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The journal of a tour to the Hebrides (1785)
The journal of a tour to the Hebrides - 1785 Author:James Boswell Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: tlis motions feemed to her to be intended for her amufementi and when he flopped, fhe fluttered and made a little infantine noife, and a kind of fignal for him t... more »o begin again. She would be held clofe to him; which was a proof, from fimple nature, that his figure was not horrid. Her fondnefs for him endeared her ftill more to me, and I declared fhe fhould have five hundred pounds of additional fortune. We talked of the practice of the law. Sir William Forbes faid, he thought an honef t lawyer fhould never undertake a caufe which he was fatisfied was not a juftone. " Sir (faid Mr. Johnfon) a lawyer has no bufinefs with the jufticeor injuftice of the caufe which he undertakes, unlefs his client afks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honeftly. The juftice or injuftice of the caufe is to be decided by the judge. Confider, Sir, what is the pur- pofe of courts of juftice? It is, that every man may have his caufe fairly tried, by men appointed to try caufes. A lawyer is not to tell what he knows to be a lie: he is not to produce what he knows to be a falfe deed; but he is not toufurp the province of the jury and of the judge, and determine what fhall be the effect of evidence—what fhall be the refult of legal argument. As it rarely happens that a man is fit to plead his own caufe, lawyers are a clais of the cornirjunity, who, by ftudy and experU C ence, chapter{Section 4 ' .... ence, have acquired the art and power of arranging evidence, and of applying to the points at iflue what the. law has fettled. A lawyer is to do for his client all that his client might fairly do for himfelf, if he could. If, by a fu- periority of attention, of knowledge, of fkill, and a better method of communication, he has the advantage of his adverfary, it is an advantage to which he is e...« less