L A W. 
not, in any fcene of life, clifcharge properly their duty ei¬ 
ther to the public or themfelves, without fome degree of 
knowledge in the laws. 
And firft, as to gentlemen of independent eftates and 
fortune, the nioft ufeful as well as confiderable body of 
men in the nation ; whom even to fuppofe ignorant in 
this branch of learning is treated by Mr. Locke as a 
ftrange abfurdity. It is their landed property, with its 
long and voluminous train of defcents and conveyances, 
fettlements, entails, and incumbrances, that forms the 
mod intricate and moil extenfive object of legal know¬ 
ledge. The thorough comprehenlion of thefe, in all their 
minute diltimftions, is perhaps too laborious a talk for any 
but a lawyer by profedion ; yet Itill the underltanding of 
a few leading principles, relating to eftates and convey¬ 
ancing-, may form fome check and guard upon a gentle¬ 
man's inferior agents, and preferve him at lead from very 
grofs and notorious impofition. 
Again, the policy of all laws has made fome forms ne- 
ceflary in the wording of laft wills and teftaments, and 
more with regard to their atteftation. An ignorance in 
thefe mull always be of dangerous confequence, to fuch as 
by chance or neceftity compile their own teftaments with¬ 
out any technical alliftance. Thofe who have attended 
the courts of juftice are often witnelfes of the confulion 
and diftrefles that are hereby occafioned in families; and 
of the difficulties that arile in difcerning the true mean¬ 
ing of the teftator, or l'ometimes in difcovering any mean¬ 
ing at all; fo that in the end his eftate may often be vert¬ 
ed quite contrary to thefe his enigmatical intentions, be- 
caufe perhaps he has omitted one or two formal words, 
which are necefiary to afcertain the fenfe with legal pre- 
cifion ; or has executed his will in the prefence of fewer 
witnelfes than the law requires. 
To proceed from private concerns to thofe of a more 
public confideration. All gentlemen of fortune are, in 
confequence of their property, liable to be called upon to 
eftablilh the rights, to eftimate the injuries, to weigh the 
accufations, and fometimes to difpofe of the lives, of their 
fellow-fubjecls, by ferving upon juries. In this fituation 
they are frequently to decide, and that upon their oaths, 
queftions of nice importance, in the folution of which 
fome legal Ikill is requilite ; efpecially where the law and 
the fact, as it often happens, are intimately blended toge¬ 
ther. And the general incapacity, even of our belt juries, 
to do this with any tolerable propriety, has greatly de- 
bafed their authority 5 and has unavoidably thrown more 
power into the hands of the judges, to direct, controul, 
and even reverfe, their verdifts, than perhaps the confti- 
tution intended. 
But it is not as a juror only that the Englilh gentle¬ 
man is called upon to determine queftions of right, and 
diftribute juftice to his fellow-fubjetts : it is principally 
•with this order of men that the commiffion of the peace is 
filled. And here a very ample field is opened for a gen¬ 
tleman to exert his talents, by maintaining good order in 
his neighbourhood ; by punifning the dilfolute and idle ; 
by protecting the peaceable and induftrious ; and, above 
all, by healing petty differences and preventing vexatious 
profecutions. But, in order to attain thefe defirable ends, 
it is necefiary that the magiftrate ffiould underftand his 
bulinefs, and have not only the will, but the power alfo, 
(under which mult: be included the knowledge,) of ad- 
miniftering legal and effectual juftice. Elfe, when he 
has miftaken his authority, through paflion, ignorance, 
or abfurdity, he will be the objeft of contempt from his 
inferiors, and of cenfure from thofe to whom he is ac¬ 
countable for his conduct. 
Farther; mod gentlemen of confiderable property, at 
fome period or other in their lives, are ambitious of re- 
prefenting their country in parliament; and thofe, who 
are defirous of receiving fo high a truft, would alfo do 
well to remember its nature and importance. They are 
not thus honourably diftinguifhed from the reft of their 
fellow-111bjefts merely that they may frank letters, and 
avoid paying their debts by the privilege which they ac¬ 
quire for their perfons, their eftates, or their domeftics ; 
that they may lift under party-banners ; may grant or 
withhold fupplies; may vote with or againft a popu¬ 
lar or unpopular adminiftration ; but upon confiderations 
far more interefting and important. They are the guar¬ 
dians of the Englilh confutation ; the makers, repealers, 
and interpreters, of the Englilh laws; delegated to watch, 
to check, and to avert, every dangerous innovation; 
to propofe, to adopt, and to cherilh, any folid and well- 
weighed improvement; bound by every tie of nature, of 
honour, and of religion, to tranfmit that conftitution and 
thofe laws to their pofterity, amended if polfible, at leall 
without any derogation. And how unbecoming mult it 
appear in a member of the legiffature to vote for a new 
law, who is utterly ignorant of the old! What kind of 
interpretation can he be enabled to give, who is a ftranger 
to the text upon which he comments ! 
Indeed it is really amazing, that there Ihould be no 
other ftate of life, no other occupation, art, or fcience, in 
which fome method of inftruflrion is not looked upon as 
requifite, except only the fcience of legiflation, the nobleft 
and molt difficult of any. Apprenticelhips are held ne- 
celfary to almoft every art, commercial or mechanical: a 
long courl'e of reading and ftudy mult form the divine, 
the phylician, and the practical profeffor of the laws; but. 
every man of fuperior fortune thinks himfelf born a le- 
giffator. YetTully was of a different opinion: “It is ne- 
cefiary, fays he, for a fenator to be thoroughly acquainted’ 
with the conftitution ;” and this, he declares, is a know¬ 
ledge of the 1110ft extenfive nature ; a matter of fcience, 
of diligence ; without which no fenator can polfibly be 
fit for his office. 
What is faid of our gentlemen in general, and the pro¬ 
priety of their application to the ftudy of the laws of their 
country, will hold equally ftrong, or ftill ftronger, with 
regard to the nobility of this realm, except only in the 
article of ferving on juries. But, inftead of this, they 
have feveral peculiar provinces of ftill greater confe¬ 
quence and concern ; being not only by birth hereditary 
counfellors of the crown, and judges, upon their ho¬ 
nour, of the lives of their brother-peers, but alfo arbiters 
of the property of all their fellow-fubjeffs, and that in 
the laft relort. In this their judicial capacity they are 
bound to decide the niceft and molt critical points of 
the law; to examine and corredl fuch errors as have ef- 
caped the moft experienced fages of the profeffion, the- 
lord-chancellor and the judges of the courts of Weftminf- 
ter. Their fentence is final, decifive, irrevocable: no ap¬ 
peal, no correction, not even a review, can be had. And 
to their determination, whatever it be, the inferior courts 
of juftice muft conform ; otherwife the rule of property 
would no longer be uniform and rteady. 
Should a judge, in the moft fubordinate jurifdi&ion, be 
deficient in the knowledge of the law, it would refleft in¬ 
finite contempt upon himfelf, and difgrace upon thole 
who employ him. And yet the confequence of his ig¬ 
norance is comparatively fmall and trifling : his judg¬ 
ment may be examined, and his errors rectified, by other 
courts : but how much more ferious and affefting is the 
cafe of a fuperjor judge, if, without any Ikill in the laws, 
he will boldly venture to decide a queltion, upon which 
the welfare and fubfiftenceof whole families may depend! 
where the chance of his judging right or wrong is barely 
equal ; and where, if he chances to judge wrong, he does 
an injury of the moft alarming nature, an injury without 
poffibility of redrefs ! 
Yet, vaft as this truft is, it can no-where be fo properly 
repofed as in the noble hands where our excellent confti¬ 
tution has placed it; and therefore placed it, becaufe, 
from the independence of their fortune, and the dignity 
of their ftation, they are prefumed to employ that leifure 
which is the confequence of both, in attaining a more ex¬ 
tenfive knowledge of the laws than perfons of inferior 
rank: and became the founders of our polity relied upon 
^ that. 
