The profession of a barrister is a curious one. Theoretically, he is the champion and protector of right and justice; but, practically, he often is but the hired advocate of wrong and injustice. It is only when he has attained high distinction at the Bar that he can, like Serjeant Ballantine, be independent enough to say that he will undertake no case of the justice of which he is not fully satisfied. True, counsel is assumed to base his arguments on behalf of his client on the instructions he receives from the solicitor who employs him; yet he, counsel, having had a legal education, and practice, too, cannot fail to see the weak points, supposing there are any, in the case before him, and the evidence adduced in examination and cross-examination must very soon satisfy him as to the real merits of his case; hence we often see counsel throwing up his brief. It is related in Laud’s Diary that, when he was standing one day near his unfortunate master, then Prince Charles, the Prince said that, if necessity compelled him to choose any particular profession, he could not be a lawyer, ’for,’ said he, ’I could neither defend a bad cause, nor yield in a good one.’ By the Roman laws every advocate was required to swear that he would not undertake a cause which he knew to be unjust, and that he would abandon a defence which he should discover to be supported by falsehood and iniquity. This is continued in Holland at this day, and if an advocate brings forward a cause there which appears to the court plainly to be iniquitous, he is condemned in the costs of the suit; and if, in consequence of this, a cause, just in itself, should not be able to find a defender because of some strong and general prejudice concerning it, the court has authority to appoint a counsel. The universal opinion that advocates are ready to support injustice for the sake of gain—that they will undertake more work than they can possibly attend to—is of very ancient date. The Lord Keeper Puckering, directing attention to the grasping habits which too frequently disgraced the leaders of the Bar, observed: ’I am to exhort you also not to embrace multitude of causes, or to undertake more places of hearing causes, than you are well able to consider of or perform, lest thereby you either disappoint your clients, when their causes be heard, or come unprovided, or depart when their causes be in hearing.’ That the administration of justice is much improved in modern days is sufficiently proved by the fact that now no judge would be allowed, as he was in the closing years of the fourteenth century, to give opinions for money to his private clients, although he was forbidden to take gold or silver from any person having ’plea or process hanging before him.’