work." So Theobald, the attorney, disappeared, and the righteous condemnation by poesy of all his class was for a time deferred.

But if Pope's animosity against Theobald was merely personal, the general voice of the poets was raised against attorneys as a class. To most of the singers a personal grievance was needless, they felt sufficient bitterness against the whole of the profession to barb their wit. All the professions are, of course, fair mark for satire; every parson is a hypocrite, every doctor a quack, but most of all and with most conviction, the censors declare that every lawyer is a rogue. Ned Ward, himself one of the poets pilloried in the "Dunciad" (and as he plaintively said without provocation on his part), presented this view. In "A journey to H—, or a visit paid to the D—,” he pictured all classes brought to the bar of hell for judgment clergymen, doctors, barristers, attorneys, poets, pamphleteers, printers, drunkards, gluttons and the

rest.

"Hell's Attorney-General" stated the charge. The Barristers were corrupt and acted only for fees, the Clerks of the Court, "the lesser scribes that do the greatest hurt,' promoted litigation. This charge he pressed at length, then rested.

B'ing thus refresh'd, he turn'd his sawcer Eyes,
And to th' Attorneys thus himself applies,
You, who in times of old did Ink-horns wear
In Leathern Zones, and Pens in twisted Hair,

Whose Locks were comb'd as lank, and cut as short,
As best should seem the pleasure of the Court,
Who now on Earth as num'rously abound,
As Rooks and Magpies in a new-sown Ground:
Then turning to the Judge, he cries, my Lord,
And thus runs o'er their Crimes upon record;
These by foul Practice and Extortion thriv'd
And beggar'd half the Country where they liv'd ;
Reviv'd old Discords, kindl'd up new Flame,
And sow'd Contention whereso'er they came,

The Purses pick'd of each laborious Slave,

Who plough'd and thrash'd to feed some rooking Knave.

Buoy'd up with hopes he should victorious be

Would sweat and toil a week to earn a Fee.

Then to next Market ride before his Dame,

And give his Scribe, with scraping Leg, the same;
Who bids the Booby Client cheer his Heart,

And haughtily does bad Advice impart,
Fear not, says he, I'll make the Rascal smart ;
But when his Purse had yielded up its Store,
His Cause proves bad, if he can bleed no more:
You told me wrong, did several things misplace,
Agree, agree, it proves an ugly Case.

Thus, by long Bills, stuff'd with unlawful Fees,
They tax'd the Farmer as themselves should please:
Improv'd litigious Suits by ill Advice,

Eat up full Barns and Acres in a trice,

And plagued the sinful land, like Egypt's Frogs and Lice.

As they from Leathern Belt to Sword arose,

And from a rural Grey to Town-made Cloaths.

The greater value on their Pains they laid,

The more impos'd the Client still obeyed,

And scrap'd and bow'd more low at ev'ry word he said.

The sentence passed on these offenders by the Chief Justice would have delighted Jeffreys.

Amongst old Hags and Furies shall you live,
There scratch and claw, and in confusion fight,
Till Hell wants Darkness, and the Heavens Light;
There shall you strive to mitigate your Pain,
And reconcile your Foes, but all in vain.
Furies shall scourge you with Scorpion Rods,
Beneath the reach of Mercy from the Gods,

Thus dwell involved in Night, eternally at odds.

But the publican poet recognised that some of the harm done by attorneys was the fault of persons practising yet unqualified, whose admission to the ranks of attorneys was due to the neglect of those ancient laws which required proper education and examination as a preliminary to

practice. The attorneys themselves had long recognised this. "The Compleat Solicitor," in 1683, had remarked that uneducated and dishonest men were here allowed though quite unqualified to conduct law suits. "'Tis by the means of these cheating and devouring caterpillars that the honourable Professors of the Law are so often cryed out upon for bribing and taking excessive fees." But the abuse lived long, and towards the close of the century the attorneys were still compelled to urge their grievance with emphasis in the ear of Parliament. These miscreants, Ward said, were not really attorneys, but

A spurious sort

Of Pettyfogs, meer Locusts of the Court,
Who often help the former to deceive,
And eat up what the bigger Vermin leave.
Some by their Shop-board looks were Taylors bred,
But broke, and on their Backs had scarce a Shred;
Not only in their Lives, but Looks, were Knaves,
Litigious from their Cradles to their Graves.
Vers'd in these Querks, they felt before they saw,

After long Troubles did themselves withdraw,

From making Sutes of Cloathes, to manage Suits of Law;

Well knowing it requires an equal skill,

To make a Lawyer's or a Taylor's Bill.

Amongst this paltry Crew were Ten to One,
Bred up to Trades, but by the Law undone :
And thus distress'd, most equitably sought
Relief from that which had their Ruin brought :
Or else resolved, from being basely us'd,
T'abuse the Law, by which they'd been abus'd,
So the poor Wretch, who Witchcraft has endured
If once she claws the envious Hag she's cur'd.
Some in Frize-coats, strait Wigs, and flapping Hats,
Great Beards, and dirty Hands, like Counter-Rats,
With Looks undaunted, at their Heels a Straw,
Bold Teasers and Tormenters of the Law.

In "The History of the London Clubs" Ward afterwards expressed a similar view, and it was not only the law which

suffered from the intrusion of unqualified men.
was in as bad a case.

Of all the Plagues with which our Land is curs't,
The Frauds of Physic seem to be the worst,
For tho' the Law, 'tis true, abounds with weeds,
And from Astrea's Rules too oft recedes,

Yet those keen Foxes of such sundry sorts,
Who hang in swarms about her awful Courts,
By their Male Practice and Prolix Debates,
Can only hurt our Pockets and Estates.

But baneful Quacks, in Physick's Art unread,

To Weaving, Cobling or to Tumbling bred,

Medicine

Or else poor Scoundrels, who for Scraps and Thanks,
Swept Stages for their Master Mountebanks,
Then to the World destructive Slops commend,
And do their poys'nous Cheats to life extend,

By vain pretences pick the Patient's Purse,

And with sham Med'cines make 'em ten times worse.

Another general condemnation was to be found in the Gentleman's Magazine. In "The Honest Countryman's Litany" (1734) we read :

From Spirituals courts, citations, and libels,

From proctors, apparitors and all the tribe else
Which never were read of yet, in any Bibles.

Libera me!

From bayliffs, attorneys and all common rogues,
From Irish nonsense, their bogs and their brogues,
From Scot's bonny clabber, their clawing and shrugs.

Libera me!

But this gentleman, like Ned Ward, denounced most people; he was a good hater in more than the Johnsonian

sense.

E. B. V. CHRISTIAN.

(To be continued.)

III. THE LAND TRANSFER ACT, 1897.

THE

HE Land Transfer Act of 1897 marks an important though not conclusive step in the controversy which has for more than a generation been carried on between the advocates of registration of deeds such as prevails in Middlesex and Yorkshire and the advocates of registration of title as embodied in the Land Registry Act, 1862, and the Land Transfer Act, 1875. Registration of deeds (that is the preservation in a public office of either a full copy of every deed affecting land, or a short note of its effect) has been advocated in this country from a very early date, and has been from time to time embodied in legal enactments —some general in their application, as in the requirement that deeds of bargain and sale should be enrolled-and others local, as in the cases of Middlesex and Yorkshire. But it never has been successful-and where permanent, as in the local instances just referred to, it has wholly failed to make converts and to lead to the extension of the system which those local acts established. Registration of title (that is the completion or recording in a public office, and by a public official, of every transaction affecting land) is a comparatively modern idea-which has never taken root here, and only to a very limited extent in any Englishspeaking race-but the insistence with which it has been urged, and the fondness in the present age for novel views, as well as the increasing belief in the virtue of Government interference in private transactions, has brought it of late years into great prominence.

But the arguments in its support have not been sufficient to wholly convert the Legislature. All that the Act of 1897 does is to enact that any county or part of a county in England or Wales which is willing to try the experiment