courts, was held before the king's capital justiciary of England, in the aula regis, or such of his palaces wherein his royal perfon refided; and removed with his houfhold from one end of the kingdom to the other. This was found to occafion great inconvenience to the fuitors; to remedy which it was made an article of the great charter of liberties, both that of king John and king Henry the third P, that "com- 1 "mon pleas fhould no longer follow the king's court, but be "held in some certain place:" in confequence of which they have ever since been held (a few necessary removals in times of the plague excepted) in the palace of Westminster only. This brought together the profeffors of the municipal law, who before were dispersed about the kingdom, and formed them into an aggregate body; whereby a fociety was established of perfons, who, (as Spelman 9 observes) addicting themselves wholly to the study of the laws of the land, and no longer confidering it as a mere fubordinate science for the amufement of leifure hours, foon raised thofe laws to that pitch of perfection, which they suddenly attained under the aufpices of our English Justinian, king Edward the first, १ IN confequence of this lucky affemblage, they naturally fell into a kind of collegiate order, and, being excluded from Oxford and Cambridge, found it neceffary to eftablish a new university of their own. This they did by purchasing at various times certain houfes (now called the inns of court and of chancery) between the city of Westminster, the place of holding the king's courts, and the city of London; for advantage of ready access to the one, and plenty of provifions in the other. Here exercises were performed, lectures read, and degrees were at length conferred in the common law, as at other universities in the canon and civil. The degrees were thofe of barristers (first filed apprentices from apprendre, to P C. II. 9 Gloffar. 334. r Fortefc. c. 48. have been first appointed by an ordinance of king Edward the first in parliament, in the 20th year of his reign. (Spelm. • Apprentices or barrifters feem to Glofs. 37. Dugdale, Orig. jurid. 55.) learn) who answered to our bachelors: as the state and degree of a ferjeant', fervientis ad legem, did to that of doctor. THE Crown seems to have foon taken under it's protection this infant feminary of common law; and, the more effectually to fofter and cherish it, king Henry the third in the nineteenth year of his reign iffued out an order directed to the mayor and sheriffs of London, commanding that no regent of any law schools within that city fhould for the future teach law therein ". The word, law, or leges, being a general term, may create fome doubt at this distance of time whether the teaching of the civil law, or the common, or both, is hereby restrained. But in either cafe it tends to the fame end. If the civil law only is prohibited, (which is Mr. Selden's w opinion) it is then a retaliation upon the clergy, who had excluded the common law from their feats of learning. If the municipal law be alfo included in the restriction, (as fir Edward Coke understands it, and which the words feem to import) then the intention is evidently this; by preventing private teachers within the walls of the city, to collect all the common lawyers into the one public university, which was newly instituted in the suburbs. The first mention which I have met with in our lawbooks of ferjeants or countors, is in the ftatute of Westm. 1. 3 Edw. I. c. 29. and in Horn's Mirror, c. 1. §. 10. c. 2. §. 5. c. 3. §. 1. in the fame reign. But M. Paris in his life of John II, abbot of St. Alban's, which he wrote in 1255, 39 Hen. III. fpeaks of advocates at the common law, or countors, (quos banci narratores vulgariter appellamus) as of an order of men well known. And we have an example of the antiquity of the coif in the fame author's hiftory of England, A D. 1259. in the cafe of one William de Buffy; who, being called to account for his great knavery and mal-practices, claimed the benefit of his orders or clergy, which 4 till then remained an entire fecret; and to that end voluit ligamenta coifae fuae folvere, ut palam monftraret se tonfuram babere clericalem; fed non eft permiflus. -Satelles vero eum arripiens, non per coifae ligamina fed per guttur eum apprebendens, traxit ad carcerem. And hence fir H. Spelman conjectures, (Gloffar. 335.) that coifs were introduced to hide the tonfure of such renegade clerks, as were ftill tempted to remain in the fecular courts in the quality of advocates or judges, notwithstanding their prohibition by canon. u Ne aliquis fcholas regens de legibus in eadem civitate de caetero ibidem leges doceat. w in Flet. 8. 2. * 2 Inft. proëm. IN In this juridical university (forfuch it is infifted to have been by Fortescue and fir Edward Coke) there are two forts of collegiate houses; one called inns of chancery, in which the younger students of the law were ufually placed, "learning "and studying, says Fortescue, the originals and as it were "the elements of the law; who, profiting therein, as they 66 grew to ripeness so were they admitted into the greater inns "of the same study, called the inns of court." And in these inns of both kinds, he goes on to tell us, the knights and barons, with other grandees and noblemen of the realm, did ufe to place their children, though they did not defire to have them thoroughly learned in the law, or to get their living by it's practice: and that in his time there were about two thoufand students at these several inns, all of whom he informs us were filii nobilium, or gentlemen born. HENCE it is evident, that (though under the influence of the monks our universities neglected this ftudy, yet) in the time of Henry the fixth it was thought highly neceffary and was the universal practice, for the young nobility and gentry to be inftructed in the originals and elements of the laws. But by degrees this custom has fallen into disuse; so that in the reign of queen Elizabeth fir Edward Coke does not reckon above a thousand students, and the number at prefent is very confiderably lefs. Which feems principally owing to these reasons: first, because the inns of chancery, being now almost totally filled by the inferior branch of the profeffion, are neither commodious nor proper for the refort of gentlemen of any rank or figure; so that there are very rarely any young students entered at the inns of chancery; fecondly, because in the inns of court all forts of regimen and academical superintendence, either with regard to morals or studies, are found impracticable and therefore entirely neg lected: laftly, because perfons of birth and fortune, after having finished their usual courses at the universities, have y c. 49. 2 3 Rep. pref. a 3 Rep. pref. feldom feldom leifure or refolution fufficient to enter upon a new fcheme of ftudy at a new place of inftruction. Wherefore few gentlemen now refort to the inns of court, but fuch for whom the knowlege of practice is abfolutely neceffary; fuch, I mean, as are intended for the profeffion: the rest of our gentry, (not to fay our nobility alfo) having ufually retired to their eftates, or vifited foreign kingdoms, or entered upon public life, without any inftruction in the laws of the land, and indeed with hardly any opportunity of gaining inftruction, unless it can be afforded them in these feats of learning. AND that these are the proper places for affording affiftances of this kind to gentlemen of all ftations and degrees, cannot (I think) with any colour of reafon be denied. For not one of the objections, which are made to the inns of court and chancery, and which I have just now enumerated, will hold with regard to the universities. Gentlemen may here affociate with gentlemen of their own rank and degree. Nor are their conduct and studies left entirely to their own difcretion; but regulated by a difcipline fo wife and exact, yet fo liberal, fo fenfible and manly, that their conformity to it's rules (which does at present so much honour to our youth) is not more the effect of constraint, than of their own inclinations and choice. Neither need they apprehend too long an avocation hereby from their private concerns and amusements, or (what is a more noble object) the fervice of their friends and their country. This study will go hand in hand with their other purfuits: it will obftruct none of them; it will ornament and affift them all, BUT if, upon the whole, there are any, ftill wedded to monaftic prejudice, that can entertain a doubt how far this study is properly and regularly academical, fuch persons I am afraid either have not confidered the constitution and design of an university, or else think very meanly of it. It must be a deplorable narrownefs of mind, that would confine thefe feats of inftruction to the limited views of one or two learned profelons. To the praife of this age be it spoken, a more open 7 and and generous way of thinking begins now univerfally to prevail. The attainment of liberal and genteel accomplishments, though not of the intellectual fort, has been thought by our wisest and most affectionate patrons, and very lately by the whole university", no small improvement of our antient plan of education: and therefore I may fafely affirm that nothing (how unusual foever) is, under due regulations, improper to be taught in this place, which is proper for a gentleman to learn. But that a science, which diftinguishes the criterions of right and wrong; which teaches to establish the one, and prevent, punish,' or redress the other; which employs in it's theory the nobleft faculties of the foul, and exerts in it's practice the cardinal virtues of the heart: a science, which is univerfal in it's use and extent, accommodated to each individual, yet comprehending the whole community; that a science like this fhould ever have been deemed unneceflary to be studied in an university, is matter of astonishment and concern. Surely, if it were not before an object of academical knowlege, it was high time to make it one: and to those who can doubt the propriety of it's reception. among us (if any fuch there be) we may return an answer in their own way; that ethics are confeffedly a branch of academical learning, and Aristotle himself has faid, speaking of the laws of his own country, that jurisprudence or the knowlege of those laws is the principal and most perfect branch of ethics . FROM a thorough conviction of this truth, our munificent benefactor Mr Viner, having employed above half a century in amaffing materials for new-modelling and rendering more commodious the rude study of the laws of the land, configned c Lord chancellor Clarendon, in his dialogue of education, among his tracts, P. 325. appears to have been very follicitous, that it might be made "a part of the ❝ornament of our learned academies to "teach the qualities of riding, dancing, "and fencing, at those hours when more "ferious exercifes fhould be intermit❝ted." d By accepting in full convocation the remainder of lord Clarendon's history from his noble defcendants, on condition to apply the profits arifing from it's publication to the establishment of a manage in the univerfity. 2 Τελεια μαλιςα αφελή, ότι της τελείας apang Xenolg 851• Ethic. ad Nicomach. 1. 5. c. 3. both |