The Attorney in the Poets. success there. The very highwaymen were like-minded, if one may trust a modern inter preter. " I had no more liking for Baverstock," says Mr. Marriott Watson's hero, Dick Ryder, ' " than I should spend upon an Attorney, save that he was a fellow of spirit." The poets, then, only followed a fashion when they wrote as did Mr. Woty. The fullblooded denunciation of attorneys by the gentleman who concealed himself under the name of "Expertus" doubtless represents fairly the general feeling. " The Lawyers," a poem, which has survived only in The Muses Mirror1 is set "to the tune of the Georgians." Of all the professions on the Globe, The coifed gown and scarlet robe Most mis'ry do create; Instead of soothing down your cares, They serve but to perplex affairs, And bring them to debate. Whether your cause be good or bad, Whilst They'll there stillisyour money suittomaintain be had, : It is the bus'ness of their life 'Twixt Whose greatest quarrels friends are their to stirgain. up strife
There are such quibbles and such quirks Between attorneys and their clerks, Their clients to confound : That all their study, day and night, Is to make wrong appear like right, And ring the changes round. Since lawyers are such common pests, Avoid them as you would the nests Of hornets nearly flown; And whilst you live, beware of law, It is the hungry lion's paw That tears the flesh from bone. But hold, my muse, let's not run on As if we never would have done, But seek what to defend : Oh, yes! (in justice be it said) They will (when all their fees are paid) A réfrénée recommend. 1 Galloping Dick, p. 174. »Vol. I., p. in (A. D. 1778).
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It is of interest to learn that the art of "smashing the lists," the practice of com pelling litigants to compromise, or refer to arbitration, cases which it would be tedious to try, was known so long ago as 1778. It is pleasant for the professional reader to turn aside from the main current of de nunciation to an eddy of song where the at torney receives only good humored censure. This is in no less desirable a place than Gold smith's "Retaliation." (1774.) Mr. Hickey, — "an eminent Irish attor ney," Professor Masson tells us, — is the capon of that excellent feast at which Garrick was the salad and Burke was " tongue with the garnish of brains." However emi nent in his day, Mr. Hickey must be ac counted fortunate in having acquired immor tality in such goodly company. He was perhaps "a mere ordinary man," without pre tensions to genius; he wrote nothing save his briefs and cognovits, but he obtained by acci dent a wider fame than some more eminent contemporaries, because though not the rose he dwelt near it. His portrait stands at full length between those of Garrick and Rey nolds. Here Hickey reclines, a most blunt pleasant creature, And slander itself must allow him good nature; He cherished his friend, and he relished a bumper; Yet one fault he had. and that one was a thumper. Perhaps vou may ask if the man was a miser; I answer, No, no; for he always was wiser. Too courteous, perhaps, or obligingly flat? His very worst foe can't accuse him of that. Perhaps he confided in men as they go, And so was too foolishly honest? Ah no 1 Then what was his failing? come tell it, and burn ye, It was — could he help it? — a special Attorney.
The indictment is here perhaps less accu rately expressed than in the other counts. To be a special attorney — to be appointed by a power of attorney to represent a friend — might happen to any man; but to be a general attorney, an attorney-at-law, is a graver offence, and it was this of which Hickey was guilty. Little else is known
