CHAP. XLVII

Prince. I THINK indeed that it requires no great labour or study, to determine these two points. For though in England felons of all sorts are every where punished with death; yet they still go on in defiance of all laws to the contrary: and, how much less would they abstain, if only a gentler punishment were threatened and inflicted? As for those who have obtained their freedom, it would be hard if they should always live under the lash, as it were; and, in fear of being again reduced to a state of slavery; especially upon the pretence or colour of ingratitude, since pretences of this kind could never be wanting; the several instances and species of ingratitude being innumerable. "Human nature, in case of liberty, demands greater favours than is usual in other cases." But, my good Chancellor, not to enter into the disquisition of any more cases of this sort, I beg you to inform me why the Laws of England, which are so useful, so beneficial and desirable, are not taught in our Universities, as well as the Civil and Canon Laws, and why the degrees of Bachelor and Doctor are not conferred upon the Common Lawyers, as is usually bestowed on those who are educated in other parts of learning'.

a Queen Elizabeth addressed the University of Cambridge in Latin, after being informed, that nothing was allowed to be said openly to that learned body in English. Her speech is given in Peck's desiderata curiosa; the commencement of it is in the following terms: "Etsi fœminilis pudor, clarissima Academia

subditique

subditique fidelissimi, in tantâ doctorum turbâ inelaboratum hunc sermonem et orationem me prohibet apud vos narrare, &c." (See respecting the Injunctions for speaking Latin in private Colleges, by the Charters of Foundation, Fuller's Worthies, p. 222; and the Life of Waynfleete.) An arrangement of the Common Law was made by Dr. Cowell, after the model of the Institutes of Justinian, and written in the Latin language, with the professed view, that in the Universities where the Civil Law was studied, the transition might be rendered more easy to an acquaintance with the Municipal Law. Blackstone, in his Commentaries, speaks of the reason given in the text for the neglect of the Law of England in our Universities, as being unsatisfactory; and he attributes the circumstance to the jealousy. entertained of the Municipal Law, by the Popish Clergy.

It can scarcely be doubted, that if the system of education, adopted at the Universities, were to be modified with the peculiar view of forming the mind and character of the future lawyer, it ought to undergo material alterations. It would embrace a more extensive range of acquirements, and would comprise the historical occurrences of modern, not less than of ancient, times. Whereas at present by every deviation from the pursuit of classical, or mathematical knowledge, the student makes a sacrifice of his prospects in the University, and of academical fame. The object of a lawyer's acquaintance with the abstract sciences, and the writers of antiquity, is to learn to think with propriety, and to act with magnanimity, in the circumstances of life, in which his profession may place him; and to acquire the art of expressing his sentiments with precision, simplicity, and good taste. It is not to excel in the legerdemain of the analyst, or to acquire a pre-eminent knowledge of tongues. In this view it is thought, that much of the attention which the ambitious student in the University devotes to his Greek, his Latin, or his Mathematics, might be better directed; at the same time, without his abandoning the inestimable advantages which a lawyer may reap from those important studies. However, constituted as the system of academical education at present is, the future lawyer is employed at the University during the period of life usually spent there in a. manner infinitely more advantageous than in the receptacles of an attorney's or a special pleader's office, where the arts of litigation, and not the precepts of Justice are inculcated: In the Universities the student will find leisure and encouragement to prepare himself for the exercise of his profession, by climbing up to the "vantage ground," so my Lord Bacon calls it, of science; instead of grovelling all his life below, and finishing his mean, though gainful career, by ultimately attaining to the character' of the pettyfogger, described by Cicero: "Leguleius quidam cautus, et acutus præco actionum, cantor formularum, auceps syllabarum."

CHAP. XLVIII.

Chancellor. In the Universities of England the sciences are taught only in the Latin tongue, whereas the Laws of England are writ in, and made up of, three several languages, English, French and Latin. English, as the Common Law has mostly prevailed, and been used among them; a great part of it being derived down from the old inhabitants, the Angles. French, because the Normans upon the coming in of William, called the Conqueror, and getting possession of the kingdom, would not permit our lawyers to plead but in that language which they themselves knew, and which the advocates of France use in their pleadings, and in their Parliaments. In like manner the Norman-French, after their coming into England, would not pass any accounts of their revenues, save in their own native language, lest they should be imposed upon: even in their exercises and diversions, as hunting, dice, tennis, &c. they observed the same method: whence it has happened, that the English, from such their frequent intercourse with the French have given in to the same custom; and to this very day, in their diversions, and their accounts, they speak French: in the Courts of Justice they formerly used to plead in French, till in pursuance of a Law to that purpose that custom was somewhat restrained, but not hitherto quite disused; first, by reason of certain law terms, which the pleaders express more aptly in French than in English: in the next place,

M

because Declarations upon Original Writs cannot be formed so properly and agreeably to the nature of those Writs as in French, in which language the forms of such Declarations are learned and practised. Again, all pleadings, arguments and resolutions, which pass in the King's Courts are digested into books for the information of the young students, and are reported in the French tongue. Many Acts of Parliament are penned in French, from whence it comes to pass that the modern French is not the same with that used by our lawyers in the Courts of Laro, but is much altered and depraved by common use which does not happen to the Law-French used in England, because it is oftener writ than spoken: as to the Latin, all Original and Judicial Writs, all Records in the King's Courts of Justice, and some Acts of Parliament are penned in that language. Wherefore the Laws of England being learned and practised in those three several languages, they cannot be so well studied in our Universities, where the Latin is mostly in use: but, they are studied in a publick manner and place, much more commodious and proper for the purpose, than in any University. It is situated near the King's Palace at Westminster, where the Courts of Law are held, and in which the Law-Proceedings are pleaded and argued, and the resolutions of the Court, upon cases which arise, are given by the Judges, men of gravity and years, read and practised in the laws, and honoured with a degree peculiar to them. Here, in Term-Time, the students of the law attend in great numbers, as it were to public schools, and are there instructed in all sorts of Law-Learning, and in the practice of the Courts the situation of the place, where they reside and study, is between Westminster and the city of London, which, as to all necessaries and

well

a In the ancient ballad called the London Lyckpenny, written in the reign of Henry VI. are related the mortifications and dis

tresses

conveniences of life is the best supplied of any city or town in the kingdom: the place of study is not in the heart of the city itself, where the great confluence and multitude of the inhabitants might disturb them in their studies; but in a private place, separate and distinct by itself, in the suburbs, near to the Courts of Justice aforesaid, that the students, at their leisure, may daily and duly attend, with the greatest ease and convenience".

tresses of a person who came to London to obtain the redress of an injury, without any money in his pocket: he is made to relate his adventures, and in the course of them, he gives a minute and curious description of the appearance of London, and Westminster, at the time when Fortescue lived.

The Statute of the 36 Edward III, referred to in the text, has a singular recital, "that the king, nobles, and others, who have travelled in divers regions and countries, have observed, that they are better governed by the laws, being in their own tongue." The recital of the 18 Edward III. St. 11, which is written in French, contains a most extraordinary complaint of the attempts of the King of France, to destroy "the English tongue." (Barrington on 18 Edw. III. where see some conjectural emendations of the passage; and Barrington on 36 Edw. III.) Fortescue repeats part of a passage from Holcot, in which that writer states the Conqueror, from a motive of policy, to have effected a material change in the national language, by means of an ordinance, made for adopting the French, in public proceedings, and for its being taught in all the schools. The authority of Holcot, which has been generally followed by subsequent writers, has been impugned by Mr. Luders, in a learned tract, "On the Use of the French Language, in our ancient Laws, and Acts of State." And he has collected a multitude of valuable particulars, to shew the common use of the Latin, by the Normans, as well in their own country, as after their arrival in England, and likewise on the occasion of their conquests in Sicily. It is certain, that as early as in the time of Edward the Confessor, the French language was much prized in this Country. And it would seem, that about the time of Henry II, the use of it was more general, than at any preceding period, among the higher classes of society, whereas the lower orders, appear never to have abandoned their vernacular tongue. During the interval, of about thirty years, which preceded the accession of Henry III, the formation of the English language seems to have taken its rise. A version of Wace's poem of Brut, written in the reign of Henry II, by one Layamon, a Priest, is supposed

to