LETTER LXVIII. Rica to Usbek, at * * *.

THE other day I went to dine with a man of the long robe, by whom I had been often invited. After we had talked upon a variety of subjects, I said to him, “Sir, your profession appears to me to be very troublesome.” “Not so much as you imagine, answered he, in the manner we conduct it, it is no more than an amusement.” “But how? Have not you your head always filled with the affairs of another? Are not you perpetually busied with affairs that do not concern you?” “You are right, those affairs do not give us any concern, because we do not interest ourselves the least in them; and this is the reason that the profession is not so fatiguing as you supposed it to be.” “When I saw he treated the matter with so much ease, I added, “Sir, I have not yet seen your study.” “I believe not, for I have none at all. When I took this office. I wanted money to pay for it; I sold my library; and the bookseller, who purchased it, out of the great number of volumes it contained, left me only my account book. But this gives me no concern: we judges do not puff ourselves up with useless knowledge. What business have we with so many volumes of law? Almost all cases are hypothetical, and out of the general rule.” “But may not that be, Sir, said I, because you put them out of the general rule? For, in short, why have all the people in the world laws, if they do not make use of them? And how can they be used if they do not know them?” “If you was but acquainted with the courts of justice, answered the magistrate, you would not talk in this manner: we have living books, who are the counsellors, they study for us, and take upon themselves our instruction.” “And do not they sometimes take upon themselves to deceive you? replied I.

You would do well to guard yourselves against their arts. They have arms, with which they attack your equity, it would be well you had some to defend it; and not to suffer yourselves to be placed in the middle of a battle, slightly armed, among men dressed in armour to the very chin.”

Paris, the 13th of the moon Chahban,
1714.