It often happens too, that a lawyer undertakes a suit or defence which cannot be sustained, and thus involves his client in unnecessary expense. Such blunders would often be avoided by a ready familiarity with the science of pleading. The attorney has but to ask himself, "how shall I frame the declaration or plea?" and the answer shows him the impossibility of making good his case. He advises accordingly; and, though the advice be at the moment unpalatable, it will be afterwards remembered with gratitude and respect. No reproach is keener or more just, than that of a client who has been decoyed into expensive litigation by the rapacity of the disingenuous, or the blunders of the unskilful. A place among those whose advice may be relied on, is the safest and most honorable at the bar. It cannot be lost without some great error. It gives a lien on posterity. The father hands down to the son a respect for his constant and faithful adviser. Friend communicates it to friend; neighbor to neighbor. The showy qualities which are the gift of nature to others, are neutralized by it. The plain man, destitute of such endowments, becomes the patron, the dispenser of business and benefits to him whose eloquence shakes the court--commands his gratitude, secures his friendship, and, on all admissible occasions, makes this envied talent his own. There is another subject on which an ever ready preparation is even more indispensable than on the subject of pleading. I mean that of _evidence_. On this, of necessity, we have touched but lightly. It would be properly, one of the principal subjects of a second course. To stop short between a cursory notice of it and a thorough investigation, such as we have not had time to make, might mislead the student. He might overrate his knowledge if he found himself as well acquainted with that as with other branches of the law; and supposing he had enough, might venture to the bar without acquiring more. But this is a topic of which a superficial knowledge will not do, even at the beginning. It must be understood perfectly; it must be understood distinctly; it must be wrought into the very texture of the mind, and ever present there. The occasions on which this knowledge is wanted, can rarely be anticipated. They start up like fire from the ground, and he whose information is not various, exact and ready, is liable to be disconcerted, embarrassed and disgraced. They often occur in those apparently plain cases, which the partiality of friends sometimes intrusts to the sole management of an untried lawyer. To be baffled, through want of skill in such cases, is to injure those who have sought to serve you. It mortifies and discourages your friends, and what is worse, it disheartens you.