Nor have the imperial laws been totally neglected even in the Engliſh nation. A general acquaintance with their deciſions has ever been deſervedly conſidered as no ſmall accompliſhment of a gentleman; and a faſhion has prevailed, eſpecially of late, to tranſport the growing hopes of this iſland to foreign univerſities, in Switzerland, Germany, and Holland; which, though infinitely inferior to our own in every other conſideration, have been looked upon as better nurſeries of the civil, or (which is nearly the ſame) of their own municipal law. In the mean time it has been the peculiar lot of our admirable ſyſtem of laws, to be neglected, and even unknown, by all but one practical profeſſion; though built upon the ſoundeſt foundations, and approved by the experience of ages.
Far be it from me to derogate from the ſtudy of the civil law, conſidered (apart from any binding authority) as a collection of written reaſon. No man is more thoroughly perſuaded of the general excellence of it’s rules, and the uſual equity of it’s deciſions, nor is better convinced of it’s uſe as well as ornament to the ſcholar, the divine, the ſtateſman, and even the common lawyer. But we muſt not carry our veneration ſo far as to ſacrifice our Alfred and Edward to the manes of Theodoſius and Juſtinian: we muſt not prefer the edict of the praetor, or the reſcript of the Roman emperor, to our own immemorial cuſtoms, or the ſanctions of an Engliſh parliament; unleſs we can alſo prefer the deſpotic monarchy of Rome and Byzantium, for whoſe meridians the former were calculated, to the free conſtitution of Britain, which the latter are adapted to perpetuate.
Without detracting therefore from the real merit which abounds in the imperial law, I hope I may have leave to aſſert, that if an Englishman muſt be ignorant of either the one or the other, he had better be a ſtranger to the Roman than the Engliſh inſtitutions. For I think it an undeniable poſition, that a competent knowlege of the laws of that ſociety, in which we live,
