34 



LIFE OF 



by claiming to fashion it according to a private opin- 

 ion of what it ought to be. Judicial legislation he 

 abhorred, I should rather say, dreaded, as an impli- 

 cation of his conscience. His first inquiry in every 

 case was of the oracles of the law for their response; 

 and when he obtained it, notwithstanding his clear 

 perception of the justice of the cause, and his intense 

 desire to reach it, if it was not the justice of the law, 

 he dared not to administer it. He acted upon the 

 sentiment of Lord Bacon, that it is the foulest injus- 

 tice to remove land-marks, and that to corrupt the 

 law, is to poison the very fountain of justice. With 

 a consciousness that to the errors of the science there 

 are some limits, but none to the evils of a licentious 

 invasion of it, he left it to our annual legislatures to 

 correct such defects in the system, as time either 

 created or -exposed: and better foundation in the law 

 can no man lay. 



Those who study his opinions, while they may re- 

 mark that he was unusually sparing of references to 

 authority, will find that it was the result of selection 

 and not of penury. He was not, however, what is 

 sometimes termed a great case-lawyer. His memory 

 did not appear to be tenacious of insulated decisions; 

 nor is it usual for men of philosophical minds, who 

 arrange the learning of their profession by the aid of 

 general principles, to be distinguished by their recol- 

 lection of particular facts. With the leading cases 

 under every head, those which may be called the 

 light-houses of the law, he was familiar, and knew 



