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I started with quoting Blackstone's remark that there is no other science in which so little education is supposed to be necessary as that of legislation.
"Its true defect," says Professor Dicey of the Commentaries, "is the hopeless confusion both of language and of thought introduced into the whole subject of constitutional law by Blackstone's habit common to all the lawyers of his time of applying old and inapplicable terms to new institutions." This is severe enough; yet Blackstone's sins are deeper than the criticism would suggest.
Is all authority of course lost when it is not pushed to the extreme? Is it a certain maxim that the fewer causes of discontentment are left by Government the more the subject will be inclined to resist and rebel?" See Blackstone's Comm., i. 90; Austin on Jurisprudence, i. 226.
The Church universal in all ages has always divided its membership into two great classes, and two only, the clergy and the laymen, using the terms laity and laymen synonymously and interchangeably. See Bingham's "Antiquities," Blackstone's "Commentaries," Schaffs "History," and kindred authorities. It is sheer trifling for sensible males to talk about a distinction between laymen and laywomen.
I proceeded in my address to them, and explained the nature of the law in case of invasion; my father having taken down Blackstone's Commentaries, and read to me an extract respecting the posse comitatus.
Adams thought so, or caused others to think so, are separate topics beside the question: for myself, I will spare you a satire dotted with as many I's as an Argus pheasant; and, without exacting upon good-nature by troublesome contributions, will hazard a few couplets concerning Blackstone's cast-off mistress, the Law.
The qualifications, however, prescribed in different statutes, vary according to the object for which the jury is impannelled. See Blackstone's Commentaries, b. iii., c. 23. The federal judges decide upon their own authority almost all the questions most important to the country.
Christian, one of Blackstone's editors, says that it is this writ that makes slavery impossible in England. It was on this writ, that Somerset was liberated. The writ, in fact, asserts, as a great constitutional principle, the natural right of personal liberty. And the privilege of the writ is not confined to citizens, but extends to all human beings.
His edition of Blackstone's Commentaries first appeared in 1841. It contained from the first so much of his own work as to be almost an independent performance. In later editions he introduced further changes to adapt it to later legislation, and it is still a standard book. He lived after the Bristol appointment at Cleevewood in the parish of Mangotsfield.
He returned, however, to Oxford in December to hear Blackstone's lectures. These lectures were then a novelty at an English university. The Vinerian professorship had been founded in 1758 in consequence of the success of a course voluntarily given by Blackstone; and his lectures contained the substance of the famous Commentaries, first published 1765-1769. They had a great effect upon Bentham.
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