{"id":44,"date":"2006-06-04T10:02:18","date_gmt":"2006-06-04T14:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/hydeblog\/2006\/06\/04\/a-good-man-to-have-in-your-corner\/"},"modified":"2006-06-04T10:21:24","modified_gmt":"2006-06-04T14:21:24","slug":"a-good-man-to-have-in-your-corner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hydeblog\/2006\/06\/04\/a-good-man-to-have-in-your-corner\/","title":{"rendered":"A good man to have in your corner"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you were picking someone to write an insightful and powerful argument in your defense, Samuel Johnson would probably be high on the list. So I would guess that Edinburgh printers Thomas and John Robertson were pleased that their attorney, Boswell, enlisted Johnson to help write <a href=\"http:\/\/lms01.harvard.edu\/F?func=find-c&amp;CCL_TERM=sys=09272748\">the brief in their case<\/a>. The Robertsons published a newspaper called the <em>Caledonian Mercury<\/em>, in which they poked some very modest fun at the pretensions of the Society of Solicitors. (Boswell writes of the incident &#8220;It has been said, that the Scottish nation is not distinguished for humour; and, indeed, what happened on this occasion may in some degree justify the remark.&#8221;) The Solicitors were sufficiently unamused to sue for libel, and Boswell was hired for the defense.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson, amused at the pettiness of the suit, composed the concluding paragraphs of the brief, deftly deflating the self-importance of the Society of Solicitors. &#8220;We consider your Lordships as the protectors of our rights, and the guardians of our virtues; but believe it not included in your high office, that you should flatter our vices, or solace our vanity; and, as vanity only dictates this prosecution, it is humbly hoped your Lordships will dismiss it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This copy is Boswell&#8217;s own, marked by him to indicate the portion written by Johnson.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"477\" height=\"459\" alt=\"Legal brief\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/hydeblog\/files\/2006\/06\/Legal-brief.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you were picking someone to write an insightful and powerful argument in your defense, Samuel Johnson would probably be high on the list. So I would guess that Edinburgh printers Thomas and John Robertson were pleased that their attorney, Boswell, enlisted Johnson to help write the brief in their case. The Robertsons published a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":245,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[769],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-john-overholt"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hydeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hydeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hydeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hydeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/245"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hydeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hydeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hydeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hydeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hydeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}