NOTE C C. 



He knows that the multitude will cry out for Barabbas, and that ignorance 

 has an antipathy to intellect. 



&quot; Tis a rich man s pride, there having ever been 

 More than a feud, a strange antipathy 

 Between us and true gentry.&quot; 



He knows this, but proceeds, secure of his own approbation, and the sympathy 

 of the virtuous and intelligent. 



10. If the principle of the law is erroneous, he endeavours to extirpate it, with 

 5 attendant injustice and litigation. 



If the principles of the laws against usury or witchcraft or widows burning 

 themselves are erroneous, he endeavours to procure their repeal. In these cases 

 he remembers the maxim of Sir Edward Coke, &quot; Si quid moves a principio 

 moveas ; errores ad principia referre est refellere.&quot; He remembers the old 

 maxim, &quot; He who in the cure of politic or of natural disorders shall rest himself 

 contented with second causes, without setting forth in diligent travel to search 

 for the original source of evil, doth resemble the slothful husbandman, who 

 moweth down the heads of noisome weeds, when he should carefully pull up 

 the roots ; and the work shall ever be to do again.&quot; 



11. If the principle is right, he endeavours to modify it, according to times and 

 circumstances. 



If the principle of the laws against usury is well founded, he varies the rate 

 of interest ; or in witchcraft he mitigates the severity of the punishment. In 

 these cases he remembers the admonition of Sir Matthew Hale, &quot; We must do 

 herein, as a wise builder doth with an house that hath some inconveniences, or 

 is under some decays. Possibly here or there a door or a window may be 

 altered, or a partition made ; but as long as the foundations or principles of the 

 house be sound, they must not be tampered with. The inconveniences in the 

 law are of such a nature, as may be easily remedied without unsettling the 

 frame itself ; and such amendments, though they seem small and inconsider 

 able, will render the whole fabric much more safe and useful.&quot; 



12. If he is advanced to any office of authority, he uses his power to improve the 

 law. 



Sir Francis Bacon was no sooner appointed attorney-general than he dedicated 

 to the king his proposals for compiling and amending the laws of England. 

 &quot; Your majesty,&quot; he says, &quot; of your favour having made me privy counsellor, 

 and continuing me in the place of your attorney-general, I take it to be my 

 duty, not only to speed your commandments and the business of my place, but 

 to meditate and to excogitate of myself, wherein I may best, by my travels, 

 derive your virtues to the good of your people, and return their thanks and 

 increase of love to you again. And after I had thought of many things, I could 

 find, in my judgment, none more proper for your majesty as a master, nor for 

 me as a workman, than the reducing and recompiling of the laws of England.&quot; 

 And having traced the exertions of different legislators from Moses to Augustus, 

 he says, &quot; Cajsar, si ab eo quaereretur, quid egisset in tog&; leges se respondisset 

 multas et prreclaras tulisse;&quot; and his nephew Augustus did tread the same 

 steps, but with deeper print, because of his long reign in peace ; whereof one 

 of the poets of his time saith, 



&quot; Pace data terris, animum ad civilia vertit 

 Jura suum ; legesque tulit justissimus auctor.&quot; 



So too, Sir Samuel Romilly was no sooner promoted to the office of Solicitor 

 General, than he submitted to parliament his proposals for the improvement 

 of the Bankrupt Law and the Criminal Law. &quot; Long,&quot; he says, &quot; has Europe 

 been a scene of carnage and desolation. A brighter prospect has now opened 

 before us. 



&quot; Peace hath her victories 



Not less renowned than war.&quot; 



This note is written in December 1832, when legal reform, having triumphed 

 over the obstacles by which it has for two centuries been resisted, is now nobly 



