judgments, as the builders of Babel were in their languages, yet do think it vain, if not impious, to speak or understand more than their own mother tongue." (Preface to Stiles's Reports.) Bulstrode also was compelled, much against his will, to translate his Reports into English. (See the Address to the Reader prefixed to the 2d Part.)

Upon the Restoration, the Law French was likewise restored as the language of the reporters, and continued in use until the beginning of the last century. In the Preface to Fortescue's Reports, (who was one of the Judges of the Common Pleas in the reign of George II.) there is a laboured attack upon the use of the Law French: "And here I cannot but observe," says he, "that while the Saxon is totally neglected, some, not content to learn the Law French for what is already wrote in, seem fond of the use of it, and of writing new things in it; but for what reason I am at a loss, and at a greater yet, why any lawyer should write reports in that tongue; ***. If we consider the present state of Law French, as used by some modern reporters, wherein all the antiquated true French is lost, and instead thereof, English words substituted, with French terminations tacked to them, this still makes it worse, and thereby it is become even the corruption of an imperfect and barbarous speech, understood by no foreigner, not even by the French themselves, serving only as a mark of

our subjection to the Normans, and for the use of which the French despise us." Mr. Justice Fortescue attacked this antiquated absurdity with much greater effect in his celebrated and very humorous report of the trial of Stradling v. Stiles, usually printed in Pope's Works, at the end of the Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus, and which will be found in another part of these volumes. At the conclusion of this case is an inimitable morsel of Law French, which it is impossible not to transcribe: Le reste del argument jeo ne pouvois oyer car jeo fui disturbe en mon place.

The Latin continued to be the language of the Records until the reign of George II., when a statute was passed directing them to be entered in English.

The motives of the lawyers in employing a dead or a foreign language for so long a period have been frequently questioned. It was objected, according to Sir John Davies, " to the professors of our law, that, forsooth, they write their Reports and books of the law in a strange unknown tongue, which no one can understand but themselves, to the end that the people, being kept in ignorance of the law, may the more admire their skill and knowledge, and value it at a higher price. As Cicero in his final book de Oratore, doth testify, that the like conceit was held of the first professors of the civil law, Quia veteres illi

qui huic scientiæ præfuerunt, obtinendæ atque augendæ potentiæ suæ causa, pervulgari artem suam noluerunt. And Cæsar, speaking of the Druids, who were judges and interpreters of the laws among the ancient Britons, doth report of them, that though they spent twenty years in the study of those laws, non existimabant fas esse ea literis mandare." (Pref. to Sir John Davies's Rep.)

With regard to the language of the statutes, it is observed by Barrington, (p. 426,) that the statutes of Edward the Fourth's reign are the last in the French Language: and again, (p. 431,) that the reign of Richard III. is a remarkable epoch in the legislative annals of the country, from the statutes having continued from this time to be in the English Language. This statement is certainly erroneous, for, in Pynson's Edition of the Statutes, those of Richard III. are all in French : and it is said by Sir John Davies, that " as for our statutes or acts of Parliament, the bills were for the most part exhibited in French, and passed and enrolled in the same language, even till the time of King Henry VII. And so they are printed in Rastell's first Abridgment of Statutes, published in the year 1559. But after the beginning of King Henry VII, his reign, we find all our acts of Parliament recorded in English." (Preface to Reports.) The reason given by Lord Coke for publishing the statutes in a foreign language, is

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admirable: "It was not thought fit or convenient to publish those, or any of the statutes, enacted in those days, in the vulgar tongue, lest the unlearned, by bare reading, without right understanding, might suck out errors, and, trusting to their own conceit, might endanger themselves, and sometimes fall into destruction." (Preface to 3 Report, p. xxi.)

The French Language continued in use at court for a long period. Barrington mentions, that the letters from Burleigh and other Ministers to the English Ambassadors at foreign courts were in French, and that many instruments relating to English business are found in that language, during that and the following reign. Edward VI. as he also informs us, corresponded in French. Elizabeth, the daughter of James I., likewise corresponded with her father in that language. (See Ellis's Original Letters, v. iii. p. 112.)

PROJECTS TO REFORM THE LAW.

The necessity of adopting some plan for conso. lidating and simplifying the unwieldy and disjointed system of English Law, engaged the attention of several eminent men, at a period when the inconveniences of that system were trifling, compared with those which subsequent times have experienced. It is difficult to say at what precise time the evils of our complicated code first began to make themselves felt. During the reigns of

the Plantagenets and the Tudors, the system of the old law was only in progress, and it can scarcely be said that it was necessary to reform that which had not attained a perfect existence. The best developed, and most complete portion of our law at that time, was the feudal system, which harmonised with the spirit and intelligence of the age. Accordingly we find, that by far the majority of cases in the earlier Year Books, relate to questions arising out of the feudal contract, or to injuries committed to real property. But, from the commencement of the reign of Henry VIII. a most important change is observable in the Reports. England was becoming a commercial country, and personal property began to be more highly regarded. The reign of James I. may be called the terminus of the old law, and this, therefore, is, perhaps, the period at which the necessity of some great and radical change in our legal system began to be sensibly felt, although a proposal to that effect was made in the preceding reign. The spirit of the feudal times had become extinct, and an attempt, though an unsuccessful one, was made to abolish those military tenures, which were afterwards extinguished in the reign of Charles II. We can scarcely be allowed to call the improvements introduced into our judicature by Edward I. a reform of the law. They were rather a supplying what was deficient than