Just because this factor has hardly ever been wanting in England, Spencer, who has restricted his researches to his own country, has not given it a sufficient importance; yet, for the determination of a complete law of development, it is indispensable and fundamental. It is not owing to the operation of time, nor of science, nor yet of the union of these two forces, that the profession of lawyer and jurisconsult has progressed and differentiated itself. It is owing to its surroundings, which act instantaneously and make their effects immediately felt, like the air in its action on the vital organs.

As soon as lawyers and jurists find before them at free and open field, their tendency is to unite and assemble in groups, to form themselves into corporations, which constantly endeavour to obtain privileges for themselves, and which carefully select their members. In Rome, even during the Republican period, the lawyers formed a college, ruled not by a specially created law, but by the traditional customs of their fathers-the mores majorum-on which were founded certain privileges and certain restrictions: the exclusion of women, of the deaf, the infirm and other incapables from the harangues.

Under the emperors there was official registration of the lawyers, and the profession was regulated by suitable legislation. The Lex Cincia, which forbade the lawyers to receive from their clients any kind of compensation for their work, fell into disuse. The imperial decrees of Theodore and Justinian establish the conditions with which those must comply who desire to be inscribed on the register. The same decree prohibits the purchase of litigious rights, exonerating at the same time from certain heavy charges and from certain taxes those lawyers called chiarissimi and illustrissimi. The same thing occurred in France during the middle ages. The lawyers formed corporations. They elaborated customary law, facilitated

the work of the legislator, safeguarded their rights. Thus they were strong in their union, and their good understanding with the judges, for whom they furnished the best stuff for a long space of time. They enjoyed many privileges, and their work was regarded with the highest respect.

In England, too, lawyers have been banded together in colleges from very ancient times. Indeed, the studies and preparations for the profession are still carried on in the Inns of Court, colleges rich in glorious traditions, whose discipline rules the life and work of the students.

It is not only the spirit of defence and the solicitude for personal independence which rivet the bonds of the class; it is also the particular nature of the profession. It would be a mistake to consider the college of lawyers as an ordinary association. Into this error the Constituent Assembly fell when it dissolved the order of barristers in France. The Association, however, soon revived under the name of the Société des gens de loi. In every industry as in every profession, scientific, literary, or artistic, unity and the fact of association, contribute to prosperity: they serve to facilitate at once the attainment of individual excellence, and the progress of one or other branch of human activity, and further to promote the material wellbeing of the members. For lawyers, association is required by the force of things. We cannot well conceive an exercise of the profession without a bond among its members, at least until some qualifications for the exercise of it are decided on. For the other professions, for the Arts and Sciences, association means only a period of their evolution; for the legal profession it is a condition of existence. The former require it as a means of protection against despotism, and therefore the less liberty there is the greater the necessity for assembling their forces. The ›latter flourishes in direct proportion to liberty.

Moreover, owing to the special nature of the profession, there must of necessity exist relations not only between. client and lawyer, but also between lawyer and lawyer. These relations could not be maintained without the modifying influence of an independent and efficacious supervision. It would not be well, without a more or less rigorous selection of persons, to enter into such relations; for they demand as a rule a great deal of probity and tact, as well as great confidence in the ability and probity of others. The system then of selection is an assurance to the public. For the physician and the architect, of whom above all things science and skill are required, a diploma, the authorisation of an academical body may suffice. A man of law, however, besides the requirement of his science, presupposed by the course of his studies, needs a guarantee of his morality and honesty ; and of this none can judge better than the whole body of those who dedicate themselves to the same profession, and who, therefore, should possess the same qualifications.

This is the idea summed up by Berquier in the phrase: "The order of lawyers is not a power but a Jury." Their tendency to associate themselves, or rather their need of doing so, constitutes a practice very nearly universal. In almost every civilised State where there are liberty and lawyers, there are corporations. Chambers, or Orders, or Colleges of Lawyers, with authority of varied extent have existed in Austria since 1868, in Hungary and in Italy since 1874, in the United States for the last thirty years, in England and France for many centuries. These corporations are all fashioned after the same model. They receive within their circle those candidates who have a diploma, who have practised for a certain length of time, or who have passed one or two examinations. They are self-governing and tend to continue so; although under the form of an intrusion of judicial authority there remain here and there

traces of the efforts of despotism, which from time to time have sought to subjugate them.

"Now it is by virtue of this autonomy," as the celebrated Dupin says, "that the Bar has fulfilled its mission in all times."

The evolutionary process revealed in the external manifestations of the lawyer's profession may not be found devoid of interest.

"Canine eloquence," that violent abuse at which we have already hinted, that martial spirit which ruled even in word-battles, died with Rome. But with Rome eloquence died also. Discussions become an arid and pedantic battle, crammed with barbarisms, limited by the inflexible rules of the dialectics, of the schoolmen with all their distinctions, divisions, negations and concessions.

Later on in France there arose an exaggerated burst of rhetoric, a superabundance of quotation, such a refinement in the choice of words, that in momentary bewilderment people began to believe in the revival of true eloquence. But very soon all this was taken at its true value and met with well-deserved irony and derision.

The defence of Petit Jean in Racine's comedy is taken from life.

The Bible, the Digest, the Historians, the Poets, Greek and Latin, the Glossatores, the Philosophers, all and sundry, even the oddest and most archaic words and phrases, were placed under contribution with a view to clothing the harangues in the most gorgeous colours.

One lawyer these are anecdotes taken from the chronicles of the time-in a case concerning a common wall, dilated on the Trojan war and spoke of Scamander. A lawyer (Boileau) in a speech during a case brought by the Duchess d'Aguillon against the Duke of Orléans began a description of the motions of the serpents which (according to Plutarch and the poets) issued from the head

of Cleomenes, King of Sparta, and from the tomb of Anchises. Pausset de Montauban in a case of disputed paternity quotes Herodotus, Democritus, the Spartans, Horace, the Holy Scriptures, St. Augustine, Plato, Seneca and Tertullian!

Nor are these rare or singular instances: such oratory was common at that epoch. Little by little the number and intricacy of the cases increased. Procedure being abbreviated, it became necessary to study the cases more rapidly, and lawyers found themselves unable to accumulate such a wealth of erudition and to embellish their discourses in the retirement of their chambers.

It now became their glory to depend on extempore speaking, called "the soul of defence"; and there was nothing astonishing in a luminary of the French bar presenting himself at the Court of Justice with a playing card in his hand on which were written the chief passages of his speech. Not only was time wanting, but ideas changed, and with them manners and customs. The style alters, the artistic sense begins to make its way, and by an all-powerful need of reaction the new oratory acquires life and movement in its simplicity. It is an oratory of reasoning, of facts and of arguments drawn from the nature of things rather than from the authority of doctors or from commentaries, taken up at hazard and often ill-chosen.

This movement shewed itself in France a century ago, aided in wonderful fashion by the language itself, and soon found its echo in Italy.

Even earlier than in France this movement was felt in England. This, then, is the characteristic of the third phase in which we now find ourselves and which will continue as long as simplicity does not degenerate into negligence. But should that come to pass then it will become necessary to strike out a new path, or even as has been predicted, to return to ancient art. T. C. GIANNINI.