to exhibit the chrysalis of our language. The earliest English instrument, known to exist, is said to bear the date of 1343. Rymer contains one of the year 1385. Sir J. Mandeville, about 1350, has been considered the father of English Prose. In the time of Richard II, the English began to supplant the use of French, in the elementary instruction of schools, a change which has perpetuated the names of the persons who first introduced it. (Tyrwhitt's Essay on Chaucer, Ritson's Dissertation on Romance, Warton's History of English Poetry. Ellis's Specimens of early English Poetry, Johnson's Preface to his Dictionary. Verstegan's Decayed Intelligence, Hallam's Middle Ages, ch. 9. Turner's History of England, Part VI. ch. 1, 2. Madox's Exchequer, p. 122, 123, and Disquisition on the Romanic, or bastard Latin in the Preface to the History of the Exchequer.) Upon this subject, the observations of Mr. Luders are valuable, as pointing out the difference subsisting between the Norman and French languages, in the eleventh century. With respect to the use of French in Parliamentary and legal proceedings, it has been suggested by Barrington, that the circumstance of a standing committee in Parliament, being appointed to receive petitions from France,. might have been the cause of the Parliamentary proceedings being usually entered in that tongue, a practice which ceased about the time of this Country being dispossessed of its French colonies. The first Act in our Statute Book, in the French language, is the 51 Hen. III; and Luders remarks, that the earliest ordinances both of France and England, promulgated in that language, are nearly contemporary. The first instance of the use of English, in any parliamentary proceeding, is in the 36 Hen. III. The challenge of the Crown, by Hen. IV, and his thanks after the allowance of his title, are recorded in English, which is called his maternal tongue; and English appears occasionally in Parliamentary proceedings, during the reigns of Hen. IV, and Hen. V. In the reign of Henry VI, the petitions and bills of Parliament are frequently in English, and sometimes the answers also: but the Statutes continued to be in Latin and French The last Statute wholly in Latin on record is the 33 Hen. VI, the last portion of any Statute in Latin, is the 39 Hen. VI. c. 2. The publication of Statutes in English, is believed to have begun with the commencement of the reign of Hen. VII, and at least from the fourth year of Hen. VII, to the present time, they have been universally in English. (Report of the Committee, for the Inspection of the Public Records. Barrington on 51 Hen. III.) With respect to the use of French in legal proceedings, Blackstone says, that it preceded the use of Latin in the entry and enrollment of Pleas: this statement appears to be incorrect. (On the Language of Declarations, Tem. Edw. I. Edn. IV. Reeves c. 16. 23. On that of the Record, Stephen on Pleading, Appx. n. 14. and during the period from Rich. I. to

Edw. II

Edw. II. the Placitorum Abbreviatio.) The Statute of Edw. III. did not apply to the language of records, and the lawyers for a long time afterwards continued to take their notes in French, and such is mentioned to have been the practice of Lord Keeper Guilford, when at the bar. In North's Treatise on the study of the law, it is said that the law is "scarcely expressible properly in English, and when it is done it must be François, or very uncouth." Sir P. Yorke, afterwards Lord Hardwicke, in the reign of George II, was the first Serjeant that counted in English. (Wynne's Degree of Serjeant, p. 104. North's Life of Lord Keeper Guilford. And see in the Preface to Croke Charles, Sir H. Grimston's Apology for not Publishing that Work in "its Native Idiom, the proper and peculiar Phrase of the Common Law." And see further on the derivation of our legal language and forensic usages from the French, Stephen on Pleading, Appa. n. 30. 59. Craig. Jus. Feud. lib. i. D. 7.) Whitelock details in his Memorials a very learned speech, which was delivered on the occasion of the proposition, made to the Commonwealth Parliament, for translating all the books of the law, and the proceedings of the Courts of Justice, into the English tongue; besides much legal and antiquarian knowledge, it contains many sensible remarks on the policy of the measure, and concludes with an exhortation to the Commons, for passing the bill, expressed in a masterly strain of eloquence. An ordinance which was the consequence of this proposition, passed A. D. 1650, but was annulled at the Restoration, its expediency however was felt and recognized by the legislature of George II. Blackstone has questioned the propriety of this alteration in the language of our judicial proceedings, and has supported his opinion by some arguments which have exposed him to the just censure and ridicule of Mr. Bentham. (Fragment on Government.)

With respect to the vestiges of the French language, preserved in some particular instances, mentioned by Fortescue, Madox, amongst his arguments, to prove that the Exchequer was an institution of the Conqueror, states that most of the solemn and emphatic words employed in the business of the Exchequer, are of Norman origin, and that most of the terms of the Forest Law, used in the Exchequer, are derived from the same source. The fact of the general practice of keeping accounts in French, is called in question by Luders, who refers to instances, occurring in the twelfth century, of accounts being kept in Latin. (And see Henry's History, Vol. VI. p. 90.) Barrington in his observations on the 51 Hen. III, relates several particulars which shew the derivation of our terms of sporting, cookery, and heraldry, from the French. (See also on the Antiquity of Forests, and the Etymology of the word Purlieu, Herne's Cur. Disc. Vol. I. p. 118. Vol. II. p. 380. On the Hunting of the Britons and Saxons, Archæol. Antiq. Soc. Vol. XV.)

CHAP. XLIX.

BUT, my Prince, that the method and form of the study of the law may the better appear, I will proceed and describe it to you in the best manner I can. There belong to it ten lesser inns, and sometimes more, which are called the Inns of Chancery in each of which there are an hundred students at the least; and, in some of them, a far greater number, though not constantly residing. The students are, for the most part, young men; here they study the nature of Original and Judicial Writs, which are the very first principles of the law: after

a Sir E. Coke observes that students seeing the singular use of original writs, will, in the beginning of their study, learn them, or at least the principal part of them, without book, and he points out the advantages resulting from such a practice. In several of the prefaces to his reports, he appears particularly anxious to refer the antiquity of the writs of the Common Law to a period antecedent to the Conquest: Other writers of equal or greater authority upon this subject suppose the introduction of them to have been coeval with the establishment of the Curia Regis, when causes came to be decided before a tribunal, at a distance from the litigating parties, which was otherwise in the Saxon County Courts. (Hickes's Diss. Epist. p. 8. Madox's Excheq. p. 63. Reeves's History of the Law, c. 2. Stephen on Pleading, Appx. n. 2.). The great Saxon scholar Hickes speaks with much contumely of Coke's learning respecting the times before the Conquest, and calls him "in re forensi antiquâ minus versatum," "in patriæ suæ antiquis consuetudinibus et constitutionibus avitis hospitem." (Diss. Epist. p. 8. 49.) After the Statute of Westminster the second, writs became a part of the study of the law. The Masters in Chancery, to whom the business of preparing writs had been before confined, gradually relinquished all concern in respect of them, and their forms came to be settled by lawyers of eminence: by the printing of the Register,

the

they have made some progress here, and are more advanced in years, they are admitted into the Inns of Court, properly so called: of these there are four in number. In that which is the least frequented, there are about two hundred students. In these greater inns a student cannot well be maintained under eight and twenty pounds a year": and, if he have a servant to wait on him (as for the most part they have) the expence is proportionably more: for this reason, the students are sons to persons of quality; those of an inferior rank not being able to bear the expences of maintaining and educating their children in this way. As to the merchants, they seldom care to lessen their stock in trade by being at such large yearly expences. So that there is scarce to be found, throughout the kingdom, an eminent lawyer, who is not a gentleman by birth and fortune; consequently they have a greater regard for their character and honour than those who are bred in another way. There is both in the Inns of Court, and the Inns of Chancery, a sort of an Academy, or Gymnasium, fit for persons of their station; where they learn singing, and all kinds

the knowledge of writs was rendered publici juris, and they formed a most essential part of a lawyer's information, because during the prevalence of real actions, recourse was had to the learning contained in them at every turn and stop of the proceedings. (Concerning Writs, and the Antiquity of the Registrum Brevium, Co. Litt. 73. b. Nichols. Eng. Histor. lib. 215. Jehu Webb's Case, 8 Rep, Of a register in the time of Hen. II. in Coke's possession. Plowd. 7. Barr. on Statutum, Walliæ and Reeves's History of the Law, Henry VIII, where see a comparison between the Writs of the printed Register, and those in the several antecedent periods of our Law.)

In addition to the remarks on the value of money in a former page, it is to be noticed, that some useful observations on this subject occur in the ninth Chapter of Hallam's Middle Ages; this writer considers that sixteen will be a proper multiple when we would bring the general value of money, in the reign of Henry VI, to our present standard. (And see Sir F. Eden's Tables. Lord Lyttleton's Hen. II. v. 1. p. 470. et seq. Bl. Comm. vol. I. p. 173. vol. IV. p. 238. n.)

of music, dancing and such other accomplishments and diversions (which are called Revels) as are suitable to their quality, and such as are usually practised at Court. At other times, out of term, the greater part apply themselves to the study of the law. Upon festival days, and after the offices

The account given by Fortescue of the legal profession in the time of Henry VI, has occupied a considerable space in the treatises of all the authors, who have written upon the subject of legal Antiquities, since his time. The antiquities of the Inns of Court, and of Chancery, are the subjects of several papers in Herne's Curious Discourses; and Dugdale has investigated them in his Origines Juridiciales. It may be collected, that societies of lawyers began to have permanent residences soon after the Court of Common Pleas was directed to be held in a fixed place, to which circumstance, or to the abolition of the law schools in London, in the nineteenth year of Henry III, the institution of these societies is ascribed, by Blackstone. Lawyers were established in the Temple, in the reign of Edward III, when they held the place as the tenants of the Hospitalers, on whom the possession of the estates of the Knights Templars had devolved. An idea of the nature of the studies anciently pursued in the Inns of Court, may be formed from the very minute account which is given in Dugdale, of the exercises, mootings, and readings: and many details of an interesting nature, upon the same subject, are found in North's Life of Lord Keeper Guilford: the biographer supposes his Lordship to have been one of the last persons who read in the Temple in the ancient spirit of the institution, and complains that the exercise had, since his time, dwindled into a revenue; which circumstance he ascribes to the extravagant expences that the readers formerly incurred in the feasts, which it was incumbent on them to give. Coke describes the nature of ancient readings, which he laments had greatly degenerated in his day; he says they had become rather riddles than lectures, and he compares the readers to lapwings, who seem to be nearest their nests when they are farthest from them, and whose study was to find nice evasions out of the Statute. (Co. Litt. 280. a. For some interesting circumstances connected with the readings of Sir T. More, Wordsworth's Eccl. Biog.; -respecting Bagshawe's Reading, Tem. Car. 1. Whitel. Mem. p. 31. For directions upon the subject of Readings, Bacon's Introduction to his Reading upon the Statute of Uses. For a curious and valuable specimen of an Ancient Reading, Callis upon Sewers.)

The