by which the meanest individual is protected from the infults and oppreffion of the greatest. As therefore every subject is interested in the preservation of the laws, it is incumbent. upon every man to be acquainted with those at least, with which he is immediately concerned; left he incur the cenfure, as well as inconvenience, of living in fociety without knowing the obligations which it lays him under. And thus much may fuffice for perfons of inferior condition, who have [ 7 ] neither time nor capacity to enlarge their views beyond that contracted sphere, in which they are appointed to move. But those on whom nature and fortune have bestowed more abilities and greater leifure, cannot be fo eafily excufed. These advantages are given them, not for the benefit of themselves only, but also of the public; and yet they cannot, in any fcene of life, discharge properly their duty either to the public or themselves, without fome degree of knowledge in the laws. To evince this the more clearly, it may not be amiss to descend to a few particulars.

LET us therefore begin with our gentlemen of independent eftates and fortune, the most useful as well as confider able body of men in the nation; whom even to fuppofe ignorant in this branch of learning is treated by Mr. Locked, as a strange 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 moft 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 still the understanding of a few leading principles, relating to eftates and conveyancing, may form fome check and guard upon a gentleman's inferior agents, and preferve him at least from very grofs and notorious impofition.

AGAIN, the policy of all laws has made fome forms neceffary in the wording of laft wills and teftaments, and more with regard to their attestation. An ignorance in these must always be of dangerous confequence, to such as by choice or neceflity compile their own testaments without any technical affiftance. Those who have attended the courts of justice are the best witneffes of the confufion and diftreffes that are hereby occafioned in families; and of the difficulties that arise in difcerning the true meaning of the teftator, or sometimes in discovering any meaning at all: fo that in the end his estate [8] may often be vested quite contrary to these his enigmatical intentions, because perhaps he has omitted one or two formal words, which are neceffary to afcertain the fense with indifputable legal precifion, or has executed his will in the presence of fewer witneffes than the law requires.

BUT to proceed from private concerns to thofe of a more public 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 sometimes to difpofe of the lives of their fellowsubjects, by ferving upon juries. In this fituation they have frequently a right to decide, and that upon their oaths, questions of nice importance, in the solution of which some legal fkill is requifite; especially where the law and the fact, as it often happens, are intimately blended together. And the general incapacity, even of our best juries, to do this with any tolerable propriety, has greatly debased their authority; and has unavoidably thrown more power into the hands of the judges, to direct, control, and even reverse their verdicts, than perhaps the conftitution intended.

BUT it is not as a juror only that the English gentleman is called upon to determine queftions of right, and distribute 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

a very ample field is open for a gentleman to exert his talents, by maintaining good order in his neighbourhood; by punishing 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 desirable ends, it is neceffary that the magiftrate should understand his business; and have not only the will, but the power alfo (under which must be included the knowledge,) of adminiftering legal and effectual justice. Elfe, when he has mistaken his authority, through paffion, through ignorance, or abfurdity, he will be the object of [ 9 ] contempt from his inferiors, 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 representing their country in parliament; and thofe, who are ambitious of receiving fo high a truft, would alfo do well to remember its nature and importance. They are not thus honourably distinguished from the rest of their fellow-fubjects, merely that they may privilege their persons, their eftates, or their domeftics; that they may lift under party banners; may grant or withhold supplies; may vote with or vote against 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 propose, to adopt, and to cherish any folid and well-weighed improvement; bound by every tie of nature, of honour, and of religion, to transmit that conftitution and those laws to their posterity, 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 should be no other state of life, no other occupation, art, or fcience, in which fome method of instruction is not looked upon as requifite, except only the science of legislation, the noblest and most difficult of any. Apprenticeships are held necessary to almost every art, commercial or mechanical: a long courfe of reading and study must form the divine, the physician, and the practical profeffor of the laws: but every man of superior fortune thinks himself born a legislator. Yet Tully [10] was of a different opinion: "It is neceffary (says hea) for a "senator to be thoroughly acquainted with the conftitu❝tion; 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 poffibly be fit "for his office."

THE mischiefs that have arisen to the public from inconfiderate alterations in our laws, are too obvious to be called in question: and how far they have been owing to the defective education of our fenators, is a point well worthy the public attention. The common law of England has fared like other venerable edifices of antiquity, which rash and unexperienced workmen have ventured to new-dress and refine, with all the rage of modern improvement. Hence frequently its symmetry has been destroyed, its proportions distorted, and its majestic fimplicity changed for fpecious embellishments and fantastic novelties. For, to say the truth, almost all the perplexed queftions, almost all the niceties, intricacies, and delays, (which have sometimes difgraced the English, as well as other courts of justice,) owe their original not to the common law itfelf, but to innovations that have been made in it by acts of parliament; "overladen (as fir "Edward Coke expreffes it') with provifoes and additions, " and many times on a fudden penned or corrected by men

De Legg. 3. 18. Eft fenatori neceffarium nosse rempublicam ; idque latè patet:-genus hoc omne fcientiae, dili

gentiae, memoriae eft: fine quo paratus esse fenator nullo pacto poteft.

f

2 Rep. pref.

" of

❝ of none, or very 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 confufion introduced by ill-judging and unlearned legiflators." But "if," he subjoins, "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 parlia

ment concerning that matter, as alfo how far forth former "statutes had provided remedy for former mischiefs, and "defects discovered by experience; then should very few "questions in law arife, and the learned should not so often [ 11 ] "and fo much perplex their heads to make atonement and

peace, by conftruction of law, between infenfible and dif*C agreeing words, fentences, 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 should be found, that the penners of our modern statutes have proportionably better informed themselves in the knowledge of the common law.

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 strong or ftill stronger with regard to the nobility of this realm, except only in the article of ferving upon juries. But, inftead of this, they have several 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 brotherpeers, but also arbiters of the property of all their fellowfubjects, and that in the laft 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 errors as have escaped the most experienced fages of the profession, the lord keeper and the judges of the courts of Westminster. Their fentence is final, decifive, irrevocable; no appeal, no

correction,