The Lawyers and the Playwrights
Samuel Hand, Esq., in the course of an address before the New York State Bar Association said, “It must be confessed that in modern times there has been strongly impressed upon the world’s imagination a dark view of the lawyer and his pursuits. Hear Ben Jonson describe us in the age of Shakespeare:
“‘I oft have heard him say how he admired
Men of your large profession, that could speak
To every cause, and things mere contraries,
Till they were hoarse again, yet all be law;
That with most quick agility, could turn
And return; make knots and undoe them;
Give forked counsel; take provoking gold
On either hand, and put it up; these men
He knew would thrive with their humility
And (for his part) he thought he would be blest
To have his heir of such a suffering spirit,
So wise, so grave, of so perplexed a tongue
And loud withal, that would not wag nor scarce
Lie still without a fee; when every word
Your worship but lets fall is a zecchin.’
“Turning to the contemporary dramatists, Boucicault and others, we find the advocate generally handsomely used, but the attorney most outrageously maltreated and abused. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine anything more revolting than the figure usually cut by a stage attorney. He is depicted as meanness itself—vulgar, impudent, prying, without modesty or veracity, to whom honor is nothing but a word, offering his person to be kicked and himself to be reviled, if, by that means, any money can be made. I do not know how it may be with others, but when this libel on us appears on the stage I can hardly keep my countenance. It is needless to say that, whatever else may be true of us, these disgusting pictures are not even good caricatures. They have not the merit of suggesting the reality. It is difficult to conjecture how they could have originated, or what circumstances retain them in dramatical composition, for they have not the most remote resemblance, even in caricature, to the real average attorney, either English or American.”