But, notwithstanding many examples of this kind, there remains among that part of the Athenian lawyers, who go by the name of “men of business,” no small degree, both of talent and of integrity, while, among the “men of profession,”--the advocates, or members of the Scotch bar, there are a few, for the reasons that were formerly stated, the very choicest spirits, not of the Athens merely, but of all Scotland. Though the occasions upon which these persons display their eloquence be merely of a private nature,--though a very large proportion of them have no eloquence to display, or no opportunity for displaying it; yet the profession of advocate is the only one in Scotland which makes the professor of it a gentleman; and among the people of the Athens, of all classes, the special pleaders before the Courts of Session and Justiciary,--the supreme civil and criminal courts of Scotland, take a deeper hold of the public mind in the Athens, and engross a greater share of the public attention, than the orators of St. Stephen’s do in the British Metropolis. One reason of this may be the way in which the different courts are blended together, and in which business is conducted. The Court of Session is a court of equity, as well as a court of law; and this is extremely favourable for the pleader, as the two characters blended together in the same oration give it a rich and popular character, which it can never have in the stiff formality of the English courts. Great part of the pleadings, too, are written; and this not only keeps the inferior speakers from lowering the general tone of the bar, but enables the more celebrated to confine themselves to such general arguments as are best calculated for oratorical display. Another thing: criminal trials, which are ever the most interesting to the public, are not managed by the fag-end of the law, as at the Old Bailey; and the counsel for the prisoner is not limited to legal exceptions in the course of the trial, cross-questionings of witnesses, and motions in arrest of judgment and mitigation of punishment, after the jury have returned their verdict, and are beyond the reach of his eloquence, however touching or powerful. In the Scotch criminal court, whether in the Athens or at the provincial assizes, the law itself takes care that the prisoner, whatever be his crime, shall have the aid of counsel; and if the crime be remarkable, either from its enormity or on account of the character or rank of the party accused, then the very first counsel at the bar are ranged on his side. These are allowed full scope, both to attack the form of the case _in limine_, and to throw every suspicion upon the evidence, and make every appeal to the judgments and passions of the jury, that ingenuity can suggest, or eloquence apply. The official men who have the conducting of the prosecution, are not only, generally speaking, men of much smaller abilities than those who