THE 



MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



m'cs. 



VOL. V.] JUNE, 1828. [No. 30. 



SELDOM has antiquarian research produced a work of more practical 

 utility than the " History of the Court of Chancery/' The mass of 

 information it contains will do much to remove that popular ignorance in 

 which, alone,, sinister interest can hope to perpetuate its existence ; while 

 it teaches, with the irresistible force of experience,, the salutary lesson, 

 that the vanity of those " who put their trust in princes/' is wisdom, 

 compared with the emptiness of leaving the reform of the law to the 

 parties who are to profit by its abuses. Indeed, if a history be to derive 

 its title from the facts it records, we do not know whether Mr. Parkes's 

 volume might not, with equal justice, have been inscribed a " History of 

 the Imperfections of the Law, and the Selfishness arid Bigotry of the 

 Lawyers." The grievances of the Court of Chancery are so interwoven 

 with its fundamental constitution, that it is well observed by our author, 

 (p. 4) " To probe the evils, and ascertain the remedies of Chancery 

 abuses, it will be requisite to inquire into the origin of Equitable Juris- 

 diction. The history of its progress, and of the various partial and pro- 

 posed reforms, will throw great light on the causes of the present 

 grievances. It will exhibit a deep-rooted and growing evil, and as 

 dissection reveals the seat of physical disease, such an historical investi- 

 gation will demonstrate, with the cause, the cure of the abuses in 

 question." Acting on the same principle, we propose to follow him in 

 his historical sketch of " Equitable Jurisdiction," supplying, from other 

 sources, such information as may occasionally be required to complete 

 the outline ; and well would it be for the petitioners for justice in this 

 country, if, instead of a living mass of corruption, it were only a dead 

 carcass, the anatomy of which we were exposing. 



It was not likely that an explorer in the track of English law would 

 have proceeded very far without stumbling upon a fiction. Mr. Parkes, 

 accordingly, early meets with the apothegm of the lawyers, that " the 

 King is the fountain of justice ;" and here takes occasion to show, that, 

 instead of being the fountain itself, he was never any thing more than 

 its guardian : a fountain, though, by-the-by, which, even from the first 

 propounding of the maxim, was described as " one which gold only 

 could unseal." This guardianship was originally delegated to him by 

 the Wittenagemote, or national council of the Anglo-Saxons ; and it is 



* A History of the Court of Chancery, with practical Remarks on the recent Commission, 

 Report, and Evidence, and on the Means of improving the Administration of Justice in the 

 English Courts of Justice. By Joseph Parkes, Solicitor, Birmingham. 



M.M. New Series. VoL.V. No. 30. 4 C 



