he indeed allowed that, if such a man could appear in a few causes, his merit would be known and he would get forward; but that the great risk was, that, a man might pass half a lifetime in the courts and never have an opportunity of showing his abilities." Many years later Johnson thus delivered himself to Boswell on the same subject: "Sir, you will attend to business as business lays hold of you . When not actually employed you may see your friends as much as you do now. You may dine at a club every day, and sup with one of the members every night: and you may be as much at public places as one who has seen them all would wish to be. But you must take care constantly to attend in Westminster Hall, both to mind your own business, as it is almost all learnt there (for nobody reads now), and to show that you want to have business. And you must not be too often seen at public places, that com petitors may not have it to say ' He is always at the playhouse or at Ranelagh, and never to be found in his chambers.' And, sir, there must be a kind of solemnity in the manner of a professional man. I have nothing particu lar to say to you on the subject. All this I should say to anyone; I should have said it to Lord Thurlow twenty years ago." Boswell adds to this his own observations : "The profession may probably think this representation of what is required in a barris ter who would hope for success to be much too indulgent, but certain it is that as ' the wits of Charles found easier ways to fame,' some of the lawyers of this age, who have risen high, have by no means thought it ab solutely necessary to submit to that long and painful course of study which a Plowden, a Coke, and a Hale considered as req uisite. My respected friend, Mr. Langton, has shown me, in the handwriting of his grandfather, a curious conversation which he had with Chief-Justice Hale, in which that great man tells him, ' That for two years after he came to the Inns of Court he studied
sixteen hours a day, however (his lordship added) that by this intense application he almost brought himself to his grave, though he was of a very strong constitution, and often reduced himself to eight hours; but that he would not advise anybody to do so much; that he thought six hours a day, with atten tion and constancy, was sufficient, that man must use his body as he would his horse and stomach, not tire him at once, but rise with an appetite.'" Johnson's views on legal ethics would at once be presumed to be of interest. He ex pressed himself on the subject with all his usual force, but without any of the bitterness of Junius. Johnson's language on this subject recalls the neat rejoinder of Cicero, in the Pro Plaucio, who, when he was taunted with defending men whom he knew to be bad characters, replied that he would rather that he had powers of defending men in straits than that others should avail themselves of those powers. Boswell having asked Johnson, as a moral ist, if he did not think that the practice of the law, in some degree, hurt the fine feeling of honest)-, the learned doctor replied, "Vhy, no, sir, if you act properly. You are not to deceive your clients with false representations of your opinion; you are not to tell lies to a judge." Boswell : " But what do you think of supporting a cause which you know to be bad?" Johnson: "Sir, you do not know a cause to be bad till the judge determines it. I have said that you are to state your facts fairly, so that your thinking, or what you call knowing, a cause to be bad, must be from reasoning, must be from supposing your arguments to be weak and inconclusive. But, sir, that is not enough. An argument which does not convince yourself may con vince the judge to whom you urge it; and if it does convince him, why, then, sir, you are wrong and he is right. It is his business to judge; and you are not to be confident in your own opinion that a cause is bad, but to say all you can for your client, and then hear
