Of all the evils with which this country is afflicted, that of an excessive passion for law is the greatest. The sum paid annually in taxes is nothing to that which is spent in litigation. Go into our courts of justice, and you will often see sixty or seventy lawyers at a time; follow them home, and you will find that they are residing in the fashionable parts of the town, and living in the most expensive manner. Look at the lists of the two houses of parliament, and you will find lawyers predominate in the House of Commons; and, in the upper house, more peers who owe their origin to the law, than have sprung from the army and navy united. There is scarcely a street of any respectability without an attorney, not to mention the numbers that are congregated in the inns of court. In London alone, we are told, there are nearly three thousand certificated attornies, and in the country they are numerous in proportion. While on the subject of lawyers, we shall add a few unconnected anecdotes, which will exhibit the difference between times past and present. In the Rolls of Parliament for the year 1445, there is a petition from two counties in England, stating that the number of attornies had lately increased from sixteen to twenty-four, whereby the peace of those counties had been greatly interrupted by suits. And it was prayed that it might be ordained, that there should only be six attornies for the county of Norfolk, the same number for Suffolk, and two for the city of Norwich. The profits of the law have also increased in proportion. We now frequently hear of gentlemen at the bar making ten or fifteen thousand pounds a year by their practice; and a solicitor in one single suit, (the trial of Warren Hastings) is said to have gained no less than thirty-five thousand pounds! How different three centuries ago, when Roper, in his life of Sir Thomas More, informs us, that though he was an advocate of the greatest eminence, and in full business, yet he did not by his profession make above four hundred pounds per annum. There is, however, a common tradition on the other hand, that Sir Edward Coke's gains, at the latter end of this century, equalled those of a modern attorney general; and, by Lord Bacon's works, it appears that he made 6000L. per annum whilst in this office. Brownlow's profits, likewise, one of the prothonotaries during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, were 6000L. per annum; and he used to close the profits of the year with a _laus deo_; and when they happened to be extraordinary,--_maxima laus deo_.