14 ON THB ORIGIN AND PROGRESS 



Bacon, by particular recorders appointed to the task. These annual 

 records formed at length the source, the fountain-head, of coranon law ; 

 which formed, in the course of time, receptacles of such breadth and 

 depth as at once to defy the most indefatigable and indomitable mind, 

 even though coupled with an insatiable thirst for knowledge and ex- 

 ploration. 



The evil was still further augmented by the formality of the pro- 

 ceedings, which were maintained in strict accordance with ancient 

 usage, and in the teeth of the altered spirit of the age. The forms 

 and expressions, too, of the litigant parties, as regards the petitions of 

 the latter and the judicial decisions, naturally of a narrow character, 

 from the comparatively barbarous times in which they had their 

 origin, and when there was scarcely any other property save the soil, 

 and no other important branch of industry than agriculture, were yet 

 further contracted by the introduction of the feudal system, and crip- 

 pled down and narrowed in order to accord with the limited state of 

 social intercourse. It may be naturally supposed that, with the in- 

 crease of civilization, and with the growth of a trading and mercan- 

 tile intercourse, and, above all, after the abolition of the feudal system, 

 that such antiquated forms must have clashed with the expanding spi- 

 rit of new affairs, or at least have been neutralized into a dead letter. 

 In some degree, thus it was. The judges, lawyers, and parties them- 

 selves, were obliged to invent new names and means in order to facili- 

 tate in some degree the march of the new order of affairs ; and in 

 some instances the wisdom of these people was curiously displayed, 

 particularly in the disposal and transfer of landed property. In this 

 instance, a sort of learned comedy was played ; new difficulties and 

 involvements were generated, which rendered proceedings still more 

 tedious. A sort of pedantic, juridical faction, now formed the base of 

 a legislation from which the spark of life had fled. No wonder that 

 the lack of forms suitable to the real character of affairs constituted 

 one of the main obstacles to the distribution of justice with regard to 

 the common law. 



Thus in the same manner, and from the same cause, as the Preto- 

 rian jurisdiction was transformed at Rome into a peculiar species of 

 legislation, was the judicial authority of the lord chancellor in Eng- 

 land converted into a new and particular kind of legislation, called 

 equity, the court of which extends its jurisdiction over all those 

 civil affairs of the realm which are of a modern origin, and for which 

 the ancient form of the common law could not have provided : such 

 as insolvencies which required a judicial investigation ; the care to be 



