Its due composition became therefore of
infinitely the greater importance.
Judge, Sir, of my surprise when I found that a very great
proportion of the assembly (a majority, I believe, of the members
who attended) was composed of practitioners in the law. It was
composed, not of distinguished magistrates, who had given pledges to
their country of their science, prudence, and integrity; not of
leading advocates, the glory of the bar; not of renowned professors in
universities;- but for the far greater part, as it must in such a
number, of the inferior, unlearned, mechanical, merely instrumental
members of the profession. There were distinguished exceptions, but
the general composition was of obscure provincial advocates, of
stewards of petty local jurisdictions, country attornies, notaries,
and the whole train of the ministers of municipal litigation, the
fomenters and conductors of the petty war of village vexation. From
the moment I read the list, I saw distinctly, and very nearly as it
has happened, all that was to follow.
The degree of estimation in which any profession is held becomes
the standard of the estimation in which the professors hold
themselves. Whatever the personal merits of many individual lawyers
might have been, and in many it was undoubtedly very considerable,
in that military kingdom no part of the profession had been much
regarded except the highest of all, who often united to their
professional offices great family splendor, and were invested with
great power and authority.
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