ACCOUNT OF BOOKS. 453
Should a judge in the mod fub- ordinate jarirdidion be deficient in the knowledge of the law, it would refled infinite contempt upon him- felf, and dlfgrace upon thofe who employ him. And yet the confe- quence of his ignorance is compa- ratively very triiiing and fmall : his judgment may be examined, and his errors reftified by other courts. But how much more ferious and atfecting is the cale of a fjperior judge, if without any (kill in the laws, he will boldly venture to decide a quelHon, upon which the welfare and fubiiilence of whole families may deepend ! 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 moft alarming nature, an injury without poCibility of redrefs !
Yet, vaft as this trufl is, it can no where be fo properly repi^fed as in the noble h inds w here our ex- cellent conllitution has placed it; and therefore placed it, becaufe, from the independence of their fortune, and the dignity of their itation, they are prelumed to em- ploy that leifure which is the con- fequence of both, in attaining a more extenfive knowledge of the laws than perfons o*^ an inferior rank: and becaufe the founders of our policy relied upon that delicacy of feutiment, fo peculiar to noble birth; which, as on the one hand it will prevent either intereft or af- feclionfrom interfering in quei^ions of right, fo on the other it will bind a peer in honour, an obligation which the law eiteems equal to another's oath, to be mafter of thofe points upon which it is his birth- right to decide.
The Roman pandeds will furnifh
us with a piece of hiftory not un- appHcable to our prefent purpofe. Seruus Sulpicius, a gentleman of the patrician order, and a cele- brated orator, had occafion to take the opinion of Quintus Mutius Scaevola, the oracle of the Roman law ; but for want of being conver- fant in that fcience, could not fo much as underlland even the tech- nical terms, which his counfel 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 noble-
- man, and an orator, to be igno-
' rant of the law under which he ' lived.' Which reproof made fo deep an impreffion on Sulpicius, thai he immediately applied him- felf to the Itudy of the law; wherein he arrived to that proficiency, that he left behind him about a hundred and fourfcore volumes of his owa compiling upon the fubjedt; and became, in the opinion of Cicero, a much more compleat lawyer than even Mutius Scaevola him- felf."
The caufe of the negledl of the fiudy of the common law in our univerfitie', he delivers thus :
" That ancient collection of un- written maxims and cuftoms,which is called the common law, how- ever compounded, or from what- ever fountains derived, had fub- fiited immeraorially in this king- dom ; and, though fomewhat al- tered and impaired by the vio- lence of the limes, had in great meafure weathered the rude ihock of the Norman conqueft. This had endeared it to the people ia general, as well becaufe its deci- iions were univerfally known, as becaufe it was found to be ex- G g 3 cellently
