NOTES C C D D. 



prevailing. Let me mention the efforts which, during the struggle, were 

 made by my friends, Joseph Parkes of Birmingham, and Charles Cooper of 

 Lincoln s Inn ; by Jeremy Bentham, to whose exertions in contemplative life, 

 society is for ever indebted : and his friend Sir Samuel Romilly, and Lord 

 Brougham, now Lord Chancellor, to whose exertions in active life society is 

 more indebted than, since the time of Lord Bacon, it ever was to any individual 

 for the diffusion through the community of all knowledge, and for the advance 

 ment of legal reform. &quot; That,&quot; says Lord Bacon, &quot;will indeed dignify and 

 exalt knowledge, if contemplation and action may be more nearly and strongly 

 conjoined and .united together, than they have been : a conjunction like unto 

 lhat of the two highest planets, Saturn, the planet of rest and contemplation, 

 and Jupiter, the planet of civil society and action.&quot; I please myself with the 

 hope that these improvements will be continued cautiously but vigorously : that 

 the Chancellor will assist in separating the judicial and political functions of the 

 Chancellor: that imprisonment for debt will be abolished: and, to insure a 

 perpetuity of these improvements, that he will be the promoter and patron of a 

 national or professional advocate s library, and consider Lord Bacon s constant 

 suggestion that there should be a board of legal reformers, that a living spring 

 may mix with the stagnant waters, and reform advance calmly and steadily. 



In Bacon s first speech in parliament, ante, note B B, he says, &quot; The Romans 

 they appointed ten men who were to collect or recall all former laws, and to set 

 forth those twelve tables so much of all men commended. The Athenians 

 likewise appointed six for that purpose. And Lewis the Ninth, King of France, 

 did the like in reforming his laws.&quot; 



He repeats this in his proposal, made when he was attorney-general, for the 

 amendment of the laws of England : &quot; The Romans, by their Decemviri, did 

 make their twelve tables ; but that was indeed a new enacting or constituting of 

 laws, not a registering or recompiling ; and they were made out of the laws of 

 the Grecians, not out of thir own customs. In Athens they had Sexviri, which 

 were standing commissioners to watch and to discern what laws waxed unproper 

 for the time ; and what new law did, in any branch, cross a former law, and so, 

 ex qfficio, propounded their repeals. King Lewis XL of France, had it in his 

 intention to have made one perfect and uniform law, out of the civil law Roman, 

 and the provincial customs of France.&quot; The same observation is contained in 

 his offer of a digest of the law published after his death. &quot; In Athens they 

 had Sexviri, (as ^Eschines observeth) which were standing commissioners, who 

 did watch to discern what laws waxed improper for the times, and what new 

 law did in any branch cross a former law, and so ex offlcio propounded their 

 repeal.&quot; And in his tract on Universal Justice, A ph. 55, vol. ix. he says, &quot; Erat 

 in more apud Athenienses ut contraria legum capita (que Antinomias vocant) 

 quotannis a sex viris examinarentur. et quae reconciliari non poterant propone- 

 rentur populo, ut de illis certum aliquid statueretur. Ad quorum exemplum, 

 ii, qui potestatem in singulis politiis legum condendarum habent, per triennium, 

 aut quinquennium, aut profit videbitur, Antinomias retractanto. Ess autem a 

 viris, ad hoc delegatis, prius inspiciantur et praeparentur, et demum comitiis 

 exhibeantur, ut quod placuerit, per suffragia stabiliatur, et figatur.&quot; 



D D. Life, p. xxviii. 



Extract from Dewe s Journal of the House of Commons, p. 493. Mr. F. Ba 

 con assented to three subsidies, but not to the payments under six years ; and to 

 this propounded three questions, which he desired might be answered. The 

 first, impossibility or difficulty ; the second, danger or discontentment ; and 

 thirdly, a better manner of supply than subsidy. For impossibility, the poor 

 men s rent is such as they are not able to yield it, nor to pay so much for the 

 present. The gentlemen must sell their plate, and farmers their brass pots ere 

 this will be paid ; and for us, we are here to search the wounds of the realm, 

 and not to skin them over ; therefore not to persuade ourselves of their wealth 

 more than it is. The dangers are these : we shall first breed discontentment in 

 paying these subsidies, and in the cause endanger her majesty s safety, which 



