has always been the
profession in guiding the popular mind, in forming that greatest of all
counterchecks to bad laws and bad administration,--public opinion! It is
the school of eloquence--that, which more than all else besides, has
swayed, still sways, and always will sway, the destinies of free
peoples. Let a man, to the possession of this noble faculty, add the
high character of purity and justice, integrity and honor, and where are
to be found the limits of his moral power over his fellow-citizens?[56]
It is well to read carefully and frequently, the biographies of eminent
lawyers. It is good to rise from the perusal of the studies and labors,
the trials and conflicts, the difficulties and triumphs, of such men, in
the actual battle of life, with the secret feeling of dissatisfaction
with ourselves. Such a sadness in the bosom of a young student, is like
the tears of Thucydides, when he heard Herodotus read his history at the
Olympic Games, and receive the plaudits of assembled Greece. It is the
natural prelude to severer self-denial, to more assiduous study, to more
self-sustaining confidence. Some one has recommended that Middleton's
Life of Cicero should be perused, at frequent intervals, as the vivid
picture of a truly great mind, in the midst of the most stirring scenes,
ever intent upon its own cultivation and advancement, as its only true
glory; and that in effect sketched by his own master hand.[57] The
autobiography of Edward Gibbon will rouse an ambitious student like the
sound of a trumpet. But of English biographies, there is no one, it
occurs to me, better adapted to the purpose mentioned, than the Life of
Sir William Jones, by Lord Teignmouth. It exhibits the wonders, which
unremitted study, upheld by the pure and noble ambition of doing good,
can accomplish in the space of a short life. He was a man of the most
varied knowledge. An extensive and indeed extraordinary acquaintance
with ancient and modern languages, was perhaps his chief accomplishment.
Although he engaged very late in life in the study of the law, such was
his industry and success, that he soon occupied the highest judicial
station, in British India; and the profession are indebted to his pen,
for one of the most beautiful of the elementary treatises, which adorn
the lawyer's library. "In his early days," says his biographer, "he
seems to have entered upon his career of study, with this maxim strongly
impressed upon his mind, that whatev