PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. THE design of the following work, and the motives of the author in undertaking it, are explained at so much length in the INTRODUCTION, as to leave him little else to do here, than bespeak the indulgence of his professional brethren. It was not without much hesitation, and distrust of his fitness for such a task, that he took upon himself to advise on the choice of the law as a profession, and on the prosecution of it as a study. But for the encouragement which he, from time to time, received from numerous able and experienced friends, in all departments of the profession,-whose valuable services he takes this opportunity of thankfully acknowledging, he should long ago have abandoned his task in despair. The subject he has chosen is so extensive, the design so difficult of execution, and the opinions which he has had to consider were so conflicting, that he cannot review his labours, without a consciousness that many imperfections may be detected in them, if subjected to keen and unfriendly scrutiny. Hostile criticism, however, he will not anticipate from the liberal members of a profession to which he shall ever esteem it a very high honour to belong. Should, on the contrary, his efforts to smooth the rugged access to legal science, and exhibit to the public a just and interesting delineation of the English Bar, prove successful-should this, his humble contribution to the stock of elementary professional literature, be accepted, the time and pains he has expended upon the ensuing pages, will have been richly recompensed. KING'S BENCH WALK, INNER TEMPLE, 20th April, 1835. |