Court or any other of the old Law-Hands, yet, as Records written in those hands are daily produced in Evidence in the Courts of Law, the being able to read them with propriety and certainty cannot be an unnecessary accom- plishiment, not only for young Students, Stewards of Manors, and others, but also for the most dignified characters in the profession,-as, in cases of Quo Warrantos and Election Business, Records and old Charters are almost constantly referred to; and he who best understands the Abbreviations, bids fairest for a true explanation of the matter in question. Gentlemen of liberal education and large property might, perhaps, not find it disadvan- tageous to be acquainted with old writings, as by that means they would be enabled to preserve the large Honors, Manors, Royalties, and Demesnes, descended to them from their Noble Ancestor's,-which are too often liable to be cncroached upon by designing men,-and not be reduced to the necessity of taking upon trust the declaration of some of the profession, who call every old Decd useless, because they do not understand it, though the old writing, treated with this anmazing ignorance and temerity, may be a material Title Deed of a very ancient and extensive Manor, or Lordship, or part thereof. Nor would the knowledge of the Old Hands, as I humbly conceive, be unacceptable to the learned Historian, who, when in search of materials to authenticate his productions, would be able (especially as the Law Contractions are well known to be in some degree in imitation of the old Monkish writers) to examine his Copies with the Records themselves, and not depend entirely upon the Copying Clerk, who might, by an error in transcribing, lose the true meaning of the original,-an event equally dangerous to truth, property, and to liberty itself.
Many young gentlemen of the Law, whose studies are much interrupted by large fortunes, and perhaps a natural gaiety of disposition, will, I make no doubt, in order to palliate their inattention to the knowledge now con- tended for, say, that numbers of the Records in the kingdom have been copied into the Works of many learned men, and therefore are as goodevidence
