When Boileau, educated for the bar, pleaded his first cause, he broke down amidst shouts of laughter.

He next tried the pulpit, and failed there too.

And then he tried poetry, and succeeded.
Fontenelle and Voltaire both failed at the bar.

So Cowper, through his diffidence and shyness, broke down when pleading his first cause, though he lived to revive the poetic art in England.

Montesquieu and Bentham both failed as lawyers, and forsook the bar for more congenial pursuits--the latter leaving behind him a treasury of legislative procedure for all time.