I ſhall take the liberty to follow the ſame that I have already ſubmitted to the public[1]. To fill up and finiſh that outline with propriety and correctneſs, and to render the whole intelligible to the uninformed minds of beginners, (whom we are too apt to ſuppoſe acquainted with terms and ideas, which they never had opportunity to learn) this muſt be my ardent endeavour, though by no means my promiſe to accompliſh. You will permit me however very briefly to deſcribe, rather what I conceive an academical expounder of the laws ſhould do, than what I have ever known to be done.
He ſhould conſider his courſe as a general map of the law, marking out the ſhape of the country, it’s connexions and boundaries, it’s greater diviſions and principal cities: it is not his buſineſs to deſcribe minutely the ſubordinate limits, or to fix the longitude and latitude of every inconſiderable hamlet. His attention ſhould be engaged, like that of the readers in Forteſcue’s inns of chancery, “in tracing out the originals and as it were the elements of the law.” For if, as Juſtinian[2] has obſerved, the tender underſtanding of the ſtudent be loaded at the firſt with a multitude and variety of matter, it will either occaſion him to deſert his ſtudies, or will carry him heavily through them, with much labour, delay, and deſpondence. Theſe originals ſhould be traced to their fountains, as well as our diſtance will permit; to the cuſtoms of the Britons and Germans, as recorded by Caeſar and Tacitus; to the codes of the northern nations on the continent, and more eſpecially to thoſe of our own Saxon princes; to the rules of the Roman law, either left here in the days of Papinian, or imported by Vacarius and his followers; but, above
- ↑ The Analyſis of the laws of England, firſt publiſhed, A. D. 1756, and exhibiting the order and principal diviſions of the enſuing Commentaries; which were originally ſubmitted to the univerſity in a private courſe of lectures, A. D. 1753.
- ↑ Incipientibus nobis exponere jura populi Romani, ita videntur tradi poſſe commodiſſime, ſi primo levi ac ſimplici via ſingula trandatur: Alioqui, ſi ſtatim ab initio rudem adhuc et infirmum animum ſtudioſi multitudine ac varietate rerum oneravimus, duorum alterum, aut deſertorem ſtudiorum efficiemus, aut cum magno labore, ſaepe etiam cum diffidentia (quae plerumque juvenes avertit) ſerius ad id perducemus, ad quod, leviore via ductus, ſine magno labore et ſine ulla diffidentia maturius perduci potuiſſet. Inſt. 1. 1. 2.
