to have been already distinguished for superior learning. He had been a student at New College, and at Corpus Christi.
William Blackstone, the famous and almost immortal Commentator, was educated at Pembroke; but he became a Fellow of All Souls in 1744, and Professor of Common Law in 1758.
He is described as possessing a curious combination of physical sloth and mental irritability. Boswell says that he wrote the "Commentaries" with a bottle of port wine before him, "being invigorated and supported in the fatigue of his great work by the moderate use of it." He was ever ready to confess, and to regret, his bad temper; but he never overcame his dislike for any sort of bodily exercise; and he seems to have died, literally, from the lack of it. He was too lazy to take the trouble to live. This is a solemn warning against even the moderate use of port wine, in cases of great works!
These Commentaries of Blackstone, by the way, were first uttered in the form of Lectures, to the students of All Souls; and they thus established a pleasant precedent to this present writer, whose words originally spoken, were intended, later, to find a larger market in print.
Blackstone, inspired, no doubt, by his temperate use of port wine, is said, also, to have established
