the steps; and as soon as she had passed the threshold of the mansion her feet seemed scarcely to touch the ground; she reached the cottage in a few moments, and sank breathless into the arms of her lover. She was long before she could so far recover, as even to hear what he said; he urged the necessity of their immediate departure, and stated that he was in readiness; she made an effort to follow him-when suddenly the door burst open, and the Baron appeared with pistols in hand. Robert grasped his sword; but a shot fell, and Louisa sank to the ground. When she recovered it was night; but the glimmering of a dim lamp showed her where she was; the fishing utensils, on the wall, reminded her of what had preceded her fit; she looked on the ground, and Robert lay at her feet, with a fractured skull; her garments covered with his blood.

A cry of horror escaped her; but only one; she ran mechanically towards the door; but it was locked.

THE GIRL'S DREAM.

Last night, I dream't one came to me,
And said I fain would marry thee
Because I love thee truly.
Not because thou'rt passing fair,
Nor for thine eyes, or shining hair,
Although I prize them duly.

Nor yet because thy mind's a store
Of pleasant and of learned lore,

Thy converse pure and high.
Nor is it that thy voice is sweet,
Or, in the dance thy fairy feet,

All others do outvie.

But when my eye thy eyes doth seek
A soft blush mantleth to thy cheek,
And then thou lookest down.
But never have I chanc'd to trace
Upon thy gentle, speaking face,

The shadow of a frown.

And once I heard thou stood'st alone,
And boldly spoke, defending me
Censur'd by all save thee,
Then first I hoped thy hand to gain
First vow'd I ev'ry pow'r would strain
Worthier thy love to be.

The fisherman had not liked her empty letter; and, knowing the haunts of the drunken footman in Ragusa, he had offered to sell his secret for a reasonable compensation; and all was betrayed to the Baron.The letter was sealed again, and forwarded to Robert's address ;whilst the Baron concealed himself in the neighborhood until his arrival; the meeting of the lovers was announced to him by the double-dealing wretch, upon whom they had relied; and the young man LAW AND LAWYERS IN CANADA WEST. became the victim of his enemy. The latter had already cocked the second pistol, to destroy also the unfortunate female; when it struck him, that that punishment would be too lenient, and that a slow death answered his revengeful purpose much better. He withdrew with a grin of satisfied malice; and his expectation was not disappointed. After three hours of agony, the sufferer, expired on the body of her murdered lover whom she embraced even in death.

BY P. T. S. ATTY, ESQ.

"LAWYERS have to tell so many lies," is often the severe, occasionally the apologetic sentence pronounced upon that ancient, learned, and honor

able fraternity, by those unfortunate rustics who contribute with their purses, as clients; and their presence as jurors, to the maintenance of the glorious uncertainty. Yet they will persist in being clients, and sometimes they can't help being jurors; and the one perseveres in going to law, and while he stoutly denies any confidence in its abstract principle, worships the lucky and smart recipient of his retaining fee; while the other, who is sworn well and truly to try the issues, often finds it too difficult to resist the ingenious sophistry which the one pays for, but which both patronise and admire.

All professional men have their triumphs and solaces, and so it has been ever since, and for a long time before, the days of Horace, who wrote the first ode of the first book which, with many other productions of that irregular and dread poet, or some part or parcel thereof, is to this day repeatedly crammed into oratorical flourishes and the bewildered brains of aspiring students. A

lucky navigator like McClure, for instance, can glory in his geographical discovery, and a successful warrior has good right to be elated with his victory. Stratagem rather adds to, than diminishes his laurels; and if all be fair in love as well as in war, and if Cupid and Mars do not spurn the occasional invocation and assistance of Mercury, there is certainly no reason why so able a coadjutor, as well as being the classic and special friend of the gentlemen of the long robe, should not assume a little glory occasionally on his own account.

such things as chief barons, chief justices, chancellors, and woolsacks, was of course contemplated in their theory of society; but as for any interest personally in their judicial decisions, such a feeling had never been known to occur. I may, however say that I remember it was considered in some mysterious way that a suit in chancery still depending, without any immediate prospect of decision, was looked upon as a fine old British constitutional thing to be connected with, and any of our friends who were reputed to be engaged in that species of deliberate and prolonged stimulant were considered rather more interesting on that account. Still, a ward in chancery was a myth to me; and as we had none among our acquaintance, and were not interested in any good old family feud or lawsuit, or had any family

Fortunately for the much abused individuals, there is something attractive in the law. The man who has "never been to law in his life," wants something to improve his intelligence; while another who has figured in the various characters of conqueror and victim in the ex-solicitor, or parchment enough about us, to entice citing game of chance, has generally come out of the struggle with some additional information as to the ways of the world. Men are but children of a larger growth after all, and as boys, utterly regardless of personal comforts, plunge with delight into dirty puddles, so do they afterwards in maturer years, but with more gravity, of course, enter with a subdued pleasure into the expensive amusement of litigation, and the degree of credulity in ultimate success, frequently postpones the consideration of repeated failures in the interval.

Of course much of this view of the subject only applies to localities where the circumstances of society engender so profitable an employment of those fortunate individuals, lawyers in large practice. In other localities, lawyers may be compared to doctors who are never called in except in cases of extreme emergency, and the parallel in their professions may be further continued, when the proneness to attribute an unsuccessful result to want of skill is considered. Notwithstanding all this, however, many a hapless doctor, and many a briefless barrister would only be too happy for an opportunity to test his capabilities, unfortunately for the lawyer, he sometimes waits so long for his first case, that it requires a greater moral abstinence than he either practices or gets credit for, to prevent him from victimizing his client; and the saying of "living by one's wits," as applied to lawyers, is frequently and popularly suggestive of a continued vitality without a conscience.

I can hardly say what induced me to study the law. I had very little previous knowledge of courts, and I belong to a family who, for generations, as far as I can discover, have known nothing of lawsuits except by repute; that there were

any of the rising generation to study the nature and intricacies connected with real estate, the whole system of law, as practised by its professors, was looked upon with some degree of suspicion, and except in cases of the direst necessity, most carefully to be avoided.

I suppose, however, that the active mind of Young Canada sees no incongruity in chopping down trees on one day, and on the next entering upon a severe course of classical and mathemat ical study, with a view to the learned professions. In fact an ox-sled one day and a curriculum the next. Nor are the best lawyers in Canada hereditary expounders; the immediate ancestors of some of them having been the pioneers of the wilderness,-cleared their farms, and lived in their log shanties, and in the days of their hot youth, when George the Third was king, have attended the log-rollings, house raisings, sheep washings, and husking bees of their neighbors. And when affluence followed, with increasing years and with the educational resources of the province continually improving, in the course of time they found young Master Hopeful schooled, cultivated, black broadclothed, with a white cravat and a diploma as barrister at law, with more briefs in his bag than Lord Eldon held in the first ten years of his practice. In fact others of our learned counsel have not taken to the study until later in years, and they bring with them into the profession all sorts of agricultural, mechanical, commercial, military, and nautical experiences. My inducement, however, arose from mere chance. I had become acquainted with one or two students at law, and with one or two others who had taken their degrees in the profession. Not that the amount of business which any of them performed, argued favorably for their pros

the public, who are not let into its mysteries, and who are far too shrewd to be cajoled by any such devices.

perity or accumulation of wealth; but, at all particularly rigid, had the satisfaction of being events, I was induced to consider it an easy gen- congratulated by my friends, the benchers, on tlemanly sort of life, with nothing to do when the attainment of my gown, and afterwards seeyour profession was obtained, but exact fees from ing my name in print in the Canada Gazette, over your clients, and dispose of your professional that of the secretary of the Law Society of Upcommodities without diminishing your stock in per Canada, and under the representation of that trade, or being like a shopkeeper at pecuniary Society's seal, the design of which, as I take it, expense in periodical renewals. In the mean representing Strength and Justice supporting the time, to have the reputation of being a student pillar of the Constitution, is viewed as a very at law seemed to me to be a step in the social surreptitious embellishment by our good friends scale, and the possession of the title was, of course accompanied by the prestigé of being rather clever than otherwise, consuming midnight oil over abstruse cases, and living in a law calf atmosphere deeply mysterious to the public in general, and occasionally made expensively patent by parchment and quaint old black letter writing interspersed with vivid German text. So without much further consideration, on a bright morning in July, I set to work, entered into articles, paid my fee, or rather had it paid for me by an indulgent father, remained faithfully in the chambers for one week, and never during those long sum mer days sighed or sought for change-read in a most desultory manner, a little of everything from the local newspapers to Chitty's precedents, and at the end of that week, left the office, not a sadder, but a confused man, with a great many vague Lotions for ever dispelled, the chimerical delusions I had labored under in regard to the ease with which the details of legal mystery could be mastered most seriously staggered, and a growing conviction that it took five years to make an attorney, but that it did not follow that the same period would produce a lawyer at all events. However, I blundered on-in due course of time, I paid my respects to the benchers, in convocation at Osgoode Hall, without astonishing anybody with my humanities and mathematics, although I make no doubt my English essays were not remarkable for a logical adherence to the subject on which they were professed to have been written. Kept my four terms, which means as many expensive trips to Toronto from the perhaps remote locality where you may reside, and remaining in that city cherishing a most indolent disposition for a fortnight on each occasion, and finally, after the lapse of five years principally passed in reading light works of fiction and poetry, and finding as the period of my probation shortened, that incessant application to legal works became necessary before going up for my call to the bar, I at last deposited the necessary Yes, I left Toronto rather happy; I had abunfees, still innocently under the impression of the dance of friends, whom I had already, by letter, excellence of the investment, and after under-placed in possession of intelligence regarding my going the mental torture of an examination not professional position, and I anticipated continual

At last I was fairly out of my articles-the goal was reached. I was an equire by prescription, courtesy, and every way the Law Society could fix it. I crippled my purse by ordering a new robe, and on receiving it, privately congratulated as much of my resemblance indeed with this learned mantle, as I could see in a small affair of a treacherous looking-glass in my hotel bed-room. Upon the whole, I was for some time in a high state of happiness. I question whether any professional triumph since obtained, ever puts the victor in better terms with himself than he was immediately after the termination of his suspense by being placidly required by the Messenger to visit the convocation room, and to receive the delightful intimation of his success. I rather think I had a most heterodox way of showing happiness, for my eyelids felt so moist, that benches, chairs, tables, curtains, and pictures in the convocation room, became a confused mist, and for a long time afterwards I did nothing but shake hands wildly with every one I met, successful and rejected; and here I may remark I have seen lots of good-natured fellows about Osgoode Hall, some of them perhaps rejected at the examination at which you were successful; others, again, about going through the the dread ordeal as a student; but I never knew one yet so selfish as to refuse you hearty congrat ulation, or permit the evidence of his own troubles to obtrude upon your happiness. However, to proceed, my next step was to be sworn in and introduced to the courts. This was accomplished with all reverence and solemnity, and if the oaths which are usually taken on those occasions were firmly adhered to afterwards, barristers, as a body, would, in course of time, be remarkable for virtue and public approbation would change their ultimate destination altogether.

pleasure in meeting them in consequence. Nor did I deem it at all unimportant that a fair friend of mine, to whom I vowed I would propose at the very next opportunity, should receive my addresses, backed by the influence of a professional degree, rather than in the equivocal position of a student who had yet to acquire his profession. At the time I considered it just the sort of thing that would give me the courage I had long waited for; but as many a man has known such courage wonderfully diminished, when it was most anxiously required, and never again became at all sustaining until there was no immediate necessity

for its services.

I can't help digressing somewhat, and at this rate shall become unsufferably tedious; but the period to which I refer was productive and is still suggestive of so many pleasant emotions, that I can't help dwelling on it for a short space. I was delighted with everything; and, on leaving Toronto by steamboat, I bought up with avidity the city papers wich contained the announcement of my business card as a barrister and attorney-at-law, &c. &c., at the locality where I was burning to practise, the prompt insertion of which cards having been generally requested within ten minutes of my being called to the bar, I looked upon as a personal compliment on the part of the newspaper proprietors. I also had in my portmanteau a more ponderous announcement of my professional titles, and to the same effect as the newspaper advertisement, rather calculated to fascinate and dazzle the neighborhood, where I intended to reside and practise, if possible. It was composed of sheet iron upon a wooden frame, like the convex lid of a small trunk, and was gorgeously resplendent in gilt letters on a jet black ground. I must confess that my confidence in that sign, like many other confidences of my youth, has since been a great deal shaken, and I much question now whether it be good taste for lawyers to adopt the same style of art in their business announcements as you observe in the pithy mandates on steamboats, of "No smoking abaft the shaft."

prompt solutions supposed to have been then and there given, rather tended than otherwise to increase the mystery and awe of the examination, and induce a favorable opinion of the successful student.

My next care was to procure an office. My ideas on that subject were not very magnificent; but I must premise that in the town where I intended to locate myself, there had not as yet been many buildings of any sort erected, and still fewer where office accommodation at all respectable could be obtained. The main street of the town was tolerably well defined; but a great many of the lateral and by streets were, at that moment, enclosed and under cultivation in spite of all surveys, maps, and corner posts to the contrary. I secured a small room, however, on the ground floor of the principal street about seven feet broad by twenty-four feet deep, and which I considered with the rent I was required to pay, was as eligibly situated for business as I could obtain. My office was separated by a wooden partition from a shoemaker's shop on the right, and on the left was bounded by a general store and grocery. It was a lively and business-like neighborhood on many accounts, as much unlike chambers in the Inner Temple, or Gray's Inn, as possible; but after all, attended with a great many disadvantages. The grocer, however, seemed to have some notion that, like the English idea, a lawyers chambers should be as unobtrusive as possible, and so kept extending the daily exhibition of his fish, onions, potatoes, patent pails, and wash tubs, too much altogether in front of my premises, distracting attention from and most derogatory to my sign of jet black and gold, and which I discovered, to my intense disgust, one morning, surmounted with a fat goose as a crest, plucked, proper, and pendent with the motto, only 2s. 6d., in a manner which seemed to me the result of design and which indicated a deliberate intention of pandering to a degraded but popular association of the advocate and his victim. On the other hand the shoemaker and his assistants distinguished themselves as vocalists, In due time I received the congratulations of and solaced the labors of the pegging awl and my relatives and friends. The juniors of course, lap stone, by innumerable lyrics of hard-hearted inquired as to the ordeal of the examination fathers and guardians with rebellious daughters lately passed. To have stated that it was very and wards, who either killed themselves for love, difficult, seemed indirectly implying, that it had or became happily united to the man of their been difficult to me-so I carefully evaded partic- choice, who had won the fortune and favor of his ulars, and recommended applicants in all cases to king by his wonderful exploits either by sea or become confident by abundant preparation. I by land, or by both. This destroyed the illusion think I improvised a number of very difficult ques- of quiet chambers completely; but use is second tions, which the benchers in convocation might nature. I make no doubt a miller can enjoy have asked had they thought of them, but the contemplation without being disturbed by the