The Romance and the Reality of the Law.

Among the learned or liberal professions, the one that oftenest tempts and dazzles the youthful mind is that of the law.

This fact has its reason, and is susceptible of explanation.

The profession of the law is venerable for its antiquity, rich in the illustrious names which adorn its history, and unequaled for the aggregate of talent and eloquence which have in all ages characterized its leading members.

Far back in the dim vista of the past, the fancy of the legal enthusiast may behold the commanding form of the inspired Cicero, his toga falling gracefully about him, his eye glowing with pathetic emotion, as he stands there on the Roman forum pleading the cause of his early friend and tutor, the poet Archius.

It must be with no small degree of pride that the advocate thus traces his professional lineage back to the greatest orator of ancient times.

There is a kind of ancestral congratulation that he, too, like Cicero, is empowered to use his country's laws, when occasion requires, to defend the innocent and relieve the oppressed.

Then again there is romance connected with the practice of the law. Should every lawyer of long experience keep a journal, wherein he might detail the stories of all his clients, their strange grievances, their complicated affairs, and confidential disclosures, it would form a book only surpassed for variety and novelty by the famous 'Arabian Nights.'

The amount of heart-history with which he becomes acquainted seems strangely in contrast with the lack of sentiment for which his character is so generally noted. He becomes familiar with domestic difficulties, disappointed affections, atrocious crimes, and daring schemes; and finds out more of the inner life of humanity than can be discovered from any other stand-point in society. His council-room is a kind of secular confessional, where clients reveal reluctant secrets, and tell of private wrongs. To him, what the world is accustomed to regard as fiction, constitutes the commonplace facts of his legal practice.

But in our country the more seductive phrase of the law is this. it has ever been the natural avenue to political preferment and judisial honors. Hence it is that young men of fine abilities and am

bitious of distinction, so frequently choose this profession as the proper field whereon to meet the high endeavor and the glad success.' And perhaps it is sometimes a misfortune that such a reason decides them rather than a sense of any peculiar fitness for the calling which they so hastily espouse. But of that hereafter.

Lawyers, as a class, are, or were, much respected and revered, exerting as they do a very controlling influence over society and affairs. I know full well that novels and plays abound in a certain stereotyped character called an attorney, who is made to do all the dirty work of the plot or story. He is represented usually as a cadaverous-looking individual, with a swinish propensity to thrust his nose into every one's business, who is willing to damn his soul for a fee, and whose heart is devoid of all sympathy for suffering or distress. The worst of all these human fiends is Uriah Heep, whose freckled, hairy hand, with its cold clammy touch, so often makes the reader shudder as he turns the pages of 'David Copperfield.' Then there is Oily Gammon, who figures in 'Ten Thousand a Year,' and whose qualities are very plainly suggested by his name. And among the more recent types of this character, we have the Marks' of Harriet Beecher Stowe, who, when asked to do a small favor, or to perform a common act of politeness without the tender of a fee, rolls out his eyes in wonderment, and to explain his refusal drawls out: 'Oh! I'm a lawyer!' The muses too have conspired against these poor, persecuted fellows; and there is extant a little poem, called 'Law versus Saw,' in which a very invidious comparison is sought to be made between a lawyer and that small operator in the lumber business commonly known as a sawyer. In usefulness and dignity the poet confers the palm on the vocation of the latter. The last verse sums up the whole matte) thus:

But these pictures of law-attorneys, found so frequently in light literature, furnish the unknowing with a very erroneous estimate of the average character of the legal profession. These seeming caricatures have had, and still have, originals in fact, but they are as

much hated and despised by the more respectable members of the bar as by the world at large. Indeed, to a person of experience in life, there need be no argument to prove that lawyers as a body are quite as honorable, intelligent, liberal and public-spirited as the same number of men selected from any class which has a distinctive existence. L. J. Bigelow.

Grannie's Trust.

Dear Grannie is with us no longer;

Her hair, that was white as the snow
Was parted one morning forever,
On her head lying soft and low;
Her hands left the Bible wide open,
To tell us the road she had trod,
With waymarks like footsteps to tell us
The path she had gone up to God.

No wonderful learning had Grannie;
She knew not the path of the stars,
Nor aught of the comet's wide cycle,
Nor of Nebula's dim cloudy bars;
But she knew how the wise men adoring,
Saw a star in the East long ago;

She knew how the first Christmas anthems
Came down to the shepherds below.

She had her own test, I remember,

For the people whoe'er they might be.
When we spoke of the strangers about us
But lately come over the sea;

Of "Laura," and "Lizzie," and "Jamie,"
And stately old "Essellby Oakes,"
She listened and whispered it softly,

"My dear, are these friends meetin'-folks?"

When our John went away to the city
With patrons, whom all the world knew

To be sober and honest great merchants,
For Grannie this all would not do;

Till she pulled at John's sleeve in the twilight,
To be certain, before he had gone;
And he smiled as he heard the old question,
"Are you sure they are meetin'-folks, John?'

When Minnie came home from the city,
And left heart and happiness there,
I saw her close kneeling by Grannie,
With her dear wrinkled hands on her hair;
And amid the low sobs of the maiden,
Came softly the tremulous tone,
"He wasn't like meetin'-folks, Minnie;
Dear child, you are better alone."

And now from the corner we miss her,
And hear that reminder no more;
But still, unforgotten, the echo

Comes back from that far-away shore;
Till Sophistry slinks in the corner,
Though Charity sweet has her due,
Yet we feel, if we want to meet Grannie,
"Twere best to be meętin' -folks too.

The Telegram.

Dead! did you say? he! dead in his prime!
Son of my mother! my brother! my friend!
While the horologue points to the noon of his time,
Has his sun set in darkness? is all at an end?

.(“By a sudden accident.")

Dead! it is not, it cannot, it must not be true!
Let me read the dire words for myself, if I can;
Relentless, hard, cold, they rise on my view -
They blind me! how did you say that they ran?
("He was mortally injured.”)

Dead! around me I hear the singing of birds

And the breath of June roses comes in at the pane, Nothing nothing is changed by those terrible words, They cannot be true! let me see them again;

("And died yesterday.")

Dead! a letter but yesterday told of his love!
Another to-morrow the tale will repeat;
Outstripped by this thunderbolt flung from above,
Scathing my heart as it falls at my feet!
("Funeral to-morrow.”)

Oh, terrible Telegraph! srbtle and still!
Darting thy lightnings with pitiless haste!

No kind warning thunder - no storm-boding thrill — But one fierce deadly flash, and the heart lieth waste! ("Inform his friends.")