they were authorised to represent his person over the districts to which they were assigned, administering justice in his name, levying his feudal exactions on his vassals, and receiving their homage. These powerful feudatories were held in check by Charlemagne; but under his successors, and the other European monarchs, it became their aim to be the independent sovereigns of the territories committed to their charge-an object in which they were more or less successful according to circumstances, some throwing off their master's yoke, while others made themselves intermediate superiors between the king and his vassals. The various states of Italy and Germany are illustrations of the working of these events. The feudatories of France made a very near approach to independent sovereignties. They possessed within their own dominions the right of coining money, that of waging private war, exemption from all tributes, except the limited feudal duties by which they acknowledged the superiority of the crown, and finally, freedom from legislative and judicial control on the part of the sovereign and his courts. The vassal, too, in looking after his own concerns, sometimes conquered territories not inferior to those of his lord; and under such circumstances there was little chance of his being an obedient retainer. The Duke of Normandy, the vassal of the king of France, became monarch of England, and the Dukes of Burgundy were little less powerful.

From these high personages, vassalage went through many gradations, till it reached abject slavery. There were the vavassors and châtelains, dependants on the higher nobility, but who themselves had large estates and fortified their houses. There were the burghers of free towns, whose privileges have been already mentioned. Of rank corresponding in the rural districts, were the socage-holders, and the class so well known in England by the designation yeomen. The lowest grade were the villeins or serfs, to whom was committed the task of tilling the lands which the soldier gained or protected. It was the characteristic of the other grades of feudality to impose duties upon the lord, corresponding to those of the vassal, but the villein had little power to exact performance of these regulations. There were grades, however, even among the serfs, though probably there were not instances in which one held of another as vassal and superior. The peculiarity of the class was, that they were astricted to the domain, and went with it when it changed hands. Some, however, had rights and privileges which they might maintain in the court of the manor of their lord. Some held small estates, which, however, they could not dispose of. The lowest class were as abject and unprivileged as the slaves of the Romans.

the export and import of commodities; and if he found a clever artisan on his premises, he would keep him and his services for his own use.

The revival of literature was not favourable to pure feudalism. It brought with it the study of the civil and canon laws, and it was through the lights so acquired that the feudal customs were interpreted. The decline of the spirit of the feudal law is matter of history, and a view of it would lead to too long a digression. Not only its effects upon society, but its literal forms, still linger amongst us; even in republican America there is pride and boast of birth, and a knowledge of the feudal system is sometimes requisite in ascertaining the title to property.

THE LAW OF ENGLAND.

England has already been mentioned as an exception to the general prevalence in Europe of the civil and canon laws; not that these systems were totally repulsed, but that they met with a countervailing resistance, which prevented them from obtaining the influence they possessed in other countries. This resistance may be found in the existence of a different, and, it may perhaps be said, hostile system, called the common law, and to the power of parliament to make laws or statutes. The three great elements of the jurisprudence of England are the common law, the law of equity, and the statute law. To these may be added, as codes limited to particular spheres, the Admiralty law and the ecclesiastical law.

Common Law.

Speaking of the common law, Sir Matthew Hale, its historian, says: This is that law by which proceedings and determinations in the king's ordinary courts of justice are directed and guided. This directs the course of descents of lands, and the kinds, the natures, and the extents and qualifications of estates; therein, also, the manner, forms, ceremonies, and solemnities of transferring estates from one to another; the rules of settling, acquiring, and transferring of properties; the forms, solemnities, and obligations of contracts; the rules and directions for the exposition of wills, deeds, and acts of parliament; the process, proceedings, judgments, and executions of the king's ordinary courts of justice; the limits, bounds, and extent of courts, and their jurisdictions; the several kind of temporal offences and punishments at common law, and the manner of the application of the several kinds of punishments; and infinite more particulars, which extend themselves as large as the many exigencies in the distribution of the king's ordinary justice require.'

The origin of this system-one of the most interesting subjects of modern investigation-is involved in deep obscurity. Its progress subsequently to the reign of Edward I., who has been called the English Justinian, is pretty accurately noticed; but when an unprofessional inquirer reads those portions of English law-books which attempt to carry the history to an earlier period, he cannot help feeling disappointed at the unsatisfactory result. The more marked features of the system were, doubtless, the customs of the Anglo-Saxons. A collection of the laws of England during the heptarchy, or laws of the Anglo

The different classes of feudal taxes have been mentioned above. There were others, however, of a more miscellaneous nature, which were chiefly encroachments on the purer spirit of feudality, dictated by despotism and cupidity. It was upon the vassals who approached nearest to the state of villeinage that these innovations naturally fell most heavily. They were designated ‘aids,' and were demanded by the lord on any occasion which caused him outlay. If he had to make war with a neighbour, or to portion off a relation in marriage, or to ransom a son, he demanded an aid. Aids were profusely exacted by the knights who joined in the Cru-Saxons, was published by an eminent antiquary at sades. In England, the aids that might be exacted, were restricted by Magna Charta to three: they were for the purpose of making the lord's eldest son a knight, for marrying his eldest daughter, and for redeeming his person from prison. By exactions in a different form, the more servile vassals were fleeced and kept in subjection. The superior, if he built a mill, astricted all his vassals to grind their grain at it, compelling them to pay a tax for the service they were forced to receive. He compelled them to assist in making roads and building bridges, and he exacted tolls of all below the degree of freeholders who crossed them--a system which placed impediments in the way of vassals escaping from place to place. He obtained tolls and duties, too, on

the commencement of the eighteenth century; but there is great reason to believe that they were written some centuries after the Conquest; while the fragments of Anglo-Saxon legislation which they contain refer chiefly to the arrangement of the military force, the clergy, and other matters of general or police regulation, which, in the present instance, are less interesting than a little insight into the laws relating to private rights would be. Alfred and Edgar have acquired much fame for having collected and arranged the laws of their predecessors, reformed them where they were impolitic, and completed them where deficient; but it would be difficult to determine their exact merits. Edward the Confessor enjoys a similar reputation. To

and the people, and Sir Edward Coke reckons no less than thirty different occasions on which it was ratified.

him, indeed, history supplies us with good ground for | favourite object of veneration both with the aristocracy referring equitable laws, for we find that when the people complained against the oppression of the Norman kings, they demanded the good old laws of Edward the Confessor.' It is probable, however, that the compliment did not apply to him so much in the capacity of a legislator as that of the last of the Saxon kings.

Whatever may have been the exact nature of the laws of the Anglo-Saxons, the Conquest effectually incorporated them with the feudal system, and the connection between vassal and superior became one of the most important features of the common law. It is not to be supposed, however, that this was the earliest visit of feudal institutions to Britain. The Saxons could not well escape the influence of a system which had deeply rooted itself among the kindred nations of the continent; and many feudal institutions are to be found existing under the Saxon kings. The increase of the spirit of feudalism under the sway of William the Conqueror was, however, so great, that many authors have attributed its origin in England to the era of the Conquest. It was then, indeed, that it became oppressive. The conqueror brought with him the system of his own province, for which he was a vassal to the king of France, and could not admit the possession of landed property in England, except as held from himself in the capacity of lord paramount. The greater nobles-chiefly the Conqueror's companions in arms-naturally held the lands he liberally bestowed on them of him as superior, and they compelled all who lived upon their lands, or even in their neighbourhood, to acknowledge them as liege lords. The forcible increase of such a system as the feudal law could not but be attended with acts of great oppression. These were added to by the selfish magnificence of the princes, who cleared large tracts of country of inhabitants, that they might enjoy the regal pleasures of the chase in undisturbed tranquillity. The Saxons had their own county courts, but the greater part of the causes were, after the Conquest, removed from them to be pleaded in the court of the monarch, which attended on his own person. Legal proceedings were conducted in the Norman dialect of the French, which was afterwards changed into Latin. The use of a tongue unknown to the people at large continued down to the days of Oliver Cromwell, and at the Restoration was restored, with some other absurd practices. It was abolished in as far as respects the proceedings of the courts in 1730.

Civil liberty may be defined as the permission of such an amount of free action as it is most conducive to the welfare of all that each individual should possess. This is one of the most important objects of the laws, and the circumstances which conduce to its existence are among the most interesting in legal history. In England, the progress of liberty has been in a great measure attributed to the division of interests in the country. The crown had an interest in checking the power of the great nobility. That the exercise of this power was essential to the liberty that has existed in England, is apparent in contemplating the state of France and Germany, where the aristocracy made themselves either quite or nearly independent of the crown, and revelled in the tyranny of their despotic wills unchecked. A very important blow to the power of the aristocracy was accomplished by Edward I. in 1290, by the abolition of the system of sub-feuing. From that day, no vassal of the crown could grant lands to be held of himself, as he may to this day in Scotland-he could only put a new vassal in his own place, as an adherent of the crown. There is evidence that a similar law was passed in Scotland, but the crown was not strong enough to enforce an enactment which deprived the aristocracy of the privilege of being petty sovereigns. The disputes with the church were not without their service. The attempts of the ecclesiastics to urge the claims of their Roman and canon laws, caused the common lawyers to isolate themselves from the slavish doctrines of these systems, and to resist their encroachment with true professional hatred. It was in the universities of course that the clergy had their chief influence; and the students of the common law formed themselves into rival institutions, from which originated the Inns of Court. Then there was in the boroughs a separate interest, powerfully pointing towards freedom, and possessed of an influence not to be despised. The tendency of all these circumstances seems to have been, a gradual return to Saxon freedom, and a fixing of the common law in conformity with the long-cherished feelings of the English people.

That strong-minded and clear-headed man Edward I., whose ambition was so heavy a curse to his neighbours, took a great stride in the establishment of the common law. Of his reforms, as enumerated by Blackstone, The charters that were so often granted by the ear- we give the following specimens: He established, lier kings to the importunity of their subjects, were confirmed, and settled the Great Charter and Charter partially restrictions of the tyranny of the feudal law, of Forests. He gave a mortal wound to the encroachand partially promises to adhere to the old Saxon cus-ments of the pope and his clergy, by limiting and estabtoms-promises which would not have been so often lishing the grounds of ecclesiastical jurisdiction; and exacted if they had not been continually broken. The by obliging the ordinary, to whom all the goods of most celebrated of these is that conceded by King John, intestates at that time belonged, to discharge the debts called Magna Charta, or the Great Charter. Its privi- of the deceased. He defined the limits of the several leges are in a great measure constitutional, and it has temporal courts of the highest jurisdiction--those of the often been said that it was procured for the advantage King's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer so as of the aristocracy, and not of the people; but it is not they might not interfere with each other's proper busiwithout stipulations in favour of the latter, protecting ness; to do which they must now have recourse to a them both from the crown and from the nobility. It fiction, very necessary and beneficial in the present restricts the tyrannical forest laws, and the arbitrary enlarged state of property. He settled the boundaries exactions by feudal lords from their vassals. The of the inferior courts in counties, hundreds, and manors, clause which has attracted chief interest, however, is confining them to causes of no great amount, according that which says that no freeman shall be affected in to their primitive institution, though of considerably his person or property, save by the legal judgment of greater than by the alteration of the value of money his peers, or by the law of the land. Legal writers they are now permitted to determine. He secured the have found a stately tree of liberty growing out of the property of the subject by abolishing all arbitrary taxes, seed planted by this simple sentence. They discover in and talliages levied without consent of the national it the origin of that judicial strictness which has kept council. He guarded the common justice of the kingdom the English judges so close to the rules laid down for from abuses, by giving up the royal prerogative of them in the books and decisions of their predecessors. sending mandates to interfere in private causes. He The judgment by peers is said to refer to jury trial, instituted a speedier way for the recovery of debts, by and it is urged that the whole clause strikes against granting execution, not only upon goods and chattels, arbitrary imprisonments, and involves the principle of but also upon lands, by writ of elegit, which was of the habeas corpus, by which every man, whose liberty is signal benefit to a trading people; and upon the same restricted, may demand to be brought before some com- commercial ideas, he also allowed the charging of lands petent court, in order that he may be either convicted in a statute merchant, to pay debts contracted in trade, or liberated. The Great Charter has always been a contrary to all feudal principles.' This last-mentioned

while the estate was adjudged to the purchaser.

reform refers to measures for enabling a creditor to get | valent, with whom there was no effectual competitor, possession of his debtor's land in payment of his debt. How opposed such a remedy would be to feudal prin- The repositories of the common law are the treatises ciples may easily be conceived; and the boldness with of eminent lawyers and the reports of decisions. Of which Edward made his reforms will be felt when it is the former, there are several of the thirteenth and considered that what he had thus commenced was only fourteenth centuries-Glanvil, Bracton, Hengham, and completed in 1833. If the debt of a landed proprietor the book called Fleta, the authorship of which is unwere not substantiated by some bond or other docu- known. Lyttleton's treatise on Tenures, the work of a ment, his land could not be applied in payment of it more matured system, was long the text-book in the on his decease; and it was only in that year that practice of the feudal law. It was in the humble form landed property was made fully available for simple of a comment on this work, that the great Chief-Justice contract debts. The statement that Edward imposed Coke issued the vast treasury of legal learning so familimits on ecclesiastical jurisdictions, refers to the au- liarly known as Coke upon Lyttleton,' a book which thority which the clergy arrogated regarding wills—is in itself an almost inexhaustible subject of study to already mentioned under the head of the canon law. the lawyer. The next great name is Blackstone, a man Edward allowed them the charge of the deceased's who brought elegant accomplishments to bear on the effects, but compelled them to employ the money in austere drudgery of the law, and wrote a book, the clear paying his debts. perspicuity of which has made many men acquainted From the period when we discover any branch of the with the laws of their country who would have othercommon law in existence, we find its observance rigo-wise remained profoundly ignorant of them. The book rously enforced by the judges. Of course, they had has one great defect, that, professing to be not merely very frequently, as society progressed, to apply it to an exposition of the laws but an estimate of their worth, the wants of an age very different from that in which it it bestows indiscriminate eulogy on all the vices of the was invented; but, in doing so, instead of directly alter- system as well as its advantages. The reverential eye ing the law, which they always viewed as beyond their with which English lawyers look upon whatever is power, they accomplished the change by a manœuvre ancient in the common law, is singularly apparent in almost peculiar to the law of England, called a the majority of law-books. If any great authority, such fiction. A fiction may be defined to be the taking for as Coke or Blackstone, has treated of a particular subgranted that a thing has been done which has not been ject, whoever afterwards writes upon it seems to be done, and acting accordingly. For instance, if a man held bound to incorporate all that he has said, not only had taken an article in loan or on hire, and refused in spirit, but in words. As the passages are not marked to give it up to the owner, the legal remedy, by the as quoted, the effect is a very peculiar one; for the common law, was a very complicated one. In the case, reader, after perusing a few sentences in the easy flow however, where a man had found another's property of the nineteenth century, finds himself unexpectedly which he refused to restore, there was a very expedi- entangled in the quaint language of the reign of James tious and distinct remedy. It occurred to lawyers, that I., without the slightest hint that he is going to get, the kind of process used in this latter case was the very not the statement of the author himself, but something thing that would be most suitable for the other; and taken from Coke or Spelman. Of the reports of cases therefore, when they brought an action against a person there is now a vast collection. From the time of Edwho thus wrongfully detained the goods of another, they ward I. to that of Henry VIII., they were annually colstated that he had found them, and the judges, agreeing lected by officers appointed for the purpose, and were in the propriety of the form of action being applied to called year-books. They have latterly been published the purpose, would not allow the party to show that by private reporters. As they are all precedents for there was no finding in the case. Hence the well- guidance in succeeding cases, and therefore the source known action of trover, from the French trouver, to to which the public look for the interpretation of the find. Some curious illustrations of fictions of law will laws they must obey, it may be questioned whether be given when we describe the method in which the they should not be officially recorded by persons recourts acquired their jurisdiction. sponsible for the accuracy of their reports. This plan has to a certain extent been adopted in America.

Fictions were not, however, the only means by which the judges, while adhering apparently to the letter of the law, could adjust it to their own views of the wants of society. A far-seeing judge who looked forward to the probable rise of a new system of transactions, could, by a swaying of the principles of the law that might be quite imperceptible at the moment, adapt them to the new exigencies. It was thus that Lord Mansfield, without the aid of statute, created the law of insurance. There are frequently many underwriters, or insurers to a policy; and had the practice been as it was, each would have had to be prosecuted separately on the occasion of a loss; but Mansfield, by a very slight divergence from previous practice, brought all the claims in a policy into one action-an expedient without which the system as it at present stands could not have existed. This was accomplished by a rule of court known by the name of the Consolidation Rule, by which all the actions except one is stayed, on the various defendants becoming bound to abide by the issue of that action. In their covert efforts to change the laws, the judges did not spare even acts of parliament. They managed to hit a blow at the power of the aristocracy, by limiting the operation of the statute of entails. When the holder of the entailed estate wished to sell it, he let the buyer bring an action against him, alleging that he had no title. He said he had bought the property from some one-usually the crier of the court-whose duty it was to support his title. The crier being called in, made default, and was nominally adjudged to give the holder under the entail an equi

Law of Equity.

The peculiar strictness with which the common law was administered, gave rise to the other great division of English jurisprudence-the law of equity. This was originally a system by which relief was given in cases where a strict interpretation of the common law would have produced injustice. It could look to the influence of accidents and frauds when common law could not. A deed, for instance, was lost. The common law courts could hear nothing about what might have been its contents. They could see nothing, know nothing, act on nothing, but the express words of the deed as set before them; and as that could not be found, the party must suffer. Here the court of equity came to his relief, by compelling a discovery' of the contents of the document. When a trustee was put in possession, common law could not look at him in any other light but as holding for his own behoof; but equity compelled him to do his duty to his employers. Where an obligation was to pay, common law could comprehend its nature and exact performance, but if it was to perform any other act, the assistance of equity was generally necessary. Again, the courts of law might give a remedy for a mischief after it had been perpetrated, but they could not interfere to prevent it. This necessary branch of legal administration came likewise within the jurisdiction of the judge in equity, who, on cause shown, could issue his injunction.'

The origin of this system is as obscure as that of the

the House of Lords amend such a measure, for the House of Commons to refuse to take it into consideration again, and to authorise their speaker to throw it over the table. About seventy years ago, in the case of a bill for the protection of game, the House of Lords thought fit to raise the penalties higher than those sanctioned by the lower house, and as the money went to the exchequer, the commons considered this an infringement of their privileges, and acted accordingly. All measures involving taxation originate in what is called a committee of supply,' in which the house is presumed to be sitting, not to debate great questions, but simply to transact pecuniary business. In the case of the introduction of any ordinary bill, amending the law, into the House of Commons, the first stage is, to obtain leave from the house to bring it in.' In the House of Lords, a member may move a bill without previously obtaining leave. On a bill being brought in, the next step is the first reading. A member moves that it be read a first time. If there be a party in the house bitterly opposed to the principle of the measure, it may be opposed in this stage, and a debate and division will of course ensue. If the objections be merely to the details, they are reserved for a future opportunity. On its passing this ordeal, the bill is ordered to be printed.

common law, though it is evidently of a more modern date, having been introduced as a remedy to the evils of the latter. The earlier law-books do not mention it, and it was probably long in operation as a sort of exception to the ordinary course of law, before lawyers would acknowledge it as a system. Its most plausible origin is simply this that when a person suffered a manifest injury which the ordinary courts could not remedy, he applied for redress to the sovereign in person. The king's conscience-keeper, or chaplain, became the referee on these occasions, and what he did he sealed, by way of testimony of the royal authority, with the king's seal. Hence the origin of the lord chancellor with his great seal, whose office, in this form, has been traced, or imagined to be traced, so far back as the days of Edward the Confessor. In early times, the chancellors were ecclesiastics, and they thus were in the habit of adjusting their equity, and the form in which they administered, it to the civil law. This occasioned great feuds with the common law courts, which at the commencement of the seventeenth century raged so fierce, that in a case where a remedy was sought in equity from the proceedings of the Court of King's Bench, the lawyers who conducted the proceeding, and a master in Chancery, were indicted for an offence. With the assistance of King James, whose legal notions were derived from the civilians, the courts of equity triumphed. The great Sir Edward Coke was then at the head of the King's Bench-a man who, notwithstanding his harsh and tyrannical acts, must still be admired for the bravery with which he supported the strict administration of the law, however high might be the personage who wished to evade it. Whatever may have been the origin of equity, it became at last a fixed system of law. It is a popular mistake that a judge in equity gives his decision according to what is called the general principles of equity and justice,' without reference to strict rules. He is bound down by precedents and rules, and there are many acts of parliament which regulate his proceedings; so that in reality equity is but a depart-is still another motion, to the effect that the bill do ment of the general system of law.

Statute Law.

We have now to speak of the third branch of the law-statutes, or acts of parliament. The constitution of the legislature by which they are passed does not belong to the present subject; it need only be observed, that to be law, every word of an act requires to have the consent of the three branches of the legislature the sovereign, the lords, and the commons. In very early times, acts of parliament seem to have been petitions by the parliament acceded to by the sovereign. The parliament was convened to supply the king with money, and while it kept him in suspense, it sometimes prepared a petition against grievances, to which a needy monarch found it prudent to accede. It became a practice for the judges, at the end of a session of parliament, to convert the substance of the petitions,' or 'bills,' which had been acceded to by the king, into acts. This practice was fraught with manifest danger, the judges having the power, when parliament had ceased to sit, of altering the intended provisions. To remedy this, the plan now followed was adopted, of making the bill contain the exact words which it was intended should constitute the act. Singularly enough, the bill is still in the form of a petition, and when it is made an act, the only alteration which takes place is, that the words May it therefore please your Majesty' are struck out.

A bill may be introduced either in the House of Commons or in the House of Lords. It is a rule that all bills affecting personal station-such as bills of attainder for treason, bills for naturalising foreigners, &c. shall make their first appearance in the House of Lords. The commons possess the more substantial privilege of originating all bills of supply, or for the levying and appropriation of taxes. The privilege is jealously guarded, and it is usual, should

The next and principal ordeal is the second reading, after which the bill is referred to a committee of the whole house to be examined. In this committee, as in a committee of supply, the body is the same in every respect as that which constitutes the House of Commons, but the members are considered as having assembled, not to debate general questions, but to enter on a business-like examination of the various clauses of the measure. When the committee have examined all the clauses, the next formality is, that they report to the house, and that their report be received. It is then moved that the bill be read a third time. This stage is, in disputed measures, generally the last trial of party strength. If the third reading is carried, there

pass,' and this motion is seldom opposed. On the bill passing one house, it is conveyed to the other, where it has to pass through the same succession of readings. When amendments are made on a bill after it has passed through one of the houses, in that to which it is then sent, it must be re-transmitted to the house where it first passed. That house may accede to the amendments, and so let the bill pass; or it may reject the whole measure in consequence of them; or it may, adhering to its first opinions, hold a conference with the other house, with a view to a settlement of differences. When a bill has passed both houses, its next step is the royal assent, which may be given either by the sovereign personally, or by commission.

A bill that has received the royal assent becomes a law, the operation of which commences from the moment when the consent is adhibited, unless another point of time be stated in the act. All the statutes of a session are ranked in order, according to the date at which they have received the royal assent; and the whole set are distinguished from others by the year of the reign in which they have been passed. Technically, the whole legislation of a session is called one act, and each statute or act, according to the common acceptation of the term, is called a chapter of it. The privilege of printing the statutes in their original state, without note or comment, is reserved to the king's or queen's printers. In the printed edition of the statutes, each chapter is divided into sections. This arrangement has been adopted by the printers for convenience of reference, but in the original copy of the act there is no such division-the whole is a continuous manuscript without break. Nor is the division into chapters even authoritative. The consequence is, that when a new act is passed, making alteration on some part of a previous one, instead of specifying the chapter and section that is altered, it describes the act vaguely, as an act passed in such a session, for such a purpose.

Thus, in 1839, an act was passed to alter a section of the Patents Act, passed in 1837. For any ordinary purpose, this would have been called an act to amend the seventh section of the act 5 and 6 William IV. chapter 83; this would have led to the exact point at once: but as there are no such things as chapters and sections known in law, the legislature could only give a roundabout description, thus-An act to amend an act of the fifth and sixth years of the reign of his late Majesty William IV., intituled an act to amend the law touching letters-patent for inventions.' Sometimes there is a series of acts, the latter ones amending those that have preceded them, so that the titles are involved in almost inextricable confusion. Even where the acts are divided into sections, as they are by the printers, it is found very difficult for lawyers to unravel their meaning, and to unprofessional people they are often a sealed book. A section generally consists of but one sentence; and as it has often to give a long narrative of things that must be done, independently of circumstances, and others that must be done in particular cases, and others that may be done, but are not imperative, and others that must not be done, &c., the comprehension of the full meaning of the sentence requires a strong mental effort. Among the statutes, there are individual sentences which, if printed in the type and form of an ordinary three- volume novel, would fill a hundred pages.

lation effectually prevents people from being able to act up to the laws, however willing they may be, and their protection is frequently in other people being equally ignorant of the laws that are broken. Invidious investigations into antiquated laws are thus occasionally the means of subjecting individuals to great hardships, by bringing punishment upon them which no foresight could have averted. Hence the trade of what are called common informers, whose vindication of the law has too often the effect of merely heaping calamities on individuals, instead of producing a uniform observance of the laws. The pursuit is a very unpopular one; but when laws are in every respect just and good, it is difficult to see how the enforcement of them can be other than an advantage; and it would appear to an unprejudiced stranger to be a somewhat contradictory practice, first to make laws, and then teach society to hate and punish those who put them in force. As society advances in intelligence, the necessity for the reform of the whole system of law, and its simplification into one comprehensive code, will become more apparent, while the mode of administering the law in courts will also be seen to require revision. Everything at present indicates that we are approaching the point when these important steps must be taken.

English Law Courts.

We have now to notice the various courts of law in England. The House of Lords must be mentioned as a general court of appeal from the whole kingdom. There is only one set of superior judicatures from which a reference may not come before it in some form or other the criminal courts of Scotland. The origin of parliament is connected with the great council of the feudal kings, which gave them advice both in legislative and judicial matters. When parliament was separated into two houses, the judicial business adhered in general to the upper, and, probably at the instigation of the bishops, the Lords

There are some acts which are passed every session in the same terms, such as the Mutiny Act, the indemnity for neglecting to take the oaths, &c. Independently of these, the statutes now passed in a single year generally fill a quarto volume of about 500 pages, very closely printed. Besides these acts, which generally either apply to the whole empire, or to some one of the great national divisions of it, there are annually passed several folio volumes of statutes, called 'Public Local Acts,' consisting of the police acts of the various towns, and acts for the construction and management of harbours, turnpike roads, bridges, gas-works, water-adopted the power of administering oaths, which was not works, railways, &c. It is by virtue of legislative authority only that monopolies can be constituted in such cases, and that individuals can be compelled to sell their property for the use of public works. Hence, this is a separate branch of the statute law, comprising several hundred volumes.

possessed by the Commons-a circumstance which more distinctly marked their judicial character. To bring causes which have passed through the hands of learned judges under the direct cognisance of a body consisting of clergymen, soldiers, and young men of fashion, would be too preposterous to be practically adopted; and The necessity of consolidating together the various though the appeal is nominally taken to the House of statutes on different subjects, has from time to time Lords, it is heard and decided on by one of the emibeen felt and expressed by the first legal statesmen of nent lawyers, of whom there are always several in the Britain. Lord Bacon, in whose days the statute law did house, and generally by the Lord Chancellor. Indenot occupy a twentieth part of its present bulk, spoke pendently of their powers as judges of appeal, the with alarm of its overgrown size, and recommended Peers act as a criminal court in all cases where a peer that the whole ought to be abridged before it should of the realm is tried for a capital crime. They are become unmanageable. Already something has been formed into a temporary tribunal for the occasion, predone. The revenue acts, which occupy a large por-sided over by a judge called the Lord High Steward. tion of the statute-book, were partially consolidated in 1826. About 400 acts relating to the customs, and similar matters, the prevention of smuggling, registration of vessels, &c., were repealed, and the new regulations on the various heads were consolidated in eight acts. To these acts each subsequent session has generally made some addition; but to prevent confusion from this source, a very simple remedy has been devised. When there have been several additions made to an act, a new one is framed, embodying the whole contents of the old act, as altered by the subsequent ones, and then all previous legislation on the subject is repealed. Thus, in 1833, all the customhouse acts were a second time consolidated; that is to say, the acts of 1826, with the additions and alterations made to them by later acts, were embodied together in a set of new acts, so that no one, in consulting the custom-house laws, can have to go farther back than 1833.

Measures, we believe, are in active preparation to extend this principle to other departments. At this moment there are upwards of 120 stamp-acts in operation, one of them as old as the reign of William III. The existence of these confused masses of legis

This official is properly the judge, the peers acting as a jury, and giving their verdict on the question of guilt. The directly feudal origin of this rule of ancient practice will be at once recognised.

The principal courts of first resort are naturally divided into courts of common law and courts of equity. The former are three in number: the King's or Queen's Bench, the Common Pleas, and the Exchequer. Each has a chief, and four assistant judges, called puisne or junior judges. These courts date their origin to the Conquest. On feudal principles, the Norman kings called all the principal causes which had, under the Saxons, proceeded before the county courts, to be decided in their own hall, or court, by their own great council, which was presided over by an officer called the Justiciar. This court, called the Aula Regis, or King's Court, at first followed the king's person-a great inconvenience, removed by Magna Charta, which fixed it permanently in Westminster. Under Edward I., the system was adopted of sending deputations from the court twice a year to try cases in various parts of the country. Under the same monarch, the jurisdiction of the court was split into three parts. To the justiciar, afterwards called Chief-Justice, were assigned