to publish it in March, 1758, under the title of Considerations on Copyhoid And the bill soon after, receiving the sanction of the Legislature, passed into a law.

ers.

Mr. Viner having by his will left not only the copyright of his Abridgment, but other property to a considerable amount, to the University of Oxford, to found a professorship, fellowships, and scholarships of common law, Dr. Blackstone was, on the 20th of October, 1758, unanimously elected Vinerian Professor. In this situation he was (he informs us in his introduction to the Commentaries) led, both by duty and inclination, to investigate the clements of law, and the grounds of our civil polity, with greater assiduity and attention than many have thought it necessary to do; and, on the 25th of the same month, read his first introductory lecture; one of the most elegant and admired compositions which any age or country ever produced: this he published at the request of the Vice-Chancellor and Heads of Houses, and afterwards prefixed to the first volume of his Commentaries.

His lectures had now gained such universal applause, that he was requested by a noble personage, who superintended the education of our late Sovereign, then Prince of Wales, to read them to his Royal Highness: but, being at that time engaged to a numerous class of pupils in the University, he thought he could not, consistently with that engagement, comply with this request, and therefore declined it. But he transmitted copies of many of them for the perusal of his Royal Highness; who, far from being offended at an excuse grounded on so honourable a motive, was pleased to order a handsome gratuity to be presented to him.

It is more than probable that this early knowledge of the character and abilities of the Professor laid the foundation in his late Majesty's royal breast of that good opinion and esteem, which afterwards promoted him to the Bench; and, when he was no more, occasioned the extension of the Royal bounty, in the earliest hours of her heavy loss, (unthought of and unsolicited,) to his widow and his numerous family.

In the year 1759, he published two small pieces merely relative to the University: the one intituled Reflections on the Opinions of Messrs. Pratt, Morton, and Wilbraham, relating to Lord Litchfield's Disqualification, who was then a candidate for the Chancellership; the other, a Case for the Opinion of Counsel on the Right of the University to make new Statutes.

Having now established a reputation by his Lectures, which he justly ⚫ thought might entitle him to some particular notice at the Bar, in June, 1759, he bought chambers in the Temple, resigned the office of Assessor of the Vice-Chancellor's Court, which he had held for about six years, and, soon after, the Stewardship of All-Souls College: and, in Michaelmas Term, 1759, resumed his attendance at Westminster; still continuing to pass some part of the year at Oxford, and to read his lectures there, at such times as did not interfere with the London Law Terms. The year before this he declined the honour of the Coif, which he was pressed to accept of by Lord Chief Justice Willes, and Mr. Justice (afterwards Earl) Bathurst.

In November, 1759, he published a new edition of the Great Charter and Charter of the Forest; which added much to his former reputation, not only as a great lawyer, but as an accurate antiquarian and an able historian. It must also be added, that the external beauties in the printing, types, &c., reflected no small honour on him, as the principal reformer of the Clarendon Press, from whence no work had ever before issued equai, in those particulars, to this.

This publication drew him into a short controversy with the late Dr Lyttelton, then Dean of Exeter, and afterwards Bishop of Carlisle. The Dean, to assist Mr. Blackstone in his publication, had favoured him with the collation of a very curious ancient Roll, containing both the Great Charter and that of the Forest, of the 9th of Henry the 3d, which he and many of his friends judged to be an original. The Editor of the Charters, however, thought otherwise, and excused himself (in a note in his Introduction) for having made no use of its various readings, " as the plan of "his edition was confined to Charters which had passed the Great Seal, " or else to authentic entries and enrolments of record, under neither of "which classes the Roll in question could be ranked."

The Dean upon this, concerned for the credit of his Roll, presented to the Antiquarian Society a vindication of its authenticity, dated June the 8th, 1761; and Mr. Blackstone delivered in an answer to the same learned body, dated May the 28th, 1762, alleging as an excuse for the trouble he gave them, "that he should think himself wanting in that respect which " he owed to the Society and Dr. Lyttelton, if he did not either own and " correct his mistake, in the octavo edition then preparing for the press, or "submit to the Society's judgment the reasons at large, upon which his "suspicions were founded." These reasons, we may suppose, were convincing, for here the dispute ended.*

About the same time, he also published a small treatise on The Law of Descents in Fee Simple.

A dissolution of Parliament having taken place, he was, in March, 1761, returned burgess for Hindon, in Wiltshire; and, on the 6th of May following, had a patent of precedence granted him to rank as King's Counsel, having a few months before declined the office of Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, in Ireland.

Finding himself not deceived in his expectations in respect to an increase of business in his profession, he now determined to settle in life, and, on the 5th of May, 1761, he married Sarah, the eldest surviving daughter of the late James Clitherow, of Boston House, in the county of Middlesex, Esquire; with whom he passed near nineteen years, in the enjoyment of the purest domestic and conjugal felicity, (for which no man was better calculated,) and which, he used often to declare, was the happiest part of his life. By her he had nine children, the eldest and youngest of whom died infants; seven survived him, viz. Henry, James, William, Charles, Sarah, Mary, and Philippa; the eldest was not much above the age of sixteen at his death.

His marriage having vacated his fellowship at All-Souls, he was, on the 28th of July, 1761, appointed by the Earl of Westmoreland, at that time Chancellor of Oxford, Principal of New Inn Hall. This was an

* It may be here mentioned, that, as an Antiquarian, and a member of this Society, into which he was admitted February the 5th, 1761, he wrote "A Letter to the Honourable Daines "Barrington, describing an antique seal, with "some observations on its original, and the "two successive Controversies which the dis* use of it afterwards occasioned."

This Sea), having the royal arms of England

on it, was one of those which all persons having the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, were obliged by the statute of the 1 Edw. VI. ch. 2, to make use of. This letter is printed in the 3rd voluine of the Archæologia; but his discussion of the merits of the Lyttelton Rol, though containing much good antiquarian cri ticism, has not yet been made pul lic.

agreeable residence during the time his lectures required him to be in Oxford, and was attended with this additional pleasing circumstance, that it gave him rank as the head of a house in the University, and enabled him, by that means, to continue to promote whatever occurred to him, that might be useful and beneficial to that learned body.

An atteinpt being made about this time to restrain the power given hum, as Professor, by the Vinerian statutes, to nominate a deputy to read the solemn lectures, he published a state of the case, for the perusal of the Members of Convocation, upon which it was dropped.

In the following year, 1762, he collected and republished several of his pieces under the title of Law Tracts, in two volumes, octavo.

In 1763, on the establishment of the Queen's family, he was appointed Solicitor-General to her Majesty; and was chosen about the same time a Bencher in the Middle Temple.

Many imperfect and incorrect copies of his lectures having by this time got abroad, and a pirated edition of them being either published, or preparing for publication in Ireland, he found it necessary to print a correct edition himself; and accordingly, in November, 1765, the first volume appeared, under the title of Commentaries on the Laws of England, and in the course of the four succeeding years the other three volumes; which completed a Work, that will transmit his name to posterity among the first class of English authors, and will be universally read and admired, as long as the laws, the constitution, and the language of this country remain.

In the year 1766, he resigned the Vinerian Professorship, and the Principality of New Inn Hall; finding he could not discharge the personal duties of the former, consistently with his professional attendance in London, or the delicacy of his feelings as an honest man.

Thus was he detached from Oxford, to the inexpressible loss of that University, and the great regret of all those who wished well to the establishment of the study of the law therein. When he first turned his views towards the Vinerian Professorship, he had formed a design of settling in Oxford for life: he had flattered himself, that, by annexing the office of Professor to the Principality of one of the Halls (and perhaps converting it into a college), and placing Mr. Viner's fellows and scholars under their Professor, a society might be established for students of the common law, similar to that of Trinity-Hall in Cambridge, for civilians.

Mr. Viner's will very much favoured this plan. He leaves to the University "all his personal estate, books, &c., for the constituting, establish"ing, and endowing one or more Fellowship or Fellowships, and Scho"larship or Scholarships, in any College or Hall in the said University, as "to the Convocation shall be thought most proper for Students of the "Common Law." But, notwithstanding this plain direction to establish them in some College or Hall, the clause from the Delegates which ratified this designation, had the fate to be rejected by a negative in convocation.

By this unexpected, and, as was assumed by his friends, unmerited rejection, Mr. Blackstone's prospects in Oxford had no longer the same alJurement to make him think of a lasting settlement there. His views of an established society for the study of the common law were at an end, and no room left him for exerting, in this instance, that ardour for improvement which constituted a distinguishing part of his character.

In the new Parliament, chosen in 1768, he was returned burgess tor Westbury in Wiltshire

In the course of this Parliament, the question, "whether a member expel"led was or was not eligible in the same Parliament," was frequently agi tated in the House with much warmth, and what fell from him in a debate being deemed by some persons contradictory to what he had advanced on the same subject in his Commentaries, he was attacked with much asperity in a pamphlet supposed to be written by a baronet, a member of that House*. To this charge he gave an early reply in printt.

In the same year, Dr. Priestly animadverted on some positions in the same work, relative to offences against the doctrine of the Established Church, to which he published an answer.

The Compiler of this memoir, desirous of avoiding all controversy, contents himself with the bare mentioning these two publications, without giving any opinion concerning their respective merits. As the works of the author whose life he is writing, it is his duty not to omit the mention of them: but how far the charges of his antagonists were founded in reason, and supported by argument; or whether he by his answers sufficiently exculpated himself from those charges, must be left to the determination of those who have been, or may become readers of them. The Compiler's only intent is to write a faithful narrative, not a professed panegyric.

Mr. Blackstone's reputation as a great and able lawyer was now so thoroughly established, that, had he been possessed of a constitution equal to the fatigues attending the most extensive business of the profession, he might probably have obtained its most lucrative emoluments and highest offices. 'The offer of the Solicitor-Generalship, on the resignation of Mr. Dunning in January, 1770, opened the most flattering prospects to his view. But the attendance on its complicated duties at the Bar, and in the House of Commons, induced him to refuse it.

But though he declined this path, which so certainly, with abilities like Mr. Blackstone's, leads to the highest dignities in the law, yet he readily accepted the office of Judge of the Common Pleas, when offered to him on the resignation of Mr. Justice Clive, and kissed his Majesty's hand on that appointment, February 9th, 1770; and was called to the degree of a Serjeant at Law on the 12th of the same month, being the last day of Hilary Term, 10 Geo. 3, and chose for a motto on the rings distributed on that occasion, "Secundis debiisq. rectus." Previous, however, to the passing his patent, Mr. Justice Yates expressed an earnest wish to retire from the King's Bench into the Court of Common Pleas. To this wish Sir W. Blackstone, from motives of personal esteem, consented; and, on the 16th February, kissed his Majesty's hand on being appointed a Judge of the Court of King's Bench, and also received the honour of knighthood; and was on the evening of the same day sworn into office before the Lords Commissioners Smythe and Aston, at the house of the former, in Bloomsbury Square. But, upon the death of Mr. Justice Yates, which happened on the 7th of June following, Sir William was appointed to his original seat in the Court of Common Pleas, and on Friday the 22nd kissed his Majesty's hand on the appointment. On the 25th he executed a resignation of his office of Judge of the King's Bench; his patent was sealed, and he was sworn in before the Lords Commissioners Smythe, Bathurst, and

Sir William Meredith.

A Letter to the Author of The Question Stated: by another Member of Parliament. Small 8vo. 18. 1769. This pamphlet drew from

Junius several letters addressed to the learnea Commentator. See Jumius, Vol. i. Letter 25, &c.

Aston, at the house of the former. He was succeeded in the King's Bench by Sir W. H. Ashhurst.

On his promotion to the Bench he resigned the Recordership of Wallingford.

As it has been before remarked, that this is not intended as a panegyric, but purely as a faithful, though unadorned narrative, nothing is here said of his conduct as a Judge. The lawyer will, no doubt, duly appreciate his worth in that character whenever he has occasion to consult his Repcets, the second volume of which is composed entirely of cases determined whilst he sat on the Bench.

He seemed now arrived at the point he always wished for, and might justly be said to enjoy otium cum dignitate. Freed from the attendance at the Bar, and what he had still a greater aversion to, in the Senate, "where," to use his own expression, " amid the rage of contending parties, a man of " moderation must expect to meet with no quarter from any side," although he diligently and conscientiously attended the duties of the high office he was placed in, yet the leisure afforded by the legal vacations he dedicated to the private duties of this life, which, as the father of a numerous family, he found himself called upon to exercise; or to literary retirement, and the society of his friends, at his villa called Priory Place, in Wallingford, which he purchased soon after his marriage, though he had for some years before occasionally resided at it.

His connection with this town, both from his office of Recorder, and his more or less frequent residence there from about the year 1750, led him to form and promote every plan which could contribute to its benefit or improvement. To his activity it stands indebted for two new turnpike roads through the town, the one opening a communication, by means of a new bridge over the Thames at Shillingford, between Oxford and Reading, the other to Wantage, through the vale of Berkshire*. What substantial advantage the town of Wallingford derived from hence will be best evidenced from the gradual increase of its malt trade between the years 1749 and 1779, extracted from the entries of the Excise-Office during that period, as contained in the note belowt.

To his architectural talents, his liberal disposition, his judicious zeal, and his numerous friends, Wallingford likewise owes the rebuilding that handsome fabric, St. Peter's church.

These were his employments in retirement. In London his active mind was never idle, and when not occupied in the duties of his station, he was ever engaged in some scheme of public utility. The last of this kind in which he was concerned, was the act of Parliament for providing detached houses of hard labour for convicts, as a substitute for transportation.

Whether the plan did, or did not succeed to the extent of his wishes and expectations, it is yet an indisputable proof of the goodness of his heart, his humanity, and his desire of effecting reformation, by means more bene