“The law is a dangerous profession, sir; but we must not measure a man’s integrity by the brief which he holds. The barrister professes himself an advocate, not a judge; and if he refuses a brief because he thinks the cause a bad one, he acts with prejudice, seeing only one side of the question. Besides, sir, there are few causes which may bear altogether the name of bad. Sometimes a cause may be bad in law, but good in morals; sometimes an action at law may be good so far as the moral feeling is concerned, and bad as to the letter of some statute; and it is possible that some persons may consider any litigation whatever as being inconsistent with the strict letter of Christianity. We must also make great allowances for diversity of temper and disposition: what may appear just to one man appears perhaps too rigidly strict to another. I think, sir, that the barrister’s profession is unduly calumniated. If, indeed, a client comes to an advocate and says, ‘I wish to take an unfair advantage of my neighbour, and I will pay you to assist me,’ then the barrister would act improperly to sell his conscience to his client; but every litigant sees, or fancies he sees, something of right in his cause, and the barrister merely gives him legal assistance. The law is a dangerous profession indeed, because it may lead to a confusion of right and wrong; but while it endangers a man’s integrity, it also gives him abundant and honourable opportunity of displaying an upright mind and good principle. You will excuse an old man,” said he, turning towards Markham; “garrulity is the privilege of age; but I have had experience of the world. I see but little of it now; the time has been that I have seen more.” Horatio Markham, though but five-and-twenty years of age--though he had gained two causes in the Court of King’s Bench--though he had been successful in his first brief in his native town--though he had at other towns on the circuit held an extraordinary number of briefs for a first journey--though he held those briefs by means of a reputation going before him that he was a man of good talents--though he had more than once received a marked compliment from his seniors both at the bar and on the bench--and though he was of humble origin, and was rationally expecting to rise in a profession which would place him in a higher station than his parents or early acquaintance, yet, with all this, he was not a coxcomb. Moralists and divines may speak as contemptuously as they will of negative virtues; but in defiance of their wisdom, we will contend that, humanly speaking, there was great merit in Horatio, that he did not feel himself unduly elated by all his honors. He attentively listened to the common-place harangue of old Richard Smith, and replied to it with the respect due to old age.