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lacking in form and precision, and well might he adopt the form of the old system, in order to give expression to the new system he was helping to create. "Whoever claims that Bracton was never regarded as an authority on Eng lish law," Thayer says, "we know makes a shallow and ignorant remark, that the sober Reeves was much nearer right when, in composing his 'History of the English Law,' he praised Bracton so highly and adopted him as the basis of all legal learning."8 BLACKSTONE Five hundred years after Bracton wrote the "De Legibus," Blackstone published his Commentaries, the sec ond great work referred to in our open ing paragraph. Sir William Blackstone was born in London on July 10, 1723. His father having died before his birth, his educa tion was provided for by an uncle. At the age of fifteen he went to Oxford. In November, 1741, being then eighteen, he became a member of the Middle Temple, and was called to the bar on November 28, 1746. At the bar he at first failed to attract notice or to acquire practice. In 1753 he went to Oxford, where he delivered a series of lectures on the law of England. In 1758, he was appointed the first Vinerian professor of English Law at the University of Oxford, filling the chair endowed by the author of Viner's Abridgment. The first case of any interest in which he appeared was that of Robinson v. Bland, in Trin ity Term, 1760. He entered the House of Commons in 1768. On February 9, 1770, he became a Judge of the Common Pleas, but on the 16th of the same month rose to the King's Bench, but retired again to the Common Pleas on June 22, of the same year. He re•Thayer's Legal Essays, 356.
mained on the bench until his death, on February 14, 1780, at the age of fifty-seven. THE COMMENTARIES The fame of Blackstone rests entirely on his Commentaries. His reputation as a pleader or judge was not such as to outlive him, though our biographer states that his judgment in the case of Perrin v. Blake (1 W. Bl. 672) "is one of the most valuable pieces of legal reasoning on record."9 The first edition of the Commentaries was published in quarto form from 1765 to 1769. They passed through eight editions during the author's life. The last edition was the 23d, by Stewart, published in 1854. There have been American editions by Tucker, Reed, Wendell, Sharswood, Cooley, Hammond and, last and best of them all, the admirable edition of Lewis, published in 1898. While the Commentaries were not published until 1765, their form and scope must have been in the author's mind when he prepared his first lectures, for it was in 1754, before he was ap pointed Vinerian professor, that he pub lished an Analysis of the Laws of Eng land, as a guide to those who had attended his lectures. This work, which ran through six editions, has been styled the Genesis of Blackstone. In 15 Leg. Bib. n. s., can be found a bibliography of the various editions, pre pared by that eminent authority on legal literature, Mr. Charles C. Soule. It may be interesting to note that since this bibliography was published but five other editions have been discovered, of which two were pirated editions. As yet there has been no explanation of the confusion in the numbering of the edi tions from the early part of the nine teenth century. "Welsby, Lives of Eminent English Judges, 347.
