BLACKSTONE. 



565 



Siackstone. was unanimously elected the first Vinerhn professor ; 

 and, on the 25th of the same month, he delivered 

 his introductory lecture before the heads of the uni- 

 versity. This judicious discourse, which he soon 

 afterwards published, is now prefixed to Kis Com- 

 mentaries. His employment, as a public lecturer, 

 did not prevent him from occasionally exercising his 

 profession as a provincial barrister. The famous 

 Professor Millar of Glasgow sometimes followed the 

 same practice. 



The reputation which he had acquired by his lec- 

 tures, induced him, in the year 1759, to return to 

 the Temple, and resume his attendance at West- 

 minster-hall ; and he now advanced with great rapi- 

 dity in the career of his profession. Though he 

 never attained to the very first rank in business, yet 

 it appears from the books of reports, that, during 

 a considerable period, there were few cases requiring 

 great learning and research in which he was not em- 

 ployed. In 1761, he was chosen member of parlia- 

 ment for Hindon ; and received a patent of proce- 

 dure to rank as king's counsel, having previously 

 declined the office of chief justice of Ireland. On 

 the establishment of the queen's household, in 1763, 

 he was appointed solicitor-general to her majesty. 



In May 1761, he married Sarah, the eldest daugh- 

 ter of James Clithercw, Esq. of Boston-house, in 

 the county of Middlesex. Having vacated his fel- 

 lowship by marriage, he was immediately afterwards 

 appointed principal of New-inn Hall, by the Earl of 

 Westmoreland, at that time chancellor of the uni- 

 versity. This office, as well as the Vinerian profes- 

 sorship, he resigned in the year 1766. 



It was about this period of his life that he laid the 

 foundation of his fame as an author. Some years be- 

 fore the appearance of his great work, he collected 

 several smaller productions, which had been printed 

 in a separate form, and republished them under the 

 general title of Law Tracts. Oxford, 1762, 2 vols. 

 8vo. The first volume contains, An Essay on Colla- 

 teral Consanguinity, Considerations on Copyholders, 

 and A Treatise on the Law of Descents. The se- 

 cond contains, The Great Charter and Charter of the 

 Forest, -with other Authentic Instruments : to which 

 is prefixed n Introductory Discourse contai?iing the 

 History of the Charters. This historical introduc- 

 tion is of considerable length, and displays a familiar 

 acquaintance with the study of antiquities. The ori- 

 ginal publication of his edition of the great charter 

 implicated him in a controversy with Dr Littleton, 

 then dean of Carlisle. In the year 1759, Black- 

 stone had published two small tracts of a local and 

 emporary nature, which he has excluded from this 

 collection. The one is entitled, Reflections on the 

 Opinions of Messieurs Pratt, Moreion, and Ir'i/hra- 

 ham, relating to Lord Lichfield's Disqualifications 

 for the chancellorship of the university ; the other, 

 A Case for the Opinion of Council, on the Power of 

 the University to wake New Statutes. 



The first volume of his Commentaries on the Lfrws 

 of England, was published at Oxford, in 4to, in the 

 year 176.5 ; and the other three volumes followed 

 ioon afterwards. This work, to which he is in- 

 debted for the permanence of bis reputation, com- 

 prehends the *ubst r ice of his academical prelections; 



and is by far the most elegarrt and popular book on Blackstone; 

 the municipal laws of England which has yet ap- 

 peared;- Before the publication of Blackstone's 

 Commentaries, the study was generally considered as 

 extremely repulsive ; but he has treated it with a de- 

 gree of elegance and interest, which may recommend 

 It to every inquisitive reader. His arrangement, if 

 not perfectly unexceptionable, is at least sufficiently 

 perspicuous ; and the work is even valuable on ac- 

 count of^ its genuine English style. This produc- 

 tion, though of the elementary kind, is by no means 

 superficial : with his accuracy and judgment he has 

 united a very industrious spirit or research. But, 

 with all these merits, it exhibits some radical defects, 

 against which it is highly expedient to caution the 

 young and ingenious student. It is remarked, by 

 the very judicious writer of his life in the Genera! 

 Biography, H that Blackstone, in those parts of his 

 Commentaries where he examines the reasons and 

 principles of law, discovers no portion of the philq- 

 sophical spirit ; and that he does not rise above the 

 ordinary level of those writers, who, in every age 

 and country, have extolled their own municipal in- 

 stitutions as the wisdom of ages,' and the * perfec- 

 tion of reason.' In discussing the propriety of par- 

 ticular laws, his ingenuity is always occupied by the 

 forms of jurisprudence ; and, instead of referring to 

 public convenience and general utility, the sole stand- 

 ard of all rational legislation, he perpetually appeals 

 to those technical arguments which are dignified with 

 the title of ' legal reasons.' He is in all cases the 

 advocate and the apologist of existing institutions ; 

 and it is the constant tendency of his work to justify 

 whatever has been established by antiquity, to dis- 

 credit the improvements of modern times, and to ex- 

 pose to contempt, or indignation, all proposals for 

 further change. He is one of that servile class of 

 writers, under whose auspices the mind of a nation 

 makes no advances, who confirm the prejudices and 

 ignorance of the people, while they flatter the pride 

 and indolence of government. In his political prin- 

 ciples, he is the slave of power and the advocate of 

 prerogative ; and his ecclesiastical opinions are 

 strongly tinctured with the spirit of religious bigo- 

 try and intolerance. It deserves to be remarked, 

 that, notwithstanding this deference to authority, 

 the Commentaries of Blackstone contain several very 

 strong passages against standing military establish- 

 ments, and the pohcy of keeping soldiers apart from 

 their fellow-citizens in barracks or fortifications ; 

 nor has any political writer delineated in stronger 

 terms the progress of the influence of the crown, or 

 the probable effects of a further increase of the na- 

 tional debt. This circumstance, which appears at 

 first so singular, must be attributed to the spirit of 

 the times, rather than to that of the writer. So na- 

 tural and obvious did the introduction of those to- 

 pics then appear in a work on the British constitu- 

 tion, that they could not, with propriety, be omit- 

 ted by the most determined supporters of preroga- 

 tive." 



Soon after the publication of this work, Black 

 stone was involved in a controversy with Dr Fur- 

 neaux and Dr Priestley ; who attacked the ecclesi- 

 astical parts of it with great ability, and, we may 



