LITERATURE AND THE LAW. Response to toast at annual dinner of Booksellers' League, March 15, 1899.
By G1lbert Ray Hawes, Esq., of the New York Bar. IT has been well said by one of the most naturally leads me to speak of the intimate famous English writers of his day, Sir connection which should exist between liter Walter Scott, that "a lawyer without history ature and the law. As the wise Francis or literature, is a mechanic." This must Bacon remarked some three hundred years necessarily be so. Otherwise the practice ago, " Reading maketh a full man, conference of the law is a sordid trade, not an honorable a ready man, and writing an exact man." profession. If literature be disregarded, the And again, in his excellent treatise "Of work becomes mechanical and cannot rise Studies," he reminds us that "Some books above the low level of dull routine to the are to be tasted, others to be swallowed and some few to be chewed and digested." I as heights of scholarship. In a certain sense the lawyer, like the poet, sume that you, gentlemen of the Booksellers' "is born, not made," or, to use the classical League, only handle those books which are fit to be assimilated. When, however, we con Latin, nascitur, non fit. Almost any ambi tious youth with a quick mind and retentive sider the appetite and digestive power of the general public, we are not surprised at the memory can master the elementary prin mental pabulum absorbed. It is for you to ciples of law, and acquire a sufficient knowl edge of the practice and procedure under say whether you merely supply the existing demand or whether you create a demand for our code system to enable him to success certain undesirable kinds of literature. fully pass the Regents' examination for ad mission to the bar. If he is studious, indus But to return to the subject of my toast : trious and persevering, he may, in time, be law and literature should go hand in hand. come successful. If he is a genius and The lawyer who hopes to win his cases 1n natural orator, such as Abraham Lincoln was, court, to obtain verdicts from juries or even he may become famous. But this is an ex to properly frame a brief or draft corporate ception to the rule. The office boys and papers, should have a wide acquaintance clerks and half-educated young men who are with literature. How can he hope to rise to now swarming into our ranks serve only to in flights of eloquence if he has not studied the crease the already too large number of law masterpieces of Demosthenes and the fa yers and thus detract from the high standard mous orations of Cicero? Where can he which should be set. A liberal education find better models of §logical and sustained ought to be the foundation of all the profes argument than in the speeches of Chatham, sions. It is a significant sign of the times that Burke, Fox and Pitt and our own glori Columbia University has just announced that ous Webster, " the Divine Dan "? If he would hereafter no one shall be allowed to enter her form a correct style and write pure English, Law School unless he is a college graduate. let him peruse Addison, Steele, Shakespeare, This rule should be universally adopted if we Dryden, Cowper, Pope, Byron and that long are to protect the noble and learned profes list of distinguished English writers whom sion of the law from being tainted with igno we claim as part of our common Anglorant and unscrupulous shysters or those who Saxon heritage. If he would speak with would degrade the profession into a business authority on constitutional law, he should for money-making as its sole object. This have read with care the " Federalist," the
