We believe most ambitious minds, in the first pantings after distinction, have proposed to themselves some illustrious character as a model, whose sentiments they have imbibed, whose maxims they have practised, whose very errors they have copied, with a thousand times more ardour than can ever be[3] communicated by precept.
Something of this we feel in reading of every eminent man: we rise from our book with more love for knowledge, more respect for genius, more resolution to be diligent, more confidence in the success of exertion: it is scarcely possible to contemplate such characters as Lord Hale and Sir William Jones, without a more zealous esteem of probity, and a consoling conviction of the prodigies which may be wrought by method and application; emotions similar to those we feel in remembering the heroes of classical literature on classical ground; and which prompted the great Roman orator and lawyer, when he declares the legal enthusiasm with which he called to mind the sages and orators of antiquity, amidst the streets and groves of their native city.
[4] If this sort of enthusiasm were its only effect, legal biography might claim a place in the studies of law students, into whose pursuits despondence and fatigue are so apt to obtrude themselves.
In this department of his studies, the student must generally be content with biographical sketches or notices, which, if well written, will be found to contain, in most cases, all that is essential.
We may farther remark, that many of the volumes of reports, and some of the law treatises, are accompanied with similar sketches, which the student should not fail to read.