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correction, not even a review can be had: and to their determination, whatever it be, the inferior courts of justice must conform; otherwife the rule of property would no longer be uniform and steady.

SHOULD a judge in the most fubordinate jurisdiction be deficient in the knowledge of the law, it would reflect infinite contempt upon himself, and difgrace upon those who employ hin. 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 serious and affecting is the cafe of a fupe[12]rior judge, if without any skill in the laws he will boldly

venture to decide a queftion upon which the welfare and subsistence 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 trust is, it can no where be so properly reposed, as in the noble hands where our excellent conftitution has placed it; and therefore placed it, because, from the independence of their fortune and the dignity of their station, they are prefumed to employ that leisure which is the confequence of both, in attaining a more extensive knowledge of the laws than persons of inferior rank; and because the founders of our polity relied upon that delicacy of sentiment, fo peculiar to noble birth; which, as on one hand it will prevent either intereft or affection from interfering in questions of right, fo on the other it will bind a peer in honour, an obligation which the law esteems equal to another's oath, to be mafter of those points upon which it is his birth-right to decide.

THE Roman pandects will furnish us with a piece of hiftory not unapplicable to our prefent purpose. Servius Sulpicius, a gentleman of the patrician order, and a celebrated

orator,

orator, had occafion to take the opinion of Quintus Mutius Scaevola, the then oracle of the Roman law; but, for want of fome knowledge in that science, could not so much as understand even the technical terms, which his friend was obliged to make use of. Upon which Mutius Scaevola could not forbear to upbraid him with this memorable reproof, "that it was a shame for a patrician, a nobleman, and an ❝orator of caufes, to be ignorant of that law in which he "was fo peculiarly concerned." This reproach made fo deep an impreffion on Sulpicius, that he immediately applied himself to the study of the law; wherein he arrived to that [ 13 ] proficiency, that he left behind him about an hundred and fourfcore volumes of his own compiling upon the subject; and became, in the opinion of Cicero 1, a much more complete lawyer than even Mutius Scaevola himself.

I WOULD not be thought to recommend to our English nobility and gentry, to become as great lawyers as Sulpicius; though he, together with this character, fuftained likewise that of an excellent orator, a firm patriot, and a wife indefatigable fenator: but the inference which arifes from the story is this, that ignorance of the laws of the land hath ever been esteemed dishonourable in those, who are entrusted by their country to maintain, to administer, and to amend them.

BUT furely there is little occafion to enforce this argument any farther to perfons of rank and distinction, if we of this place may be allowed to form a general judgment from those who are under our inspection: happy that while we lay down the rule, we can alfo produce the example. You will therefore permit your professor to indulge both a public and private fatisfaction, by hearing this open teftimony; that, in the infancy of these studies among us, they were favoured with the most diligent attendance, and purfued with the most unwearied application, by those of the

Ff. 1.2. 2. § 43. Turpe effe patricio, et nobili, et caufas oranti, jus in que verfaretur ignorare. n Brut. 41.

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noblest birth and most ample patrimony; fome of whom are still the ornaments of this feat of learning; and others at a greater distance continue doing honour to its inftitutions, by comparing our polity and laws with those of other kingdoms abroad, or exerting their senatorial abilities in the councils of the nation at home.

NOR will fome degree of legal knowledge be found in the leaft fuperfluous to perfons of inferior rank: efpecially thofe of the learned profeffions. The clergy, in particular, befides the common obligations they are under in proportion to their rank and fortune, have alfo abundant reafon, confidered [14] merely as clergymen, to be acquainted with many branches of the law, which are almoft peculiar and appropriated to themselves alone. Such are the laws relating to advowfons, institutions, and inductions; to fimony, and fimoniacal contracts; to uniformity, residence, and pluralities; to tithes, and other ecclefiaftical dues; to marriages, (more especially of late,) and to a variety of other subjects, which are configned to the care of their order by the provifions of particular statutes. To understand thefe aright, to difcern what is warranted or enjoined, and what is forbidden by law, demands a fort of legal apprehension; which is no otherwife to be acquired, than by ufe, and a familiar acquaintance with legal writers.

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For the gentlemen of the faculty of phyfic, I must frankly own that I fee no special reason, why they in particular fhould apply themfelves to the ftudy of the law, unless in common with other gentlemen, and to complete the character of general and extenfive knowledge; a character which their profeffion, beyond others, has remarkably deferved. They will give me leave, however, to fuggeit, and that not ludicrously, that it might frequently be of use to families upon fudden emergencies, if the phyfician were acquainted with the doctrine of last wills and teftaments, at leaft fo far as relates to the formal part of their execution.

BUT

BUT those gentlemen who intend to profess the civil and ecclefiaftical laws, in the fpiritual and maritime courts of this kingdom, are of all men (next to common lawyers) the most indispensably obliged to apply themselves feriously to the study of our municipal laws. For the civil and canon laws, confidered with refpect to any intrinsic obligation, have no force or authority in this kingdom; they are no more binding in England than our laws are binding at Rome. But as far as these foreign laws, on account of some peculiar propriety, have in fome particular cafes, and in fome particular courts, been introduced and allowed by our laws, fo far they oblige, and no farther; their authority being wholly founded upon that permiffion and adoption. In which we are not fingular in our notions; for even in Hol- [ 15 ] land, where the imperial law is much cultivated, and its decifions pretty generally followed, we are informed by Van Leeuwen, that "it receives its force from cuftom and the "confent of the people either tacitly or expressly given: for "otherwise (he adds) we should no more be bound by this "law, than by that of the Almains, the Franks, the Saxons, "the Goths, the Vandals, and other of the ancient nations." Wherefore, in all points in which the different systems depart from each other, the law of the land takes place of the law of Rome, whether ancient or modern, imperial or pontifical. And, in those of our English courts, wherein a reception has been allowed to the civil and canon laws, if either they exceed the bounds of that reception, by extending themselves to other matters than are permitted to them; or if fuch courts proceed according to the decifions of those laws, in cafes wherein it is controlled by the law of the land, the common law in either inftance both may, and frequently does, prohibit and annul their proceedings: and it will not be a fufficient excufe for them to tell the king's courts at Westminster, that their practice is warranted by the laws

Dedicatio corporis juris civilis. Edit. 1663.

Hale Hift. C. L. c. 2. Selden in
Fletam. 5 Rep. Caudrey's cafe.
2 Inft.
599.

of

of Juftinian or Gregory, or is conformable to the decrees of the Rota, or imperial chamber. For which reason it becomes highly neceffary for every civilian and canonift, that would act with fafety as a judge, or with prudence and reputation as an advocate, to know in what cafes and how far the English laws have given sanction to the Roman; in what points the latter are rejected; and where they are both fo intermixed and blended together as to form certain fupplemental parts of the common law of England, diftinguished by the titles of the king's maritime, the king's military, and the king's ecclefiaftical law. The propriety of which inquiry the university of Oxford has for more than a century fo thoroughly feen, that in her statutes' she appoints, that one of the three queftions to be annually difcuffed at the act by the jurist-inceptors fhall relate to the common law; fubjoining this reason, [ 16 ] « quia juris civilis ftudiofos decet haud imperitos esse juris muni"cipalis, et differentias exteri patriique juris notas habere." And the ftatutes of the university of Cambridge speak expressly to the fame effect.

FROM the general use and necessity of some acquaintance with the common law, the inference was extremely easy with regard to the propriety of the present institution, in a place to which gentlemen of all ranks and degrees refort, as the fountain of all useful knowledge. But how it has come. to pass that a defign of this fort has never before taken place in the univerfity, and the reason why the study of our laws has in general fallen into disuse, I shall previously proceed to inquire.

SIR John Fortefque, in his panegyric on the laws of England, (which was written in the reign of Henry the Sixth,) puts" a very obvious question in the mouth of the young

'Tit. VII. Sect. 2. § 2.

Dollor legum mox a docloratu dabit operam legibus Angliae, ut non fit imperitus earum legum quas habet fua

patria, et differentias cxteri patriïque
juris nofcat. Stat. Eliz. R. c.14. Cowet.
Inflitut. proëmio.
" c. 47.

prince,

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