University of Virginia Library

ATTORNEY AND COUNSELLOR
AT LAW.

My gentleman thinks, at first, that he has the
world in a sling. He sits, installed in his professional
chair, like the man in the `Arabian Nights,'
with his glass were before him, which it has taken his
last cent to purchase, and which he thinks he will
sell at great profit, and accumulate great wealth;
and how he will have a sultana at his feet, whom
he will indignantly spurn: he suits the action to the
word, and, lo! the glass ware flies into a thousand
fragments. Thus, too often dreams the young lawyer,

and thus to fragments fly his hopes: they die,
though, as our friends die, with a treacherous promise
of returning health to-day, yet passing away,
to-morrow, to the clod and to the worm, followed
by others, and by others, till he stands—alone!

At last, he volunteers—all great men have volunteered:
Curran, Erskine, Pinckney, Webster,
Wirt, Clay—and he determines to volunteer, too.
Now comes on a second trial, as nerve-rending as
the first: to manage the case, to examine and cross-examine
the witness, to argue before the court the
point of law, and to address the jury. That which
he had looked to as the summum bonum of all his
youthful aspirations, is within his grasp; but it is
not as it seemed. He may fail! But, then, who
ever succeeded in his first effort? Curran completely
failed. Erskine said he never could have
got on if he had not felt his wife and children pulling
at his gown for bread; (I wish I had a wife
and children, for a moment thinks the new attorney,
and counsellor at law.) Sheridan failed, and
—and—but, no matter,—I'll—I'll—astonish the natives
yet. In the mean time, as the copy-plate
says, “I'll do my best, and leave the rest.”

Bradshaw, in contemplating his admittance to
the bar, was not much disturbed by the feeling
above described, but he had the very temperament
to be thus disturbed, if he had spent his time in
idleness. He was singularly constituted: to a sensitive
and imaginative mind, he added great energy
and action, a subtle knowledge of men, and a just
perception of facts. He understood the relative situations
of men and things, without suffering his

imagination to throw one of its rainbow tints across
the clear vision of his judgment. In him, genius
and common sense were combined. Whenever he
mingled in the world, in whatever scene he might
be, he was always studying character; and while
he had the sagacity to understand it, he had an
acute sensibility, which appreciated and sympathized
with the emotions of every one, no matter
how dissimilar to his own. Though subject, constitutionally,
to great depression of spirits, by keeping
his energies always alive and active, he generally
dispelled them; and when gloomy views of
the world, and of himself, crossed him, he went
forth and mingled with the crowd, determined to
brace himself for every encounter. Being thrown,
by his early sickness, upon his own mental resources
for amusement, he had endeavoured to acquire
the philosopher's great precept, “Know thyself.”
He felt that he must keep over himself—
over his passions—a strong guard; he felt this the
more, as he knew the watchman had sometimes
slept, or yielded to the allurements of the rioters
whom he should have quelled.

As we have observed, Bradshaw had a very extensive
acquaintance, which was not confined to the
higher circles of society. At the political meetings,
he had become acquainted with men of every class;
with the keepers of the lowest groceries and taverns,
as well as with the highest, and he knew
their highest and lowest customers. In the large
city in which he lived, there was a criminal court,
exclusively for the city, in which offences of all
kinds were tried, and where there were, of course,

many criminals. In an election for mayor of the
city, a young man whom Bradshaw knew, had
committed an assault and battery, for which he
had been indicted. He came to Bradshaw, and
was very anxious that he would defend him.

“I somehow feel,” said the young man, “that
you will do me better justice than any body else—
and all my acquaintances advised me to come to
you.”

“Garson, I would defend you with the greatest
pleasure,” said Bradshaw, “but I have not yet
been admitted to the bar.”

“I wish to mercy you would be admitted, Mr.
Bradshaw, and defend me. They accuse me of
stabbing, which I never did. It will be a serious
business with me: my wife is troubled most to
death. What shall I pay you, sir?”

“You're a good client,” said Bradshaw, smiling;
“but wait till I have defended you. Call round
this afternoon, at three o'clock, and I'll tell you whether
I can or not. If I cannot, I will recommend
you to a good lawyer.”

Garson had scarcely left, when Cavendish entered
the room.

“Well, Cavendish,” said Bradshaw, (Cavendish
had been admitted some time,) “how comes on the
practice?”

“Toll, loll,” said Cavendish: “with hard scratching,
I shall manage to live and let live.”

“I believe,” said Bradshaw, “that I shall be admitted,
not to the civil court, but to the city criminal
court. I mean to attend the lectures, particularly
those on practice, again. The criminal

law is simple, and, I flatter myself, I understand it
as well as some of the gentlemen who practise it—
though I may not have as great pretensions as they
have to being a criminal lawyer. However, Garson,
a young drayman, who thrashed a fellow who
interrupted me at a political meeting, one night,
has been indicted for stabbing a man. He wants
me to defend him, and I think, under the circumstances,
I ought to appear for him.”

“I think so, too,” said Cavendish. “All you
have to do, is to pass over to the court house—the
criminal court is now sitting—and get some one to
suggest to the court that you wish to be admitted.
Old Price has the greatest kind of notion of you,
and he will appoint a committee on the spot. The
old fellow says that the court over which he presides
is of as much more importance above the civil
court, of as much more importance (here Cavendish
imitated the judge's peculiar manner) as are
men's lives and liberty of more importance to them
than their property.”

Bradshaw entered the court, and had the application
made. The court, on the instant, appointed
Mr. Shaffer to examine him. Mr. Shaffer was a
formal, yet, where he took a liking, a frank old
gentleman, with a great deal of eccentricity. He
possessed great tact and eloquence in defending
criminals. He was a gentleman of the old school
of the bar, a kind of legal antiquary, who retained
all the old habits. He still cultivated a queue and
powdered his hair; and, though very old, retained
his intellect, as might be seen in his quick twinkling
gray eye.

“I feel, your honour, that, in fulfilling this
duty, I shall lessen my own fees—but it gives me
pleasure, Mr. Bradshaw. Shall I now attend you,
sir?”

Bradshaw left the court with Mr. Shaffer. As
they were leaving it, the old gentleman cut his eye
at him, and asked, “Mr. Bradshaw, can you make
a glass of whisky-punch?”

“Yes, sir,” said Bradshaw, “and drink one, too,
if you will do me the honour of drinking with me.”

“Ah!” exclaimed the old gentleman, “then you
are qualified—I will make out your certificate—
quite qualified to be a lawyer, according to the
present method of making them.”

“Suppose we walk into the oyster house, that I
may prove my qualifications; and you will then, if
you please, sir, give me the certificate.”

They entered the oyster house, or, to give the
establishment the title with which its owner designated
it, the Court-House Restaurateur, where
Bradshaw proved to Mr. Shaffer that he was doubly
qualified for admittance, and where the veteran
showed that he was amply qualified to judge of
such qualifications.

“Mr. Bradshaw,” remarked Mr. Shaffer, gladdening
over the memory of other days, while he
revived it, “the times at this bar are not as they
used to be, sir; I never felt myself, sir, I never
felt myself since they tore down the old court-house,
and built this. To be sure, sir, the old one
was an old affair, it had none of the tinsel and
bedizzened finery of this, with your damask drapery
over the judgment-seat, where the image of

the goddess sits as her prototype swings over a
tavern door, and she hears just about as much
wrangling and brawling. This is a splendid affair
—a splendid affair our new court-house. You
don't remember the old one—give me the splendid
eloquence—that's the kind of splendour for a
court room; and the old halls echoed it in my
young day. `When I was young, ah, woful when!'
as some one sings. Scott's character of Pleydel,
in his Guy Mannering—I heard you speaking of
it in conversation the other day with the Judge—
is just the fac simile of our lawyers—I mean of
what our lawyers used to be, sir. In those days,
sir, the profession lived like men; yes, sir, like
gentlemen: they took their ease, sir, and they
attended to their business with a free and easy
spirit. They loved their wine, sir, and they enjoyed
it. Why, Mr. Bradshaw, now-a-days, sir,
you must perceive it yourself—now-a-days the
souls of our lawyers are wrapped up in speculations
and per centage: they have money to lend, sir, at
fifty per cent. interest—and they care no more
for the dignity of the profession than if there was
not such a thing. No, sir, the spirit of chivalry
in our bar departed with the old court-house; and,
as we lawyers would say, sir, there was no animi
revertendi. Often, sir, often do I call up those
days; but they are becoming a bitter memory. I
stood upon the spot, the other day, where the old
court-house stood, and, like he who came to the
place of his birth, and asked for the friends of his
youth, Where are they? and echo answered and
said, Where are they? Thus I asked, Where are
the noble spirits of by-gone days—the true models
of what the profession should be? Echo's
was the only answer; and I felt a sense of desolation
heavy on me—signs of dotage, I suppose
the present generation would tell me. It may
be, sir; it may be. I am an old bachelor, with
no kin nor kind, except an infirm brother, much
older than myself. I am the last of my race, as
a man and a lawyer—`Who is there to mourn for
Logan? Not one.”'

“You mistake the feeling, indeed, sir,” said
Bradshaw, touched with the old gentleman's evident
emotion. “The oak, that by its vital strength
has outlived its companions, braving many winters,
and spreading its leafy honours in many a
summer, is the noblest oak of them all. We seek
its patriarchal shade with reverence; and the wild
vine by, that would have crept, but for its support,
clings to it and towers.”

“Mr. Bradshaw,” said Shaffer, his eye glistening,
“I appreciate your sympathy with an old
man's regrets—that feeling which honours age,
sir, is a blessed one; no matter in whose person
it is honoured. I might read you a long lecture
upon our profession; but, sir, another time. Remember,
you must not forget to give old Nancy
a dollar or two on your admittance; she claims it,
sir, from all, and has, for these fifteen or twenty
years past, from every lawyer who is admitted.
I know but one man who ever refused; and that
was that fipenny-bit fellow, Scrags—a sample of
your modern lawyers, Mr. Bradshaw. She berated
Scrags so roundly for it, at every place she

met him, and treated him with such contempt
and derision, that I believe the fellow, gingerly
dog as he is, would give one hundred dollars to
escape the odium. Nancy has great popularity in
the class from which he gets many of his clients;
and she has lost him many a one by laughing, in
her rough way, at his pretensions, and telling tales,
which she has no qualms about inventing, or rather
colouring, of his blunders in the practice.”

“I know her very well, sir; her care-for-nobody
manner and her shrewdness have often amused me,”
said Bradshaw.

“She is an odd fish, sir. To speak plainly, she
has been a harlot, is a hag, though she pretends to
be religious; and, I have no doubt, often feels so.
Nancy is good-natured, when unprovoked, and generous
to the poor and miserable of her own class.
She has, withal, a great observation of character;
and she knows the private history, and the little
indiscretions of every member of the bar. As a
jockey would say, sir, she can strike the sore place
—offend her, and she'll do it. For many years,
she has, every morning while the court sat, arranged
her table in the area, and sold cakes and apples.
When the old court stood, sir, she frequently made
her appearance there with a figure and finery
widely in contrast with her present appearance.
She was then, though none of the youngest, even
then, quite a good-looking woman, with a bright
eye, fine teeth, and a fair complexion. Since, she
has had the small-pox, has lost her teeth, and her
face is the very fac simile of an old saddle-cover.
I like to speculate upon character, sir; my profession

has led me a great deal among mankind, when
they were moved by the deepest and darkest emotions.
I have discovered this, that many a one,
whom we would think, at first glance, entirely depraved,
often cherishes affections of the gentlest
and holiest character. Not only has Nancy good
points of character,—some of the best,—but she
had an affection for a drunken husband, a worthless
dog in every respect, that was unsurpassed.
Nancy had been a camp girl, in the revolution.
She could tell as many tales of some of the British
officers, as she can of our bar, sir. Well, her husband
deserted, and miraculously escaped, and she
with him. They settled here when the war was
over, and they lived near the old court-house.
When he would lay out o' nights, in his drunken
frolics, she would search the whole town for him:
it was then small, and could be searched. I remember
her well, with the light in her hand, looking
and inquiring after him. Well, sir, she found
him, one night, crushed to death, in the street: a
vehicle of some kind had passed over his neck. On
her own shoulders, unassisted, she took him home.
I have seen criminals, sir, on the eve of condemnation,
and on the eve of being executed, and I have
seen their relatives and friends with them, in every
variety of wo—but I never saw deeper anguish
than that woman exhibited. I happened to meet
her bearing the body into her house. Yet she was,
at that very time, unfaithful—notoriously so, to her
husband; and her unfaithfulness, it is said, caused
him to take to the bottle—or, rather, was his apology
for taking to it as often as he did. He would
drink, he said, any how—but Nancy's ways made
him drink more; for, though she did treat him well,
and take him out of the gutter, yet he knew where
the shoe pinched. Now, the dog knew just what
she was before he married her, but he would drink,
and wanted an apology. She, being more the soldier
of the two, acted upon her own responsibility,
and sought no apology or justification for her errors.”
Delighted at having a pleased listener, Mr.
Shaffer, who had a high respect for Bradshaw, continued—“Josey
is another character, sir: the old
fellow who sweeps out the court-room—he has followed
that vocation ten years, at least. Observe
the difference: Nancy knows every suitor and every
witness who attends court; Josey about as many
as the first day he commenced to sweep it. Every
acquaintance that he makes, except with the judge,
lawyers, and a few others—who, by some peculiar
circumstances, have impressed themselves upon his
memory—pass from his recollection, as the sweepings
pass from the hall, under his skilful broom.
There is quite a taking between old Josey and
Nancy. It amuses me often to see him, leaning
upon his broom, and her, with her hands poked into
her pockets, but with her head set back with an
air of other days, conversing together; Josey—

“The Lord be merciful to all his people! this is
a woful and wicked world!” exclaimed Nancy, who,
at this moment, entered the Restaurateur, and
threw her basket of apples and cakes on the table,
with a total disregard to the fate of its contents;
so much so, that several of her best pippins
bounced out on to the floor, unnoticed. “The

Lord have mercy upon us! this is a wicked world—
high and low, rich and poor, are 'bout the same—
so much alike as two pippins. Ay, here ye are,
Mr. Shaffer, and ye, young Mr. Bradshaw—I put
the question to ye, tell me, can a judge take the
benefit?”

“What! the benefit of the act, Nancy?” asked
Shaffer.

“Yes, the benefit of the act, as ye call it; getting
rid of yer debts by paying nothing,” exclaimed
Nancy.

“Why, certainly, Nancy, why not? a judge has
no privilege from arrest, except when court sits.
A judge may go in debt, if people will trust him,
just as Judge Harper did; and he may take the
benefit, just as I am told the judge has.”

“Ay, the thing's done—the Lord love us. Well,
I just say this, that the judge has condemned many
a better man than he is himself.”

“Why, what's the matter, Nancy? is the Judge
your debtor?” asked Shaffer. “I have not seen
you so much moved since the olde time—since
the days of the old court.”

“None of yer ripping up old scores, Shaffer,
none of that—the old court house is gone, and let
by-gones go with it;” replied Nancy, indignantly.
“But I am not thinking of myself, now. I am
thinking of old Josey Mulvany—the way he has
been treated, would rise up in judgment against a
saint, if a saint could act so like an unchristian
sinner. He is a lone man, as I am a lone woman;
many a weary day has he swept yer old
court house, or yer new one, I mean, to save a

little penny to keep his old age. And where is it?
I ask ye, where is it? gone to the prodigalities and
abominations of his honour's pleasuring. I'd give
my last apple for eggs to pelt him; a pretty Judge
to decide right between man and man, and to
spend the hard yearnings of a poor old man, trusted
to him for safe keeping.”

“How much money of Josey's had the Judge,
Nancy?” asked Bradshaw.

“How much!” exclaimed Nancy, “why, two
thousand and five dollars!—hard yearnings, day
and night, wet and dry, hungry and cold—just by
the labour of his hands, and by the sweat of his
brow; for, Josey is not a man who can twist and
turn through the world, and pick up fips doing nothing,
till he raises dollars. It's sinful—there is a
curse in God's providence for such treatment. He
looks just as if he thought nothing—like a man
sleepy with drink—the heart's heavy when a man
looks that way. It's worse than a wake, it's worse
than a wake: a man had better be dead than have
nothing to live on. If he had so treated me, I be
bound I would have spurred up to him. I would
let him know a piece of my mind, before a full
court-house. Here is Josey, now. Come in, Josey,
and take a little comfort.”

“A small drap, if you please, Mr. Bunley,” said
Josey, with a dejected look, advancing to the
bar.

“If liquor is made for any thing,” continued Nancy,
“'tis for the comfortless. I used to tell my husband,
Jonathan Lape—I called him Johnny—says I,
`Johnny, there's no 'casion for ye to drink so; ye've

got a good house over yer head—(I was the provider,
as ye know, Shaffer)—ye've got a good house
over yer head, and what for should ye drink?—and
so perpetually, like the old sewer?'—for Johnny was
a man who would drink any where, and any thing
that had drunkenness in it.—`If,' says I, `ye feel a
little out of sorts—(as a body, ye know, will feel)—
take a little of the best—the best can't hurt ye, but
don't drink like a hog in a swill tub. Ye know,
yerself Shaffer, that I was true and tender to Johnny.”

“I don't know that you were true, Nancy; I
thought you were tender,” replied Shaffer.”

“Shaffer!” she exclaimed, indignantly, cutting
her eye at Josey, to see if he observed the emphasis
on true; on observing that he was engaged in
swallowing the brandy toddy, and did not; she continued,
mildly—“Yes, ye may well say, I was tender
to him; for it was on my very door-sill, when
I was bearing his dead body—woes me—on these
old shoulders—I didn't think he was dead then—
I met yerself. An awful night I spent—ye left
me to raise some of the neighbours, Shaffer, and a
long, long time ye staid—at least, it seemed so,
and I dared not leave him for fear he might come
to, and want help—he was stone dead.” Here
Nancy suppressed her emotions for a moment, and
then continued—“I defy the whole world to say
but that I buried him decently; and the first money
that these hands yearnt, I paid old Philpot
fifty dollars—I done part in washing—to put over
him a white marble tomb-stone, and ye yerself,
Shaffer, wrote the description, (inscription,) for me.”

“I did, Nancy,” said Shaffer; and he reached
his hand towards her basket, to take a chestnut,
which she observing, pushed close up to him,
saying,

“Help yerself, Shaffer; ye're as welcome as the
blossoms in May.”

“How did this loss happen, Josey?” inquired
Bradshaw.

“Why, sir,” replied Josey, “I thought a judge
couldn't break; and folks kept talking and talking
agin the savings' bank—so I told the judge one
day, when I was sweeping out, that I somehow
thought the bank was rickerty-like—and I axed
him if he would take care o' my money; he said
he would, and I gin it to him—that was next
Christmas come a year. This morning I was belated,
and I was jist a dusting round the insolents'
(insolvents) room, when the clark was reading
about the benefit of the act people, and I heard
the judge's name—I thought a judge couldn't take
the benefit—and it was read off plain debtor to
Joseph Mulvany two thousand and five dollars—it
ought to have been two thousand and ten, for I
gave him five yesterday—I couldn't help calling
right out to know if that was me, and Mr. Blakely
said it was—the brush fell naterally right out o'
my hand; and I don't know what's happened
since.”

“Don't be afraid of the drop, Josey, it can't
hurt ye; and come home and take a mouthful o'
warm dinner with me. Ye can leave yer lone bit
in the court till another time.”

After taking a “drop” herself, Nancy and Josey

departed together to her house. For some time,
there had been a matrimonial engagement, depending
between these two; and after they had
got to Nancy's house, and had dinner and a few
more drops of comfort, Nancy, between-whiles,
telling Josey of the hardships of the war, by way
of reconciling him to his misfortunes as evening
approached, said,

“Now, Josey, I'll jist speak to you like a plain
honest woman. Yer situation at the court-house
being all alone in that ere big building at night,
and you getting old, was ventersome—for afflictions
strike old people sometimes at once—and I
am old and lone—so the word has been spoken between
us, ye know, that we would come together.
Now, if yer two thousand and five—or ten, it
ought to be—dollars were safe, Josey, ye, yerself,
would have to axe for the time, and get the license.
But you mustn't go to that big building to-night—ye'll
feel sad and awsome—if ye staid
here, folks would scandalize an old woman, and it
becomes us to nuss a good name: so, if ye e'en say
so, I'll jist step to the court afore it shuts, and get
the clark to make a license, and I'll stop in to
Parson Gowler's, and bring him along.”

That evening, Nancy was made Mrs. Mulvany.