prepare themselves for this Study, have made some Progress in others, have, by addicting themselves to Letters, encreased their natural Modesty, and consequently heighten’d the Obstruction to this sort of Preferment; so that every one of these may emphatically be said to be such a one as laboureth and taketh pains, and is still the more behind.  It may be a Matter worth discussing then, Why that which made a Youth so amiable to the Ancients, should make him appear so ridiculous to the Moderns? and, Why in our days there should be Neglect, and even Oppression of young Beginners, instead of that Protection which was the Pride of theirs?  In the Profession spoken of, ’tis obvious to every one whose Attendance is required at Westminster-Hall, with what Difficulty a Youth of any Modesty has been permitted to make an Observation, that could in no wise detract from the Merit of his Elders, and is absolutely necessary for the advancing his own.  I have often seen one of these not only molested in his Utterance of something very pertinent, but even plunder’d of his Question, and by a strong Serjeant shoulder’d out of his Rank, which he has recover’d with much Difficulty and Confusion.  Now as great part of the Business of this Profession might be dispatched by one that perhaps

            ’—­Abest virtute diserti
    Messalae, nec scit quantum Causellius Aulus—­’

Hor.

so I can’t conceive the Injustice done to the Publick, if the Men of Reputation in this Calling would introduce such of the young ones into Business, whose Application to this Study will let them into the Secrets of it, as much as their Modesty will hinder them from the Practice:  I say, it would be laying an everlasting Obligation upon a young Man, to be introduc’d at first only as a Mute, till by this Countenance, and a Resolution to support the good Opinion conceiv’d of him in his Betters, his Complexion shall be so well settled, that the Litigious of this Island may be secure of his obstreperous Aid.  If I might be indulged to speak in the Style of a Lawyer, I would say, That any one about thirty years of Age, might make a common Motion to the Court with as much Elegance and Propriety as the most aged Advocates in the Hall.

I can’t advance the Merit of Modesty by any Argument of my own so powerfully, as by enquiring into the Sentiments the greatest among the Ancients of different Ages entertain’d upon this Virtue.  If we go back to the Days of Solomon, we shall find Favour a necessary Consequence to a shame-fac’d Man. Pliny, the greatest Lawyer and most Elegant Writer of the Age he lived in, in several of his Epistles is very sollicitous in recommending to the Publick some young Men of his own Profession, and very often undertakes to become an Advocate, upon condition that some one of these his Favourites might be joined with him, in order to produce the Merit of such, whose Modesty otherwise would have suppressed