King's answer is declared by the Clerk of the Parliament in Norman French; which may be considered the only remaining relique of the invasion of England. If the King consent to a public bill, the Clerk usually says, "Le Roy le veut, The : King wills it so to be: if to a private bill, “ Soifait comme il est desiré, Be it done as it is desired and if the Royal assent is refused, the answer is, "Le Roy s'avisera," The King will advise upon it. When a bill of supply is passed, it is carried up and presented to the King by the Speaker of the House of Commons, and the expression of the Royal assent is, "The King thanks his loyal subjects, accepts their benevolence, and wills it so to be." But, for an act of grace, which at first proceeds with the King's consent, the Clerk of the Parliament addresses the Sovereign, still in French, and says, "The Prelates, Lords, and Commons in this present Parliament assembled, in the name of all your other subjects, most humbly thank your Majesty, and pray to God to grant you in health and wealth long to live. " A statute thus enacted, is preserved with the records of the kingdom, but is not formally promulged; though it is usually printed and published at the King's press. Anciently, however, the Parliamentary enactments were sent to the Sheriff of every county, at the end of each Sessions, with the King's writ, that they should be made publicly known. They were, therefore, commonly read at the County-court, as being the most attended, where also they were preserved, that any person might read or copy them; which custom continued till the reign of Henry VII. Such is Sir William Blackstone's interesting account of the progress of instituting the national acts; but the reader is also referred to a curious little volume, entitled, The Manner how Statutes are enacted in Parliament by passing of Bills, by W. Hakewill, Esq., Lond. 1641, 12mo. The many excellent laws which have been enacted in later times, and have so materially improved the British Judicature, are far beyond even the slightest enumeration or notice in a work of the present limits. They have had for their object almost every thing which civil and religious freedom can require, from the settlement of the Crown in a noble Protestant succession, to the allowance of all sects by the Act of Toleration; at the same time protecting the Established Church, which has been furnished with the most admirable of rituals and of ceremonies, by the piety, the learning, and the heroism of so many centuries. The laws of England also, have main.. tained their superiority over the Sovereign, by withstanding his dispensing power; and have restrained the executive magistrate who endeavoured to subvert the Constitution; they have established triennial, and afterwards the septennial, periods for Parliamentary elections; have excluded certain officers from the House of Commons; have restrained the King's pardon from obstructing the impeachments of Parliament, and' have given to all the Lords an equal right of trying their fellow-peers; they have regulated trials for high treason, limited the civil list, and placed the revenue with those who are responsible to Parliament, and have made the Judges entirely independent of the Sovereign, his ministers, and his successors; which latter improvements were effected by desire of the late excellent monarch. The ancient royal prerogative, and the uncontrolled management of one of the strongest governments in the world, are now exchanged for powers of almost equal strength, though of a far safer description. In the juridical improvements of the last century, may be mentioned the Statute for the Amendment of the Laws; the protection of Ambassadors from legal process; the preservation of corporate rights by improvements in the writs, once issued to command admission into their franchises, or to inquire into the nature and authority of their civil rights; the regulations of trials by Jury, and admitting witnesses for prisoners, on oath the annihilation of torture; the extension of benefit of clergy, counterbalanced by the increase of capital punishments; the more effectual methods of recovering rents; the introduction and establishment of paper-credit by indorsations; the erection of Courts of Conscience for recovering small debts, and amendments of County Courts; the great system of Marine Jurisprudence, and explaining the principles of insurance connected with it. Nor have the legal improvements of a later time been less important, or less numerous; and such may be considered the restraint imposed on arrest, and the right to a discharge on making a deposit with the arresting officer; the occasional increased power of inferior Courts; the prevention of delay in the trial of misdemeanours, and the increased severity of their penalties; the great diminution of capital offences in general, and the augmentation of the inferior punishment allotted to them; the making capital certain attempts at murder, and the simplifying of trial in certain cases of treason; the abolition of many punishments, as those of the pillory, burning and whipping towards females, and the ancient savage custom of embowelling for treason; the taking away one of the very last features of the feudal law, the trial by battle for civil suits, and the suppression of appeals for treason, murder and felony; the destroying of corruption of blood, excepting in cases of treason or murder; the amendment of the marine and colonial jurisprudence; and the revision and consolidation of the laws concerning the Trial by Jury. Such are doubtless improvements in the modern legal code of England; whilst in its constitutional arrangement may be noticed an extension of those disqualifications for persons becoming members of the House of Commons, in the cases of public contractors and officers; as well as the preventing revenue officers from voting at elections, and the removing and suspending of bankrupt members. In the general and internal polity of the na tion, may be observed the perfecting of a regular system and jurisdiction for both the punishment and relief of insolvent debtors; the amendment and consolidation of the bankrupt law; the relief of Catholics and Dissenters; the improvements in the navigation laws; the recovery and preservation of the ancient records of the realm; the more careful keeping of parish registers, and the attempts to ascertain the population by a census; the endeavours to improve the poor laws; the protection and encouragement afforded to Friendly Societies, and the institution of Savings' Banks; and, in fine, the entire abolition of the slave trade. Such then is a faint and imperfect sketch, a rapid and superficial historical view, of some features of the Laws and Government of Great Britain, from the earliest period until nearly the present day; in which, though the omissions are very numerous, and the narrative is of very inferior merit, something may still be traced of the gradual rise and improvement of the English Constitution, its Courts, and its Statutes; on which account this early history is more particularly dwelt upon, as containing the spirit or the original of most features of the British Judicature. Those who are best acquainted with the subject, can also best appreciate its value and its extent, and especially the difficulty of compressing even a view like the foregoing, into the limits of a work like the present. They are also well acquainted with the most excellent and copious works which have been written on the subject; but those who have never yet studied the legal history of their country, and feel any desire to know more particularly what is here so cursorily related, are referred to the following authorities, from which the preceding pages have been compiled :—The third chapter in all the books of Dr Henry's History of Great Britain; Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries of the Laws of England, Lond. 1825, 8vo. 4 vols. by J. T. Coleridge, Esq., from which the historical view of English Law, contained in the fourth volume, has been taken as the ground-work of these pages, with an abstract of the learned Editor's excellent conclusion. The History of the Com |