinguished members of the legal profession, we shall confine our remarks to this branch of the subject. From what we have read we are inclined to think that a great judge is peculiarly his own architect; everything depends upon himself, the means that he has adopted to gain an insight into the mysteries of this life. There never was an eminent lawyer who did not work most assiduously. It is true that a man's acumen and vigour of intellect may be such as to enable him to acquire a knowledge of manners, customs and laws the more readily, but it is absolutely impossible for a man to possess thorough knowledge of the latter without a vast amount of labor—even if he possesses a powerful intellect.

It does not follow by any means that because a man has distinguished himself at a university he is any the more likely to attain a high position in the legal profession, for, from what we have seen, we are of opinion that the study of the law is to a large extent unlike most other studies. He who wishes to excel must possess a taste for the subject and a fair amount of perception, and, above all, good reasoning powers; indeed, the greatest lawyers seldom allowed themselves to be swayed to and fro by the popular bearings of a case, however many hardships might have been involved in it. They argued and administered laws as they found them and never allowed their minds to be prejudiced. A barrister might say, after exhausting a subject with his legal arguments without a prospect of success, "But, my lord, it is very hard for my client." "No doubt," the judge would probably say, "but hard cases make bad law; we are dealing with the law and not the hardships of the case, and were we to do otherwise we should create a precedent which could not be followed." There can be no doubt that the contemplated fusion of law and equity will, to a large extent, overcome this strange anomaly, but not, we think, to the extent imagined. Well, an acquaintance with the lives of some of our brightest ornaments convinces us that a man who is tolerably well educated may have as much chance of excelling in the study of the law, and particularly of mankind, as the most polished scholar. Has not many a man who has emerged from a subordinate position in an attorney's office, or a bank, or even a "doubtful elysium," become a distinguished judge. Nearly all our present peers owe their positions to their progenitors, who, with talent and perseverance alone, fought their way to the pinnacle of glory. An incident which took place in

the House of Lords when Lord Thurlow was Lord Chancellor, tends to strengthen our view-if, indeed, it needs strengthening at all. The Duke of Grafton having reproached Lord Thurlow with his plebeian extraction and his recent admission into the peerage, the latter rose from the woolsack and spoke as follows:-"I am amazed at the attack the noble duke has made on me. Yes, my lords [considerably raising his voice], I am amazed at his grace's speech. The noble duke cannot look before him, behind him, or on either side of him, without seeing some noble peer who owes his seat in this house to his successful exertions in the profession to which I belong. Does he not feel that it is as honorable to owe it to these, as to being the accident of an accident? To all these noble lords the language of the noble duke is as applicable and as insulting as it is to myself. But I do not fear to meet it single and alone. No one venerates the peerage more than I do: but, my lords, I must say, that peerage solicited me, not I the peerage. Nay, more; I can say, and will say, that as a peer of Parliament, as Speaker of this right honorable House, as Keeper of the Great Seal, as guardian of his Majesty's conscience, as Lord High Chancellor of England, nay, even in that character alone in which the noble duke would think it an affront to be considered as A MAN, I am at this moment as respectable, I beg leave to add-I am at this time as much respected as the proudest peer I now look down upon."

It is easy to understand the assertion that very often the successful collegian descends into oblivion and the less distinguished, but withal the possessor of finer abilities, attains a brilliant position. There is of course a medium in this as in everything. We mean that in order that one may have an opportunity of acquiring a knowledge of the more abstruse subjects he must be very fairly educated, though he may never have felt inclined to obtain university distinctions. We may even descend lower in the scale. and find men such as Lord Byron and Dean Swift, who, when young, were denounced as dunces, but who afterwards electrified the world by their extraordinary abilities; indeed, Swift was only admitted to the degree of B.A. speciali gratiâ, after several unsuccessful attempts during a period of seven years to pass the prescribed examination at the University of Dublin. There are even instances where apparently able and learned men had little knowledge of the simplest things of life, but as such instances are rare we cannot entirely agree with the writer who says, "The best men, that is, the most successful men in the learned professions, are those who have got up some special subject and who know scarcely anything of other matters. It has always been the same. The men who have risen to fame and power have been among the most ignorant persons of their time. It would be unkind to mention them by name, but scores of instances will occur to every one who is acquainted with the most successful of our politicians and professional celebrities." Abundance of evidence could be adduced to controvert the assertion that there are open to the rich man's son paths which are denied the poor man's. One fact will instantly dispel this notion: the majority of our greatest judges rose from the ranks and never received a university education. These men were ever after characterized not only as the ablest lawyers, but as the most successful readers of mankind.

In our estimation the chief benefit that the universities and public schools afford consist in the advantage that students have of associating with the