I recur to the question, how can the Law Faculty in the proposed Teaching University best be utilized? I do not prejudge the question whether, as recommended in 1846 and in 1855, by powerful Commissions, and as pressed upon Parliament in 1872 and 1877 by high authority, the best solution is not the formation of the Inns of Court into a great School of Law or Legal University, but it must be confessed that public opinion, even in the profession, is lethargic, it takes little heed of what, after all, is a matter of the gravest public concern-namely the training of the men who are to be its judges at home and in its wide dependencies abroad.

But, at all events, let it be determined to make the best use in the interests of Education of the Law Faculty in the new University. Let the Inns of Court make it their own, but not exclusively their own. It would be a misfortune if it were left wholly in their hands. In purely professional management there is at least a danger that a spirit of narrowness may creep in. Let the Inns of Court, according to their means, supply the funds to secure teaching ability of the highest order obtainable, and let the policy be, not to discourage but to encourage the creation of a class who will make teaching of the law and its cognate subjects not an accident in, but the business of, their lives. The Faculty must be, at least, as high as those of the older Universities. As to these, I confess I share the doubt which has been expressed whether it was wise, in the general interests of Education, to allow the B.A. degree to be taken in law. The danger is that it may interfere with that general liberal Education which ought to be the foundation on which is built a Legal Education, and which, as Edmund Burke long ago pointed out, is necessary if we would avoid that contraction of mind which the study of our law has a tendency to cause. At the same time I think that the theoretical and historical

teaching of law (including Constitutional Law, Roman Law and International Law) can be well carried out in Universities as part of a liberal system of Education, and in every case ought to precede the practical teaching of our own Municipal Law as it requires to be taught for professional purposes. I think, as regards these earlier branches of study, the Inns of Court while requiring to be satisfied that the teaching is good and thorough, ought when they are so satisfied, to be liberal in accepting the testamur of teaching authorities

outside their own control.

When we come to the teaching of Municipal Law for professional purposes I doubt whether any existing Faculty in any University, as now constituted, can effect that object satisfactorily, but I see no reason why much may not be accomplished in the case of the new University if only the Inns of Court take kindly to it and assert that control which their important position entitles them to have. Nor is it to be lost sight of that after all that teachers in the schools can do, there is still wanting for the full equipment of the barrister a practical acquaintance with the forms and machinery of law and of litigation which can only be satisfactorily acquired in the chambers of men in practice. My own experience is that six months in a solicitor's office and six months in the chambers of a practising barrister are more useful than a year spent in the latter. It will be for the Inns of Court to determine whether this experience ought to precede call to the Bar, or whether it may not be relegated to that period of inaction which usually marks the earlier years in the life of a barrister.

It is not my object in these words to pronounce judgment as to what ought to be done. I have not sufficient knowledge or experience. But I do say that things, as they are, are in the highest degree unsatisfactory: that the opportunity is at hand which, wisely used, may enable much to be done

in the way of improvement, and that it is the duty of all interested in the question to see that the opportunity is not missed. In a word, my object is to suggest that all friends of Legal Education (including the Council of Legal Education) should promptly take counsel together.

I have not overlooked, though I have not mentioned, the special considerations which affect the Education of students who desire to become solicitors, To some extent the lines of Education for both branches of the profession may be found to be co-incident; when they separate special difficulties arise. I believe the heads of the Incorporated Law Society are ready and willing to join in any practicable scheme which will improve the Education of their students, and thus raise the general tone and standard of the profession.

Finally, I desire to make two points clear :—(1) That in any steps to be pursued it is desirable that the lead shall be taken, if not by, at least in co-operation with, the Inns of Court, and in co-operation with the Council which, in matters of Legal Education represents the Inns of Court, and (2) that it is not suggested that the powers of the Inns of Court as to calling to the Bar shall be in any way touched. With the Inns will rest, as now, the responsibility of determining the ultimate conditions of call and the right to refuse to call on such grounds as to them seem right. It need not be added that the disciplinary authority of the Inns does not come into this discussion.

RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN.

II. THE ATTORNEY IN THE POETS.

THE attorney enters the realm of poesy with a bound.

Long neglected as a theme for a song, it is upon a throne he is first descried by the poets. True, it was alas! the throne of dulness, but at least among the dunces Attorney Tibbald was monarch. In the first edition of the Dunciad," the Goddess of Dulness declared :—

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"I see a King! who leads my chosen sons

To lands that flow with clenches and with puns;

Till each fam'd theatre my Empire own;

Till Albion as Hibernia bless my throne!

I see! I see!--then rapt she spoke no more,

God save King Tibbald! Grub-street alleys roar."

Thereafter attorneys were long to be denounced by the poets, denounced in good set terms for their crime of attorneydom. But poor Theobald was doubly exposed to attack: he not only followed the law, but he wrote. Generally he wrote badly, but one thing, to his own undoing, he did well-did better than Pope himself. His edition of Shakespeare succeeded, and deserved to succeed, better than Pope's own. This was his offence. That his

original plays were bad was to Pope but a happy accident; they were sticks to beat him with; and his attorneydom and his poverty were additional weapons furnished by chance. If Pope had cared to analyse the deteriorating effect of the profession upon his verses, the damage done to Theobald's practice by his leaning to verse, we might have some illuminating couplets on the relation of law and literature. But Pope was too angry for analysis; he threw the first stone that came to hand at the hapless man. The Queen of Dulness, he said, looked with pride

on all the dull, surveyed with pleasure Daniel and Eusden, Blackmore and Phillips, Tate and Dennis.

In each she marks her image full expres't,

But chief in Tibbald's monster breeding breast.

It was Theobald's dulness, then, that was the main object of attack. Pope sneered at Theobald because he was "supperless" and poor; he flung "attorney" at him as a term of abuse; but the epigram "inscribed to Attorney Tibbald," on Mr. Moore's going to law with Mr. Gilliver," never would have immortalized the writer.

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Once in his life Moore judges right:

His sword and pen not worth a straw,

An author that could never write,

A gentleman that dares not fight;

Has but one way to tease-by law.

This suit, Dear Tibbald, kindly hatch;

Thus thou may'st help the sneaking elf;
And sure a printer is his match,

Who's but a publisher himself.

Pope himself had many ways of "teasing," but he did not disdain to tease by law. Perhaps he did not really dislike Tibbald the more because he was an attorney. At least, his malice found but one further means of annoying him. Having declared him King of Dulness, the only other injury in his power was to dethrone him; and this. he did.

In his preface to the edition of 1743, Pope declared that he had revised the piece "where finding the style and appellation of King to have been given to a certain pretender, pseudo-poet, or phantom of the name of Tibbald, and apprehending the same may be deemed in some sort a reflection on majesty, or at least an insult on that legal authority who has bestowed on another person the crown of poesy, we have ordered the said pretender, pseudo-poet or phantom, utterly to vanish and evaporate out of this