efforts to cram "himself for some occasion of solitary display, afforded him by the zealous indiscretion of a friendly solicitor. Feverish with anxiety, wretched under the apprehension of public failure, and the consciousness of incompetence, after trembling in court lest he should be called upon to show himself, he returns to chambers, to curse his folly-to make, when too late, exertions to retrieve his false position, or abandon it for ever, with all the cloud-picturings of a vain and puerile ambition.

It remains to be added, that so sensible has the legislative become, of late years, of the importance of encouraging gentlemen to practise as special pleaders, that it has allowed the years so spent, to be reckoned in making up the length of standing requisite to qualify members of the bar, to hold a great number of important judicial, and other situations.

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CHAPTER XVI.

OUTLINE OF A COURSE OF LAW READING, PRINCIPALLY DESIGNED FOR THE COMMON LAW STUDENT.

Non quàm multa, sed quam multum.-SENECA.

"OUR student," says Sir Edward Coke,* "must (all excuses set apart) bind himselfe unto a timely and orderly reading for there be two things to be avoyded by him as enemies to learning-PRÆPOSTERA LECTIO, ET PRÆPROPERA PRAXIS." The author ventures to hope, on the strength of some little experience, that the course of study recommended in the XIIIth, and in the present chapter, will be found to steer clear of both these evils; and that the student will derive advantage from a steady adherence to it. When the author entered the profession, anxiously desirous to make the best of his time, his inquiries among competent advisers, secured him the advantage of three widely differing courses of study, each of which he was confidently assured, by its proposer, was the "only safe way," the "only sound scheme of study,"—and so forth! Without, however, recurring to topics sufficiently discussed in a preceding chapter, we shall proceed to recommend that course of reading, and those sources of information which, upon mature consideration, some

*Coke Litt. 70, b.

experience, and extensive inquiry, appear to us to be best adapted for the student preparing for the Common Law bar: premising that he is supposed to have adopted our advice in betaking himself, in the first instance, to the chambers of a pleader in moderate practice, and who will devote some little time each day to reading with him. "Those proceed right well in all knowledge," says the illustrious Lord Bacon,* "who couple study with their practice, and do not first study altogether, and then practice altogether." We must strenuously insist on the student's first addressing himself to PLEADING. Until he shall have become familiar with its language, and with the drift and scope of its leading doctrines and principles,-in doing which, will also, moreover, be obtained some acquaintance with the law of Practice and Evidence,-his progress, he may depend upon it, will be very slow and unsatisfactory. The want of clear and distinct notions on these subjects, will operate as a continual stumbling-block to him at the very outset of his career. Not a case in the Reports will be thoroughly intelligible, unless the student approach it armed with this preliminary information: he will only partially understand it; or altogether misunderstand it; or if, with great effort, he should have succeeded in really mastering its technical details, he will soon forget them, and have suffered his attention, on each occasion, to be unduly interrupted, and called away from the main object to which it had been addressed. From a passage† in Sir Edward Coke's Commentary on Littleton, it may be inferred that he entertained similar opinions. "I would advise our student, that when he shall be enabled and armed to set upon

Works, vol. vii. p. 92.

+ Coke Litt. 70, a.

the Yeare Books, or Reports of law, that he be furnished with all the whole course of the law, that when he heareth a case vouched either in Westminster Hall (where it is necessary for him to be a diligent hearer, and observer of cases of law), or at Readings, or other exercises of learning, he may find out and read the case so vouched; for that will both fasten it to his memory, and be to him as good as an exposition of that case.". "THE LAW ITSELF

SPEAKETH BY GOOD PLEADING,”-it is "IPSIUS LEGIS VIVA vox," says elsewhere the same great authority.* Does it not then appear consistent with good sense, to require in the student, in the very first instance, a familiar acquaintance with the law's language?

"The study of pleading," says an able and acute anonymous annotator upon Roger North's Discourse on the study of the law;† "is the FOUNDATION of the common lawyer's knowledge. An acquaintance with it is as essential to a lawyer, as a knowledge of anatomy is to a physician. The principles, divisions, and distinctions in pleading, are founded upon, and arise out of, the general rules of law, or have, in their turn, given origin to those rules; and it is therefore impossible to be acquainted with the mode of pleading, and at the same time be ignorant of the law of the case to which that pleading is applicable. It is, consequently, of the highest importance to obtain an insight into the theory and practice of this science, which, from its extent and occasional difficulty, exacts a considerable portion of diligence and perseverance. The student of the Common Law ought, therefore, to bestow his best attention upon this science, which at the present day is

Coke Litt. 115, b.

+ Notes and Illustr. pp. 78, 79.

properly accounted an essential part of professional education;" and, for the reasons already assigned, ought to be the earliest part of professional education. A clear and connected view of the course of an action, from its commencement to its close, may be attained with comparatively little effort and if retained, and made the nucleus of continually increasing acquisition, will easily open the view of the student into the whole system of the Common Law, with all its relations and dependencies. The masterly treatise on pleading of Mr. Serjeant Stephen-a work distinguished equally by its accuracy, perspicuity, and comprehensiveness,-should be the first book put into the hands of the pupil on entering chambers. It is divided into two parts: the former being "a summary and connected account of the whole proceedings in an action, from its commencement to its termination," and extending to no more than 120 pages. A fortnight or a month's attentive study of this first Part, with the instructions of a pleader, will enable the student thoroughly to master its clear and brief details, and comprehend the general drift of the business going on in chambers. In fact, this first part ought to be almost entirely committed to memory: especially the definitions of the different Forms of Action. Thus will the student obtain his first introduction to the two branches of PLEADING and PRACTICE for the first part of Stephen may be regarded as an elegant epitome of the elements of practice: of which Mr. Smith's Elementary View of the Proceedings of an action at law (the third edition was published in 1842), may be regarded as an expansion. This little work (200 pages 12mo) is the best of the kind, extant; and adapted to the present improved practice of the law. Having