tions in law ariſe, and the learned ſhould not ſo often and ſo much perplex their heads to make atonement and peace, by conſtruction of law, between inſenſible and diſagreeing words, ſentences, and proviſoes, as they now do.” And if this inconvenience was ſo heavily felt in the reign of queen Elizabeth, you may judge how the evil is increaſed in later times, when the ſtatute book is ſwelled to ten times a larger bulk; unleſs it ſhould be found, that the penners of our modern ſtatutes have proportionably better informed themſelves in the knowlege of the common law.
What is ſaid of our gentlemen in general, and the propriety of their application to the ſtudy of the laws of their country, will hold equally ſtrong or ſtill ſtronger with regard to the nobility of this realm, except only in the article of ſerving upon juries. But, inſtead of this, they have ſeveral peculiar provinces of far greater conſequence and concern; being not only by birth hereditary counſellors of the crown, and judges upon their honour of the lives of their brother-peers, but alſo arbiters of the property of all their fellow-ſubjects, and that in the laſt reſort. In this their judicial capacity they are bound to decide the niceſt and moſt critical points of the law; to examine and correct ſuch errors as have eſcaped the moſt experienced ſages of the profeſſion, the lord keeper and the judges of the courts at Weſtminſter. Their ſentence is final, deciſive, irrevocable: no appeal, no correction, not even a review can be had: and to their determination, whatever it be, the inferior courts of juſtice muſt conform; otherwiſe the rule of property would no longer be uniform and ſteady.
Should a judge in the moſt ſubordinate juriſdiction be deficient in the knowlege of the law, it would reflect infinite contempt upon himſelf and diſgrace upon thoſe who employ him. And yet the conſequence of his ignorance is comparatively very trifling and ſmall: his judgment may be examined, and his errors rectified, by other courts. But how much more ſerious and
