Author fo univerfally read, fo deservedly admired, and in whom fuch confidence is repofed, every fubject should be reviewed with fcrupulous and critical precifion. It will therefore in future be the Editor's peculiar ftudy and ambition to reftore this learned performance to as great a degree of accuracy and perfection as his attention and ability can effect; and he will always be grateful for any correction of his own errors, or for any useful remarks, which may not have occurred to him in his examination of the Commentaries; and as often as he may be found to deferve cenfure for his prefent incorrectnefs, he has nothing to plead in extenuation, but the great variety of the subjects, and that he has been able to find no learned friend with fufficient leifure to lend him any material affiftance. The Editor difclaims all credit, but that which he may be thought to merit from the labour he has bestowed upon the notes and additions; and as he hopes that neither his tafte nor his judgment will be queftioned, where he has never been confulted, or where he had no right or power to control, fo he wishes not to do the Proprietors the injuftice to deprive them of any portion of that praife, which they are defirous to obtain, by accommodating the Public with a mode of publication, and with ornaments, of which the Editor must confefs the defign and execution are entirely their own, GRAY'S INN, INTRODUCTION. SECTION THE FIRST. ON THE STUDY OF THE LAW*. MR. VICE-CHANCELLOR, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE UNIVERSITY, T HE general expectation of so numerous and respectable an audience, the novelty, and (I may add) the importance of the duty required from this chair, muft unavoidably be productive of great diffidence and ap prehenfions in him who has the honour to be placed in it. He must be fenfible how much will depend upon his conduct in the infancy of a ftudy, which is now firft adopted by public academical authority; which has generally been reputed (however unjustly) of a dry and unfruitful nature; and of which the theoretical, elementary parts have hitherto received a very moderate fhare of cultivation. He cannot but reflect that, if either his plan of inftruction be crude and injudicious, or the execution of it lame and fuperficial, it will caft a damp upon the farther progrefs of this most useful and moft rational branch of learning; and may defeat for a time * Read in Oxford at the opening of the Vinerian lectures; 25 08. 1758. |