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BLACKSTONE, SIR WILLIAM (1723-1780)
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See also:BLACKSTONE, See also:SIR See also: See also:Bentham, however, declares that he was a " formal, precise and affected lecturer—just what you would expect from the See also:character of his writings—cold, reserved and wary, exhibiting a frigid See also:pride." It was not till the year 1758 that the lectures in the See also:form they now See also:bear were read in the university. Blackstone, having been unanimously elected to the newly-founded Vinerian professorship, on the 25th of See also:October read his first See also:introductory lecture, afterwards prefixed to the first See also:volume of his celebrated Commentaries. It is doubtful whether the Commentaries were originally intended for the See also:press; but many imperfect and incorrect copies having got into circulation, and a pirated edition of them being either published or preparing for publication in See also:Ireland, the author thought proper to See also:print a correct edition himself, and in See also:November 1765 published the first volume, under the See also:title of Commentaries on the Laws of England. The remaining parts of the work were given to the See also:world in the course of the four succeeding years. It may be remarked that before this period the reputation which his lectures had deservedly acquired for him had induced him to resume practice in London; and, contrary to the See also:general order of the profession, he who had quitted the bar for an See also:academic life was sent back from the college to the bar with a considerable increase of business. He was likewise elected to .See also:parliament, first for Hindon, and afterwards for See also:Westbury in Wilts; but in neither of these departments did he equal the expectations which his writings had raised. The part he took in the See also:Middlesex See also:election See also:drew upon him many attacks as well as a severe animadversion from the See also:caustic See also:pen of " See also:Junius." This circumstance probably strengthened the aversion he professed to See also:parliamentary attendance, " where," he said, " amidst the rage of contending parties, a See also:man of moderation must expect to meet with no See also:quarter from any See also:side." In 1770 he declined the See also:place of See also:solicitor-general; but shortly afterwards, on the promotion of Sir See also:Joseph See also:Yates to a seat. in the See also:court of See also:common pleas, he accepted a seat on the See also:bench, and on the See also:death of Sir Joseph succeeded him there also. He died on the 14th of See also:February 1780. The See also:design of the Commentaries is exhibited in his first Vinerian lecture printed in the introduction to them. The author there dwells on the importance of noblemen, gentlemen and educated persons generally being well acquainted with the laws of the See also:country; and his See also:treatise, accordingly, is as far as possible a popular exposition of the laws of England. Falling into the common See also:error of identifying the. various meanings of the word law, he advances from the law of nature (being either the revealed or the inferred will of See also:God) to municipal law, which he defines to be a See also:rule of civil conduct prescribed by the supreme See also:power in a See also:state commanding what is right and prohibiting what is wrong. On this See also:definition he founds the See also:division observed in the Commentaries. The See also:objects of law are rights and wrongs. Rights are either rights of persons or rights of things. Wrongs are either public or private. These four headings form respectively the subjects of the four books of the Commentaries. Blackstone was by no means what would now be called a scientific jurist. He has only the vaguest possible grasp of the elementary conceptions of law. He evidently regards the law of See also:gravitation, the law of nature, and the law of England, as different examples of the same principle—as rules of See also:action or conduct imposed by a See also:superior power on its subjects. He propounds in terms the See also:doctrine that municipal or See also:positive laws derive their validity from their conformity to the so-called law of nature or law of God. " No human laws," he says, " are of any validity if contrary to this." His distinction between rights of persons and rights of things, implying, as it would appear, that things as well as persons have rights, is attributable to a misunderstanding of the technical terms of the See also:Roman law. In distinguishing between private and public wrongs (civil injuries and crimes) he fails to seize the true principle of the division. See also:Austin, who accused him of following slavishly the method of See also:Hale's See also:Analysis of the Law, declares that he "blindly adopts the mistakes of his See also:rude and compendious See also:model; missing invariably, with a See also:nice and surprising infelicity, the pregnant but obscure suggestions which it proffered to his See also:attention, and which would have guided a discerning and inventive writer to an arrangement comparatively just." By the want of precise and closely-defined terms, and his tendency to substitute loose See also:literary phrases, he falls occasionally into irreconcilable contradictions. Even in discussing a subject of such immense importance as See also:equity, he hardly takes pains to discriminate between the legal and popular senses of the word, and, from the small place which equity See also:jurisprudence occupies in his arrangement, he would scarcely seem to have realized its true position in thelaw of England. Subject, however, to these strictures the completeness of the treatise, its serviceable if not scientific order, and the power of lucid exposition possessed by the author demand emphatic recognition. Blackstone's defects as a jurist are more conspicuous in his treatment of the underlying principles and fundamental divisions of the law than in his See also:account of its substantive principles. Blackstone by no means confines himself to the work of a legal commentator. It is his business, especially when he touches on the framework of society, to find a basis in See also:history and See also:reason for all the most characteristic English institutions. There is not much either of See also:philosophy or fairness in this part of his work. Whether through the natural conservatism of a lawyer,' or through his own timidity and subserviency as a man and a politician, he is always found to be a specious defender of the existing order of things. Bentham accuses him of being the enemy of all reform, and the unscrupulous See also:champion of every form of professional chicanery. Austin says that he truckled to the sinister interests and mischievous prejudices of power, and that he flattered the overweening conceit of the English in their own institutions. He displays much ingenuity in giving a plausible form to common prejudices and fallacies; but it is by no means clear that he was not imposed upon himself. More undeniable than the See also:political fairness of the treatise is its merits as a work of literature. It is written in a most graceful and attractive See also:style, and although no opportunity of embellishment has been lost, the See also:language is always See also:simple and clear. Whether it is owing to its literary See also:graces, or to its success in flattering the prejudices of the public to which it was addressed, the See also:influence of the See also:book in England has been extraordinary. Not lawyers only, and lawyers perhaps even less than others, accepted it as an authoritative See also:revelation of the law. It performed for educated society in England much the same service as was rendered to the See also:people of See also:Rome by the publication of their previously unknown laws. It is more correct to regard it as a handbook of the law for laymen than as a legal treatise; and as the first and only book of the See also:kind in England it has been received with some-what indiscriminating reverence. It is certain that a vast amount of the constitutional sentiment of the country has been inspired by its pages. To this See also:day Blackstone's See also:criticism of the English constitution would probably See also:express the most profound political convictions of the See also:majority of the English people. See also:Long after it has ceased to be of much See also:practical value as an authority in the courts, it remains the arbiter of all public discussions on the law or the constitution. On such occasions the Commentaries are See also:apt to be construed as strictly as if they were a See also:code. It is curious to observe how much importance is attached to the ipsissima verba of a writer who aimed more at presenting a picture intelligible to laymen than at recording the principles of the law with technical accuracy of detail. See also the See also:article ENGLISH LAW. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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