568 The Court of Chancery. 



reports, always require the confirmation of the chancellor, before prac- 

 tical effect can be given to them ; and from causes little honourable 

 either to the system, or to the dispensers of it patronage, " exceptions" or, 

 in common language, objections to these reports, add not a little to the 

 many other distractions of the chancellor. 



The commissioners of bankrupt were instituted as an inferior tribunal 

 for the primary administration of the bankrupt jurisdiction. To what 

 extent they relieve the chancellor of this part of his burthens, the evi- 

 dence of his lordship's secretary will have pretty correctly instructed 

 our readers. Though an officer, as we have seen, of great antiquity, 

 the master of the rolls was not anciently an independent judge, but sat 

 only in the absence of the chancellor, and as his deputy. The constant 

 repetition of these sittings conferred upon him, in process of time, an 

 original jurisdiction ; but so comparatively small is their present amount, 

 that he still preserves the legal fiction of sitting only as the chancellor's 

 substitute. " The overwhelming pressure of business," says Mr. Parkes 

 (p. 356,) ee on Lord Eldon, and the complaints, ' both deep and loud/ 

 of the whole country, at length induced an attempt to remove the evils 

 of delay by the creation of an additional judge." And the only remain- 

 ing judicial officer of the court was, in the year 1813, accordingly created 

 in the person of the vice chancellor. The three jurisdictions, of lord 

 chancellor, vice chancellor, and master of the rolls, are concurrent ; 

 but that of lord chancellor is an appellate jurisdiction to each of the 

 others. 



It would have been nothing short of a miracle, if such a court as we 

 have exhibited had not, by its cost, its delay, and its abuses, become the 

 eternal theme of complaint. The Court of Chancery was certainly not 

 destined to renew the age of miracles ; and the industry of our author 

 has collected the most abundant, formidable, and conclusive evidence, 

 that for centuries the reform of the law has been the almost ceaseless cry 

 of the people, while for centuries has this reform received the almost 

 unvarying opposition of the lawyers. Down to the Commonwealth, the 

 attempts at the reformation of the Court of Chancery are very much 

 blended with the general reform of the whole law ; but so early as the 

 time of Edward III., we find the commons petitioning the crown, c< that 

 the writs of the Chancery may be at reasonable prices, and the clerks, 

 fyc., do content themselves with the king's allowance." In Richard II.'s 

 reign, they petition that the chancellor be made " to redress the enor* 

 mities of the Chancery ;" and they renew their complaints to Henry V., 

 alleging in their petition, that the liege subjects " are a long time 

 delayed in the sealing of their writs sued in the Chancery." The reign 

 of James I. commenced with parliamentary attacks upon the Chancery ; 

 and Bacon, in his inaugural speech, complains sorely of the f< delays 

 of the court," the " needless prolixity," " idle repetitions," " open or 

 wasteful writings" of its proceedings, and the " exaction of new fees." 

 "In 1621, a debate appears in the Journals, in which Mr. Alford asserts 

 that causes in Chancery lasted twenty or thirty years ; that injunctions 

 were obtained without hearings ; that the officers were corrupt, and the 

 judicial power too great for any one man" (p. 921). And, in the same 

 month, we find Coke asserting, that " the Chancery embraces so many 

 causes, as the chancellor and master of the rol/s cannot possibly determine." 

 (76.) As a pretty substantial proof that they were not exaggerating, we 

 may quote a cotemporary instance mentioned by Mr. Parkes (p. 87), of 



