II
THE LAMP OF COURAGE
Advocacy needs the “king-becoming graces: devotion, patience, courage, fortitude.” Advocacy is a form of combat where courage in danger is half the battle. Courage is as good a weapon in the forum as in the camp. The advocate, like Cæsar, must stand upon his mound facing the enemy, worthy to be feared, and fearing no man.
Unless a man has the spirit to encounter difficulties with firmness and pluck, he had best leave advocacy alone. Richard Bethell, Lord Westbury, in early life took for his motto: “De l’audace et encore de l’audace, et toujours de l’audace.” In advising on a case he was always clear and direct, saying that he was “paid for his opinion, not for his doubts.” Charles Hatton, writing as a layman of Jeffreys in his early days at the bar, shrewdly notes his best quality: “He hath in perfection the three chief qualifications of a lawyer: Boldness, Boldness, Boldness.” A modern advocate kindly reproving a junior for his timidity of manner wisely said: “Remember it is better to be strong and wrong than weak and right.”
The belief that success in advocacy can be attained by influence, apart from personal qualifications, is ill-founded. There was never a youngster with better backing than Francis North, afterwards Lord Keeper to Charles II., yet, as his biographer says, “observe his preparatives,” his earnest attendances at moots, his diligent waiting in that “dismal hole” the “corner chamber, one pair of stairs in Elm Court.”
In the same way his younger brother, Roger, though born in the ermine, so to speak, had to plod his way up like any other junior. It is good to be the brother of a Lord Chancellor, but it does not make a man an advocate.
Roger North’s autobiography is full of interest to the student of advocacy. His memory of his first appearance is vivid and entertaining. “I was immediately called,” he writes, “to the Bar, ex gratiâ, not having standing, although I had performed such exercises as the house required, save a few. My first flight in practice was the opening a declaration at Nisi Prius in Guildhall, under my brother, which was a crisis like the loss of a maidenhead; but with blushing and blundering I got through it, and afterwards grew bold and ready at such a formal performance; but it was long ere I adventured to ask a witness a question.”
Roger North would never have attained the eminence he did in his profession by merely hanging on to the gown of his greater brother. Hard work and dogged courage, not patronage, earned him the dignities he achieved. The description of his early beginnings is full of encouragement for the young advocate. “During my practice under Hale,” he says, “at the King’s Bench I was raw, and not at all quaint and forward as some are, so that I did but learn experience and discover my own defects, which were very great. I was a plant of a slow growth, and when mature but slight wood, and of a flashy fruit. But my profession obliged me to go on, which I resolved to do against all my private discouragements, and whatever absurdities and errors I committed in public I would not desist, but forgot them as fast as I could, and took more care another time. My comfort was, if some, all did not see my failings, and those upon whom I depended, the attorneys and suitors, might think the pert and confident forwardness I put on might produce somewhat of use to them.”
North held the sound opinion that “he who is not a good lawyer before he comes to the Bar, will never be a good one after it.” It is very true that learning begets courage, and wise self-confidence can only be founded on knowledge. The long years of apprenticeship, the studious attention to “preparatives,” are, to the advocate, like the manly exercises of the young squire that enabled the knight of old to earn his spurs on the field of battle. In no profession is it more certain that “knowledge is power,” and when the opportunity arrives, knowledge, and the courage to use it effectively, proclaim the presence of the advocate.
The best instance of what is meant perhaps may be found in Sir John Hollams’s account of the first appearance of Mr. Benjamin. He was a great lawyer before he addressed the court, but he sat down a great advocate. It was in a case which came on for hearing before Lord Justice James, then Vice-Chancellor, and “it appeared to be generally thought that, as usual at the time, a decree would be made directing inquiries in chambers. The matter was being so dealt with when Mr. Benjamin, then unknown to any one in Court, rose from the back seat in the Court. He had not a commanding presence, and at that time had rather an uncouth appearance. He, in a stentorian voice, not in accord with the quiet tone usually prevailing in the Court of Chancery, startled the Court by saying, ‘Sir, notwithstanding the somewhat off-hand and supercilious manner in which this case has been dealt with by my learned friend Sir Roundell Palmer, and to some extent acquiesced in by my learned leader Mr. Kay, if, sir, you will only listen to me—if, sir, you will only listen to me’ (repeating the same words three times, and on each occasion raising his voice), ‘I pledge myself you will dismiss this suit with costs.’ The Vice-Chancellor and Sir Roundell Palmer, and indeed all the Court, looked at him with a kind of astonishment, but he went on without drawing rein for between two and three hours. The Court became crowded, for it soon became known that there was a very unusual scene going on. In the end the Vice-Chancellor did dismiss the suit with costs, and his decision was confirmed on appeal.”
There have been many advocates whose courage was founded on humour rather than knowledge, and who have successfully asserted their independence in the face of an impatient or overbearing Bench through the medium of wit, where mere wisdom might have failed in effect.