be till the time of the reformation, entirely under the infiuence of the popish clergy; (fir John Mason the first protestant, being alfo the first lay, chancellor of Oxford) this will lead us to perceive the reafon, why the ftudy of the Roman laws was in those days of bigotry purfued with fuch alacrity in thefe feats of learning; and why the common law was entirely defpifed, and efteemed little better than heretical. AND, fince the reformation, many causes have conspired to prevent it's becoming a part of academical education. As, firft, long ufage and established cuftom; which, as in every thing else, so especially in the forms of fcholaftic exercise, have justly great weight and authority. Secondly, the real intrinfic merit of the civil law, confidered upon the footing. of reafon and not of obligation, which was well known to the inftructors of our youth; and their total ignorance of the merit of the common law, though it's equal at least, and perhaps an improvement on the other. But the principal reafon of all, that has hindered the introduction of this branch of learning, is, that the ftudy of the common law, being banished from hence in the times of popery, has fallen into a quite different channel, and has hitherto been wholly cultivated in another place. But as the long ufage and established. cuftom, of ignorance of the laws of the land, begin now to be thought unreasonable; and as by thele means the merit of those m There cannot be a ftronger instance of the abfurd and fuperftitious veneration that was paid to thefe laws, than that the most learned writers of the times thought they could not form a perfe& character, even of the bleffed virgin, without making her a civilian and a Canonift. Which Albertus Magnus, the renowned dominican doctor of the thirteenth century, thus proves in his Summa de laudibus cbriftiferae virginis (divinum magis quam bumanum opus) qu. 23. §. 5. "Item qurd jura civilia, & leges, & de "juftum & fapientem ; fecundo, quod con"tra adverfarium oftutum & jagacem ; "tertio, quod in caufa defperata: fed beatiffima virgo, contra judicem fapien «tiffimum, Dominum ; contra adverfarium "callidiffimum, dyabolum; in caufa neftra "defperata; fententiam optatam obtinuit." To which an eminent franciscan, two centuries afterwards, Bernardinus de Busti (Mariale, part. 4. ferm. 9.) very gravely fubjoins this note. "Nec vide"tur incongruam mulieres babere peritiam "juris. Legitur enim de uxore Joannis "Andreae gloffatoris, quod tantam peri"tiam in utroque jure babuit, ut publice "in fcholis legere ausa jit.” laws will probably be more generally known; we may hope that the method of studying them will soon revert to it's antient courfe, and the foundations at leaft of that fcience will be laid in the two univerfities; without being exclufively confined to the channel which it fell into at the times I have just been describing. FOR, being then entirely abandoned by the clergy, a few ftragglers excepted, the ftudy and practice of it devolved of courfe into the hands of laymen: who entertained upon their parts a most hearty averfion to the civil law", and made no fcruple to profefs their contempt, nay even their ignorance of it, in the most public manner. But ftill, as the balance of learning was greatly on the fide of the clergy, and as the common law was no longer taught, as formerly, in any part of the kingdom, it must have been subjected to many inconveniencies, and perhaps would have been gradually loft and overrun by the civil, (a fufpicion well justified from the frequent tranfcripts of Juftinian to be met with in Bracton and Fleta) had it not been for a peculiar incident, which happened at a very critical time, and contributed greatly to it's fupport. THE incident which I mean was the fixing the court of common pleas, the grand tribunal for difputes of property, to be held in one certain fpot; that the feat of ordinary juftice might be permanent and notorious to all the nation, Formerly that, in conjunction with all the other fuperior n Fortefc. de laud. LL. c. 25. • This remarkably appeared in the cafe of the abbot of Torun. M. 22 Edw. III. 24. who had caufed a certain prior to be fummoned to anfwer at Avignon for erecting an oratory contra inbibitionem novi operis, by which words Mr. Selden, (in Flet. 8. 5.) very justly understands to be meant the title de novi operis nuntiatione both in the civil and canon laws, (Ff. 39. 1. C. 8. 11. and Decretal, not Extrav. 5. 32.) whereby the erection of any new buildings in prejudice of more antient ones was prohibited. But courts, courts, was held before the king's capital jufticiary of England, in the aula regis, or fuch of his palaces wherein his royal perfon refided; and removed with his houfhold from. one end of the kingdom to the other. This was found to occafion great inconvenience to the fuitors; to remedy which it was made an article of the great charter of liberties, both that of king John and king Henry the third P, that "com"mon pleas should no longer follow the king's court, but be "held in some certain place:" in confequence of which they have ever fince been held (a few neceffary removals in times of the plague excepted) in the palace of Westminster only. This brought together the profeffors of the municipal law, who before were dispersed about the kingdom, and formed them into an aggregate body; whereby a fociety was established of perfons, who, (as Spelman obferves) addicting themselves wholly to the ftudy of the laws of the land, and no longer confidering it as a mere fubordinate science for the amufement of leisure hours, foon raised thofe laws to that pitch of perfection, which they fuddenly attained under the aufpices of our English Juftinian, king Edward the first. IN confequence of this lucky affemblage, they naturally fell into a kind of collegiate order, and, being excluded from Oxford and Cambridge, found it necessary to establish a new university of their own. This they did by purchasing at various times certain houses (now called the inns of court and of chancery) between the city of Westminster, the place of holding the king's courts, and the city of London; for advantage of ready access to the one, and plenty of provisions in the other. Here exercifes were performed, lectures read, and degrees were at length conferred in the common law, as at other universities in the canon and civil. The degrees were thofe of barrifters (first filed apprentices from apprendre, to Pc. II. 9 Gloffar. 334. • Fortesc, c. 48. have been firft appointed by an ordinance of king Edward the firft in parliament, in the 20th year of his reign. (Spelm. • Apprentices or barristers feem to Glofs. 37. Dugdale, Orig. jurid. 55.) feldom leifure or refolution fufficient to enter upon a new fcheme of ftudy at a new place of inftruction. Wherefore few gentlemen now refort to the inns of court, but fuch for whom the knowlege of practice is abfolutely neceffary; fuch, I mean, as are intended for the profeffion: the rest of our gentry, (not to fay our nobility alfo) having usually retired to their eftates, or vifited foreign kingdoms, or entered upon public life, without any instruction in the laws of the land, and indeed with hardly any opportunity of gaining inftruction, unless it can be afforded them in these feats of learning. AND that these are the proper places for affording affiftances of this kind to gentlemen of all stations and degrees, cannot (I think) with any colour of reafon be denied. For not one of the objections, which are made to the inns of court and chancery, and which I have juft now enumerated, will hold with regard to the universities. Gentlemen may here affociate with gentlemen of their own rank and degree. Nor are their conduct and studies left entirely to their own difcretion; but regulated by a difcipline fo wife and exact, yet fo liberal, fo fenfible and manly, that their conformity to it's rules (which does at prefent fo much honour to our youth) is not more the effect of constraint, than of their own inclinations and choice. Neither need they apprehend too long an avocation hereby from their private concerns and amusements, or (what is a more noble object) the fervice of their friends and their country. This study will go hand in hand with their other pursuits: it will obftruct none of them; it will ornament and affift them all, BUT if, upon the whole, there are any, ftill wedded to monaftic prejudice, that can entertain a doubt how far this study is properly and regularly academical, fuch perfons I am afraid either have not confidered the conftitution and defign of an university, or else think very meanly of it. It must be a deplorable narrowness of mind, that would confine these seats of instruction to the limited views of one or two learned pro feffions. To the praife of this age be it fpoken, a more open and generous way of thinking begins now univerfally to prevail. The attainment of liberal and genteel accomplishments, though not of the intellectual fort, has been thought by our wifeft and most affectionate patrons, and very lately by the whole univerfity, no fmall improvement of our antient plan of education and therefore I may fafely affirm that nothing (how unusual foever) is, under due regulations, improper to be taught in this place, which is proper for a gentleman to learn. But that a science, which distinguishes the criterions of right and wrong; which teaches to establish the one, and prevent, punish, or redrefs the other; which employs in it's theory the nobleft faculties of the foul, and exerts in it's practice the cardinal virtues of the heart: a fcience, which is univerfal in it's ufe and extent, accommodated to each individual, yet comprehending the whole community; that fcience like this fhould ever have been deemed unnecessary to be ftudied in an univerfity, is' matter of aftonifhment and concern. Surely, if it were not before an object of academical knowlege, it was high time to make it one: and to those who can doubt the propriety of it's reception among us (if any fuch there be) we may return an answer in their own way; that ethics are confeffedly a branch of academical learning, and Ariftotle himself has faid, speaking of the laws of his own country, that jurisprudence or the knowlege of thofe laws is the principal and most perfect branch of ethics". a FROM a thorough conviction of this truth, our munificent benefactor Mr Viner, having employed above half a century in amaffing materials for new-modelling and rendering more commodious the rude ftudy of the laws of the land, configned Lord chancellor Clarendon, in his dialogue of education, among his tracts, P. 325. appears to have been very follicitous, that it might be made "a part of the "ornament of our learned academies to "teach the qualities of riding, dancing, "and fencing, at thofe hours when more "ferious exercifes fhould be intermit *ted." d By accepting in full convocation the remainder of lord Clarendon's history from his noble defcendants, on condition to apply the profits arifing from it's publication to the establishment of a manage in the univerfity. 3 Τέλεια μάλιςα αγέλη, ότι της τελείας apens xenoi; 851. Ethic. ad Nicomach. 1. 5. c. 3. both |