| | | | | | The barons at Merton, when called on to adopt a portion of the | canon law, replied | The same has frequently been said since; | but not with so much candour. The question is not so much one of | will as of power. Nearly three centuries ago, King Edward | expressed a wish, that The thing, | however, was not done, and the statutes proceeded to increase and | multiply. A century afterwards, Mr Pepys, the communicative | Secretary of the Admiralty, speaking of the man who got his ears | cut off on account of the nature of his studies, says ~~ | | | But the zealous author of the "Histrio-mastix" | who

"seldom dined,"

did not get his short work finished; | and the British sibyl, acting on a converse principle to her of Rome, | came back, in another century, with fully three or four times as | many great volumes deposited on her broad back as she had | before. About the middle of the last century, they were brought | before Mr Daines Barington; and he, though a polite, good- | natured, and industrious man, who grudged not to peruse a few | black letter folios to serve a friend, was constrained to observe, | that Still, however, our laws went on in | geometrical progression, and legislators grew, year after year, | more alarmed at their enormous bulk. A commission appointed to | inquire into the possibility of codifying the criminal portion of the | English laws, the other day, despondingly reported, that | This is a considerable item in study; and, | along with the mass of other Digests, Reports, Commentaries, | Abridgements, (Petersdorff's Abridgement | is in fifteen large volumes,) should make a man reflect a | little before he engages to become acquainted with the laws of | England. | But does anyone engage to | become acquainted with these laws? | ~~ for it will be rightly observed, that, if | no-one does, there will be | no such cause for reflection. We must admit that the question is too | applicable. The law is not a science which a man can undertake to | master. There has not existed in England, during these hundred | years past, a man who

"knew the law."

A sharp little rival | of Lord Brougham said of him, that if he | So could one lawyer proclaim to the | world the contemptible ignorance of another, who, so far as the | world itself is able to judge, is at least among the first lawyers in | the land. The English law, indeed, with the exception of those | portions in daily practice, is a vast wilderness, where there are | rivers whose sources are unknown, and mountains whose summits | cannot be approached. It is not laid down in valley, stream, and | eminence in the maps, but left a terra incognita | for adventurers to prowl about in, and try what they can | discover. Some find wonderful remains of antediluvian art ~~ | monstrous carved granite pillars, which a team of horses are | forthwith employed to drag from the recesses of the desert, to | gratify the curiosity of civilized men; some find hidden treasure; | some wander for years, and come back unable to say what they | have seen, or where they have been, and evidently in a state of | bewilderment; while others, still less fortunate, encounter a wild | beast, and either come back with wooden legs and crutches, or | disappear entirely. Hence come the frequent remarks, that no man | passes a day without transgressing a statute. This statement looks | formidable; but the bane and antidote are both before us, in the | obscurity; for, given a person transgressing a statute, there is | generally small chance indeed of finding | anyone capable of laying | his hand on the statute transgressed. | In Scotland, a law ceases to exist by not being put in practice; so | that the judges, before the Union, had only to let such portions of | the statutes as they objected to, remain at peace, and they troubled | no man; while, since the Union, they had only to declare that just | and merciful statutes had fallen into disuse, and that arbitrary and | tyrannical ones were still in observance, to render themselves | extremely obnoxious to society. In England, a statute of the days of | Henry III. must still be put in force, if unrepealed; and any | mischievous-minded and active fellow, by hunting in the sterile | recesses of the statutes at large, may discover an old instrument for | tormenting society, which the twelve judges never dreamed of the | existence of. In the year 1818, a man accused of murder being | acquitted, the prosecutor discovered that, by the law of England, he | was, in that particular case, entitled to appeal against the verdict of | the jury. He did so; but then the accused offered to end the dispute | by fighting him. The question had a strange appearance as matter | of consultation for a bench; but both parties were right, and acting | according to law ~~ the old ordeal of battle remaining to that day | unrepealed. | We hope we will not alarm our friends too much by telling them | one or two of the penalties to which they are still liable in | particular cases, in terms of the statute-book. They will be, at least, |

"forewarned, forearmed;"

and, if they do not shape their | conduct to meet the laws, have only to blame themselves. | By 5 and 6, Edw. VI. it is enacted, that | | | This statute remains unrepealed, to the evident advantage of those | who are fortunate enough to see horse-hair, air, or steel-spring | cushions exposed for sale. ~~ The following method of dressing | fustians is denounced by 11, Hen. VII., and cannot be | followed without incurring a forfeiture of twenty shillings: ~~ | ~~ By 25, Hen. VIII., tenants are | prohibited from having more than 2000 sheep on their lands, under | a penalty of three shillings four pence for every additional | sheep; but it is mercifully | provided that, for the purposes of the act, six score sheep shall be | counted a hundred. ~~ Is anyone | aware that a cattle-dealer, buying | cattle otherwise than in an open market, is doing a very illegal act, | and liable to a penalty of double the value of the cattle purchased? | Yet assuredly, by 3 and 4, Edw. VI., such is the transgression | of all who so purchase unless they | purchase for their own use or follow Nor | are those who follow this art in a better condition, should they | think proper to sell their purchases alive. This branch of the statute, | it seems, was rather a failure; as, in terms of 15, Ch. II., it | and so it is more carefully fortified. ~~ | The people of Norfolk and Suffolk are not, perhaps, generally | aware of the protection which the stature-book affords them | against that great curse of society, litigation. If they will turn to the | act 33, Henry VI., they will find it stated that, at one time, | there were only six or eight attorneys

"at the most,"

in these | counties and the city of Norwich: The | supernumerary attorneys are therefore commanded to provide | themselves with livelihoods in other ways, under heavy penalties. | There is a calm decidedness about these old acts, in which our | modern laws are deficient. There was no opposition ~~ no debating | in committee. It was perfectly clear to every man, that feathers and | wool were the very fittest things on earth for stuffing mattrasses | and cushions with; and that those who used anything else did | wrong. It was evident, that the ultroneous method of dressing | fustian with hot irons and candles was most abominable, and | should be put a stop to. No man could buy cattle secretly, without | having some design ~~ it must have been with a view to his own | profit, and therefore to the loss of other people; and the thing ought | to be prevented. When legislators were ingenious enough to | discover such deep-hid evils, there were no political economists to | distress their minds about free trade. There could never be two | opinions about the inferiority of good manfactures to bad; and, | when this material proposition was admitted, it was a natural | corollary, that a law enforcing the former, and forbidding the latter, | was a good law. Hence, the clear candid terms of these statutes. | They would not have been easily adapted to the admission of Lord | Eldon's coach and six. It was in the degenerate days of political | economy and philosophical legislation, that our laws acquired their | proverbial length and obscurity. When his Majesty's ministers had | to debate each clause with a pertinacious opposition ~~ when | people literally objected to support the agriculture of their native | country by prohibiting the importation of foreign corn ~~ when | they declined payment to support the landed interest, the only | stable source of national wealth ~~ nay, long before such very bold | heresies as these were promulgated, it was found unsafe to commit | the laws, which everyone | must obey, to the plain language and | simple arrangement of the old statutes. Clauses had to be smuggled | in ~~ titles had to be made obscure ~~ sentences had to be | elongated, and then turned upside down: but the grandest means of | preventing discovery, was to make the statutes so long that no man | would read them. The following is the title | of a statute passed in the reign of George II., | <23, Geo. II., c.26.> ~~ | | | Our Scottish ancestors were a quiet, unobtrusive people. They did | not like disputations and noisy brawls. With them the dirk settled a | debate in a few minutes; and a political opponent, instead of being | pursued by lampoons, leading articles, and

"very sarcastic | speeches,"

had his house burned down about his ears, and his | family put to the sword on the first cloudy evening. Deeds, not | words, was their motto. Hence their acts of Parliament were very | few, and these few are proverbial for their

"excellent brevity."

| There was, indeed, little occasion for them at all, except as articles | of luxury. No man, for one moment, dreamed of obeying an act of | Parliament, if he felt strong enough to resist it; and, if he was not | so, his adversary (whether a king or a subject) would do what he | wished, without any act of Parliament at all. We have given the | title of a British act of George II. We now | give the whole contents of a Scottish act of James I. | What was to be counted rebellion? How | was it to be proved? What court was competent to try it? These | were all trifling matters. If the king was fortunate enough to catch | the rebel, he would see properly after them. If the rebel was like | the Tartar, not to be safely caught, it was of no consequence | whatever that he should know how he would be treated if he were. | Here is another highly important act. | This is short, clear, and explicit, and worth two-thirds of the | English statute-book; retaining the very pith and marrow of our | long acts of Parliament, which expend much more paper in | explaining how they are to be made use of, than in telling what | they are. | We have given the terms of some of the old English acts, dictating | the manner in which people are to manufacture, or to buy and sell. | They are brief, in comparison with the later chapters of the statute- | book; but the Scots were infinitely better Spartans than their | neighbours. Here are two acts of the fifteenth century, for purposes | somewhat similar: ~~ | There is a kind of severe practical sarcasm in some of these | venerable statutes, directed against classes of persons now held in | considerable respect. Thus, fox-hunters and poets are most | unequivocally denounced in company with beggars, in this act of | the year 1449: ~~ This portion of the act | is a little verbose, and much more plentifully supplied with | unmeaning words than is usually the case with the laws of our | ancestors. The pithy peremptoriness of the concluding sentence, | however, would make up for volumes of verbiage. It is in these | simple terms: ~~ These were the days for | practical legislation and expeditious justice. | It has been said, that the circumstance which made George IV. a | king, spoiled a first-rate statute. It is not generally known that | James II. of Scotland had more claim to a similar distinction, as we | surmise from the debenture paid for the privilege by this act: ~~ | | | ~~ Here we have a good illustration of Scottish | caution: ~~ | The Irish statute book is characteristic at the very opening. One of | the earliest acts is entitled ~~ | But the book affords matter of more serious | contemplation, as it lays before us, in such letters as he that runs | may read, the early hatred of England and wrongs of Ireland. Such | a title as the following, contains, within its simple sentences, a | history: ~~ Nor is there a less sad | presage from finding, that, in the middle of the sixteenth century, | when mountain dew was unknown in Scotland, and the English | drank their October beer, the Irish Parliament passed an act | | narrating that, We | shall pass over ~~ lest we should get | political and angry; but we cannot help dropping a commendation | of that dignified liberality which sheltered the first measure of | relief to the Roman Catholics, under the title, | | But there is a whole series of Irish statutes ~~ now, we are sorry to | say, expired ~~ the resuscitation of which we earnestly recommend | to the legislature. The first of these is the act 7th William III., | entitled There are divers statutes to the | same effect; and the terms of one contain so excellent a plan for | ridding the State of noxious persons, that we give it almost in full. | It recites a previous act, by which, if a person guilty of any crime | should apprehend or kill two Tories, | Robbers, or Rapparees, he should receive a free pardon: |