The Seven Lamps of Advocacy

by Sir Edward Abbott Parry

The test of eloquence in advocacy is necessarily its effect upon those to whom it is addressed. The aim of eloquence is persuasion. The one absolute essential is sincerity, or, perhaps one should say, the appearance of sincerity. As Garrick reminded a clerical friend: “We actors portray fiction as if it were truth, and you clergymen preach truth as if it were fiction.” It is no use preaching to a jury, but the eloquence of persuasion will work miracles; and there is a well-authenticated story on every circuit of the criminal who, listening with rapt attention to his counsel’s pathetic details of his wrongs, burst into sobs after his peroration, crying out, “I never knew I was such an ill-used man until now—s’help me, I never did!”

It would appear from the history of advocacy that the flame of the lamp of eloquence may vary from time to time in heat and colour. One cannot say that the style of one advocate is correct and another incorrect, since the style is the attribute of the man and the generation he is trying to persuade. Yet, however different the style may be, the essential power of persuasion must be present. He must, as Hamlet says, be able to play upon his jury, knowing the stops, and sounding them from the lowest note to the top of the compass.

Brougham’s tribute to Erskine’s eloquence is perhaps the best pen-picture of an English advocate we possess, and it is noticeable how he emphasises this power of persuasion and endeavours to solve the psychology of it. He places in the foreground the physical appearance of the man, a great factor in each style of advocacy.

“Nor let it be deemed trivial,” he says, “or beneath the historian’s province, to mark that noble figure, every look of whose countenance is expressive, every motion of whose form graceful, an eye that sparkles and pierces, and almost assures victory, while it ‘speaks audience ere the tongue.’ Juries have declared that they felt it impossible to remove their looks from him when he had riveted and, as it were, fascinated them by his first glance; and it used to be a common remark among men who observed his motions that they resembled those of a blood-horse, as light, as limber, as much betokening strength and speed, as free from all gross superfluity or encumbrance. Then hear his voice of surpassing sweetness, clear, flexible, strong, exquisitely fitted to strains of serious earnestness, deficient in compass indeed, and much less fitted to express indignation, or even scorn, than pathos, but wholly free from harshness or monotony. All these, however, and even his chaste, dignified, and appropriate action, were very small parts of this wonderful advocate’s excellence. He had a thorough knowledge of men, of their passions, and their feelings—he knew every avenue to the heart, and could at will make all its chords vibrate to his touch. His fancy, though never playful in public, where he had his whole faculties under the most severe control, was lively and brilliant; when he gave it vent and scope it was eminently sportive, but while representing his client it was wholly subservient to that in which his whole soul was wrapped up, and to which each faculty of body and of mind was subdued—the success of the cause.”

And if one reads the speeches of our greatest advocates and the records of those who heard them, one finds that each had some peculiar condiment of eloquence, so that if one could beg a flavour from each one might hope to produce an olio of super-eloquence.

Bethell, for instance, was a master of deliberation, remembering Bacon’s maxim that “a slow speech confirmeth the memory, addeth a conceit of wisdom to the hearers.” Shorthand-writers listened eagerly to his speeches, fearing to miss a sentence that would ruin their report. Repetitions and unnecessary phrases were banned, and useless words he looked upon as matter in the wrong place. His voice was clear and musical, and he had a telling wit. Students from the first thronged the court to learn his magic, and judges listened to him with respect. When he was a junior it is said that Sir John Leach, the Master of the Rolls, succumbing to his arguments, said, “Mr. Beethell, you understand the matter as you understand everything else.” And that was the real secret of Mr. Bethell’s eloquence.

Serjeant Copley, better known as Lord Lyndhurst, was not a brilliant or showy advocate, but, as a friend said, “had no rubbish in his head.” He won many of his triumphs by dexterous and successful sophistry and his extreme plausibility of manner. Mr. James Grant tells us that “a perpetual smile played on his countenance while he gazed at the faces of the court and the jury; and there was something so winning in the tones of his voice that he must have been a man possessing a remarkably lively perception of the real facts of a case, of a vigorous intellect, and of great energy of character who was not carried away by Mr. Copley’s address.” The mere wording of the description might suggest to an unsympathetic reader that Serjeant Copley was the Fascination Fledgeby of the Bar, but the intention of the writer was probably to portray something of that charm of manner which is often a form of eloquence leading to the highest success in advocacy. Gully, in our own day, possessed it in a high degree. It is easy to fall under the spell of it in court, but it would require the pen of a genius to recall it to life on the printed page.

Eloquence of manner is real eloquence, and is a gift not to be despised. There is a physical as well as a psychological side to advocacy, documentary evidence of which may be found in the old prints and portraits of those who have been called to high office from among us. They are, on the whole, a stout, well-favoured race.

Charm of voice and manner has always received due reward. Thomas Denman had a fine, musical voice, an easy manner, and the sincerity and fervour of his address made him a popular advocate. Scarlett was “the very incarnation of contentedness and good nature.” A spectator notes his “perpetual cheerfulness,” his “laughing and seductive eyes,” his “How-do-you-do style” as he used to stand before the jury, “fold up the sides of his gown on his hands, and then, placing his arms on his breast, smile in their faces from the beginning to the end of his address, talking all the while to them as if he were engaged on a mere matter of friendly conversation.”

Many an advocate has attempted a similar method with but small success, and there must have been, as Mr. Atlay says, “an exquisite dexterity” in his method of address that does not reach us through contemporary descriptions. The effect of it was undoubted. A North-Country juryman was once asked, after a long assize at Lancaster, “What do you think of the counsellors on the Northern Circuit?”