a gentleman's inferior agents, and preserve him at least from very gross and notorious imposition *.

Again, the policy of all laws has made some forms necessary in the wording of last wills and testaments, and more with regard to their attestation. An ignorance in these must always be of dangerous consequence to such as by choice or necessity compile their own testaments without any technical assistance. Those who have attended the courts of justice, are the best witnesses of the confu sion and distresses that are hereby occasioned in families; and of the difficulties that arise in discerning the true meaning of the testator, or sometimes in discovering any meaning at all: so that in the end his estate may often be vested quite contrary to these his enigmatical intentions, because perhaps he has omitted one or two formal words, which are necessary to ascertain the sense with indisputable legal precision, or has executed his will in the presence of fewer witnesses than the law requires.

But to proceed from private concerns to those of a more public consideration. All gentlemen of fortune are, in consequence of their property, liable to be called upon to establish the rights, to estimate the injuries, to weigh the accusations, and sometimes to dispose of the lives of their fellow-subjects, by serving upon juries. In this situation they have frequently a right to decide, and that upon their oaths, questions of nice importance, in the solution of which some legal skill is requisite; especially where the law and the fact, as it often happens, are intimately blended together. And the general incapacity even of our best juries to do this with any tolerable propriety, has greatly debased their authority; and has unavoidably thrown more power into the hands of the judges, to direct, controul, and even reverse their verdicts, than perhaps the constitution intended.

But it is not as a juror only, that the English gentleman is called upon to determine questions of right, and distribute justice to his fellow subjects: it is principally with this order of men, that the commission of the peace is filled. And here a very ample field is open for a gentle

One of the most distinguished real property lawyers living, the late Lord Chancellor of Ireland (Sir Edward Sugden), published a very useful little work, called "Letters to a Man of Property on the Sale of Estates." 5th Edition, 1829.

man to exert his talents, by maintaining good order in his neighbourhood; by punishing the dissolute and idle; by protecting the peaceable and industrious; and, above all, by healing petty differences, and preventing vexatious prosecutions. But, in order to attain these desirable ends, it is necessary that the magistrate should understand his business; and have not only the will, but the power also (under which must be included the knowledge), of administering legal and effectual justice. Else, when he has mistaken his authority, through passion, through ignorance, or absurdity, he will be the object of contempt from his inferiors, and of censure from those to whom he is accountable for his conduct.

Yet further; most gentlemen of considerable property, at some period or other of their lives, are ambitious of representing their country in parliament; and those who are ambitious of receiving so high a trust, would also do well to remember its nature and importance. They are not thus honourably distinguished from the rest of their fellow-subjects, merely that they may privilege their persons, their estates, or their domestics; that they may list under party banners; may grant or withhold supplies; may vote with or vote against a popular or unpopular administration; but upon considerations far more interesting and important. They are the guardians of the English constitution; the makers repealers, and interpreters of the English laws; delegated to watch, to check, and to avert every dangerous innovation, to propose, to adopt, and to cherish any solid and well-weighed improvement; bound by every tie of nature, of honour, and of religion, to transmit that constitution and those laws to their posterity, amended if possible, at least without any derogation. And how unbecoming must it appear in a member of the legislature to vote for a new law, who is utterly ignorant of the old what kind of interpretation can he be enabled to give, who is a stranger to the text upon which he comments!

What is said of our gentlemen in general, and the propriety of their application to the study of the laws of their country, will hold equally strong or still stronger with regard to the NOBILITY of this realm, except only in the article of serving upon juries. But, instead of this, they have several peculiar provinces of far greater consequence

and concern; being not only by birth hereditary counsellors of the crown, and judges upon their honour of the lives of their brother-peers, but also arbiters of the property of all their fellow-subjects, and that in the last resort. In this their judicial capacity they are bound to decide the nicest and most critical points of the law; to examine and correct such errors as have escaped the most experienced sages of the profession, the lord keeper and the judges of the courts at Westminster. Their sentence is final, decisive, irrevocable; no appeal, no correction, not even a review can be had; and to their determination, whatever it be, the inferior courts of justice must conform, otherwise the rule of property would no longer be uniform and steady.

The Roman pandects will furnish us with a piece of history not unapplicable to our present purpose. Servius Sulpicius, a gentleman of the patrician order, and a celebrated orator, had occasion to take the opinion of Quintus Mutius Scævola, the then oracle of the Roman law; but, for want of some knowledge in that science, could not so much as understand even the technical terms which his friend was obliged to make use of. Upon which Mutius Scævola could not forbear to upbraid him with this memorable reproof, "that it was a shame for a patrician, a nobleman, and an orator of causes, to be ignorant of that law in which he was so peculiarly concerned." This reproach made so deep an impression on Sulpicius, that he immediately applied himself to the study of the law, wherein he arrived to such a proficiency, that he left behind him about a hundred and fourscore volumes of his own compiling upon the subject; and became, in the opinion of Cicero, a much more complete lawyer than even Mutius Scævola himself.

I would not be thought to recommend to our English nobility and gentry, to become as great lawyers as Sulpieius; though he, together with this character, sustained likewise that of an excellent orator, a firm patriot, and a wise indefatigable senator: but the inference which arises from the story is this, that ignorance of the laws of the land hath ever been esteemed dishonourable in those who are entrusted by their country to maintain, to administer, and to amend them.

Nor will some degree of legal knowledge be found in the least superfluous to persons of inferior rank, especially

those of the LEARNED PROFESSIONS. The clergy, in particular, besides the common obligations they are under in proportion to their rank and fortune, have also abundant reason, considered merely as clergymen, to be acquainted with many branches of the law, which are almost peculiar and appropriated to themselves alone. Such are the laws relating to advowsons, institutions, and inductions; to simony and simoniacal contracts; to uniformity, residence, and pluralities; to tithes and other ecclesiastical dues; to marriages, more especially of late, and to a variety of other subjects, which are consigned to the care of their order by the provisions of particular statutes. To understand these aright, to discern what is warranted or enjoined, and what is forbidden by law, demands a sort of legal apprehension; which is no otherwise to be acquired than by use, and a familiar acquaintance with legal writers.

For the gentlemen of the faculty of physic, I must frankly own that I see no special reason why they in particular should apply themselves to the study of the law, unless in common with other gentlemen, and to complete the character of general and extensive knowledge-a character which their profession, beyond others, has remarkably deserved. They will give me leave, however, to suggest, and that not ludicrously, that it might frequently be of use to families upon sudden emergencies, if the physician were acquainted with the doctrine of last wills and testaments, at least so far as relates to the formal part of their execution.

But those gentlemen who intend to profess the civil and ecclesiastical laws, in the SPIRITUAL AND MARITIME COURTS of this kingdom, are of all men (next to common lawyers) the most indispensably obliged to apply themselves seriously to the study of our municipal laws. For the civil and canon laws, considered with respect to any intrinsic obligation, have no force or authority in this kingdom; they are no more binding in England than our laws are binding at Rome. But as far as these foreign laws, on account of some peculiar propriety, have in some particular cases, and in some particular courts, been introduced and allowed by our laws, so far they oblige, and no farther; their authority being wholly founded upon that permission and adoption. In which we are not singular in our notions: for even in Holland, where the imperial law is much cultivated, and its decisions pretty generally followed, we are

informed by Van Leeuwen, that it "receives its force from custom and the consent of the people, either tacitly or expressly given for otherwise (he adds) we should no more be bound by this law, than by that of the Almains, the Franks, the Saxons, the Goths, the Vandals, and other of the ancient nations." Wherefore, in all points in which the different systems depart from each other, the law of the land takes place of the law of Rome, whether ancient or modern, imperial or pontifical *. And, in those of our English courts, wherein a reception has been allowed to the civil and canon laws, if either they exceed the bounds of that reception, by extending themselves to other matters than are permitted to them; or if such courts proceed according to the decisions of those laws, in cases wherein it is controlled by the law of the land, the common law, in either instance, both may, and frequently does, prohibit and annul their proceedings: and it will not be a sufficient excuse for them to tell the king's courts at Westminster, that their practice is warranted by the laws of Justinian or Gregory, or is conformable to the decrees of the Rota, or imperial chamber. For which reason it becomes highly necessary for every civilian and canonist, that would act with safety as a judge, or with prudence and reputation as an advocate, to know in what cases and how far the English laws have given sanction to the Roman; in what points the latter are rejected; and where they are both so intermixed and blended together as to form certain supplemental parts of the common law of England, distinguished by the titles of the king's maritime, the king's military, and the king's ecclesiastical law. The propriety of which inquiry the University of Oxford has for more than a century so thoroughly seen, that in her statutes she appoints that one of the three questions to be annually discussed at the act by the jurist-inceptors shall relate to the common law; subjoining this reason, "quia juris civilis studiosos decet haud imperitos esse juris municipalis, et differentias exteri patriique juris notas habere." And the statutes of the University of Cambridge speak expressly to the same effect.

It must be confessed that the study of the laws is not merely a matter of amusement; for, as a very judicious writer has observed upon a similar occasion, the learner

*See post, pp. 35--8.