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 [9] contempt from his inferiors, and of censure from those to whom he is accountable for his conduct.

YET farther; most gentlemen of considerable property, at some period or other in 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!

INDEED it is perfectly amazing that there should be no other state of life, no other occupation, art, or science, in which some method of instruction is not looked upon as requisite, except only the science of legislation, the noblest and most difficult of any. Apprenticeships are held necessary to almost every art, commercial or mechanical: a long course

of reading and study must form the divine, the physician, and the practical professor of the laws: but every man of superior fortune thinks himself born a legislator. Yet [10] Tully was of a different opinion; "it is necessary (says hee) for a senator to be thoroughly acquainted with "the constitution; and this (he declares) is a knowledge of "the most extensive nature; a matter of science, of diligence, of reflection; without which no senator can possi"bly be fit for his office."

THE mischiefs that have arisen to the public from inconsiderate alterations in our laws, are too obvious to be called in question; and how far they have been owing to the defective education of our senators, is a point well worthy the public attention. The common law of England has fared like other venerable edifices of antiquity, which rash and unexperienced workmen have ventured to new-dress and refine, with all the rage of modern improvement. Hence frequently its symmetry has been destroyed, its proportions distorted, and its majestic simplicity exchanged for specious embellishments and fantastic novelties. For, to say the truth, almost all the perplexed questions, almost all the niceties, intricacies, and delays, (which have sometimes disgraced the English, as well as other courts of justice,) owe their original not to the common law itself, but to innovations that have been made in it by acts of parliament; "overladen (as sir Ed"ward Coke expresses itf) with provisoes and additions, and 06 many times on a sudden penned or corrected by men of none, or very little judgment in law." This great and well-experienced judge declares, that in all his time he never knew two questions made upon rights merely depending upon the common law; and warmly laments the confusion introduced by ill-judging and unlearned legislators. "But "if," he subjoins, "acts of parliament were after the old "fashion penned, by such only as perfectly knew what the

e De Legg. 3. 18. Est senatori necessarium sine quo paratus esse senator nullo pacto ponosse rempublicam; idque late patet:-genus hoc omne scientiae, diligentiae, memoriae est;

test.

1 2 Rep. Pref.

"common law was before the making of any act of parlia"ment concerning that matter, as also how far forth former "statutes had provided remedy for former mischiefs, and "defects discovered by experience; then should very few "questions in law arise, and the learned should not so

❝often and so much perplex their heads to make atone- [11] "ment and peace, by construction of law, between insen"sible and disagreeing words, sentences, and provisoes, as they 66 now do." And if this inconvenience was so heavily felt in the reign of queen Elizabeth, you may judge how the evil is increased in later times, when the statute book is swelled to ten times a larger bulk; unless it should be found, that the penners of our modern statutes have proportionably better informed themselves in the knowledge of the common law.

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 brotherpeers, but also arbiters of the property of all their fellowsubjects, 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.

SHOULD a judge in the most subordinate jurisdiction be deficient in the knowledge of the law, it would reflect infinite contempt upon himself, and disgrace upon those who

employ him, And yet the consequence of his ignorance is comparatively very trifling and small: his judgment may be examined, and his errors rectified by other courts, But

how much more serious and affecting is the case of a [12] superior judge, if without any skill in the laws he will boldly venture to decide a question upon which the welfare and subsistence of whole families may depend! where the chance of his judging right or wrong, is barely equal; and where, if he chances to judge wrong, he does an injury of the most alarming nature, an injury without possibility of redress.

YET, vast as this trust is, it can no where be so properly reposed, as in the noble hands where our excellent constitution has placed it: and therefore placed it, because, from the independence of their fortune and the dignity of their station, they are presumed to employ that leisure which is the consequence of both, in attaining a more extensive knowledge of the laws than persons of inferior rank; and because the founders of our polity relied upon that delicacy of sentiment, so peculiar to noble birth; which, as on the one hand it will prevent either interest or affection from interfering in questions of right, so on the other it will bind a peer in honour, an obligation which the law esteems equal to another's oath, to be master of those points upon which it is his birth-right to decide.

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 Scaevola, 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 Scaevola could not forbear to upbraid him with this memorable reproofs, "that "it was a shame for a patrician, a nobleman, and an orator

g Ff. 1. 2. 2. sec. 43. Turpe esse patricio, et nobili, et causas oranti, jus in quo versaretur ignorare.

"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 [13] that 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 Scaevola himself.

I WOULD not be thought to recommend to our English nobility and gentry, to become as great lawyers as Sulpicius; 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.

BUT surely there is little occasion to enforce this argument any farther to persons of rank and distinction, if we of this place may be allowed to form a general judgment from those who are under our inspection: happy that while we lay down the rule, we can also produce the example. You will therefore permit your professor to indulge both a public and private satisfaction, by bearing this open testimony; that, in the infancy of these studies among us, they were favoured with the most diligent attendance, and pursued with the most unwearied application, by those of the noblest birth and most ample patrimony: some of whom are still the ornaments of this seat of learning; and others at a greater distance continue doing honour to its institutions, by comparing our polity and laws with those of other kingdoms abroad, or exerting their senatorial abilities in the councils of the nation at home.

NOR will some degree of legal knowledge be found in the least superfluous to persons of inferior rank: especially those

h Brut. 41.