I cannot admit the truth of the argument in which Mr.Forsyth defends the practice of the English bar in this respect, and in doing so presses hard upon Cicero.

"At Rome," he says, "it was different.

The advocate there was conceived to have a much wider discretion than we allow." Neither in Rome nor in England has the advocate been held to be disgraced by undertaking the defence of bad men who have been notoriously guilty.

What an English barrister may do, there was no reason that a Roman advocate should not do, in regard to simple criminality.

Cicero himself has explained in the passage I have quoted how the Roman practice did differ from ours in regard to treason.