"and the learned fhould not fo often and fo much perplex "their heads to make atonement and peace, by conftruction "of law, between infenfible and difagreeing 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 fhould be found, that the penners of our modern ftatutes have proportionably better informed themselves in the knowlege 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 ftrong or still stronger with regard to the nobility of this realm, except only in the article of ferving upon juries. But, instead of this, they have feveral peculiar provinces of far greater confequence and concern; being not only by birth hereditary counfellors of the crown, and judges upon their honour of the lives of their brotherpeers, but also arbiters of the property of all their fellow-fubjects, 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 such errors as have escaped the most experienced fages of the profeflion, the lord keeper and the judges of the courts at Westminster. Their fentence is final, decifive, irrevocable: no appeal, no correction, not even a review, can be had: and to their determination, whatever it be, the inferior courts of juftice muft 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 knowlege of the law, it would reflect infinite contempt upon himself, and disgrace upon those who employ him. And yet the confequence of his ignorance is comparatively very trifling and fmall: his judgment may be examined, and his errors rectified, by other courts. But how much more ferious and affecting is the case of a superior judge,

>

if

if without any skill in the laws he will boldly venture to decide a question, upon which the welfare and fubfiftence 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 truft is, it can no where be fo properly repofed, 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 extenfive knowlege of the laws than perfons of inferior rank: and because the founders of our polity relied upon that delicacy of sentiment, fo peculiar to noble birth; which, as on the 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 efteems equal to another's oath, to be master of those points upon which it is his birthright to decide.

THE Roman pandects will furnifh us with a piece of history not unapplicable to our prefent purpose. Servius Sulpicius, a gentleman of the patrician order, and a celebrated orator, had occafion to take the opinion of Quintus Mutius Scaevola, the then oracle of the Roman law; but, for want of fome knowlege in that science, could not so much as understand even the technical terms, which his friend was obliged to make ufe of. Upon which Mutius Scaevola could not forbear to upbraid him with this memorable reproof, "that it was a fhame for a patrician, a nobleman, and an "orator of causes, 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 ftudy of the law; wherein he arrived to that

% Ff. 1. 2. 2. §. 43. Turpe effe patricio, et nobili, et caufas oranti, jus in quo verfaretur ignorare.

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, a much more complete lawyer than even Mutius Scaevola himfelf.

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 likewife that of an excellent orator, a firm patriot, and a wife indefatigable fenator: but the inference which arifes from the ftory is this, that ignorance of the laws of the land hath ever been efteemed difhonourable in thofe, who are entrusted by their country to maintain, to adminifter, and to amend

them.

BUT furely there is little occafion to enforce this argument any farther to perfons of rank and diftinction, if we of this place may be allowed to form a general judgment from those who are under our infpection: happy, that while we lay down the rule, we can alfo produce the example. You will therefore permit your profeffor to indulge both a public and private fatisfaction, by bearing this open teftimony; 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 nobleft birth and most ample patrimony: fome of whom are ftill the ornaments of this feat of learning; and others at a greater diftance continue doing honour to it's inftitutions, by comparing o ir polity and laws with those of other kingdoms abroad, or exerting their fenatorial abilities in the councils of the nation at home.

NOR will fome degree of legal knowlege be found in the leaft fuperfluous to perfons of inferior rank: especially 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

merely as clergymen, to be acquainted with many branches of the law, which are almoft peculiar and appropriated to themfelves alone. Such are the laws relating to advowsons, inftitutions, and inductions; to fimony, and fimoniacal contracts; to uniformity, refidence, and pluralities; to tithes and other ecclefiaftical dues; to marriages (more especially of late) and to a variety of other fubjects, which are configned to the care of their order by the provisions of particular ftatutes. To understand these aright, to discern what is warranted or enjoined, and what is forbidden by law, demands a fort of legal apprehenfion; which is no otherwife to be acquired, than by use and a familiar acquaintance with legal writers.

For the gentlemen of the faculty of phyfic, I must frankly own that I fee 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 knowlege; a character which their profeffion, beyond others, has remarkably deferved. They will give me leave however to fuggeft, and that not ludicrously, that it might frequently be of use to families upon fudden emergencies, if the physician were acquainted with the doctrine of last wills and teftaments, at least fo far as relates to the formal part of their execution.

BUT those gentlemen who intend to profefs the civil and ecclefiaftical 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 feriously to the study of our municipal laws. For the civil and canon laws, confidered with refpect to any intrinfic 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 some 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:

notions for even in Holland, where the imperial law is much cultivated and it's decifions pretty generally followed, we are informed by Van Leeuwen1, that "it receives it's force from "custom and the confent of the people, either tacitly or ex"prefsly 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 antient 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 decisions of those laws, in cafes 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: and it will not be a fufficient excuse for them to tell the king's courts at Westminster, that their practice is warranted by the laws of Juftinian or Gregory, or is conformable to the decrees of the Rota or imperial chamber. For which reafon it becomes highly neceffary for every civilian and canonist, 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 fanction 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, distinguished 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 so thoroughly seen, that in her statutes' fhe appoints, that one of the three queftions to be annually difcuffed at the act by the jurift-inceptors fhall relate to the common law; fubjoining this reason, "quia juris civilis ftudiofos decet haud imperitos effe i Dedicatio corporis juris civilis. Edit. Fletam. 5 Rep. Caudrey's case. 2 Inst 1663 $99.

Hale Hift. C. L. c. 2. Selden in

í Tit. VII. Sect. 2. §. 2.

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