want of confidence
extends itself beyond the Bar to those who employ the Bar. That
lawyer's case is truly pitiable, upon the escutcheon of whose honesty
or truth rests the slightest tarnish."[1]

[Footnote 1: Sharswood's _Essay on Professional Ethics_, pp. 57,
99,102,167 f.]

As illustrative of the carelessness with which popular charges against
an entire profession are made the basis of reflections upon the
ethical standard of that profession, the comments of Dr. Hodge on
this matter are worthy of particular notice. In connection with his
assertion that "the principles of professional men allow of many
things which are clearly inconsistent with the requirements of the
ninth commandment," he says: "Lord Brougham is reported to have said,
in the House of Lords, that an advocate knows no one but his client.
He is bound _per fas et nefas_, if possible, to clear him. If
necessary for the accomplishment of that object, he is at liberty to
accuse and defame the innocent, and even (as the report stated) to
ruin his country. It is not unusual, especially in trials for murder,
for the advocates of the accused to charge the crime on innocent
parties and to exert all their ingenuity to convince the jury of their
guilt." And Dr. Hodge adds the note that "Lord Brougham, according
to the public papers, uttered these sentiments in vindication of the
conduct of the famous Irish advocate Phillips, who on the trial of
Courvoisier for the murder of Lord Russell, endeavored to fasten the
guilt on the butler and housemaid, whom he knew to be innocent, as his
client had confessed to him that he had committed the murder."[1]

[Footnote 1: Hodge's _Systematic Theology_, III., 439.]

Now the facts, in the two very different cases thus erroneously
intermingled by Dr. Hodge, as given by Justice Sharswood,[1] present
quite another aspect from that in which Dr. Hodge sees them, as
bearing on the accepted ethics of the legal profession. It would
appear that Lord Brougham was not speaking in defense of another
attorney's action, but in defense of his own course as attorney of
Queen Caroline, thirty years before the Courvoisier murder trial. As
Justice Sharswood remarks of Lord Brougham's "extravagant" claims: "No
doubt he was led by the excitement of so great an occasion to say what
cool reflection and sober reason certainly never can approve." Yet
Lord Brougham does not appear to have suggested, in his claim, that
a lawyer had a right to falsif