1828.] The Court of Chancery: 573 



sacred volume of his Pundit ; and the lavish admiration the learned 

 apologist bestows on the whole, becomes, in the hands of those who can 

 appreciate its truth, such exquisite irony, that the study of the Com- 

 mentaries is to them almost as entertaining as the perusal of Tom Jones 

 or Joseph Andrews. A late pamphlet, by a lawyer, high in reputation, 

 who, it is rumoured, is to be one of the Chancery Commissioners, proves, 

 that if the wig of the judge have not yet pitched upon the head of the 

 learned gentleman, at least the robe has dropped upon his shoulders, 



But let us turn from abstract reasoning, to see how our conclusions 

 are borne out by the experience of history. ' ' It is a singular and 

 interesting proof of the sagacity of our ancestors," says Mr.Parkes (p. 31), 

 " that in order to ensure simplicity and integrity in the construction of 

 their laws, and the disinterested performance of parliamentary duties, 

 practising lawyers were, by repeated acts and ordinances, disqualified 

 from sitting in the House of Commons." An earlier enactment declared 

 that " no lawyers in the House of Commons should thenceforth have 

 any wages " (p. 33) a provision, by-the-by, which shows how little our 

 ancestors were aware of the difference between money and money's 

 worth. When we inform our readers " it was thought they got into 

 Parliament as a goodly opportunity of making their court to the minister, 

 and for the emolument of the attendance," (p. 32) we hope none will 

 be so rude as to draw points of resemblance between those ancient 

 worthies, and certain individuals who are found thronging the treasury 

 benches of modern parliaments. At what time the lawyers were per- 

 mitted to resume their seats, does not appear. They are, however, to be 

 found figuring in the House again at the time of Elizabeth. Subsequent 

 attempts were made to exclude them; and Ludlow, speaking of the 

 commonwealth, says, that c ' lest the judges who were members of the. 

 House might, by their influence there, prevent the intended reformation of 

 the law, it was resolved that no member of Parliament should be a judge 

 in any court" (p. 176). Prynne's disgust at the craft makes him 

 rather a prejudiced, though otherwise a sufficiently-honest witness ; but 

 if reliance may be placed on his authority, it might have been well for 

 the public weal if these attempts had been more successful. He asserts 

 that it " shortened the duration of the sessions, facilitated business, sim- 

 plified much the verbiage of acts of Parliament, and had the effect of 

 restoring laws to their primitive Saxon simplicity, and making them short, 

 like God's commandments" (p. 32). When the statute of Edward III. 

 enacted, " that in future all pleas should be ' pleaded, shewed, defended, 

 answered, debated, and judged, in the English tongue :' the lawyers, 

 always on the alert, appended a proviso that they should be c entered 

 and enrolled' in Latin, and the old customary forms and terms retained" 

 (p. 43). The reports and statutes were accordingly still preserved " with 

 the additional obscurity of the Gothic black letter." It was not until 

 about three centuries afterwards, that, after a severe struggle with the 

 lawyers, plain English was substituted for this barbarous jargon. Coke's 

 benevolent motion for its retention, " lest, by the publication of them in 

 the vulgar tongue, the unlearned might be subjected to errors, and trust- 

 ing to their own conceits, endanger themselves," is a fair specimen of the 

 legal reasoning of the time. To the extensive reforms of the common- 

 wealth, almost all the writers of the day agree in ascribing the lawyers 

 to be the obstacle. " These different writers confess it is difficult to 

 reform the corrupt system, because so many are concerned in its con- 

 tinuance ; the corrupt interest of the lawyers, and the temptation to ad- 



