R.

* * * * *

No. 21.  Saturday, March 24, 1711. [1] Addison.

      ‘Locus est et phiribus Umbris.’

      Hor.

I am sometimes very much troubled, when I reflect upon the three great Professions of Divinity, Law, and Physick; how they are each of them over-burdened with Practitioners, and filled with Multitudes of Ingenious Gentlemen that starve one another.

We may divide the Clergy into Generals, Field-Officers, and Subalterns.  Among the first we may reckon Bishops, Deans, and Arch-Deacons.  Among the second are Doctors of Divinity, Prebendaries, and all that wear Scarfs.  The rest are comprehended under the Subalterns.  As for the first Class, our Constitution preserves it from any Redundancy of Incumbents, notwithstanding Competitors are numberless.  Upon a strict Calculation, it is found that there has been a great Exceeding of late Years in the Second Division, several Brevets having been granted for the converting of Subalterns into Scarf-Officers; insomuch that within my Memory the price of Lute-string is raised above two Pence in a Yard.  As for the Subalterns, they are not to be numbred.  Should our Clergy once enter into the corrupt Practice of the Laity, by the splitting of their Free-holds, they would be able to carry most of the Elections in England.

The Body of the Law is no less encumbered with superfluous Members, that are like Virgil’s Army, which he tells us was so crouded, [2] many of them had not Room to use their Weapons.  This prodigious Society of Men may be divided into the Litigious and Peaceable.  Under the first are comprehended all those who are carried down in Coach-fulls to Westminster-Hall every Morning in Term-time. Martial’s description of this Species of Lawyers is full of Humour: 

  ‘Iras et verba locant.’

Men that hire out their Words and Anger; that are more or less passionate according as they are paid for it, and allow their Client a quantity of Wrath proportionable to the Fee which they receive from him.  I must, however, observe to the Reader, that above three Parts of those whom I reckon among the Litigious, are such as are only quarrelsome in their Hearts, and have no Opportunity of showing their Passion at the Bar.  Nevertheless, as they do not know what Strifes may arise, they appear at the Hall every Day, that they may show themselves in a Readiness to enter the Lists, whenever there shall be Occasion for them.

The Peaceable Lawyers are, in the first place, many of the Benchers of the several Inns of Court, who seem to be the Dignitaries of the Law, and are endowed with those Qualifications of Mind that accomplish a Man rather for a Ruler, than a Pleader.  These Men live peaceably in their Habitations, Eating once a Day, and Dancing once a Year, [3] for the Honour of their Respective Societies.