and with pleasure we recollect, that thofe who are most [30] diftinguished by their quality, their fortune, their station, their learning, or their experience, have appeared the most zealous to promote the fuccefs of Mr. Viner's establish

[ 31 ]

ment.

THE advantages that might refult to the fcience of the law itself, when a little more attended to in these feats of knowledge, perhaps, would be very confiderable. The leifure and abilities of the learned in these retirements might either fuggeft expedients, or execute thofe dictated by wiser heads, for improving it's method, retrenching it's fuperfluities, and reconciling the little contrarieties, which the practice of many centuries will neceffarily create in any human system; a task, which those, who are deeply employed in business and the more active fcenes of the profeffion, can hardly condescend to engage in. And as to the interest, or (which is the fame) the reputation of the univerfities themfelves, I may venture to pronounce, that if ever this study should arrive to any tolerable perfection either here or at Cambridge, the nobility and gentry of this kingdom would not shorten their refidence upon this account, nor perhaps entertain a worfe opinion of the benefits of academical education. Neither should it be confidered as a matter of light importance, that while we thus extend the pomoeria of univerfity learning, and adopt a new tribe of citizens within these philofophical walls, we intereft a very numerous and very powerful profeffion in the prefervation of our rights and

revenues.

larships, the profits of the current year
be rateably divided between the prede-
ceffor, or his representatives, and the fuc-
ceffor; and that a new election be had
within one month afterwards, unless by
that means the time of election shall fall
within any vacation, in which case it be
deferred to the first week in the next full

term. And that before any convocation fhall be held for such election, or for any other matter relating to Mr. Viner's benefaction, ten days' public notice be given to each college and hall of the convocation, and the cause of convoking it.

See lord Bacon's proposals and offer of a digeft.

FOR

FOR I think it paft difpute that thofe gentlemen, who refort to the inns of court with a view to pursue the profeffion, will find it expedient (whenever it is practicable) to lay the previous foundations of this, as well as every other science, in one of our learned universities. We may appeal to the experience of every fenfible lawyer, whether any thing can be more hazardous or difcouraging than the ufual entrance on the study of the law. A raw and unexperienced youth, in the most dangerous season of life, is transplanted on a fudden into the midst of allurements to pleasure, without any restraint or check but what his own prudence can fuggeft; with no public direction in what courfe to pursue his inquiries; no private affiftance to remove the diftreffes and difficulties which will always embarrass a beginner. In this fituation he is expected to fequefter himself from the world, and by a tedious lonely process to extract the theory of law from a mass of undigested learning; or else by an affiduous attendance on the courts to pick up theory and practice together, fufficient to qualify him for the ordinary run of business. How little therefore is it to be wondered at that we hear of so frequent miscarriages; that so many gentlemen of bright imaginations grow weary of fo unpromising a search', and addict themselves wholly to amusements, or other lefs innocent pursuits; and that so many persons of moderate capacity confuse themselves at first setting out, and continue ever dark and puzzled during the remainder of their lives!

THE evident want of fome affiftance in the rudiments of legal knowledge has given birth to a practice, which, if ever it had grown to be general, must have proved of extremely

66

1 Sir Henry Spelman, in the preface "femque linguam peregrinam, diato his Gloffary, has given us a very lively "lectum barbaram, methodum inconpicture of his own diftrefs upon this oc- "cinnam, molem non ingentem folum cafion. "Emifit me mater Londinum, · fed perpetuis humeris fuftinendam, juris noftri capeffendi gratiâ; cujus “excidit mihi (fateor) animus,” &c. cum veftibulum falutaffem, reperif VOL. I.

Ꭰ

pernicious

pernicious confequence. I mean the custom by fome so very warmly recommended, of dropping all liberal education, as of no use to students in the law and placing them, in it's ftead, at the desk of some skilful attorney; in order to initiate them early in all the depths of practice, and render them more dexterous in the mechanical part of business. A few inftances of particular perfons (men of excellent learning, and unblemished integrity) who, in fpite of this method of education, have fhone in the foremost ranks of the bar, have afforded fome kind of fanction to this illiberal path to the profeffion, and biaffed many parents, of fhort-fighted judgment, in its favour: not confidering that there are fome geniufes, formed to overcome all difadvantages, and that from fuch particular instances no general rules can be formed; nor obferving, that thofe very persons have frequently recommended, by the most forcible of all examples, the difpofal of their own offspring, a very different foundation of legal ftudies, a regular academical education. Perhaps too, in return, I could now direct their eyes to our principal feats of justice, and suggest a few hints, in favour of university learning-but in these all who hear me, I know, have already prevented me.

MAKING therefore due allowance for one or two fhining exceptions, experience may teach us to foretel that a lawyer thus educated to the bar, in fubfervience to attornies and folicitors", will find he has begun at the wrong end. If practice be the whole he is taught, practice must also be the

The four highest judicial offices were at that time filled by gentlemen, two of whom had been fellows of All Souls college; another, student of Chrift

Church; and the fourth, a fellow of
Trinity college, Cambridge. (4)

n See Kennet's Life of Somaer, p. 67.

(4) The first two were, Lord Northington and Lord Chief Juftice Willes: the third, Lord Mansfield; and the fourth, Sir Thomas Clarke, Mafter of the Rolls.

whole

whole he will ever know; if he be uninftructed in the elements and first principles upon which the rule of practice is founded, the least variation from established precedents will totally distract and bewilder him: ita lex fcripta eft° is the utmost his knowledge will arrive at: he must never afpire to form, and feldom expect to comprehend, any arguments drawn a priori, from the fpirit of the laws, and the natural foundations of justice.

NOR is this all; for, (as few perfons of birth or fortune, [ 33 ] or even of fcholaftic education, will fubmit to the drudgery of fervitude, and the manual labour of copying the trash of an office) should this infatuation prevail to any confiderable degree, we must rarely expect to see a gentleman of distinction or learning at the bar. And what the confequence may be, to have the interpretation and enforcement of the laws. (which include the entire difpofal of our properties, liberties, and lives) fall wholly into the hands of obfcure or illiterate. men, is matter of very public concern. (5)

(5) The learning, which of late years has diftinguished the bar, leaves little reason to apprehend that fuch will speedily be the degraded state of the laws of England. Our author's labours and example have contributed in no inconfiderable degree to rescue the profeffion from the reproaches of Lord Bolingbroke, whofe fentiments upon the education of a barrister, correspond fo fully with those of the learned judge, that they deserve to be annexed to this elegant differtation on the study of the law.

"I might instance (says he) in other profeffions, the obligation men lie under of applying to certain parts of history; and I can hardly forbear doing it in that of the law, in it's nature the noblest and most beneficial to mankind, in its abuse and debasement the moft fordid and the most pernicious. A lawyer now is nothing more, I speak of ninety-nine in a hundred at least, to use fome of Tully's words, nifi leguleius quidem cautus, et acutus præco a&ionum, cantor formularum, auceps fyllabarum. But there have been lawyers

THE inconveniences here pointed out can never be effectually prevented, but by making academical education a previous step to the profeffion of the common law, and at the fame time making the rudiments of the law a part of academical education. For fciences are of a fociable disposition, and flourish beft in the neighbourhood of each other: nor is there any branch of learning, but may be helped and improved by affiftances drawn from other arts. If, therefore, the ftudent in our laws hath formed both his fentiments and ftyle, by perufal and imitation of the pureft claffical writers, among whom the hiftorians and orators will best deserve his regard; if he can reason with precision, and separate argument from fallacy, by the clear fimple rules of pure unfophisticated logic; if he can fix his attention, and steadily pursue truth through any the most intricate deduction, by the use of mathematical demonstrations; if he has enlarged his conceptions of nature and art, by a view of the feveral branches of genuine, experimental philofophy; if he

that were orators, philofophers, hiftorians: there have been Bacons and Clarendons. There will be none fuch any more, till in fome better age true ambition, or the love of fame, prevails over avarice; and till men find leisure and encouragement to prepare themselves for the exercife of this profeffion, by climbing up to the vantage ground, so my Lord Bacon calls it, of science, instead of grovelling all their lives below, in a mean but gainful application to all the little arts of chicane. Till this happen, the profeffion of the law will fearce deferve to be ranked among the learned profeffions; and whenever it happens, one of the vantage grounds to which men must climb is metaphyfical, and the other, historical knowledge.

:

66 They must pry into the fecret receffes of the human heart, and become well acquainted with the whole moral world, that they may discover the abstract reason of all laws; and they must trace the laws of particular ftates, especially of their own, from the first rough sketches, to the more perfect draughts; from the first causes or occafions that produced them, through all the effects, good and bad, that they produced." (Stud. of Hift. p. 353. quarto edition.)

has