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The Green Bag.

recognized institution. It was at first re garded as an abuse, and produced the first legislative interference with the Roman bar in the shape of the Cincian law, which for bade the taking of money for advocacy, but with very little purpose. The history of advocacy under the Re public is a brilliant record of great names and great speeches, and the growth of a society untrammelled by any rules save its own. Under the Empire it is a perpetual succession of petty ordinances at first to protect and then to restrain; and at this period the Roman bar loses much of its interest. Among the various edicts it is amusing to find one forbidding women to argue any case but their own, in consequence of the troublesome behavior of " a most wicked virgin," one Afrania, who wearied the court

with her importunities. That women in the old days were not excluded from the Roman bar, we know from the fame of Hortensia, the daughter of the great advo cate Hortensius, who argued so effectively against a " tax on matrons," when the ora tors of the day declined to undertake their cause, that she procured its remission, in a speech which won high praise from Quintilian. Besides women, blind men were forbidden to practise as advocates, on account of the ridicule caused by one Publius, who, being blind, went on addressing the court for some time after it had risen. Justinian prohibited the clergy from practising, and restrictions on account of religion were numerous. But it is needless to dwell further on this, the most uninteresting period of the history of the Roman bar. —All the Year.