fellow-subjects, and that in the last resort. In this their judicial capacity they are bound to decide the nicest and most critical points of the law: to examine and correct such errors as have escaped the most experienced sages of the profession, the lord keeper, and the judges of the courts at Westminster. Their sentence is final, decisive, irrevocable; no appeal, no correction, not even a review can be had: and to their determination whatever it be, the inferior courts of justice must conform; otherwise the rule of property would no longer be uniform and steady.

Should a judge in the most subordinate jurisdiction be deficient in the knowledge of the law, it would reflect infinite contempt upon himself, and disgrace upon those who employ him. And yet the consequence of his ignorance is comparatively very trifiing and small: his' judgment may be

examined, and his errors rectified, by other courts. But how much [*12] more serious and affecting is the case of a superior judge, if without

any skill in the laws he will boldly venture to decide a question 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 possibility of redress.

Yet, vast as this truth is, it can no where be so properly reposed as in the noble hands where our excellent constitution has placed it: and therefore placed it, because, from the independence of their fortune and the dignity of their station, they are presumed to employ that leisure which is the consequence 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, so peculiar to noble birth; which, as on the one hand it will prevent either interest or affection from interfering in questions of right, so on the other it will bind a peer in honour, an obligation which the law esteems equal to another's oath, to be master of those points upon which it is his birth-right to decide (2).

The Roman pandects will furnish us with a piece of history not unapplicable to our present purpose. Servius Sulpicius, a gentleman of the patrician order, and a celebrated orator, had occasion to take the opinion of Quintus Mutius Scævola, the then oracle of the Roman law; but, for want of some, 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 Scævola could not forbear to upbraid him with this memorable reproof, (g) "that it was a shame for a patrician, a nobleman, and an orator of causes, to be ignorant of that law in which he was so peculiarly concerned." This reproach made so deep an impression on Sulpicius, that he immediately applied himself to the study of the law (g) Ff 1. 2. 2. § 43. Turpe esse patricio, et nobili, et causas oranti, jus in quo versaretur ignorare.

(2) As a peer of parliament, when that body is sitting judicially, a nobleman's pledge of honour is considered equal to another's oath. The ordinary courts of common law know no distinction of this kind; there, wherever an ordinary subject must swear to speak the truth, a peer must equally be sworn. In courts of equity, peers, peeresses, and lords of parliament, answer on their honour only; though persons of inferior degree are required, in like

case, to answer on oath, 1 Jacob and Walker's Reports, 524. And the first step to obtain an answer from a peer, &c. is, after the bill is filed, to petition the lord chancellor for his letter missive, which requests the defendant to appear and answer; which if he disregards, he may then be served with a subpoena, in the same manner as any other person. Newland, Cha, prac. 9. Mitford's Pleading, 30. 1 Har. rison, Cha. prac. 201.

of

that is

x one of the consblutions of our own thing Alfred exuery, required that his nobility & hoved be custricted in the taws. Witwout this knowledge, indeed, a mare will advance but vain & frivolous pretentions to exercise the functions of a statesmaid or a Eegislator. It is tie he way be anger mough to meddle with such matters! he way undeed be given to change" he may become perhaps, ce shown declaimer, fluent in the are of pompe as common places that is, if willer house Antament will Iterate his perite inauches; he may possibly acquire credit on occasions of minor, of were temporary or local witwest & importance; but on the stering, grand, national, Constitutional questions, which we offer so suddenly & routed, he will be, he waxs must be, an meghonous munte; his "wote & influence" may be solicited by the Confusing parties, but nothining further will be infected, or maksed permitted & Such information ces es sequered on these occasions, however great may be his feat or fulents, or insure his desire of distinction, he weither has nor can get. to Cram will suffice; nothing but the careful, leisung acquisition of early years, assiduously kept up at once, ce generating & justifying Confidence & self netiance - will enable a man to acquit himself on such occasions even creditably. And how offre in these pregnant trimes, ad such occasions anre- what meconchialy extubations are Sometimes the consequence ! Warren's Law Studies,

85.

wherein he arrived to that *proficiency, that he left behind him [*13] about an hundred and four-score volumes of his own compiling upon the subject; and became, in the opinion of Cicero (h), a much more complete lawyer than even Mutius Scævola 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, sustained likewise that of an excellent orator, a firm patriot, and wise, indefatigable senator: but the inference which arises 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 surely there is little occasion to enforce this argument any farther to persons 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 also produce the example. You will therefore permit your professor to indulge both a public and private satisfaction, by bearing this open testimony, that, in the infancy of these studies among us, they were favoured with the most diligent attendance, and pursued with the most unwearied application, by those of the noblest birth and most ample patrimony, some of whom are still the ornaments of this seat of learning, and others, at a greater distance, continue doing honour to its institutions, 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 some degree of legal knowledge be found in the least superfluous to persons of inferior rank, especially those of the learned professions. The clergy in particular, besides the common obligations they are under in proportion to their rank and fortune, have also abundant reason, considered merely as clergymen, to be acquainted with many branches [14] of the law, which are almost peculiar and appropriated to themselves alone. Such are the laws relating to advowsons, institutions, and inductions; to simony, and simoniacal contracts; to uniformity, residence, and pluralities; to tithes and other ecclesiastical dues; to marriages, (more especially of late,) and to a variety of other subjects, which are consigned to the care of their order by the provisions of particular statutes. To understand these aright, to discern what is warranted or enjoined, and what is forbidden by law, demands a sort of legal apprehension, which is no otherwise to be acquired than by use and a familiar acquaintance with legal writers.

For the gentlemen of the faculty of physic, I must frankly own that I see no special reason why they in particular should apply themselves to the study of the law, unless in common with other gentlemen, and to complete the character of general and extensive knowledge; a character which their profession, beyond others, has remarkably deserved. They will give me leave however to suggest, and that not ludicrously, that it might frequently be of use to families upon sudden emergencies, if the physician were acquainted with the doctrine of last wills and testaments, at least so far as relates to the formal part of their execution (3).

(h) Brut. 41.

(3) At the period when the Commentaries were published, forensic medicine had not been publicly recognized as a new or neces

sary branch of legal study; nor had the converse been at all acknowledged, namely, the propriety of medical men being somewhat in

But those gentlemen who intend to profess the civil and ecclesiastical laws, in the spiritual and maritime courts of this kingdom, are of all men (next to common lawyers) the most indispensably obliged to apply themselves seriously to the study of our municipal laws. For the civil and canon laws, considered with respect 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, ɔn account of some peculiar propriety, have in some particular cases, and in some particular courts, been introduced and allowed by our laws, so far they oblige, and no farther; their authority being wholly founded upon that permission and adoption. In which we are not singular in [*15] our notions; for even in Holland, where the imperial law is much cultivated, and its decisions pretty generally followed, we are informed by Van Leeuwen (i), that "it receives its force from custom and the consent 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 antient 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 such courts proceed according to the decisions of those laws, in cases wherein it is controlled by the law of the land, the common law in either instance both may, and frequently does, prohibit and annul their proceedings: (k) and it will not be a sufficient excuse for them to tell the king's courts at Westminster, that their practice is warranted by the laws of Justinian or Gregory, or is conformable to the decrees of the Rota or imperial chamber. For which reason it becomes highly necessary for every civilian and canonist, that would act with safety as a judge, or with prudence and reputation as an advocate, to know in what cases and how far the English laws have given sanction to the Roman; in what points the latter are rejected; and where they are both so intermixed and blended together as to form certain supplemental parts of the common law of England, distinguished by the titles of the king's maritime, the king's military, and the king's ecclesiastical law; the propriety of which inquiry the university of Oxford has for more than a century so thoroughly seen, that in her statutes (7) she appoints, that one of the three questions to be annually discussed at the act by the

jurist-inceptors shall relate to the common law; subjoining this [*16] reason," quia juris civilis studiosos decet haud imperitos esse *juris municipalis, et differentias exteri patriique juris notas habere." And the statutes (m) of the university of Cambridge speak expressly to the same effect.