a somewhat sorry one. With the
unattached guerilla character of the early
Roman bar, disappears the glory which
surrounded it. The history of advocacy
under the republic is a brilliant record of
great names and great speeches, and the
growth of a society untrammelled by any
rules save its own. Under the empire it is
a perpetual succession of petty ordinances,
at first to protect and then to restrain.
Juvenal draws a lively picture of the
young barrister of his day, and of the
luxury and show by which he was forced
to ruin himself, in order to keep up
appearances and catch clients, and
recommends him to leave Rome and practise in
Gaul or Africa; much as his poor and
ambitious successor of the present day is
advised to try India or the colonies rather
than waste his substance in enforced
idleness, and the expenses entailed by circuit
and chambers. As in London so in Rome,
the best way to make money at the bar
would seem to have been to leave it!

"There is now no doubt," writes M. le
Berquier, "that the Roman bar had a
constitution of its own, for a long time subject
to no law. Long before the seventh
century of the Roman era, the bar, as a body,
were under the direction of those common
rules and statutes of which Cicero speaks,
but these did not emanate from any superior
power. It is not probable that these
rules were written, or that the bar was an
organised body like the College of Augurs.
Tradition was long the only law appealed
to and recognised, and unity resulted
rather from esprit de corps than from the
legal existence of the body itself. It was
established by the fitness of things, and
maintained by usage."

Under the empire, as we have said, the
Roman bar loses much of its interest,
though we have ample proof that it was
held in high esteem by the emperors.

The code of Justinian declared that
"advocacy should be remunerated by the
highest rewards," and advocates were
accordingly exempted from many of the
burdens of the ordinary citizen. Their honours
were plentiful: emperors themselves are
said to have argued cases at the bar. They
were treated as on the same footing with
the military profession. Anastasius
bestowed on retired advocates the title of
"clarissimi," and Justinian entitled them
an "order." But they were, like Tarpeia,
crushed under the golden ornaments, and
side by side with these privileges, and soon
to supersede them, grew up restrictive laws,
which M. le Berquier deduces as a natural
consequence from the growth of despotism,
and the losing sight of the "right of
defence." It is not worth while, had we the
space, to give any detailed account of this
petty legislation. Among the various edicts,
it is amusing to find one forbidding women
to argue any case but their own, in
consequence of the troublesome behaviour of "a
most wicked virgin," one Afrania, who
wearied the court with her importunities.
That women in the old days were not
excluded from the Roman bar we know from
the fame of Hortensia, the daughter of the
great advocate Hortensius, who argued so
effectively against a "tax on matrons,"
when the orators of the day declined to
undertake their cause, that she procured its
remission, in a speech which won high
praise from Quintilian. Another noble
Roman lady, from the spirit and success
with which she defended herself in a suit
brought against her, got the name of
"Androgyne."

Besides women, blind men were forbidden
to practise as advocates, on account of the
ridicule caused by one Publius, who, being
blind, went on addressing the court for some
time after it had risen. Justinian
prohibited the clergy from practising, and
restrictions on account of religion were
numerous. But it is needless to dwell further
on this, the most uninteresting period of
the history of the bar. In another paper
we propose to say something of the
functions and doings of the advocates of modern
times.

  THE DISAPPEARANCE OF JOHN
                    ACKLAND.

               A TRUE STORY.

    IN THIRTEEN CHAPTERS. CHAPTER II.

AMONG Mr. Cartwright's guests was a
young lady who had, or was supposed to
have, an extraordinary faculty for describing
people's characters or sensations;
not by looking at their handwriting, but
by holding it in her hand, and thus
placing herself (it was averred) in
magnetic rapport with the writers. She was a
merry, good-natured girl, who did her
spiriting gently, without professing much
belief in it herself, and always ready to
laugh heartily with others at the result
whenever (as sometimes happened) it was
an unmitigated failure. This evening the
experiment had been tried several times
with more than usual success; and sundry
hypercritical spectators averred that Miss