[1] This oath seems first to have been prescribed by the Act of Assembly, passed August 22d, 1752: "An act for regulating and establishing fees." (1 Smith's Laws, 218.) It has been copied into the revised Act of 14th April, 1834, s. 69 (Pamphlet Laws, 354), with the addition of the clause to "support the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of this Commonwealth." In England, by the Stat. 4 Henry IV, c. 18 (A. D. 1402), it was provided, "that all attorneys shall be examined by the Justices, and by their discretion, their names put in the roll, and they that be good and virtuous, and of good fame, shall be received, and sworn well and truly to serve in their offices, and especially that they make no suit in a foreign country." The present oath or affirmation is, that he "will truly and honestly demean himself in the practice of an attorney, according to the best of his knowledge and ability." Stat. 2 Geo. II, c. 23 (A. D. 1729); Stat. 6 & 7 Vict. c. 73. The qualification of a sergeant-at-law, is given at large in 2 Inst. 213; and in the valuable old book, "The Mirror of Justices," chap. 2, sec. 5, it is said that "every countor is chargeable by the oath, that he shall do no wrong nor falsity, contrary to his knowledge, but shall plead for his client the best he can, according to his understanding." [2] Hurst's case, 1 Levins, 72; 1 Sid. 94, 151; Raym. 56, 94; 1 Keb. 349, 354, 387. [3] See Austin's case, 5 Rawle, 203. "An attorney at law," says C. J. Gibson, "is an officer of the court. The terms of the oath, exacted of him at his admission to the bar, prove him to be so;" "you shall behave yourself in your _office_ of attorney," &c. Again: it is declared in the Constitution, Article 1st, sec. 18 (Art. 1, sec. 19, of the amended Constitution of 1838), that "no member of Congress, or other person holding any _office_ (except _attorney at law_, and in the militia), shall be a member of either House," &c., which is a direct constitutional recognition. Prior to the Act of 14th April, 1834, which expressly required from them an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, attorneys at law were invariably held to be within the provisions of Art. 6, sect. 3, of the Constitution of the United States, and of Art. 8, of the Constitution of Pennsylvania, requiring all officers, executive and judicial, to take the oath to support those constitutions respectively. In Wood's case (1 Hopkins, 6), solicitors in chancery were held to be officers, within the meaning of a similar clause in the Constitution of New York. "The admission of an attorney, solicitor, or counsellor," says the opinion in that case, "is a general appointment to conduct causes before the courts: this station, thus conferred by public authority, has its peculiar powers, privileges, and duties, and thus becomes an office in the administration of justice." Leigh's case (1