the public-fpirited defign of our wife and munificent benefactor. And this he muft more especially dread, when he feels by experience how unequal his abilities are (unaflifted by preceding examples) to complete, in the manner he could with, fo extenfive and arduous a task; fince he freely confesses, that his former more private attempts have fallen very fhort of his own ideas of perfection. And yet the candour he has al ready experienced, and this laft tranfcendent mark of regard, his prefent nomination by the free and unanimous fuffrage of a great and learned university, (an honour to be ever remembered with the deepest and most affectionate gratitude,) thefe teftimonies of your public judgment must entirely fuperfede his own, and forbid him to believe himself totally infufficient for the labour at leaft of this employment. One thing he will venture to hope for, and it certainly shall be his conftant aim, by diligence and attention to atone for his other defects; esteeming, that the best return, which he can poffibly make for your favourable opinion of his capacity, will be his unwea ried endeavours in fome little degree to deserve it, THE fcience thus committed to his charge, to be cultivated, methodized, and explained in a courfe of academical lectures, is that of the laws and conftitution of our own country: a fpecies of knowledge, in which the gentlemen of England have been more remarkably deficient than those of all Europe befides. In most of the nations on the continent, where the civil or imperial law under different modifications is closely interwoven with the municipal laws of the land, no gentleman, or at least no scholar, thinks his education is completed, till he has attended a courfe or two of lectures, both upon the inftitutes of Juftinian and the local conftitutions of his native foil, under the very eminent profeffors that abound in their feveral univerfities. And in the northern parts of our own ifland, where alfo the municipal laws are frequently connected with the civil, it is difficult to meet with a person of liberal education, who is deftitute of a competent knowledge in that science, which is to be the guardian of his natural rights and the rule of his civil conduct. NOR have the imperial laws been totally neglected even in the English nation. A general acquaintance with their decifions has ever been defervedly confidered as no fmall accomplishment of a gentleman; and a fashion has prevailed, efpecially of late, to transport the growing hopes of this ifland to foreign univerfities, in Switzerland, Germany, and Holland; which, though infinitely inferior to our own in every other confideration, have been looked upon as better nurseries of the civil, or (which is nearly the fame) of their own municipal law. In the mean time it has been the peculiar lot of our admirable fyftem of laws, to be neglected, and even unknown, by all but one practical profeffion; though built upon the foundest foundations, and approved by the experience of ages. FAR be it from me to derogate from the study of the civil law, confidered (apart from any binding authority) as a collection of written reafon. No man is more thoroughly perfuaded of the general excellence of it's rules, and the ufual equity of it's decifions, nor is better convinced of it's ufe as well as ornament to the fcholar, the divine, the statesman, and even the common lawyer. But we must not carry our veneration fo far as to facrifice our Alfred and Edward to the manes of Theodofius and Juftinian: we must not prefer the edict of the praetor, or the refcript of the Roman emperor, to our own immemorial customs, or the fanctions of an English parliament; unless we can alfo prefer the defpotic monarchy of Rome and Byzantium, for whose meridians the former were calculated, to the free conftitution of Britain, which the latter are adapted to perpetuate. WITHOUT detracting therefore from the real merit which abounds in the imperial law, I hope I may have leave to affert, that if an Englishman must be ignorant of either the one or the other, he had better be a stranger to the Roman than the English institutions. For I think it an undeniable pofition, that a competent knowledge of the laws of that fociety in which we live, is the proper accomplishment of every gentleman B 3 gentleman and fcholar; an highly useful, I had almost faid effential, part of liberal and polite education. And in this I am warranted by the example of antient Rome; where, as Cicero informs us, the very boys were obliged to learn the twelve tables by heart, as a carmen neceffarium or indifpenfa ble leffon, to imprint on their tender minds an early knowledge of the laws and constitution of their country. Bur as the long and univerfal neglect of this ftudy, with us in England, feems in fome degree to call in question the truth of this evident pofition, it shall therefore be the business of this introductory difcourfe, in the first place to demonftrate the utility of fome general acquaintance with the municipal law of the land, by pointing out it's particular ufes in all confiderable fituations of life. Some conjectures will then be offered with regard to the causes of neglecting this ufeful study: to which will be fubjoined a few reflections on the peculiar propriety of reviving it in our own univerfities. AND, first, to demonstrate the utility of fome acquaintance with the laws of the land, let us only reflect a moment on the fingular frame and pality of that land, which is governed by this fyftem of laws. A land, perhaps the only one in the univerfe, in which political or civil liberty is the very end and scope of the conftitution ". This liberty, rightly understood, confists in the power (1) of doing whatever the laws permit; which is only to be effected by a general conformity of all orders and degrees to those equitable rules of action, by which the meaneft individual is protected from the infults and oppreffion of the greatest. As therefore every subject is interested in the prefervation of the laws, it is incumbent * De Legg. 2. 23. b Montefq. Efp. L. l. 11. c. 5. Facultas ejus, quod cuique facere libet, nifi quid vi, aut jure prohibetur.Inft.1.3.1. (1) See the Editor's reafons for his difapprobation of this definition of liberty in the note to p. 126. upon upon every man to be acquainted with thofe at least, with which he is immediately concerned; left he incur the cen fure, as well as inconvenience, of living in fociety without kuowing 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 fphere in which they are appointed to move. But thofe, on whom nature and fortune have bestowed more abilities and greater leifure, cannot be fo eafily excufed. Thefe advantages are given them, not for the benefit of themselves only, but also of the public: and yet they cannot, in any scene 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 amifs to defcend to a few particulars. LEY us therefore begin with our gentlemen of independent eftates and fortune, the moft ufeful as well as confiderable 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 it's long and voluminous train of defcents and conveyances, settlements, entails, and incumbrances, that forms the moft intricate and most extenfive object of legal knowledge. The thorough comprehenfion of these, 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 leaft 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 atteftation. An ignorance in these must always be of dangerous confequence, to fuch as by choice or neceffity compile their own teftaments without any technical affistance. 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 arife in difcerning the true meaning of the teftator, or sometimes in discovering any meaning at all: fo that in the end his eftate [8] may often be vefted quite contrary to these his enigmatical intentions, becaufe perhaps he has omitted, one or two for mal words, which are neceffary to afcertain the fense with indifputable legal precifion, or has executed his will in the prefence of fewer witnesses 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 eftablifh the rights, to estimate the injuries, to weigh the accufations, and fometimes to difpofe of the lives of their fellowfubjects, by ferving upon juries. In this fituation they have frequently a right to decide, and that upon their oaths, queftions of nice importance, in the folution of which some legal fkill is requifite; efpecially 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 reverfe their verdicts, than perhaps the conftitution intended. BUT it is not as a juror only that the English gentleman is called upon to determine questions 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 ample field is opened 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 thefe defirable ends, it is neceffary that the magistrate fhould |