A similar division of functions prevailed in the Roman Bar. I
shall have occasion later to comment on the advantages and disadvantages
of this division, but this summary reference is sufficient for my
present purpose in tracing the history of the Bar in England. During
this period, after the establishment of the Inns of Court, the
unpopularity of the Bar manifested itself in the enactment of statutes
forbidding the election of lawyers to Parliament. This gave rise to the
noted Parliament known as the "Dunces Parliament," because everybody who
knew anything about the law, and therefore about the framing or the
operation of statutes, was excluded from membership.
In his interesting history of the American Bar, Mr. Charles Warren, of
the Boston Bar, says:
"Lawyers, as the instruments through which the subtleties and
iniquities of the Common Law were enforced, were highly unpopular
as a class in England during the period of Cromwell and Milton."
Milton wrote:
"Most men are allured to the trade of law, grounding their purposes
not on the prudent and heavenly contemplation of justice and
equity, which was never taught them, but on the promising and
pleasing thoughts of litigious terms, fat contentions and flowing
fees.
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