388 GOVERNMENT, LAWS, [PART II. 



CHAP. XIV. 



GOVERNMENT, LAWS, AND RELIGION. 



400. MR. PROFESSOR CHRISTIAN, who has 

 written great piles of Notes on Blackstone's 

 Commentaries, and whose Notes differ from 

 those of the Note-writers on the Bible, in this, 

 that the latter only tend to add darkness to 

 that which was sufficiently dark before, while 

 the Professor's Notes, in every instance, with 

 out a single exception, labour most arduously, 

 and not always without success, to render that 

 obscure, which was before clear as the sun 

 now is in Long Island, on this most beautiful 

 fifth of December, 1818: this Professor, who, 

 I believe, is now a Judge, has, in his Note 

 126 on Book I, drawn what he calls " a dis- 

 " tinction" between Political and Civil Liberty, 

 which distinction contains as to ideas, manner, 

 and expressions, a complete specimen of what, 

 in such a case, a writer ought to avoid. 



401. Leaving definitions of this sort to such 

 conceited bunglers as the Professor, 1 will just 

 give a sketch (for it can be nothing more) of the 

 Government and Laws of this country. 



