We have nothing to do here with violence, or murder, or poison. I accuse my neighbour of having stolen three goats, and the judge wants me to prove this. You, with all the force of your lungs, and striking the bar with your hand, only make a noise about the battle of Cannæ, the war of Mithridates, and the perfidy of the Carthaginians,—about Sylla, Marius, and Mucius. Speak, then, I pray you, of my three goats."1

Only one pleading of the second century has been pre- Apuleius. served. It is the defence which Apuleius, an advocate of the Roman bar, made at Carthage, before the proconsul Claudius Maximus, upon an accusation brought against him of having had recourse to magic to secure the love of a woman older than himself. In this singular discourse Apuleius, who was born some years after the death of Pliny, professes himself to be a follower of Plato; and, in order to vindicate himself from the charge of magic, he discusses questions of grammar, natural history, and physics; he cites Moses and Zoroaster; and he passes under review all the orators, poets, and philosophers of the world.

To push our inquiries on this subject farther would only lead us into a region of conjecture. Pliny the younger, and Apuleius, are for us the last known representatives of the Roman bar; after them, forensic pleading as an art disappeared before the science of jurisprudence.

tions re

Much has been written on the qualifications necessary for Qualificaan advocate, on the legal knowledge required in conducting quired for causes, on composition, action, and delivery, the style which the bar. he may adopt with the greatest advantage, the collateral studies to be pursued, and other kindred topics. Cicero has treated this subject with judgment and discrimination. But the great work of Quintilian, written during the reign of Domitian, is the most complete system of rhetoric that the Romans have left to us.

In the 'Dialogue' of M. Loisel, an eminent advocate of the Parliament of Paris in the sixteenth century, we have some striking sketches of the most celebrated men who then

1 Martial, vi. 19.

practised at the French bar. M. Pasquier, who takes part in the discussion, says: "I do not desire for an advocate all the perfections which Cicero, Quintilian, and others require for their orator; for I do not consider high eloquence to be the principal qualification for an advocate. It is, indeed, one of them, and very useful in great pleadings; but it is not what is most required for the bar. What I desire in my advocate is, that he should learn to conduct well any suit in which he may be engaged; to prepare the written pleadings in proper form; and, when he comes to plead, that he should handle judiciously all the circumstances of the cause, seize well the point on which it hinges, and express himself in well-chosen language, plain and sententious rather than redundant and copious, supporting his argument with pertinent reasons and formal and precise authorities, texts of law, ordinances, customs, and determinations of the jurists, without obscuring the subject with superfluous matter, sometimes embellishing it with a touch of sentiment, or a passing illustration from the Greek or Latin, but so significant and to the point that it could not be better expressed in French.

In short, I desire in my advocate the contrary of what Cicero requires in his orator, which is eloquence in the first place, and then some knowledge of law; for I declare, on the contrary, that an advocate should above all be learned in law and practice, and moderately eloquent-more a dialectician than a rhetorician, and more a man of business and judgment than of great or long discourse."

There is much good sense in these reflections; and, after the lapse of three centuries, they apply with equal force to the business of an advocate in our day, though few of that profession, however high their scholarship, now venture to season their speeches with Greek.2

1 'Pasquier, ou Dialogue des Avocats du Parlement de Paris.' This dialogue, which gives an account of the principal advocates from 1524 to 1599, has been reprinted by M. Dupin, in an edition of the 'Lettres sur la Profession d'Avocat,' by Ca

mus. Paris, 1818. 2 vols. Svo.

2 For a full account of the Roman bar we refer our readers to an able work from which we have derived much aid-'Le Barreau Romain depuis son Origine jusqu'à Justinien.' Par Grellet-Dumazeau. Paris, 1851.