4. The power of parents consists principally in correction, and consent to marriage. Both may, after death, be delegated by will to a guardian; and the former also, living the parent, to a

tutor or master.

Page 452 5. The duties of legitimate children to parents are obedience, protection, and maintenance.

453

6. The duty of parents to bastards is only that of mainte

7. The rights of a bastard are such only as he can acquire; for he is incapable of inheriting any thing.

459

CHAPTER XVII.

OF GUARDIAN AND WARD.

1. THE fourth private relation is that of guardian and ward, which is plainly derived from the preceding; these being, during the continuance of their relation, reciprocally subject to the same rights and duties.

460

2. Guardians are of divers sorts: I. Guardians by nature, or the parents. II. Guardians for nurture, assigned by the ordinary. III. Guardians in socage, assigned by the common law. IV. Guardians by statute, assigned by the father's will. All subject to the superintendence of the Court of Chancery.

461

3. Full age in male or female, for all purposes, is the age of twenty-one years (different ages being allowed for different purposes); till which age the person is an infant.

463

4. An infant, in respect of his tender years, hath various privileges, and various disabilities in law; chiefly with regard to suits, crimes, estates, and contracts,

464

CHAPTER XVIII.

OF CORPORATIONS.

1. BODIES politic, or corporations, which are artificial persons, are established for preserving in perpetual succession certain rights; which, being conferred on natural persons only, would fail in process of time.

467

2. Corporations are, I. Aggregate, consisting of many members. II. Sole, consisting of one person only.

469

3. Corporations are also either spiritual, erected to perpetuate the rights of the church; or lay. And the lay are, I. Civil: erected for many temporal purposes. II. Eleemosynary; erected to perpetuate the charity of the founder.

470-1

4. Corporations are usually erected, and named, by virtue of the king's royal charter; but may be created by act of parlia

ment.

Page 472 5. The powers incident to all corporations are, I. To maintain perpetual succession. II. To act in their corporate capacity like an individual. III. To hold lands, subject to the statutes of mortmain. IV. To have a common seal. V. To make by-laws. Which last power, in spiritual, or eleemosynary corporations, may be executed by the king or the founder. 475 6. The duty of corporations is to answer the ends of their institution. 479

7. To enforce this duty, all corporations may be visited: spiritual corporations by the ordinary; lay corporations by the founder, or his representatives; viz. the civil by the king (who is the fundator incipiens of all) represented in his court of King's Bench; the eleemosynary by the endower (who is the fundator perficiens of such), or by his heirs or assigns.

480

8. Corporations may be dissolved, I. By act of parliament. II. By the natural death of all their members. III. By surrender of their franchises. IV. By forfeiture of their charter.

484

INTRODUCTION.

SECTION I.

ON THE STUDY OF THE LAW (α).

MR. VICE-CHANCELLOR, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE UNIVERSITY.

THE general expectation of so numerous and respectable an audience, the novelty, and (I may add) the importance of the duty required from this chair, must unavoidably be productive of great diffidence and apprehensions in him who has the honour to be placed in it. He must be sensible how much will depend upon his conduct in the infancy of a study, which is now first adopted by public academical authority; which has generally been reputed (however unjustly) of a dry and unfruitful nature; and of which the theoretical, elementary (1) parts have hitherto received a very moderate share of cultivation. He cannot but reflect that, if either his plan of instruction be crude and injudicious, or the execution of it lame and superficial (2), it will cast a damp upon the farther progress of this most useful and most rational branch of

[4] learning; and may defeat for a time the * public-spirited design of our wise and munificent benefactor. And this he must more especially dread, when he feels by experience how unequal his abilities are (unassisted by preceding examples) to complete, in the manner he could wish, so extensive and arduous a task; since he freely confesses, that his former more private attempts have fallen very short of his own ideas of perfection. And yet the candour he has already experienced, and this last transcendent mark of regard, his present nomination by the free and unanimous suffrage of a great and learned university, (an honour to be ever remembered with the deepest and most affectionate gratitude), these testimonies of your public judgment must entirely supersede his own, and forbid him to believe himself totally insufficient for the labour at least of this employment. One thing he will venture to hope for, and it certainly shall be his constant aim, by diligence and attention to atone for his other defects; esteeming, that the best return which he can possibly make for your favourable opinion of his capacity, will be his unwearied endeavours in some little degree to deserve it.

The science thus committed to his charge, to be cultivated, methodised, and explained in a course of academical lectures, is that of the laws and constitution of our own country: a species of knowledge, in which the gentlemen (3) of England'

that, in some instances, the author's
examples are few, and that illustrations
of general principles are wanting; then,
notes of decisions, tending either to con-
firm or correct the text, in such instances,
must be appropriate. A vague refer-
ence to text-books (as the same editor
has observed) can hardly suffice. It is
true, the writer alluded to says else-
where, "the text is comprehensive
enough for the student, and cannot be
so extended by citation of cases as to be
rendered useful to the practitioner." In
estimating these conflicting assertions,
that last cited seems to be least sound.
It can hardly, indeed, have been thought
generally applicable, even by the gen-
tleman who made it, or he would not
have employed himself in annotating
upon a text previously comprehensive

enough for the student, and incapable of being made useful to the practitioner. It is believed that illustrations of the general principles, and observations respecting the rules of practice laid down by Blackstone, will frequently be found convenient: and it is further thought, that, in notes to a work, which, like the Commentaries, is intended for non-professional as well as for professional readers, a naked reference to other law books will often be far less satisfactory than a condensed statement of the results to be obtained from a consultation of those authorities; and such a statement, accompanied with due acknowledgment, by no means necessarily implies an unprincipled appropriation of the labours of others.

(3) This complaint, as to the defi