abilities and greater leisure, cannot be so easily excufed. These advantages are given them, not for the benefit of themselves only, but also of the publick; and yet they cannot in any scene of life, difcharge properly their duty either to the publick or themselves, without fome degree of knowledge in the laws. To evince this the more clearly, it may not be amifs to defcend to a few particulars. Let us therefore begin with our gentlemen of independent estates and fortune, the most useful as well as confiderable body of men in the nation; whom even to fuppofe ignorant in this branch of learning is treated by Mr. Locked as a ftrange abfurdity. It is their landed property, with its long and voluminous train of descents and conveyances, fettlements, entails, and incumbrances, that forms the most intricate and most extenfive object of legal knowledge. The thorough comprehenfion of thefe, in all their minute diftinctions, is perhaps too laborious a task for any but a lawyer by profeffion; yet ftill the understanding of a few leading principles, relating to eftates and conveyancing, may form fome check and guard upon a gentleman's inferiour agents, and preferve him at least from very grofs and notorious impofition. Again, the policy of all laws has made fome forms neceflary in the wording of laft wills and teftaments, and more with regard to their atteftation. An ignorance in these must always be of dangerous confequence, to fuch as by choice or neceffity compile their own teftaments without any technical affiftance. Those who have attended the courts of justice are the beft witnesses of the confufion and distresses that are hereby occafioned in families; and of the difficulties that arife in difcerning. the true meaning of the teftator, or fometimes in difcovering any meaning at all; fo that in the end his estate may often be vefted quite contrary to thefe his enigmatical intentions, because perhaps he has omitted one two formal words, which are neceffary to afcertain the sense with indifputable legal precifion, or has executed his will in the prefence of fewer witneffes than the law requires. d Education. §. 187. or But But to proceed from private concerns to those of a more publick confideration. All gentlemen of fortune are, in confequence of their property, liable to be called upon to establish the rights, to estimate the injuries, to weigh the accufations, and fometimes to dispose of the lives of their fellow fubjects, by ferving upon juries. In this fituation they have frequently a right to decide, and that upon their oaths, queftions of nice importance, in the folution of which fome legal skill is requifite; efpecially where the law and the fact, as it often happens, are intimately blended together. And the general incapacity, even of our beft juries, to do this with any tolerable propriety, has greatly debased their authority; and has unavoidably thrown power into the hands of the judges, to direct, control, and even reverse their verdicts, than perhaps the constitution intended. more But it is not as a juror only that the English gentleman is called upon to determine queftions of right, and diftribute juftice to his fellow fubjects. It is principally with this order of men that the commiffion of the peace is filled. And here a very ample field is opened for a gentleman to exert his talents, by maintaining good order in his neighbourhood; by punifhing the diffolute and idle; by protecting the peaceable and industrious; and, above all, by healing petty differences, and preventing vexatious profecutions. But, in order to attain these defirable ends, it is neceffary that the magiftrate fhould understand his bufinefs; and have not only the will, but the power alfo (under which must be included the knowledge) of adminiftering legal and effectual juftice. Elfe, when he has mistaken his authority, through paffion, through ignorance, or abfurdity, he will be the object of contempt from his infe riours, and of cenfure from thofe to whom he is accountable for his conduct. Yet farther; moft gentlemen of confiderable property, at fome period or other in their lives, are ambitious of reprefenting their country in Parliament; and thofe who are ambitious of receiving fo high a trust, would alfo do well to remember its nature and importance. They are not thus honourably diftinguished from the reft reft of their fellow fubjects, merely that they may privilege their perfons, their eftates, or their domesticks; that they may lift under party banners; may grant or withhold fupplies; may vote with, or vote againit a popular or unpopular administration; but upon confiderations far more interefting and important. They are the guardians of the English conftitution; the makers, repealers, and interpreters of the English laws; delegated to watch, to check, and to avert every dangerous innovation; to propofe, to adopt, and to cherifh any folid and well weighed improvement; bound by every tie of nature, of honour, and of religion, to tranfmit that conftitution and thofe laws to their pofterity, amended if poffible, at least without any derogation. And how unbecoming muft 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 ftranger to the text upon which he comments! Indeed it is perfectly amazing, that there fhould be no other state of life, no other occupation, art, or science, in which fome method of inftruction is not looked upon as requifite, except only the fcience of legifla tion, the nobleft and moft difficult of any. Apprenticeships are held neceffary to almost every art, commercial or mechanical; a long courfe of reading and study muft form the divine, the phyfician, and the practical profeffor of the laws; but every man of fuperiour fortune thinks himself born a legislator. Yet Tully was of a different opinion: "It is neceffary, fays he, for a "fenator to be thoroughly acquainted with the confti"tution; and this, he declares, is a knowledge of the "most extenfive nature; a matter of fcience, of diligence, of reflection; without which no fenator can 65 poffibly be fit for his office." The mischiefs that have arisen to the publick from inconfiderate alterations in our laws, are too obvious to be called in question; and how far they have been owing to e De Leg. 3. 18. Eft fenatori neceffarium noffe rempublicam; idque late patet genus boc omne fcientiae, diligentiae, memoriae eft; fine quo paratus effe fenator nullo pacto poteft. to the defective education of our fenators, is a point well worthy the publick attention. The common law of England has fared like other venerable edifices of antiquity, which rafh and unexperienced workmen have ventured to new drefs and refine, with all the rage of . modern improvement. Hence frequently its fymmetry has been deftroyed, its proportions diftorted, and its majestick fimplicity exchanged for fpecious embellifhments and fantastick novelties. For, to fay the truth, almost all the perplexed queftions, almoft all the niceties, intricacies, and delays (which have fometimes difgraced the Englifh, as well as other courts of juftice) 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 Edward Coke expreffes it f} "with provifoes and additions, and many times on "a fudden penned or corrected by men of none or ve ry 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 confu fion introduced by ill judging and unlearned legiflators. "But if (he fubjoins) acts of Parliament were after the "old fashion penned, by fuch only as perfectly knew "what the common law was before the making of any "act of Parliament concerning that matter, as alfo how "far forth former ftatutes had provided remedy for form"er mischiefs and defects difcovered by experience; "then fhould very few questions in law arife, and the learned fhould not fo often and fo much perplex their heads to make atonement and peace, by conftruction "of law, between infenfible and difagreeing words, fen"tences, and provifoes, as they now do." And if this inconvenience was fo heavily felt in the reign of queen Elizabeth, you may judge how the evil is increased in later times, when the ftatute book is fwelled to ten times a larger bulk: Unless it fhould be found, that the penners of our modern ftatutes have proportionably better informed themselves in the knowledge of the common law. What f 2 Rep. Pref. What is faid of our gentlemen in general, and the propriety of their application to the study of the laws of their country, will hold equally ftrong or ftill ftronger with regard to the nobility of this realm, except only in the article of ferving upon juries. But, instead of this, they have feveral peculiar provinces of far greater confequence and concern; being not only by birth hereditary counsellors of the crown, and judges upon their honour of the lives of their brother peers, but also arbiters of the property of all their fellow fubjects, and that in the last refort. In this their judicial capacity they are bound to decide the nicest and most critical points of the law: To examine and correct fuch errours as have escaped the most experienced fages of the profeffion, the Lord Keeper and the Judges of the courts at Westminster. Their fentence is final, decifive, irrevocable: No appeal, no correction, not even a review can be had: And to their determination, whatever it be, the inferiour courts of juftice must conform; otherwise the rule of property would no longer be uniform and fteady. Should a judge in the moft fubordinate jurifdiction be deficient in the knowledge of the law, it would reflect infinite contempt upon himself, and disgrace upon thofe who employ him. And yet the confequence 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 ferious and affecting is the cafe of a fuperiour judge, if without any skill in the laws he will boldly venture to decide a question, upon which the welfare and fubfiftence 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 poffibility of redress! Yet, vaft as this truft is, it can no where be fo properly repofed, as in the noble hands where our excellent conftitution has placed it: And therefore placed it, becaufe, from the independence of their fortune and the dignity of their ftation, they are prefumed to employ that leisure which is the confequence of both, in attain. ing a more extenfive knowledge of the laws than per fons |