INAUGURAL 
 
 ADDRESSES 
 
 THEODORE W. DAYIGHT, 
 
 PEOFKSSOB OF LAW, 
 
 GEORGE P. MARSH, 
 
 PROFESSOR OF F.NOLISH LITKBATCBE, 
 
 COLUMBIA COLLEGE, 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 BY AUTHORITY OF THE TRUSTEES. 
 
 1859.
 
 WYNKOOP, HALLENBECK & THOMAS, PRINTERS, 
 No. 113 Fl'Lton sTBiii;T, Ni:w York.
 
 r> 
 
 ID 
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 LAW CLASS OF COLUMBIA COLLEGE, 
 
 NEW YORK, 
 
 ON MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1858, 
 BY THEODORE W. DWIGHT, 
 
 PKOFESSOR OF LAW &c. 
 
 ..'5550 

 
 OUR MUNICIPAL LAW, 
 
 AND THE 
 
 BEST MODE OF ACQUIRING A KNOWLEDGE OF IT. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Law Class : 
 
 The subject to wliich we invite your attention is 
 the science of Municipal Law. Tliis science, altliougli 
 special in its charactei-, lias relations to law in gene- 
 ral, and cannot be compreliensively studied witliout 
 tracing tbose relations or connections. Most writers 
 upon special subjects of Jurisprudence, as, for exam- 
 ple, Blackstone in his commentaries upon our Muni- 
 cipal Law, or Hooker in his "Ecclesiastical Polity of 
 England," introduce their theme to the reader by 
 a general disquisition upon law in the abstract — upon 
 the divine law as revealed in the Bible, upon the law 
 of nature and of reason — and thus deduce their own 
 topic from the wider principle. Hooker, by a bold 
 personification, represents all nature as actually ren- 
 dering a voluntary and a glad devotion to the 
 Supreme Lawgiver, as it yields an unswer\dng obedi- 
 ence to appointed laws. "What if," says he, "nature
 
 MK. DWIGIIt's address. 
 
 should leave for a wMle the observation of her own 
 laws; if the frame of that heavenly arch erected 
 over our heads should loosen arid dissolve itself; if 
 celestial spheres should forget theu' wonted motions, 
 and turn themselves any way, as it might happen ; if 
 the prince of the lights of Heaven, which now as a 
 giant doth run his unwearied course, should through 
 a languishing faintness begin to stand and to rest 
 himself; if the moon should wander from her beaten 
 way, the winds breathe out their last gasp,. and. the 
 clouds yield no rain — ^if all this present joyous obedi- 
 ence of nature should be intermitted, what would 
 become of man himself," &c. He then proceeds to 
 speak of the law of reason, of the law of nations and 
 of civil society, until he comes by easy gradations to 
 his immediate subject. 
 
 Such a view would carry us too far from the theme 
 immediately before us, and, while we recognize the 
 connection thus indicated, we will at once apply our- 
 selves to our own municipal law. 
 
 By one, the term law is briefly defined to 1)e " a 
 rule of action;" by another, it is said, "that which doth 
 assign to each thing the kind of work, that which 
 doth moderate the force and power, that which 
 appoints the form and measure of working, we call 
 law."* 
 
 * Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity.
 
 MR. DWIGHTS ADDRESS. 3 
 
 By municipal law we mean the rule that governs 
 us in our civil conduct, under the fundamental law of 
 the State. This is divided into common and statute 
 law ; the first rests upon general usage as its basis, 
 and is ascertained by judicial decision ; the other is 
 directly originated by the Legislature. 
 
 I shall not attempt on this occasion to give a de- 
 tailed account of the principles of our Municipal law. 
 In the short hour allotted to me, I could present 
 but a barren outline of its provisions. I shall have 
 accomplished my purpose, if I sketch its origin, 
 some of its vital, distinctive principles, the mode of 
 its growth, and its present condition. 
 
 It is to be stated at the outset that Americans did 
 not lay the foundations of American Jurisprudence. 
 These were built by other hands. Our forefathers 
 found the common law complete in its essential parts. 
 They adopted it without shrewd inquiry into its 
 origin. They even claimed it as an indefeasible right 
 under the sacred law of descent. Whether induced 
 to leave their homes by persecution, or allured by 
 the persuasive voice of ambition, or charmed by the 
 prospects of immediate wealth — whether they came 
 with their fortunes or destitute of means — whatever 
 else they brought with them, or whatever they aban- 
 doned, they claimed the law of England as theii* own ; 
 as part of their own persons ; as inhering essentially
 
 ME. DWIGHt's address. 
 
 in the very notion of tlieir property. The very term 
 was, doubtless, dear to them. It was the common law. 
 It was like the common sun that lighted them, the 
 common air they breathed. They no more thought 
 of criticising or questioning the legitimacy of the 
 one than of the other. Here, without class distinc- 
 tions, it sheltered the evil and the good. It had in 
 part originated in the forest; it protected the hardy 
 sons of our forest, expanded with their growth, and 
 still continued to govern them as their once uncul- 
 tivated wastes were organized into States and blos- 
 somed with imperial cities. 
 
 The Roman law, which is the basis of the legal 
 codes of Continental Europe, had been termed the 
 civil law. It treated the individual as an incident to 
 the State, and regarded him in the main as a citizen. 
 To it we owe our city corporations, and our now 
 sacred right of local self-government. The common 
 law, however, regards the person more strictly in his 
 individual nature, and bears proudly on its fi*ont per- 
 sonal freedom, considering the State as the means for 
 individual protection and development. The flame 
 of liberty which we can perceive, through the vistas 
 of history, gleaming from the morasses of the Ger- 
 man forests, was carried to England, where it burned 
 with a purer hght. No rude blast was allowed to 
 quench its virgin fire. The early Englishmen cov-
 
 ME. dwight's address. 5 
 
 ered it, while it kindled, with their shields, till Magna 
 Charta, in every line, grew ruddy with its glow. 
 
 The exact source of the common law no one can 
 trace. It was formed at the confluence of many 
 separate streams. Undoubtedly the Koman law con- 
 tributed largely to its formation. Mr. Spence has 
 shown this at large, and with elaborate research, in 
 his work called " the Equitable Jurisdiction of the 
 Court of Chancery."* 
 
 * This point is still debated among law writers. If, however, any one 
 will examine Bracton^s very early work with care, comparing it closely 
 with parallel passages in the Institutes of Justinian, he will be greatly im- 
 pressed with the fact that the arrangement of subjects, collocation of passages, 
 and the precise language of Justinian are reproduced by the later author. 
 He will be almost persuaded that he is reading " The Institutes." How Lord 
 Campbell (Lives of the Ch. Justices, vol. I., p. 63) can say that Bracton uses 
 the civil law only for illustration, I cannot conceive. Although he was 
 a civilian, yet he does not write as though his statements were new, but pro- 
 pounds them as accepted rules. However, Cooper, in his work on " The 
 Public Records," vol. II., p. 401, says, that there are two distinct recensions 
 of Bracton, in one of which many of the passages borrowed from the civil law 
 do not appear. " The laws of all nations are, doubtless, raised out of the ashes 
 of the civil law," per Lord Holt, 12 Mod. R., 482. 
 
 Still, it is fair to say, that the Germans, Anglo-Saxons and the English, in 
 succession, have, in many instances, shown a spirit of hostility to the Roman 
 law. Florus states, that when the Roman commander, Varus, had the control 
 of the German provinces, he endeavored to govern barbarians by the civil 
 law, which they regarded as harsher than his arms. And while he was citing 
 them before his tribunals, they attacked his court and destroyed his legions. 
 Having taken one of the lawyer^ a prisoner, after cutting out his tongue 
 they sewed up his mouth, crying, " Now, viper, cease to hiss" — vipera sibi- 
 l<tre dcsiste. Book IV., cap. 12. 
 
 When the Saxons first attacked England, they, like the other barba- 
 rians, had a great aversion to towns, and suffered those who were engaged 
 in trade to carry on their employment undisturbed. In the country, however, 
 they appear to have seized the whole of the land, and to have driven the for- 
 mer owners into exile, or to have reduced them into slavery. Their complete
 
 b MR. DWIGHTB ADDEESS. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxoiis contributed invaluable results ; 
 above all, in the respect for personal freedom, and in 
 the love of order, and perhaps in a rudimentary trial 
 by jury. It may be that relics of the old Briton 
 law may remain,* though Gibbon's remark is unques- 
 tionably true, "that before the irruption of the Saxons, 
 England had been moulded into the elegant and ser- 
 vile form of a Roman province," Avhile some of Rome's 
 greatest jurists sat there in the seat of judgment 
 With other points of resemblance between the devel- 
 opment of England and the United States, they are 
 strikingly alike in this respect, viz. : that each is a 
 composite nation. In the beginning, England was a 
 prize for the valiant ; in later times, an asylum for 
 the persecuted and the outcast. " All such have 
 crossed the sea, and made the great island their coun- 
 try. Thus England has thriven on misfortunes, and 
 grown great out of ruins." These various races who 
 have struggled there for the mastery, or have resorted 
 
 subjugation of the natives appears from the fact, that their laws are wi-itten 
 in their own language. (See Spence's Origin of Laws.) Every reader of 
 English history ■will remember that, after the Xorman conquest, the people 
 continually demanded the restoration of the old Anglo-Saxon laws. This 
 feeling may have been carried too far, in some respects. See Bell's Comment- 
 aries, 1,11. "That dread of the arbitrary maxims of the civil law, which 
 has been the distinction and the boast of England, has perhaps produced a 
 bad effect in matters of municipal regulation, though of invaluable benefit in 
 the formation of the constitution." 
 
 * " Questionless, the Saxons made a mixture of the British customs with 
 tb*ir own." — Seidell's notes to Fortescue, de Laudibus legum Anglice, chap. 17 .
 
 I^IE. D wight's ADDEESS. 
 
 tHther as a refuge, have had a powerful effect on tlie 
 development of the law. Like the composition of 
 forces in mechanics, the combination of the contend- 
 ing powers has contributed to a resultant force in a 
 new direction. 
 
 Thus, while we may admit that the English law 
 incorporated into itself many of the doctrines of the 
 civil jurisprudence of Rome, and while it may have 
 no claim to compare with that splendid code for 
 scientific precision, breadth and comprehensiveness of 
 view, and while the English language may not exj^ress 
 legal formulae with the rigorous accuracy of the Latin 
 tongue, yet we may with pride remember that this 
 plain common law contained within itself that poten- 
 tial and vital element so lamentably deficient in tlie 
 former — ^legal protection for individual freedom. " The 
 political law of Rome is moulded," says one, " in its 
 later forms in an oriental seraglio, and was fit only 
 for a debased and servile population." 
 
 Although the early English law writer, Bracton, 
 copied in his treatise that courtly and submissive 
 maxim of the Roman code, " what pleases the prince 
 has the force of law,"'" it did not become an admitted 
 
 * Book 3d of Actions, chap. 9. Although Bracton admits this maxim, 
 yet in a fine passage in the same connection he indicates the principles 
 which ought to govern the conduct of the King. "The King ought," 
 he says, " to exercise the power of law (which is the power of God), as if 
 he were the vicar and minister of God on earth ; the power of doing
 
 8 . ME. DWIGHTS ADDEESS. 
 
 principle in jurisprudence. This exotic could not 
 be made to flourish, upon British soil. 
 
 The true theory of trial by jury is peculiar to the 
 common law. This mode of trial was not created by 
 the great charter, but was secured by it. It was so 
 well known then as to be described by mere formu- 
 lary words. The freeman was not to forfeit his 
 
 wrong belongs to the Devil, and not to God. Therefore, while he acts justly, 
 he is the vicar of the Eternal King ; but, when he turns aside to do wrong, he 
 is the minister of the Devil. Nothing is so appropriate to imperial authority 
 aS to rule according to law, and to submit to the law is greater than it is to 
 govern. He should pay a proper respect to the law, for it is that alone which 
 made him King. He is no King whose will rules and not law. Let him be 
 just as well as merciful, and let his eyes so precede his footsteps that his judg- 
 ment shall not vacillate from want of knowledge, or his merciful nature be 
 deceived from want of circumspection, "&c., &c. The whole section is worthy 
 of perusal. Still he furnishes no remedy for the King's wrong acts, for he 
 says in another place, " As, however, no writ can be directed to him, his sub- 
 jects can only petition that he will correct and change his evil course, which 
 if he will not do, it is sufficient punishment that he will hereafter meet the 
 Lord as his judge. Let no one presume to dispute his acts, much less to 
 oppose him." 
 
 [Although Bracton, according to Lord Coke, lived when Magna Charta was 
 granted, yet it is not much dwelt upon or recommended by him. Barrington 
 on Statutes, p. 1. His work was published between 1262-7.] 
 
 Fortcscue, in his book " De Laudibus legum Anglise," written in the reign of 
 Henry VL {1463), a book replete with noble thoughts, repudiated the civil law 
 doctrine. In his assumed conversation with Prince Edward, he sajs, " Let it not 
 trouble you, most noble prince, to know whether it is best for you to study 
 the civil or common law, for the King of England cannot change or alter the 
 laws of his nation at his pleasure. For he governeth his people by power 
 not only royal, but also politique. The civil law says, what pleases the prince 
 has the force of law. But this much differs from your power, for the people 
 are ruled by such laws as they themselves desire. Rejoice, therefore, Sove- 
 rei°'n, and be glad that the law of the land is such." Old translation. He 
 represents that many of the former kings of England were continually 
 annoyed because they could not introduce this slavish principle into the 
 English law. This view is confirmed by the existing formula of assent to a 
 law passed by parliament — " le roi le veut."
 
 ME. DWIGHTS ADDEESS. 9 
 
 life, liberty, or property, except by tlie judgment 
 of liis peers, and by tlie law of the land'-^ Though 
 the Roman law recognized the selection of a body 
 of men to whom legal questions might be sub- 
 mitted, somewhat analogous to a jury, yet it did 
 not make the grand and capital distmction which 
 has preserved our theory so long, and has incorpo- 
 rated it so fully into the fundamental law of our 
 States, that a criminal on trial cannot dispense with 
 its full number, even if he will. The select body, 
 in the Koman procedure, in its later development, 
 pronounced both the law and the fact.f They 
 ultimately needed assistants, or assessors who knew 
 
 * I am aware that some writers explain these words differently. Mr. Hal- 
 lam and Mr. Reeves are of opinion that the words " law of the land " refer 
 to trial by combat or ordeal, while Mr. Forsyth, History of Trial by Jury, 
 pages 108-12, insists that the words "judgment of his peers" do not refer to 
 trial by jury. His main argument rests upon the use of the word judgment. 
 He urges that the verdict of the jury cannot be called & judgment, and believes 
 that the words refer to trial in county and manor courts. It seems incredible 
 that the barons of England should have made this great State paper hinge on 
 trial in manorial courts and on the law of combat and ordeal ! Technical 
 legal rules may be pressed too far in interpreting national documents. Trial 
 by jury was originally a trial by witnesses from the vicinage, who informed 
 the judge of what they themselves knew. It seems probable that, while they 
 relied mainly on their own knowledge, they also heard the statements of 
 others. In the progress of jurisprudence, they were required to decide only 
 on what was laid before them as evidence. 
 
 I Savigny, History of Roman Law, vol. I., ch. 4. While admitting the 
 above proposition, in regard to the jurisprudence of the middle ages, he regards 
 the earlier Roman practice as quite similar to our own. In this he appears to 
 have been mistaken. The Roman judex or juryman did not render a verdict 
 for the court to act upon, but gave the judgment. This is a very important 
 distinction, for, under this rule, the functions of the juryman were in the same 
 danger of being absorbed by the judge, as in the middle ages.
 
 10 5IK. dwight's address. 
 
 tlie law. These associates were usually wily and 
 subtle men, who were ^conversant with the intric- 
 acies of jurisprudence. They gradually elbowed 
 out their unlearned companions, until all the ques- 
 tions were decided by a body of judges who had 
 no sympathy with the people at large. The law 
 became more scientific, but the arbitrary maxims 
 borrowed from the Roman codes were thus intro- 
 duced into the laws of most of the nations of Con- 
 tinental Europe. In France, justice became not a 
 duty, but an inheritance. The right of judicature 
 was used as a means of personal gratification. The 
 bar, as Stephen tell us, "formed not ?^ professions l)ut 
 a caste', a distinct noblesse, in favor of aristocratic 
 rights, and the rights of the King. The aristocracy 
 of the robe had no alliance with the democracy of 
 the jury box."* 
 
 But with the great and distinctive idea of English 
 
 * Fortescue says, "that no other nation of the time could have a jury 
 because of their condition. England had much pasture land and great 
 numbers of cattle : in other countries men were mainly devoted to tilling the 
 ground, which rural exercise engendereth rudeness of wit and mind." 
 " England is so filled with landed men that a 'thorp' cannot be found so 
 small where dwelleth not a Knight, or an Esquire, or a Franklein, or other 
 freeholder, while there are many yeomon of substantial means to form a 
 jury. In other countries the noblemen have small store of pasture and live 
 far apart; so, as these cannot be assembled, the jury must be made up of 
 poor men who are not ashamed of infamy, or are so blinded with rustic and 
 brute rudeness as not to be able to behold the clear brightness of the truth." 
 De Laudibus, 65, 69. His description of the England of his day is very 
 attractive.
 
 ME. DWIGIIt's ADDEESS. 11 
 
 jurisprudence, that the Jury are to take the law from 
 the court, it cannot disappear from our tribunals. Nor 
 ought it to fall into disuse ; for, aside from the protec- 
 tion furnished to the individual, its value as a means 
 of education to the people at large cannot be over- 
 estimated. The humblest citizen is taught to think, 
 to analyze, to compare evidence ; while, if he be at all 
 thoughtful, he cannot fail to perceive that a new dig- 
 nity is conferred upon him, as he wields one of the 
 greatest powers exercised by the Supreme Being over 
 man — ^the power of judging of his acts. Although 
 this principle has been grafted on to the law of 
 some of the countries governed by the ci\al code, it 
 has seemed to grow like a scion on an alien stock.* 
 
 So, too, the bold maxim, that " Every man's house 
 is his castle," though evidently the product of an age 
 when private wars were in vogue, and men defended 
 themselves by their own arm, breathes the free spirit 
 of the forest and the fastness. It is not the polished 
 
 * From 1791, when trial by jury was introduced into France, to 1848, 
 the law concerning juries was changed no less than twelve times ! Edinburgh 
 Review, October, 1858. The author of the able article referred to favors 
 the introduction into Scotland, in criminal cases, of our principle of an unani- 
 mous jury. See Forsyth, " Trial by Jury," for a full account of the European 
 nations which have introduced the system, and the partial success which has 
 attended its introduction. In Buckle's History of Civilization, chap. 9, are 
 some very good remarks on the difference between individual development in 
 England and in France, although, in pursuit of a favorite theory he does not 
 give sufficient prominence to the Anglo-Saxon element in English character, 
 nor to the training acquired by those who participate injury trials.
 
 12 MR. dwight's address. 
 
 plirase of a Cicero or Hortensiiis, nor can its equiva- 
 lent be found in the pages of any Roman jurist. 
 The Konian lawyer Gaius says a man's house is his 
 refuge. So is the sheepfold for the lamb ; but what 
 cares the wolf for that when he enters. The common 
 law declares that a man's house is his fortress^ which 
 he may defend against all assailants, even the chief 
 magistrate himself, unless the intruder comes armed 
 with a legal mandate in a pix^per case. I barely 
 notice those delicate theories of the common and 
 statute law, in regard to personal security and per- 
 sonal liberty, so delicate that the most sensitive lady 
 could not wall lierself around with a protection more 
 complete than the law itself furnishes, as well as the 
 theory that each individual who violates the rights 
 of others is personally responsible, and cannot shield 
 himself by proving the mandate of a superior officer. 
 In these respects our law may claim a proud pre-emi- 
 nence, as long as man is of more consequence than 
 the j)roperty which he possesses. 
 
 In fine, speaking in general terms, but two systems 
 of civil jurisprudence have challenged the attention 
 of the world : the civil law of Rome and the common 
 law of Eno-land. The first drew the most refined 
 and pliilosophical distinctions in regard to property. 
 The more it is studied, the more its truly symmetrical 
 and majestic proportions strike the beholder with
 
 13 
 
 astonisliment. Its penal code was in many respects 
 equitable, but in tbe matter of personal rights it had 
 yielded to absolutism. It was like an accomplished 
 gentleman, who had every grace except that he 
 lacked independence and personal freedom. The 
 conunon law, on the other hand, was in many respects 
 rude and unphilosophical ; it was, in its early forms 
 technical to the last degree ; its discussions were often 
 puerile, and its solutions worthless, but it had in most 
 vigorous life precisely that element which the other 
 system lacked. It was not ashamed to borrow of 
 the civil code many of its best provisions, for it had 
 vigor enough to assimilate them, and incorporate 
 them into its own growth. It was the rude man of 
 the country, capable, by contact with civilization, of 
 receiving the highest polish, and it was free. The 
 one has aided to produce continental Europe, the 
 other, England and the United States. 
 
 In the next place the English law has a history 
 parallel with English progress. The great epochs in 
 the history of the nation are eras in the history of 
 constitutional and municipal law. These two are so 
 closely connected together, that it is almost impossible 
 to separate them. When William the Norman, in 
 the year 1066, conquered, or, as Sir William Black- 
 stone in more polished terms expresses it, acquired 
 England, he with rough hand repressed the murmurs
 
 14 MR. dwight's address. 
 
 of a discontented people, and laid upon tliem all the 
 heavy burdens of the feudal system. After him Eng- 
 land had its rulers who legalized oppression, and 
 systematized rapine. So far had this gone, that in 
 Stephen's reign men openly inveighed against Provi- 
 dence, crying aloud that " Christ and his saints were 
 asleep." 
 
 The great progress of England has consisted in 
 protecting the person, and in shaking off the fetters 
 from the law of her landed property. I do not 
 mean that she has abandoned feudal theories, for, 
 these are so entwined with the growth of the law, 
 that to pluck them out would be to root up the law 
 itself; but I speak of the feudal clogs on transfer, 
 the exactions and tyrannous burdens of the system. 
 Even her wars have been but of little consequence, 
 except so far as they have effected legal and constitu- 
 tional alterations. The sea-girt isle has always been 
 too firmly anchored to feel sensibly any shock from 
 without. The surface of English society has not been 
 disturbed by exterior storms, but by internal volcanic 
 eruj^tions. Their wars, when not civil, have been 
 fought on foreign soil. Her citizens may have been 
 allured by the visions of glory, but they have not 
 been compelled to summon all their energies for the 
 exercise of the sacred right of self-defense. If you 
 ask them where are the events of interest in their
 
 3IK. dwight's address. 15 
 
 national life, they do not point to Agincourt or Blen- 
 heim, or even to Waterloo, but to Magna Charta, the 
 Petition of Rights, the Habeas Corpus Act, and the Bill 
 of Bights. Magna Charta itself contains provisions of 
 a strictly legal nature — such as the one which secures 
 a widow's right of dower with her quarantine. The 
 members of the bar and the judges sj)rang from the 
 people, and by means of the jury were always in 
 contact with them. In fact, the bar formed one of 
 the ties by which the middle and lower classes were 
 bound up with the aristocracy. Many of the Chief 
 Justices, like Lord Chief Justice Hale, had the advan- 
 tage of being born in the middle ranks of life, of 
 receiving a liberal education, and of being obliged to 
 depend on their own exertions for distinction. Those 
 who were descended from the aristocratic classes were 
 almost all younger sons of younger brothers, and had 
 their fortunes to make and their fame to achieve. 
 They sympathized with the progress of society. 
 When the legislature endeavored to establish entailed 
 estates, the judges by a pious fraud defeated them ; 
 when a further attempt was made to inti'oduce perpe- 
 tuities, under the subtle doctrine of contingent uses, 
 Lord Bacon, in his character of lawyer, suggested the 
 general principles of that happy medium, by which 
 estates can be locked up in families for a well-ascer- 
 tained and limited period. When Charles the Fii-st
 
 16 ME. D wight's address. 
 
 needed to be checked in tlie undue exercise of his pre- 
 rogative, " our great master," Lord Coke, framed and 
 carried the "petition of right" with such lawyers as 
 Seklen and Pym to advocate it. When the okl writ 
 of Habeas Corpus, which sprang out of Magna Charta, 
 needed to be fortified and strengthened by new pro- 
 visions and penalties, Shaftesbury, once Lord Chan- 
 cellor, promoted it. When the House of Stuart was 
 driven from the throne and the Enghsh constitution 
 was to be secured for all time, the draft of the sub- 
 stance of the great state paper of that period made 
 the name of the distinguished lawyer, Somers, immor- 
 tal. To a prominent member of that profession. Sir 
 S. Romilly, it was left to suggest the principles of 
 reforms in the criminal law, while the recent great 
 changes in the administration of the ci^^l code have 
 been fostered by such men as Lords Brougham, 
 Campbell and others, although due credit should be 
 given to the philosopher Bentham, for the suggestion 
 of fruitful ideas. It is true, that leading lawyers 
 have opposed many of these changes, and that others, 
 not lawyers, have been greatly instrumental in the 
 introduction of some or all of them. I do not deny 
 that, in the progress of the law, individual members 
 of the bar have been oppressive and unjust, and that 
 bad monarchs have found among them pHant, expert 
 and unprincipled servants. Still it is also true that.
 
 MR. dwight's address. 17 
 
 in every crisis where a bold patriot and statesman 
 from theii- body was needed, he could readily be 
 found. In no one instance, as in France before the 
 Revolution, have the whole profession abandoned the 
 peoj)le. 
 
 The influence of the legal profession can also be 
 traced in the cautious and conservative character of 
 all the changes in the common law. From the earhest 
 state paper down to the latest, the plan of the patriot 
 lawyers has been, to retain, so far as practicable, the 
 old ; to add, by way of amendment, the new. In the 
 same spiiit was our own United States Constitution 
 formed. When the old Confederation was found to 
 be illogical in principle, and utterly inefficient in 
 action, it was not resolved to discard it, but only to 
 form a more perfect Union — to estahlisli justice — to 
 insure domestic tranquillity. There have been more 
 elegantly devised schemes of government, both in 
 this country and abroad, than either of these consti- 
 tutions — ^logically faultless — beautiful in their mechan- 
 ism — their only possible defect was, that, when an 
 effort was made to put them in motion, they would 
 not go. On the other hand, the Enghsh constitution, 
 largely framed by lawyers, full of contradictions and 
 absurd legal fictions, has been practical and effective, 
 and in its development has made rich and free one 
 of the greatest nations of the earth.
 
 18 MK. DWIGHT^S ADDKESS. 
 
 This historical progress of the law is important in 
 another point of view — ^it greatly complicates its 
 study. There is a large class of questions in the 
 English law which ought to have no place in a truly 
 philosophical system of jurisprudence. These may 
 in general terms be called questions of forum — the 
 inquiry is not what a person's rights are, but where 
 they must be enforced. So that rights which are 
 denied in one court are granted in another. The 
 Koman theories of jurisprudence admitted no such 
 view. Her law, in its full development, was as com- 
 prehensive as her empire. When she had conquered 
 a nation, she annexed it, incorporated it, assimilated 
 it, while important legal questions arose which could 
 only be settled by a true philosophy.* 
 
 Although, down to the destruction of the empii*e, 
 there was a distinction between cases of ordinary and 
 extraordinary jurisdiction, analogous to our distinc- 
 tion between law and equity, they were both exam- 
 ined by the same judicial officer. Great Britain was 
 
 * " Rome, in her colonies, continually reproduced herself; every colony was 
 but an image of the mother city, with like holy rites, like courts, like lawsi 
 temples and places of public commerce." — Selden. The early forms of the 
 Roman law were very technical. As the republic expanded its limits it became 
 necessary to liberalize her jurisprudence. Savigny gives an account of the 
 conflict between the old jurists, who strove to preserve the fixed forms of 
 procedure, and the judges who wished to introduce broader principles to meet 
 the exigencies of the case. The author shows, in a truly philosophical spirit, 
 how all law must be treated as an index of a nation's development, and that 
 the progress of legislation is not governed by chance, but is the expression of 
 the very hfe of a people.
 
 MB. DWIGIITS ADDRESS. 19 
 
 insular and isolated. If she liad gained territory, slie 
 would have governed it as a mere dependency, and 
 would have applied to the colonists the narrow rules 
 of the common law. She had no great legal ques- 
 tions with which to deal in the early periods of her 
 history. Her courts were created by accident, or 
 gained jurisdiction by quarreling for it, or by filching 
 it under the guise of some subtle legal fiction. The 
 higher clergy had the care of testaments, and of the 
 administration of estates, and the court of admiralty 
 of certain questions arising at sea.* 
 
 The common law courts dealt with crimes, person- 
 al actions, and questions in regard to land, while 
 their views in some respects were so narrow that the 
 Court of Chancery was obliged to supply the defects 
 
 *The jurisdiction of these courts is said to liave been obtained by en- 
 croachment. 
 
 "The common law had cognizance in Edward First's time of things done 
 upon the sea; however, afterwards it kept its limits within the body of the 
 county, leaving the sea to the Admiralty." Selden's notes to Fortescue, 
 chap. 32. He cites to the point of jurisdiction of the common law courts> 
 a case in 25th year of Edward First's reign (fol. 82), with several other 
 cases. 
 
 "The cognizance of wills and testaments does not belong by common right 
 to the ecclesiastical courts, but to the temporal or civil jurisdiction, yet by the 
 custom of England it pertains to the ecclesiastical judges." Hale's History 
 of Common Law, p. 28. The jurisdiction was settled in Bracton's time. He 
 says : " Si de testamento oriatur contentio, mforo ccclesiastico debet placitum 
 terminari, quia de causa testamentaria (sicut nee de causa matrimoniali) curia 
 regia se non introraittit." Book 2, p. 61. It is even recognized at an earlier 
 period by Glanville. There is reason to believe with Dwarris (on Statutes, p. 
 759), that the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts was not strictly usurped, 
 but grew out of positive enactments by William the Conqueror. Bentham, 
 vol. 2, p. 179, states forcibly the complexity of English procedure.
 
 '20 
 
 in tlieir administration of justice. The Court of 
 Chancery grew out of the practice of appeahng to the 
 king's prerogative for redress in cases where the posi- 
 tive law was deficient. The king, being unable per- 
 sonally to decide the cases that sprang up, heard the 
 cause in council or delegated the duty to his officer, 
 the Chancellor, then always an ecclesiastic. The 
 Chancellor, in the early history of the courts, pro- 
 ceeded without adherence to rule. He would direct 
 the parties to go before arbitrators, or he would 
 mediate between them himself; or he said to them 
 that he would talk with some great man in regard to 
 the case. Some of the early decrees are sufficiently 
 singular. Thus in one case the court say, "Consi- 
 dering the honorable dealings of the plaintiff during 
 her whole course of life, and of the good opinion 
 had of her counsel, the Court thinks well of her title, 
 notwithstanding the allegations and proofs to the 
 contrary." It was emphatically a court oi good feeling. 
 A plaintiff had failed in his suit, and had been con- 
 demned to pay costs. The court say, " Considering 
 that he is a poor boy, in very simple clothes, and 
 under twelve years, the costs shall be remitted." The 
 costs for dismissing a bill were as remarkable as any 
 part of the case — only twenty shillings. As the 
 Court advanced, although it disregarded form, and 
 took for its guide general jurisprudence, and looked
 
 MR. D wight's ADDEESS. 21 
 
 for substantial justice, it became bound down to a set 
 of rules and was governed by precedents. These 
 must now be studied as a science, and are not to be 
 discovered, as many suppose, by tlie plain, common 
 sense of a layman. 
 
 Many have supposed that this very division of 
 remedies among separate courts has conduced to 
 greater precision in the law, and that different rules 
 can be adopted therein to meet the public con- 
 venience and promote real justice. Without enter- 
 ing upon that question, it is only our purpose to 
 show how much the labor of the student is increased. 
 Nothing is more distressing to the learner in juris- 
 prudence, in the outset, than the apparently con- 
 flicting views taken in the different Courts. In 
 his common law books he finds it positively laid 
 down that husband and wife are one, that they 
 cannot sue each other — that they cannot contract 
 together, and that all the wife's personal property 
 belongs to the husband. Having treasm*ed this 
 up, he learns in his equity books, that they may 
 be in that Court two closely contending litigants, 
 pursuing each other with rancor, not necessarily 
 veiled even under the forms of courtesy — that they 
 may contract together in a proper case, and that 
 the wife's se][)arat6 property does not belong to her 
 husband. In his common law books he learns that
 
 22 Mil. D wight's address. 
 
 a mere finder of goods upon land has no lien upon 
 them, even if lie has rescued them from injury; 
 in the Admiralty books he learns that a finding 
 or saving at sea, or under the jurisdiction of that 
 Court, is "highly meritorious," and that the' salvor 
 is carefully protected in his rights — so that, if he 
 should save a sunken or abandoned boat, with its 
 contents, in the Hudson Eiver, where the tide ebbs 
 and flows, he would have a lien uj^on the property, 
 which would be recognized even in the common 
 law courts; if above tide -water, he would have no 
 lien on the goods, even though he had used the same 
 exertioD, and perhaps would receive no compensation 
 at all, unless the act was done with the knowledge 
 or consent of the owners. In studying the law in 
 regard to wills, their proof and validity, he finds 
 that a decision of the Surrogate (who represents the 
 Ecclesiastical Courts of England in one branch of their 
 jurisdiction), in regard to the validity of a will of 
 personal estate, if not appealed from, or reheard in a 
 limited period, is conclusive; but that, if the will 
 includes both real and personal estate, so far as the 
 real estate is concerned, an appeal from the Surro- 
 gate's decision is wholly unnecessary, and that for a 
 long series of years the question may be raised anew 
 in the common law courts ; or, if the case has been 
 appealed from the Surrogate to the highest Court on
 
 23 
 
 one branch of tlie property, and has been decided 
 after the appeal, still he may bring a new suit in 
 regard to the real estate, without any reference to 
 the decision of the appellate Court. Thus it may 
 happen that on the same will, and precisely the 
 same state of facts, it may be decided that the tes- 
 tator is sane enough to make a will as far as his 
 personal property is concerned ; and that he is so 
 insane that he cannot make the will when the real 
 estate is considered. The only possible reason for 
 this latter theory is the one given by Ch. Baron 
 Yelverton, in the House of Lords,* that the cases 
 are heard by different jurisdictions ! The anomaly 
 does not exist from the fault of the judges, for they 
 have regarded it as an absurdity, and recommended 
 its abolition, from Lord Hardwicke's time down to 
 the present day.f 
 
 The importance, then, of studying the law historic- 
 ally cannot be too strongly inculcated. Some of the 
 leading questions of our time have been fully illus- 
 trated only by the industry of those who have traced 
 
 * 1 Ridgeway, P. C, 277. 
 
 f 2 Atkins' R., 379. There are some early decisions on this point in 
 Croke's Reports. In King James First's reign, an effort was made to induce 
 the Courts of ordinary jurisdiction to prohibit the ecclesiastical judge from 
 hearing the case, on the ground that his decision might influence a jury, 
 ■when the cause came before them. Commissioners appointed in the time of 
 the Commonwealth recommended the abolition of this branch of the juris- 
 diction of the Ecclesiastical Courts.
 
 24 ME. D Wight's addeess. 
 
 the whole course of legal history. For instance, the 
 question, in what cases dispositions by will to chari- 
 table uses are valid, was thus carefully examined " in 
 the Girard College case" by Mr. Binney, and the 
 means furnished to the Court for a discussion of the 
 true doctrine upon that involved and intricate sub- 
 ject. Adhuc sub judice lis est. While, then, the 
 student is mastering the present law, he must descend 
 through all the strata of centuries, hammer in hand, 
 till he comes to the hard gi'anite of the feudal system. 
 It would in general be useless to seek to get any 
 lower, or to chip away much of its substance. He 
 may look and pass on. In the secondary and other 
 formations he will find many rare things of value, not 
 merely fit to be laid away in the cabinets of the 
 curious, but which can be polished and fitted for imme- 
 diate use. 
 
 This historical examination may in part accomj)any, 
 and in part succeed, the systematic study of the pre- 
 sent law.* 
 
 It is another prime feature of the common law 
 
 * The Roman code recognizes the necessity of an historical study of the 
 previous law. Says Gaius, in a passage quoted : "Being about to interpret 
 the laws, I must go back to the very origin of the city, not because I wish to 
 make my commentaries verbose, but because I observe that I can only thus 
 make my work symmetrical. For, if it is a shameful thing for an advocate to 
 argue a cause before a judge, without making a preliminary statement of the 
 facts, how much more disgraceful it is for one who pretends to interpret the 
 law, to undertake the task without an historical examination of it, coming to 
 the subject, as it were, with unwashed hands."
 
 ME. DWIGHTS ADDEESS. 25 
 
 that it has not been tlie mere deduction of theorists, 
 reasoning from certain admitted principles, but that 
 it has been slowly worked out by actual experience, 
 announced by the judges, and formed into binding 
 precedents. The Anglo-Saxon mind cannot admit 
 the idea that a judge may originate law. He can 
 otAj pro7ioimce it, and that after argument, and when 
 the precise point is involved. Everything else is a 
 dictum — a mere saying — a bright scintillation, per- 
 haps, from the judicial mind, but expiring with the 
 occasion which gave it birth. Thus, in developing 
 the law, sharp contests have arisen over tangible 
 facts. Judicial discussions have been animated by 
 the fierce passions of the parties to the suit. The 
 questions of slander have not grown out of hj^j^o- 
 thetical cases, but have been actual charges, en- 
 venomed by party rancor or personal enmity. The 
 ejectment suits were not mere mooted questions, but 
 arose when the true owners had been turned out of 
 possession with the strong hand. Here, under color 
 of judicial decision, have been great battles fought. 
 Here have been struggles for wealth and power, and 
 contests for the prizes of party ambition. All that 
 talent, learning, subtle disquisition, and nice analysis 
 could do, has been done. The lawyers have at times 
 contended so desperately as to arouse the monai'ch's 
 sceptre. Thus, the development of our law has been
 
 26 ME. D wight's addkess. 
 
 a great drama of centuries — a romance in its circum- 
 stances — a drama in its action. 
 
 As a general rule, where the government was not 
 concerned, and in later times where it was, the judges 
 perceived the excitement without sharing in the pas- 
 sion, and have had a solemn consciousness that they 
 were elaborating rules for the use of future ages. A 
 high English authority, Chief Baron Pollock,* has 
 recently stated, from the bench, that he whom we 
 only know as " the infamous judge Jeffries " was no 
 bad judge when the rights of the king were not 
 in question. Roger North, also, in his admirable 
 life of Lord Keeper Guilford, tells us in what round 
 terms and with what virtuous indi2:nation the same 
 judge berated from the bench the magistrates of the 
 city of Bristol, for an evil practice into which they 
 had fallen.-)- 
 
 It is remarkable with what slowness — intolerable 
 slowness it would be in our time — the early judges 
 proceeded to a decision on an imj)ortant point — how 
 they had it argued and re-argued — ^through how 
 many appeals and re-arguments on each appeal the 
 
 * 36 English Law and Equity Reports, p. 526. 
 
 f The mayor and aldermen of Bristol had become "judicial kidnappers of 
 small rogues and vagabonds, whom they sent to America and sold." Jeffries 
 appears to hare treated these dignitaries with great severity. North, who 
 was no friend to him, says, " that he delighted in such fair opportunities to 
 rant." See a graphic account of the incident in North's Lives, vol. 2, p. 
 24-2Y.
 
 27 
 
 case went, how long they kept it under consideration, 
 until they, perhaps, forgot the argument, while the 
 interests of the client were lost sight of in their 
 anxiety not to jeopard the integrity of the law. 
 This theory, adopted from good motives, was a mis- 
 taken one, and Avas shorn of its defects at the opening 
 of the career of Lord Mansfield. A well-known and 
 competent authority, after an examination of all the 
 evidence, is clearly of the opinion that Shakesj^eare 
 was once a clerk in a lawyer's office. As this was 
 during the period spoken of, if he copied all the 
 papers, and waited on the arguments, he had good 
 reason to know what was meant by "the law's 
 delay."^ 
 
 The great father of modern philosophy, profoundly 
 versed in our jurisprudence, though disliking profes- 
 sional practice, adhered closely to precedent, directing 
 Justice Hatton, when he was made Judge, to draw 
 his learning out of his books, and not out of his brain 
 It would be interesting to trace how Lord Bacon's 
 legal studies acted on his philosophical speculations, 
 and how much his caution, in reaching conclusions in 
 philosophy, depended on the care which he used in 
 
 * This delay is not peculiar to English jurisprudence. (Se>& Fortescue de 
 Laudibus, 127.) He says: "While I was lately abiding in Pans, mine host 
 showed me his process in writing, which, in the Court of Parliament, he has 
 followed eight years, to recover eight pence sterling, and he was in no hope to 
 obtain judgment iu eight years more. I also knew other cases like unto 
 these." — Old Translation.
 
 28 ME. dwigiit's addeess. 
 
 sifting evidence, and in weighing conclusions at the 
 bar. 
 
 By this process the municipal law of England has 
 gained a steady and a fixed character. The principle, 
 having been settled after the most exhaustive discus- 
 sion, and the most careful examination, assumes the 
 binding force of a precedent. Judges have sometimes 
 struggled in a mental conflict between precedent and 
 principle. Lord Mansfield used to say that he ought 
 to be drawn placed between the two, like Garrick 
 between Tragedy and Comedy. And yet this very 
 Judge, in a great case, in which there was a difference 
 of opinion on the bench, says, "This is the fii'st 
 instance of a final difference since I have been here 
 — thirteen years. That unanimity could never have 
 hapj)ened if we did not communicate our sentiments 
 with great freedom; if we did not form our judg- 
 ments without prepossessions ; if we were not open to 
 conviction, and ready to yield to each other's rea- 
 sons." Althouo-h it is usual to account for this 
 unanimity by stating that the master intellect of 
 Lord Mansfield overshadowed the other judges, yet, 
 when we consider their ability* and this declaration, 
 it is fair to presume otherwise. 
 
 How diiferent is this from the condition of parts 
 of the Koman law. A distinguished jurist of our 
 
 * 2 Campbell's Ch. Justices, p. 395.
 
 29 
 
 own country, Judge Story, lias collected the opinions 
 of tlie leading civilians on the subject of the conflict 
 of laws. The wide and comprehensive research of 
 the author has only displayed its uselessness, for, from 
 the discordant views of the writers cited, scarcely 
 any intelligible principle can be extracted. Instead of 
 presenting us the conflict of laws, our ears are stunned 
 by the conflict of opinions. Of com^se, large portions 
 of that law are deflnite and certain, but the fact that, 
 since its codification by Justinian, its progress as a 
 system has been largely due to text writers, reason- 
 ing without an actual case discussed before them, 
 while the progress of the common law has been 
 mainly due to judicial decision, based on actual cases 
 and discussions, forms a marked difference in the 
 two theories of jurisprudence. Countries governed 
 by the civil law have felt the difficulty of this theory. 
 Spain resolved, in 1713, that it was a great inconve- 
 nience that her tribunals had followed foreign jurists 
 and authors, to the depreciation of her own, and for- 
 bade the quoting of foreign opinions in antagonism 
 to the views of Spanish jurists. What was this but 
 establishing in an indii'ect way the rule of foUo's\'ing 
 precedents.* 
 
 * See 17 Martin, Louisiana Rep., 583. As to the similar condition of the 
 Roman law before the Justinian Code, see Savigny's History of Roman Juris- 
 prudence, vol. 1, page 8. He says: "The great Roman jurists entertained, 
 on many subjects, very different opinions, and who possessed the power of 
 reconciling these differences by a judgment of higher authority ? The decision
 
 30 MR. dwight's address. 
 
 When law is developed in tlie English mode, it 
 is not theoretical — an object of speculation or criti- 
 cism ; it is practical, and becomes at once a rule of 
 action. It will be generated slowly as cases arise, 
 and may be submitted to the tests of experience. If 
 it appears that a wrong step is taken, it can be 
 retraced, and the mischief corrected before the vice 
 has permeated the entire system. It is known that 
 Lord Mansfield almost created our commercial law, 
 and the law of insurance. It is a sao^acious remark 
 of Lord Campbell's, that when the former had to 
 grapple with the great questions that came before 
 him, instead of proceeding by legislation, and attempt- 
 ing to codify, he wisely thought it more according to 
 the genius of English institutions to introduce im- 
 provements, gradually, by way of judicial decision, 
 while, he not only settled the particular case, but 
 established with precision, and on sound principles, a 
 rule to be afterwards quoted and recognized as gov- 
 erning similar cases. 
 
 of lawsuits must have been exceedingly difficult, or unsteady and arbitrary. 
 The Emperor Valentinian regulated the matter in the West by an imperial 
 decree ; the principle was afterwards adopted in the East by the Theodosian 
 Code. By the rule then adopted, no treatises were to be cited except those 
 of five jurists, who were named, viz. : Ulpian, Papinian, Paulus, Caius and 
 Modestiuus." A code is almost a necessary refuge where law is developed by 
 mere thinkers ; the idea of an authoritative exposition of principles must be 
 carried out either by judicial decision or by legislation. The present very 
 loose practice of reporting cases, both in this country and in England, threatens 
 to introduce into the expositions of the common law the same vice of un- 
 ortainty. If reporting is not regulated by legislation, we shall be driven to a 
 code.
 
 ME. DAVIGHTS ADDEESS. 31 
 
 Doubtless, the judges have sometimes assumed the 
 duty of the legislator, but even then judge-made law 
 is better than text law. In this manner the common 
 law has been accommodated to the advancing spirit 
 of each age. This has been especially true in the law 
 of personal property, contracts and commercial law. 
 The spirit of the old scholastic philosophy had so 
 pervaded the law of real estate that few organic 
 changes could be made. 'Jhe law of fixtm-es, how- 
 ever, is an instance of a modification made to meet 
 the changing circumstances of the times, while a 
 court of equity, " that rib," as Bentham says, " taken 
 out of the side of the law in the dark ages," the 
 younger, and in some respects the comelier sister, has 
 so treated it, in the law of partnership and otherwise, 
 as to meet the exigencies of an advancing trade and 
 commerce. 
 
 If any new product or invention is introduced, the 
 common law establishes rules in analogy to similar 
 cases.* Thus, it attaches itself to the railroad, and 
 soon there are worked out bulky volumes on the com- 
 mon law in regard to railroads. It applies itself 
 to the electric telegraph, and adds that subtle and 
 incorporeal agent, electricity, the very Ariel of 
 
 * This theory is as old as the law itself. Says Bracton, " If any new and 
 unusual case arises, such an one as has not before arisen in the Kingdom, let 
 it be adjudged according to analogous cases, if any exist, for it is good to pro- 
 ceed a similibus ad similia." Chap. 2.
 
 32 JiK. dwight's addeess. 
 
 jurisprudence, to tlie list of common carriers, laying- 
 down the rules for its guidance in the transmission of 
 messages* In this manner the law is everywhere 
 present, either active, or, if dormant, ready to spring 
 into life when the occasion arises. 
 
 Side by side with the study of the history and 
 principles of law, you are also to examine legislation 
 and its history. The statute-making power has been, 
 in modern times, continually on the alert, changing 
 the rules of the common law, and adopting new pro- 
 visions to meet the altered conditions of society. It 
 will be necessary to examine the principles that guide 
 the courts in the interpretation and construction of 
 statutes, especially in case of their conflict with 
 the fundamental law of the State or of the United 
 States. Legislation has a history which has also to 
 be studied, for one statute cannot be understood 
 without the examination of others on the same sub- 
 ject, and sometimes not without a more or less minute 
 examination of the general history of legislation. 
 The knowledge of this enacted law grows in import- 
 ance every year. 
 
 In our own State, we have made great changes in 
 the common law, especially regarding real estate, 
 while, as every person knows, we have abolished the 
 old forms of procedure. It may be remarked in 
 
 * 33 English Law and Equity Reports, p. 180.
 
 33 
 
 passing, that by a singular coincidence we have gone 
 through with the same process, in respect to pleadings, 
 as the Romans. They had technical forms of actions ; 
 so had we. They had actions, analogous to our 
 chancery suits. They consolidated the two, and 
 proceeded without form. This we have done. In 
 proceeding without form, they found, after a long 
 experience, that it was necessary to pass a rule which 
 we have not yet adopted. The Justinian code 
 required that a case should not be in court more than 
 three years. The reason given was, that suits were 
 likely to outlast the life of man, and to become 
 immortal. We may yet iiud it necessary to complete 
 the parallel, by adopting a similar provision. 
 
 By constitutional ]3rovisions from the beginning 
 such parts of the common law and amendatory 
 statutes as were in use during our colonial j^eriod, 
 down to April, 1775, were adopted as the law of this 
 State. Taking, as we did, an entii*e system of law 
 from another country, it is surprising that it could 
 be so readily adapted to our institutions. What- 
 ever we found unsuited to our condition, we rejected, 
 either by judicial decision or by legislation. Thus 
 we discarded the English theory of the descent 
 of land to the eldest son. So the theory of 
 ancient lights or windows, if it ever had any solid 
 foundation in the law, to the extent to which it 
 
 3
 
 34 MK. DWiailT's ADDRESS. 
 
 was carried, was rejected or modified, so as to suit 
 our circumstances. So we dealt with the ecclesiastic- 
 al law, in regard to the effect of future promises to 
 marry, and with some of the rules of law in regard 
 to the dead. A branch of the latter doctrine has 
 been recently shown, with elaborate research, to rest 
 on false theories, fanciful etymologies, and in its 
 details to be wholly alien to our most cherished 
 sentiments, and was pronounced no part of our law.''^' 
 How readily will this conclusion be acquiesced in, 
 when we learn that, in this last year, it was decided 
 in the high Court of Criminal Appeal, in England,f 
 that a son might, by the common law, be indicted 
 and convicted of a misdemeanor, who openly, and in 
 the light of day, removed from a dissenting burial- 
 ground the remains of his own father, although he was 
 prompted by the most filial sentiments, and although 
 he had reason to believe that the trustees of the 
 cemetery were about to devote the ground to secular 
 purposes. The son had not asked the j)ermission of 
 the trustees. The judge, who pronounced the opinion, 
 said, " the common law recognizes no property in the 
 remains of the dead." He then gave a singular 
 reason for his decision, stating that if the conviction 
 were not sustained, there would be no mode of 
 
 * See Report of Hon. S. B. Ruggles, 4 Bradford's Surrogate's Reports, 503. 
 f 40 E. L. E., 581, Regioa vs. Sharp.
 
 ME. D wight's address. 35 
 
 protecting tlie remains of deceased persons, interred 
 in the burial-grounds of dissenters. As if the best 
 way to protect them was not to decide that the son 
 licid a property in the remains of a deceased parent. 
 Be it said, to the honor of the Bench, that they 
 exercised a humane discretion in inflicting only a 
 nominal fine. Doctrines like these we ought to reject 
 at once, without waiting for legislative action. They 
 are the result of circumstances peculiar to English 
 history, and ought to be regarded as no part of our 
 law. It is evident, too, to any one, who watches the 
 development of the law of the two nations, and the 
 course of legislation, that their jurisprudence diverges 
 from the common point more widely every year. 
 
 The common law is to be learned in a great variety 
 of reports, and m some authoritative treatises. Among 
 the good cases will be found many that are mistaken 
 and worthless. They were either badly argued or 
 miserably rej^orted, or the " Judge mistook rapidity 
 for the due administration of justice, and made de- 
 crees which ought to serve not as examples to be imi- 
 tated, but as land-marks to be avoided by all future 
 judges." Many of these cases have been explained, 
 limited, criticised, or overruled in other decisions. 
 They are declared counterfeit coin ; but the inexj^e- 
 rienced eye is in great danger of receiving them as 
 genuine. Other cases have their authority dimin-
 
 36 
 
 ished, because a bare majority of the judges con- 
 curred in the decision, although, as it has been 
 happily expressed by Justice Coleridge, late of the 
 Queen's Bench, English judges, as a whole, "have 
 had so much of general agreement as served to give 
 authority to their judgments, with so much occasional 
 difference as served to show their individual responsi- 
 l)ility and independence." This crowd of volumes urges 
 upon us a systematic study of the law. One must be 
 guided by the principle rather than by the case. Even 
 abolished law must be studied carefully, both because 
 it governs all acts done while it was in force, and 
 because it is often explanatory of what is introduced 
 in its place. After Chancellor Kent had given in his 
 commentaries an extended discussion of a legal rule 
 known among lawyers as " the rule in Shelley's case," 
 he appended a note to his text, in which he spoke in 
 eloquent language of the fact that this rule was abol- 
 ished by our Revised Statutes, and remarked that, so 
 far as this State is concerned, all he had wiitten is but 
 a monument to the memory of departed learning. 
 Yet, since that note was written, scores of cases have 
 occurred in our courts, in which the abolished rule 
 was examined, with its qualifications and limitations. 
 Every real estate lawyer meets it, from time to time, 
 in deducing a chain of title to land. The fact that it 
 exists in full force in other States makes it necessary
 
 MPw dwight's addeess. si 
 
 to know it. Changes in tlie law only complicate tlie 
 lawyer's studies. He must be alike familiar with the 
 old rule and the new. Janus-faced, he must look 
 both forward and backward. Notwithstanding the 
 vital alterations that have been made in the law of 
 husband and wife, and the more comprehensive 
 changes that are threatened, no competent lawyer 
 supposes that a full knowledge of the old rules will 
 not be necessary at least during this generation. 
 
 Thus, in free countries, like England and the United 
 States, the studies of the ripest jurist are never at an 
 end ; rather, just beginning. A great German poet, 
 if he had lived here, would not have made one of 
 his well-known characters say that legal rights are 
 transmitted from grandsire to grandson, like an 
 hereditary disease.^* They seem, sometimes, more 
 like the fabrics of which the English poet sjDeakSy 
 "they rise like an exhalation." 
 
 We will be asked if all this complexity of laws be 
 necessary? We reply, so long as the variety of 
 human events is so great; while men seek wealth 
 with energy, and compass sea and land to obtain it ; 
 while pride and vanity influence testators; while 
 trust and confidence are reposed by man in his 
 
 * " Es erben sich Gesetz und Rechte 
 Wie eine ew'ge Krankheit fort 
 Sie schleppen von Geschlccht sich zum Geschlechte 
 Und rucken sacht von Ort zu Ort." — Goethk's Faust. 
 
 ''V,iririO
 
 38 MR. davight's address. 
 
 fellow ; while fraud assumes its Protean shapes ; while 
 the family exists, and absolute rights are regarded, so 
 long will jurisprudence be obliged to adapt itself to 
 these important facts in all their details. The com- 
 plexity and intricacy of legal j)rinciples, I do not 
 say of legal forms, is the price we pay for our free, 
 advancing and refined state of society — an intricacy 
 only to grow more intricate, and a complexity to 
 grow more complicated. Yet it is safe to say that he, 
 who is thoroughly familiar with the fundamental 
 principles of law, has the thread in his hand by 
 which he can be guided through the labyrinth. The 
 science of pure mathematics has its settled and deter- 
 mined principles, which can be mastered by patience 
 and application; when these principles are applied 
 to celestial mechanism and the perturbations of the 
 planets, the problems which gi'ow up need the intel- 
 lect of a La Place and a Plana to compass them. The 
 principles are few ; the objects to which tliey can be 
 applied are almost infinite. Yet, through all these 
 complicated movements and action and reaction of 
 matter, the master mind goes with certainty, sound- 
 ing the abysses with his well-known principles, 
 and carrying the torch of exploration steadily before 
 him. The mechanism of the heavens is none the less 
 scientific, because it is difiicult in some cases to apply 
 right principles in the examination of its intricacies.
 
 MR. dwight's address. 89 
 
 Yet liow many regard jiiris]3riidence, with the same 
 difficulties to contend with, as having little claim to 
 a scientific character ! Goethe opens his great tragedy 
 of Faust by introducing the future arch-magician in 
 a rhapsody on the worthlessness of law and the sister 
 sciences. He says: 
 
 •' I've now, alas ! Philosophy, 
 Medicine and Jurisprudence too, 
 And, to my cost, Theology, 
 With ardent labor studied through. 
 And here I stand, with all my lore, 
 Poor fool ! no wiser than before ; 
 Master, ay. Doctor, styled indeed, 
 Already these ten years I lead 
 Up, down, across, and to and fro. 
 My pupils by the nose, and learn 
 That we, in truth, can nothing know." * 
 
 After more to the same purpose, and a deter- 
 mination to look into the very essence of things, and 
 no more to busy himself with words, he abandons 
 these sciences in despair, betakes himself to magic and 
 kindred subjects, and ends, as was natural, in a close 
 and altogether disagreeable intimacy with Mephis- 
 topheles. 
 
 There is a floating opinion somewhat similar to 
 this in the minds of many, the more difficult to meet, 
 because undefined, that the science of law is no sci- 
 ence, but that it is mere liap-hazard and chance. If 
 this be so, it is not due to the subject itself, but to 
 the way in which it is administered. No science 
 
 * Swanwick's Translation.
 
 40 MK. dwigiit's address. 
 
 known among men is more strictly deductive than 
 the science of a true Jurisprudence. If the conclu- 
 sions arrived at be uncertain and unreliable, it is due 
 to the bar who argue, or to the Judiciary who decide, 
 the cases as they arise. If the charge be true against 
 them, it only shows the necessity of a more thorough 
 apprehension of legal principles. If the bar be igno- 
 rant, no amount of learning on the part of the 
 Judiciary will save the science fi'om the infusion of 
 false principles ; if the bar be highly educated and 
 accomplished, they will, in a measure, elevate even 
 an incompetent Judiciary. The argument only goes to 
 show that, unless juries are honest and intelligent, 
 judges thoroughly trained in their profession, and 
 lawyers honorable, studious and learned, the con- 
 ditions necessary to a scientific deduction from legal 
 principles will not be found to exist. 
 
 It has been the good fortune of the English law 
 that at no time, in its more naodern history, have 
 there been wanting great minds to aid in its devel- 
 opment. * 
 
 * In the early history of England we find it said that foolish and unlearned 
 persons ascended the seat of judgment before they had learned law. The old 
 writer before quoted utters a solemn note of warning to this class of judges : 
 "Let no silly and unlearned person dare to ascend the seat of judgment, 
 which is like the throne of God, lest he shall put light for darkness and dark- 
 ness for light ; lest, with untaught hand, after the manner of a madman, he 
 strike the innocent with the sword, and free the guilty, and lest he fall from 
 his lofty seat as from the height of heaven, like one who began to fly before 
 hia wings were fledged ; and let every judge beware how, in making a per-
 
 ME. dwight's address. 41 
 
 We can almost trace the illustrious line, from father 
 to son ; the predecessor training, at all events, exer- 
 cising a powerful influence over, his successors. Thus 
 we see the chief justices mounting through every grade 
 of their profession, to the attorney -generalship, and 
 thence to the high seat of justice, which they do not 
 abandon, except through infirmity or with their 
 lives. Thoroughly familiar with every phase of legal 
 practice, they bring all the multiform experience of 
 the bar to a symmetrical result upon the bench. 
 Having, previous to their elevation, practiced before 
 men of the highest judicial cultivation, they became 
 insensibly moulded after their pattern, so as to pre- 
 sent a general likeness. '"'"Fades non omnibus una^ 
 nee diver sa tameny Said Lord Mansfield : " If I have 
 had any success, it is owing to the gTeat mind who 
 presided in our highest court of judicature, the whole 
 time I attended at the bar. It was impossible to 
 attend him, to sit under him every day, without 
 catching some beams of his light." In later days 
 there has been a series of thorough jurists on the 
 bench, so that even the side judges have been some- 
 times men of the most distinguished ability, as, for 
 instance. Baron Parke, who has shed such a lustre 
 
 verse and illegal judgment, obtained from him by entreaty or money, he may 
 prepare for himself, instead of a slight temporal advantage, the sadness of an 
 eternal mourning." Bracton, book 1, chap. 2. It is very noteworthy how 
 closely this writer connects, in a variety of passages, human law with the " law 
 eternal."
 
 42 ME. D wight's address. 
 
 upon the Court of Exchequer in our time, and whose 
 name must be known to posterity as one of the ablest 
 jurists of the age. To how many of these could 
 Justice Buller's remark be applied — "that principles 
 were explained and enlarged upon, until men were 
 lost in amazement at the strength and the stretch of 
 the human understanding?" In our own country, 
 similar names can be mentioned of the illustrious 
 dead, and of the no less illustrious living. Among 
 the latter, without referring to any of our own citi- 
 zens, I may be pardoned in alluding to an eminent 
 judge, full of years and honors, who has achieved 
 for the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts 
 what Baron Parke has accomplished for the Court 
 of Exchequer in the mother country. Standing 
 here, how could I forget one who once occupied 
 the chair of jurisprudence in this venerable in- 
 stitution? It is not the least of its glories, to have 
 numbered one of the principal authors of the Feder- 
 alist among its students, and a great commentator 
 on American law among its lecturers. 
 
 It is an interesting fact that in the development of 
 this science, no jealousy or narrow-mindedness has 
 been displayed by its expositors. The leading 
 cases in our reports are cited in England with 
 all the respect due to them, and not unfrequently 
 influence the decision. The English Court of Ex-
 
 ME. dwight's address. 43 
 
 chequer recently abandoned a position previously 
 taken by tlieir own antliorities, from a conviction 
 of the unanswerable argument of one of our New 
 York judges. Our own courts are quite in tlie habit 
 of following recent English decisions in point, some- 
 times even without entire confidence in their sound- 
 ness. This part of our subject may be fitly closed by 
 the words of Hooker — " It is easier a great deal for 
 men to be taught l^y law what they ought to do, than 
 instructed how to judge as they should do of law; 
 for the wisest are ready to acknowledge that soundly 
 to judge of law is the weightiest thing a man can 
 take upon him." 
 
 May we not hope that out of these various mate- 
 rials a code may arise, framed by profound lawyers, 
 and submitted for suggestion and approval not to a 
 despotic emperor, but to the best legal thinkers of an 
 enlightened people ; a code whose authors shall not 
 assume to originate law, but are willing to perform 
 the office of aggregation, selection and systematic 
 arrangement, and who from the vast material will 
 drop the overruled cases and will settle those that 
 conflict; a code which shall include our pei*sonal rights, 
 our domestic obligations, our rights of property, and, 
 above all, those delicate rules of the criminal law, 
 framed for the doul)le purpose of protecting society 
 and of preserving the rights of the prisoner ; a code
 
 44 MR. dwight's address. 
 
 wliicli, while no valuable line of the rugged com- 
 mon law is softened, and not a jot of its indej)endence 
 abated, is adorned with the jewels of the Roman 
 law, and contains within itself all the best legal ex- 
 perience of the ages ; a code which shall show the 
 progress of judicial thought by a comprehensive 
 sketch of the legal history of England and America, 
 drawn by a master-hand. Thus, when the gold, the 
 silver, the wood and the iron are gathered together, 
 and the rubbish is burned, a fair and symmetrical 
 temple may arise where Themis herself may sit and 
 preside unseen, realizing in some measure the charac- 
 ter given her by the ancients — the true daughter of 
 heaven and earth. 
 
 But law is not to 1>e understood merely as a 
 science. It is also to be practiced as an art. The 
 process of presenting a case to the judge and jury is 
 very different from that of apprehending it when 
 engaged in its study. You were then to be convinced 
 yourself. You are now to convince others. You 
 are to act the part of an expositor, of a teacher, with 
 much suspicion as to the honesty of your motives. 
 As far as you confine yourself to the truth, you 
 combine those two points which are regarded in all 
 other sciences as so difficult of combination — the cha- 
 racter of an original thinker and investigator with 
 that of an expositor. This exposition must often be
 
 MR. D wight's address. 45 
 
 made witli all tlie clearness of expression and finish 
 of rhetoric of which you are master ; with coolness 
 of judgment and versatility of action. You may have 
 an antagonist sophistical in reasoning, ingenious in 
 technicalities, and unscrupulous in the use of his 
 advantages. You may have a judge prejudiced 
 against you or your case, irritable in temper, discour- 
 teous in interruption, or impatient of argument. You 
 may meet a jury incapable of appreciating your fine- 
 spun reasoning, or even tampered with by the oppo- 
 site party. The case which you had constructed, as 
 you thought, so admirably, while in the seclusion of 
 your office, falls to pieces under the batteries of your 
 antagonist, or is blown away, like gossamer, and 
 remorselessly by the judge. The cases on which you 
 rested are overruled or doubted ; they were decided 
 in another State, and are not necessarily followed ; or 
 the law is good, but the judge thinks that they do 
 not apply to the matter in hand ; or the evidence on 
 which you depended does not support your view of 
 the cause. If the decision is rendered in your favor, 
 you win it in the face of the most determined oppo- 
 sition. In the close hand-to-hand struggle at the bar 
 you must have real muscle, flexibility of motion, and 
 an unyielding T\nll. You must anticipate sophisms, 
 and kill them in the germ, and before they have time 
 to grow. As was the test applied to the old knights
 
 46 MK. dwight's address. 
 
 in tlie days of cliivaliy, you can only prove your fit- 
 ness for tlie work by parrying, tliough in the dark, 
 all attacks, and meeting all surprises, from whatever 
 quarter they may arise. 
 
 How shall such a profession, requiring for its suc- 
 cessful practice such different qualities and training, 
 be acquired ? Tlie full answer to this question is not 
 altogether easy, and different minds may answer it in 
 different modes. In general, this may be said, that, 
 for the student, the acquisition of the principles of a 
 science may safely precede its practice as an art. In 
 the haste of office business, in the varied labors 
 imposed upon a lawyer in full practice, in one of our 
 large commercial cities, but little leisure Avill be found 
 for the instruction of students. The carefully-drawn 
 paper, which they are left to copy, is not understood. 
 The work is done mechanically, and perhaps without 
 more reflection than the press gives, which, in the 
 opposite corner of the office, copies the letter uner- 
 ringly for the employer. Let the student have gone 
 over the principles of the science carefully and 
 understandingly, with a full explanation of technical 
 terms, and all the assistance and stimulus which a 
 competent instructor can give, that, which before was 
 dull and undesired, is then clothed with life and 
 interest. On the other hand, the practice of gaining 
 the whole of one's knowledo^e throusrh the medium of
 
 MR. dwight's address. 47 
 
 copying and the details of office business, seems to 
 invert the usual order of instruction used in the other 
 sciences, and to place that first which ought to be 
 placed last. Although some may have the power, 
 from natural capacity, to rise to success through these 
 difficulties, thousands drop by the way like untimely 
 fruit, or lead only a sickly and a worthless life. It is 
 certainly no argument in favor of a consumptive cli- 
 mate, that, though thousands may die, a few have 
 lungs hardy enough to resist the malign influences of 
 the atmosphere. The unhealthiness of any regimen 
 is to be tested by the majority who die, and not by 
 the minority who live. 
 
 This system seems to have been borrowed from 
 England. Note what the poet Cowper says of it 
 there. He was placed in an eminent solicitor's office, 
 where by a legal fiction he was supposed to learn how 
 actions were commenced and conducted, with the 
 practice in law and equity. He says that he slept 
 three years in the solicitor's house, but lived in the 
 daytime in the society of the ladies, while he and a 
 fellow student were employed in giggling and making 
 others giggle instead of studying law. The legal 
 knowledge thus gained is acquired by the process of 
 insensible absorption. It is not unsafe to say that 
 there are still in our country, though perhaps not in 
 so busy a city as this, modes of studying law quite
 
 48 
 
 analogous. Some young men in England, of higli pur- 
 poses, in the last and one or two previous generations, 
 perceiving tlie futility of this scheme, submitted them- 
 selves to the voluntary discipline of a special plead- 
 er's office, where, for a very large yearly fee, they 
 received instruction. The well-known Mr. Tidd had 
 four of his pupils sitting at one time in the House of 
 Lords, as Law Lords : Lord Lyndhurst, Lord Denman, 
 Lord Cottenham and Lord Campbell. The latter 
 says : " To the unspeakable advantage of having been 
 three years his pupil, I ascribe chiefly my success at 
 the bar." Such coincidences as the above cannot 
 be fortuitous.* 
 
 * A historical account of the modes of legal education adopted in England, 
 and under the Roman law, may not prove uninteresting. The later Eoman 
 Emperors required a study of the law for five years, commencing with the 
 Institutes of Justinian, while certain other portions of the code were assigned 
 to be studied during each year. There were well-known law schools estab- 
 lished at Rome, Constantinople and Berytus ; the one at Berytus was particu- 
 larly famous for several centuries. The Emperor required a yearly account 
 of the behavior and progress of the law students, in order that he might 
 know what persons to employ in his service. It cannot be supposed, however, 
 that all the lawyers in the Roman empire were educated in these law schools. 
 They may have been especially established, for the training of those who were 
 needed in public employments. Salaries, in some instances, were paid from 
 the imperial treasury. During the middle ages, with a single exception, the 
 study of the law was closely connected with its practice. If jurisprudence 
 was studied at the seminaries, it was as a branch of general education. No 
 separate schools existed. The exception was the school at Ravenna, in Italy, 
 in the eleventh century, which was probably removed thither from Rome, and 
 was afterwards transferred to Bologna, where it became famous. Thus we 
 have strong reason to believe, that the Roman School of the empire has 
 exerted, by this removal, a marked influence over the legal education ot 
 modern times. The university at Bologna deserves special notice. It was 
 originally a simple unincorporated law school, which, by the excellence of its
 
 MR. dwight's addeess. 49 
 
 It is safe to say that the mass of young men, who 
 engage in the study of Law, commence theii- work 
 with minds undiscij^lined to the nice distinctions 
 and analysis required for its perfect masteiy. It 
 
 instructions, attracted crowds of scholars. The Emperor Frederick I., in 1 1 58, 
 granted peculiar privileges to foreign students, and, among others, the right 
 to be tried in civil and criminal matters by their professors, or by the bishop of 
 the province. This rule was copied from the enactment of Justinian, govern- 
 ing the law school at Berytus. At this time the scholars elected their own 
 professors. Afterwards, students in the department of theology and medicine 
 came thither, and the institution assumed the form of an university, with a 
 rector. The law professors were of two classes : ordinary and extraordinary. 
 The former read lectures upon certain authoritative books, at which all the 
 students were expected to be present ; the latter class lectured upon other 
 treatises, and attendance is supposed to have been optional. Besides the formal 
 lectures, there were full expositions of particular texts in the law, and ques- 
 tions were discussed, which had been previously announced to the disputants. 
 As the school at Eavenna, at least, was in operation at the time of the Xor. 
 man conquest, and was transferred to Bologna not long after, it is altogether 
 probable that the ecclesiastics introduced into England, with the Eoman 
 Jurisprudence, this mode of studying law. The legal profession apparently had 
 an ecclesiastical origin. (See Pearce's Inns of Court, p. 14.) 
 
 The common law of England, however, as far back as the middle of the 
 thirteenth century, was studied in the Inns of Court, in a quiet retreat, 
 between the City of London and Westminster. These Inns of Court were 
 four in number, with preparatory schools called Inns of Chancery. These 
 bodies well illustrate the character of the early Englishmen. They were 
 voluntary associations, and unincorporated. They granted degrees in Muni- 
 cipal Law, and the barrister went to the bar without any authority except 
 that granted by the heads of the Inn to which he belonged ; the Judges had 
 a private visitatorial power over the authorities in each Inn, probably 
 because they were the chief men in the law, but they could not require the soci- 
 ety to add any person to their number unless they saw fit, while no one could 
 become a barrister in any other way than by belonging to one of these Inns, 
 not even by letters patent. These four Inns stood on an equaUty, so as to 
 form a kind of university. The Inns of Chancery, as has been mentioned, 
 were preparatory schools, in which were taught the grounds and principles of 
 law. Such men as Coke and Holt deUvered lectures, while "mootings'' 
 and viva voce exercises occupied the students and prepared them for 
 practice. Fortescue gives a pleasing account of these schools in hi* time.
 
 50 MR. dwight's addeess. 
 
 is also a growing complaint tliat the younger 
 members of the profession are untrained in its prin- 
 ciples, tliat tliey make the law a trade, a mere 
 mechanical employment ; that instead of being artists 
 
 He says that " the students resorted thither in great numbers, to be taught as in 
 common schools. Here was a school of commendable qualities. Here they 
 learn to sing and to exercise themselves in all kinds of harmony. On the work- 
 ing days they study law, on the holy days Scripture, and their demeanor is like 
 the behavior of such as are coupled together in perfect amity. There is no 
 place where are found so many students past childhood as here." The labor 
 of preparing lectures grew irksome after a time : the readers of lectures, on 
 their appointments, were expected to give costly entertainments to the stu- 
 dents, and the lectures, as a consequence, ceased to be read. Every advance- 
 ment in the degrees of the students themselves "was attended with a position 
 at the cupboard (a very desirable station), or with a garnish of wine." 
 
 Some curious details are given, by the authors cited below, of the masquer- 
 ades and revelings at these Inns. In time, the requisitions for the prelimina- 
 ry admission became merely nominal. The students were examined in the 
 classics, not to see whether they were scholars, but " to ascertain how they 
 had spent their time before coming to the Inn, and whether they had the 
 manners of gentlemen." The requisites for admission to practice, after 
 becoming a student, mainly consisted in having eaten a certain number of 
 dinners, in each year, for a fixed number of years, in the common hall. 
 Latterly there has been a disposition to revive some part of the old plan of 
 instruction. The present course is, to give lectures in the Inns, while those 
 students, who wish to obtain position at the bar, employ a special pleader to 
 teach them, in addition, and they also attend the discussions in the moot 
 courts. The Lord Chancellor of Ireland, in a paper read before the Socie- 
 ty for the Advancement of Social Science, reported in the London Jurist, of 
 October 22d, 1858, after strongly insisting on the necessity of a more tho- 
 rough classical and legal training among the members of the bar, predicts 
 that the Inns of Court will soon adopt some effectual plan for increasing the 
 attainments of law students. On the Continent, law schools arose in the four- 
 teenth century, being formed on the plan of the Bolognese School. In Ger- 
 many, for instance, all who are intrusted with legal business must receive 
 their instruction under regular law professors. For full details of the school 
 at Bologna, see " Savigny's Geschichte des Romischen Rechts," vol. 1, chap. 
 G; voh 3d, pages 152, 272, and for English system, see " Pearce's Inns of 
 Court," "Herbert's do.," "Duhigg's King's Inns, "Fortescue de Laudibus," 
 &c., &c., &c.
 
 MR. D WIGHTS ADDRESS. 51 
 
 in tlieir profession, they are content witli being arti- 
 sans. Perliaps we may yet liave to carry out Lord 
 Bacon's suggestion, that there shoukl be a civil re]3re- 
 hension from the Bench of those advocates who bring 
 to the case slight information, or are guilty of gross 
 neglect, or who undertake an overbold defense. It is 
 consolatory, however, to know that this class of men is 
 not new to the profession, and that we are not so greatly 
 dea-eneratino*. When old Lord Chancellor Hatton, some 
 centuries ago, was addressing the bar on one occasion, 
 he said: "I find that there are at the bar many 
 unmeet young men, very raw and young men, negli- 
 gent and careless, which truly, in my opinion, is a 
 great sin and fault that we should commit our rights 
 of goods and persons to such men." 
 
 It is unnecessary to say one word as to the evil 
 inflicted upon the commmiity by an ignorant bar. 
 But it ought to be said that the leading memljers of 
 the profession are themselves partly responsible for 
 its existence. The standard of admission to practice 
 has been placed too low. If, however, the recent rule 
 of the Supreme Court is fully carried into eftect, 
 introduced, as I personally know, from the most 
 praiseworthy motives, by one of the judges who longs 
 for higher attainments among law students, and 
 seconded, as it appears to have been, with earnest
 
 52 ME. D wight's address. 
 
 ness by his brethren, much will be achieved. It 
 introduces a new feature into many of our examina- 
 tions, in that the student must be examined upon 
 legal princij^les, and not merely upon practice. 
 
 It is at this point that law schools find their justi- 
 fication and found their claim to support. In my 
 judgment, they ought, in this country, when fully 
 organized, to combine both the gymnasium and the 
 university. They should train the student and teach 
 him how to study, and after the work is done, or 
 while it is being done, communicate information on 
 special topics by full courses of lectures. The period 
 of study should be long enough to accomphsh both 
 results-. The instruction should mainly be scientific ; 
 so far as it can at the same time be practical, it must 
 be. While, on the one hand, a law school should not 
 be a mere school of practice, on the other hand, it 
 should not prepare its students to be mere lovers of 
 the science of law. They should be lawyers, or, at 
 least, their studies so shaped as not to give them a 
 distaste for the practical side of the profession. It is 
 our belief, then, that a mere system of lectures, which 
 might, in a foreign country, be sufficient for a listener 
 who had previously passed through a course of tho- 
 rough preliminary study, is not applicable in a coun- 
 try where there ls no path to the profession pre- 
 scribed by law or public opinion, and where any adult
 
 53 
 
 male citizen, witliout such training, may claim it^ 
 honors or degrade it by his unworthiness.* 
 
 We would not close this subject without stating 
 our view, that at the foundation of all our law hes 
 the doctrine of a true morahty. The law, itself, is 
 beneath all our constitutions, and without it no con- 
 stitution is possible — at least, this law that the 
 minority yield to the majority, with another equally 
 important, that the majority hold their jjower only 
 in trust for the general good. " Underneath our mu- 
 nicipal law," says an old author, " is the law eternal, 
 which ought to be always before om' eyes, as being of 
 principal force and moment to breed in human minds 
 a dutiful estimation of all laws, because there can be 
 no doubt that laws apparently good are copied out of 
 the very tables of that high and everlasting law, not 
 as if men did behold those tables, and accordingly 
 fi'ame those laws, but because it worketh in them, be- 
 cause it unfolds itself by them when the laws which 
 they make are righteous." We are not exempted, as 
 
 * Since the above was written, I have been gratified to meet with the follow- 
 ing passage in a work on the study of the Roman law, by Prof. Veyrieres, law 
 professor in Paris — he says : "In studying the civil law, it is necessary to pre- 
 sent to the pupil its history, in order to show the connection of the different 
 rules. It is also necessary to give exact definitions, whose precision shall be 
 equal to their clearness — without the aid of good definitions, logical divisions, 
 and recapitulations, succinct but accurate, which are as it were a species of 
 definitions, and superior to them, the lectures of the professor (f speak fro»i 
 experience) are but idle words thrown out to the wind, while nothing, or next 
 to nothing, is retained by the hearers."
 
 5-4 31 II. dwight's address. 
 
 advocates, either, from the ethical rules which bind 
 other men. On this point it is to be feared that the 
 average public sentiment in the profession is too 
 low. Men must not draw a nice distinction between 
 ])rivat6 honor and professional honor. The one 
 is as truly delicate as the other. Nor do we or the 
 community feel sufficiently the close connection be- 
 tween the high character of the legal profession and 
 the well-being of the State. The fact, that the laws 
 are complete, is of no consequence, unless we have 
 true men to administer them. The best laws, like 
 machinery, are capable of having their power per- 
 verted. Law itself is inert; a mere abstract state- 
 ment ; as abstract as a mathematical proposition. It 
 is but the major premiss of a syllogism. It is the 
 advocate and judge who give it vitality and power. 
 Both are ministers of justice. Each holds a high 
 trust, to do no act which shall disturb the well-being 
 of the Commonwealth. History and experience, 
 alike, teach us that lawyers without principle may do 
 unlimited harm. There have been those to whom 
 Sallust's remark applied, that it was a great reward 
 to them if they could only disturb those things which 
 were previously quiet.* 
 
 *The Roman jurist Ulpian had a high idea of the true dignity of his 
 profession. He says: "We are properly called priests — we worship justice, 
 profess the knowledge of good and evil, separating the just from the unjust, 
 discerning the lawful from the unlawful, and, unless I am mistaken, desire a 
 true and not a false philosophy."
 
 ME. D wight's addeess. 55 
 
 Gentlemen of tlie Law Class, we invite yon, tlien, 
 to a course of study and of diligent labor. This 
 science cannot be learned without study. We hope, 
 however, to smooth the pathway to the subject, and 
 to lighten, somewhat, the labors of the ascent. You 
 may not reach the meaning of the principle at once. 
 Be not discouraged, for, on a second perusal, or at 
 some other time, it will become clear. 
 
 We would hope, in the language of Lord Coke, 
 " that we may open some windows of the law, to let 
 in more light to the student, by diligent search to 
 see the secrets of the law, or to move him to doubt, 
 and to enable him to inquii*e and to learn of the 
 sages what the law, together with the true reason 
 thereof, is, knowing, for certainty, that the law is 
 unknown to him that knoweth not the reason thereof" 
 — while we would extend to you, as a greeting, what 
 he uttered as a farewell : " We wish unto you the 
 gladsome light of jurisprudence, the loveliness of 
 temperance, the stability of fortitude, and the solidity 
 of justice."
 
 AN APOLOGY 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 STUDY OF ENGLISH, 
 
 DKLIVEKED 
 
 BY GEORGE P. MARSH, 
 
 ON 
 
 MONDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1858, 
 
 INTRODUCTORY TO A SERIES OF LECTURES IN THE I'OST- 
 GRADUATE COURSE OF 
 
 COLIBIBIA COLLEGE, NEW YORK.
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 The severe Komaii bestowed upon the language of 
 liis native land the appellation of ^atrius sermo^ the 
 paternal speech; but we, deriving from the domes- 
 ticity of Saxon life a truer and tenderer appreciation 
 of the best and purest source of linguistic instruction, 
 more happily name our home-born English the mother 
 tonsrue. The tones of the native lanc^uas^e are the 
 medium through which the affections and the intel- 
 lect are first addressed, and they are to the heart and 
 the head of infancy what the nutriment drawn from 
 the maternal breast is to the physical frame. 
 "Speech," in the words of Heyse, "is the earliest 
 organic act of free self-consciousness, and the sense 
 of our personality is first developed in the exercise 
 of the faculty of speech." Without entering uj^on 
 the speculations of the Nominalists and the Realists, 
 we must admit that, in that process of ratiocination 
 properly called tliouglit, the mind acts only by words. 
 " Cogito^ ergo sum^ I think, therefore I am," said 
 Descartes. Whether this is a logical conclusion or 
 not, we habitually, if not necessarily, connect words, 
 thought, and self-recognizing existence, as conditions 
 each of both the others, and hence it is that we
 
 60 ME. maesh's addeess. 
 
 have little or no recollection of that portion of our 
 life which preceded our acquaintance with language. 
 Indeed, so necessary are words to thought, to 
 reflection, to the memory of former states of self- 
 conscious being, that though the intelligence of 
 persons born without the sense of hearing some- 
 times receives, through the medium of manual signs, 
 and without instruction in words, a very consid- 
 erable degree of apparent culture, yet, when deaf 
 mutes are educated and taught the use of verbal 
 language, they are generally almost wholly unable to 
 recall their mental status at earlier periods ; and, so 
 far as we are able to judge, they appear to have been 
 devoid of those conceptions which we acquire, or, at 
 least, retain and express, by means of general terms. 
 So our recollection of moments of intense pain or 
 pleasure, moral or physical, is dim and undefined. 
 Grief too big for words, joy which finds no articulate 
 voice for utterance, sensations too acute for descrip- 
 tion, when once their cause is removed, or when time 
 has abated their keenness, leave traces deep indeed 
 in tone, but too shadowy in outline to be capable of 
 distinct reproduction ; for that alone which is precise- 
 ly formulated can be clearly remembered. 
 
 Nature has made speech the condition and vehicle 
 of social intercourse, and consequently it is essentially 
 so elementary a discipline, that a thorough Iniowl-
 
 / 
 
 61 
 
 edge of the motLer tongue seems to be presupposed 
 as the basis of all education, and esj^ecially as an 
 indispensable preparation for the reception of aca- 
 demic instruction. It is, doubtless, for this reason, \ 
 that the study of the English language has usually 
 been almost wholly excluded from the collegial 
 curriculum, and recently, indeed, from humbler semi- 
 naries in our American system of education, and, 
 therefore, so great a novelty as its abrupt transfer 
 from the nursery to the auditorium of a post-gradu- 
 ate course may seem to demand both explanation 
 and apology. 
 
 It is a trite remark, that the national history and 
 the national language begin to be studied only in 
 their decay, and scholai's have sometimes shown an 
 almost superstitious reluctance to approach either, 
 lest they should contribute to the aggravation of a 
 symptom, whose manifestation might tend to hasten 
 the catastrophe of which it is the forerunner. In- 
 deed, if we listen to some of the voices around us, 
 we are in danger of being persuaded that the 
 decline of our own tongue has not only commenced, 
 but has already advanced too far to be averted or 
 even arrested. If it is true, as is intimated by the 
 author of our most widely-circulated dictionary 
 — a dictionary which itself does not ex]^)lain the 
 vocabulary of Paradise Lost — that it is a violation
 
 02 ME. maksh's addeess. 
 
 of the jDresent standard of good taste to employ old 
 Englisli words not used hj Dryden, Pope, Gray, 
 Goldsmitli and Cowper; if words wliicli enter into 
 tlie phraseology of Spenser, and Shakspeare, and 
 Milton, thongli important "to the antiquary, are 
 useless to the great mass of readers;" and, above 
 all, if the dialect of the authoritative standard of 
 the Christian faith, in the purest, simplest, and most 
 beautiful form in which it has been presented to 
 modern intelligence, is obsolete, unintelligible, for- 
 gotten, then, indeed, the English language is decayed, 
 extinct, fossilized, and, like other organic rehcs of the 
 past, a fit subject for curious antiquarian research 
 and philosophic investigation, but no longer a theme 
 of living, breathing interest. 
 
 In reasoning from the past to the present, we are 
 apt to forget that Protestant Christianity and the 
 invention of printing have entirely changed the out- 
 ward conditions of at least Gothic, not to say civilized, 
 humanity, and so distinguished this new phase of 
 Indo-European life from that old world which lies 
 behind us, that, though all which was true of indi- 
 \ddual man, in the days of Plato, and of Seneca, and 
 of Abelard, is true now, yet most which was con- 
 ceived to be true of man as a created and dependent, 
 or as a social being, is at this day recognized as either 
 false or abnormal. The reciprocal relations between 
 
 I
 
 63 
 
 the means and the ends of human hfe are reversed, 
 and the conscions, deliberate aims and vohmtary pro- 
 cesses and instrumentalities of intellectual action are 
 completely revolutionized. Hence, we are constantly 
 in danger of error, when, in the economy of social 
 man, we apply ancient theories to modern facts, and 
 deduce present effects or predict future consequences 
 from causes which, in remote ages, have produced 
 results analogous to recent or exj^ected phenomena. 
 This is especially true with reference to those studies 
 and those pursuits which are less immediately con- 
 nected with the fleeting interests of the hour. We 
 are, accordingly, not warranted in concluding that, 
 because the creative spirits of ancient and flomishing 
 Hellenic literature did not concern themselves with 
 grammatical subtleties, but left the syntactical and 
 orthoepical theories of the Greek language to be 
 developed in late and degenerate Alexandria, there- 
 fore the study of native philology in commercial 
 London and industrial Manchester proves the deca- 
 dence of the heroic speech, which in former centuries 
 embodied the epic and dramatic glories of English 
 genius. 
 
 The impulse to the study of English, and especially 
 of its earlier forms, which has lately begun to be felt 
 in England and in this country, is not a result of the 
 action of domestic causes. It has not grown out of
 
 04 MR. MAESIl's ADDRESS. 
 
 anything in the political or social condition of the 
 English and American people, or out of any morbid 
 habit of the common language and literature of 
 both, but it had its origin wholly in the contagion 
 of Continental example. The jealousies and alarms 
 of the turbulent period which followed the first 
 French Revolution, and which suspended the inde- 
 pendent political existence of so many of the minor 
 European States, and threatened all with ultimate 
 absorption, naturally stimulated the self-conscious 
 individuality of every race, and led them alike to 
 attach special value to everything characteristic, 
 everything peculiar, in their own constitution, 
 their own possessions, their own historic recollec- 
 tions, as conservative elements, as means of resistance 
 against an influence which sought, first, to denation- 
 alize, and then to assimilate them all to its own 
 social and governmental system. Hence, contem- 
 poraneously with the wars of that eventful crisis, 
 there sprang up a universal spirit of local inquiry, 
 local pride, and local patriotism; the history, the 
 archaeology, the language, the early literature, of 
 every European people, became objects of earnest 
 study, first with its own scholars, then with allied 
 nations or races, and, finally, by the power of inter- 
 national sympathy, and the unexpected light which 
 etymological researches have thrown on some of the
 
 MK. maesh's address. 65 
 
 most interesting questions belonging to present psy- 
 chology and to past history, with enlightened and 
 philosophic thinkers everywhere. 
 
 The people of England were less agitated by the 
 fears which disturbed the repose of the Continental 
 nations, and they are constitutionally slow in yield- 
 ing either to moral, to intellectual, or to material 
 impulses from without. Accordingly, while the 
 philologists and historians of Denmark and of Ger- 
 many were studiously investigating and elucidating 
 the course of Anglo-Saxon history, the laws of the 
 Anglo-Saxon language, and the character of its 
 literature, as things cognate with their own past 
 glories and future aspirations, few native English 
 inquirers busied themselves with studies, whose 
 obscure, though real, connection with the stirring 
 events of that epoch no timid sensitiveness had yet 
 taught the British mind to feel. 
 
 But although the interest now manifested in the 
 history and true linguistic character of the English 
 speech originated in external movements, yet it must 
 be 'admitted that it is, at this moment, strengthened 
 in England by a feeling of apprehension concerning 
 the position of that country in coming years — an 
 apprehension which, in spite of occasional manifesta- 
 tions of hereditary confidence and pride, is a very 
 widely-prevalent sentiment among the Britisih peo-
 
 66 MK. MAESIl's ADDEESS. 
 
 pie. Kecent occurrences have inspired an anx- 
 iety amounting almost to alarm, in reference to their 
 relations with their nearest, as well as their more 
 remote. Continental neighbors, and those, who know 
 that twice in the seventeenth century England was 
 fast drifting towards a vassalage to France, may well 
 be pardoned for some misgivings with regard to the 
 present tendencies of the British social and political 
 state. In such circumstances, it is natural that 
 enlio-htened En2:lishmen should cherish a livelier 
 attachment to all that is great and reverend in the 
 memories of their early being, and thought, and 
 action, and should regard with increasing interest the 
 records that recount the series of intellectual and 
 physical triumphs by which the Anglo-Saxon and 
 the Norman raised the Empire they successively 
 conquered to such an unexampled pitch of splendor 
 and of power. 
 
 Modern philology, then, did not, like ancient 
 grammatical lore, originate in the Hfe-and-death 
 struggle of perishing nationalities, nor in a morbid 
 consciousness of internal decay and approaching dis- 
 solution, but in a sound, philosophic appreciation of 
 the surest safeguard of national independence and 
 national honor — an intelligent comprehension, namely, 
 of what is good and what is great in national history, 
 • national institutions, national character. It is a pul-
 
 3m. maesh's address. 67 
 
 satiou of life, not a tliroe of death ; a token of regen- 
 eration, not a sign of extinction. The zeal with which 
 these studies are pursued is a high expression of 
 intellectual patriotism, a security against the perils 
 of al^sorption and centralization which are again 
 menacino: the commonwealths of the Eastern Con- 
 tinent, a bulwark against the dangers with which 
 what exists of Continental liberty is threatened, now 
 by the luxurious over-ci^olization which follows a 
 wide and successful commerce, now by Muscovite 
 barbarism, and now by pontifical obscurantism. 
 
 The fruits of increased attention to domestic phil- 
 ology have been strikingly manifested in the reviving 
 literatures, and the awakening moral and political 
 energies, of many lesser European peoples, which, 
 untn the agitations I speak of, seemed to be fast sink- 
 ing into forgetfulness and uiactiou. States and races, 
 long deemed insignificant and decrepit, have given a 
 new impulse to the intellectual movement of our age, 
 and, at the same time, are throwing uj) new barricades 
 against the encroachments of the great Continental 
 despotisms. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Poland, 
 Bohemia, Hungary, have roused themselves to the 
 creation of new letters, and the manifestation of a 
 new popular life. The Europe of to-day is protest- 
 ing against being Teutonized, as energetically as did 
 the Europe of 1800 against conformity to a Gallic
 
 68 
 
 orgauizatiou, and we may well hope that the same 
 spirit will be found equally potent to resist the 
 Panslavic invasion, which is the next source of 
 danger to the civil and the intellectual hberties of 
 Christendom. 
 
 There are circumstances in the inherent character 
 of the English language which demand — there are 
 cii'cumstances in its position which recommend — the 
 most sedulous and persevering investigation. I will 
 not here speak of what belongs to another part of 
 our course — the general value and importance of 
 linguistic inquiry — but I will draw your attention to 
 the multifarious etymology of our Babylonish vocabu- 
 lary, and the comj)osite structrue of our syntax, as 
 peculiarities of the English tongue not shared in an 
 equal degree by any other European speech known 
 in literature, and which require an amount of system- 
 atic study not in other cases usually necessary. The 
 ground-work of English, indeed, can be, and best is, 
 learned at the domestic fireside — a school for which 
 there is no adequate substitute ; but the knowledge 
 there acquired is not, as in homogeneous languages, 
 a root, out of which will spontaneously grow the 
 flowers and the fruits which adorn and enrich the 
 speech of man. English has been so much affected 
 by extraneous, alien, and discordant influences, so 
 much mixed with foreign ingredients, so much over-
 
 IVITl. MAESIl's ADDKESS. 69 
 
 loaded witli adventitious aj^pendages, that it is, to 
 most of tliose wlio speak it, in a considerable de- 
 gree, a conventional and arbitrary symbolism. The 
 Anglo-Saxon tongue has a craving appetite, and ls as 
 rapacious of words, and as tolerant of forms, as are 
 its children of territory and of religions. But, in 
 spite of its power of assimilation, there is much of 
 the speech of England which has never become con- 
 natural to the Anglican people, and it has passively 
 suffered the introduction of many syntactical com- 
 binations, which are not merely irregular, but repug- 
 nant. It has lost its original organic law of progress, 
 and its present growth is by accretion, not by devel- 
 opment. 1 shall not here inquire whether this 
 condition of English is an evil. There are many cases 
 where a [complex and cunningly-devised machine, 
 dexterously guided, can do that which the congenital 
 hand fails to accomplish ; but the computing of our 
 losses and gains, the striking of our linguistic balance, 
 belongs elsewhere. Suffice it say, that English is not 
 a language which teaches itself by mere unreflecting 
 usage. It can only be mastered, in all its wealth, in 
 all its power, by conscious, pei*sistent labor; and, 
 therefore, when aU the world is awaking to the value 
 of general philological science, it would ill become us 
 to be slow in recognizing the special importance of 
 the study of our own tongue.
 
 \ 
 
 70 JIR. MAESHS ADDRESS. 
 
 But, in order tliat tliis study may commend itself to 
 tlie popular mind, its value and its interest must first 
 be made apj^arent to the thinking spirits by whom 
 the cm-rent of public opinion is determined. Knowl- 
 edge has its sources on the heights of humanity, and 
 culture derives its authority from the example of the 
 acknowledged leaders of society. Studies whicli are 
 neglected or undervalued by the educated man, will 
 have still less attraction for the pupil and his teacher, 
 and Enghsh philology cannot win its way to a form 
 in American high-schools, until it shall have been 
 recognized as a worthy pursuit by the learned and the 
 wise, who are no longer subject to the authority of 
 academic teachers. 
 
 But, great as is the practical importance of the 
 knowledge of words, let it not* be said that, for its 
 sake alone, we encourage inquiry into the structure 
 and constitution of our national speech. The dis- 
 cipline we advocate embraces a broader range, and 
 extends itself to the scientific notion of philology, 
 which, though familiar in German literature, has not 
 yet become the recognized meaning of the word in 
 English. The course we propose includes, naturally 
 and necessarily, the study of those old English 
 writers, in whose works we find, not only the most 
 forcible forms of expression, but a marvelous afflu- 
 ence of the mighty thoughts, out of which has grown
 
 J\IE. ]\rARSH's ADDEESS. Tl 
 
 the action that has made England and her cliildren 
 the wonder and the envy of the world. Indeed, 
 with respect to the technicalities of grammar and 
 etymology, the radical forms of structure which 
 characterize our ancient touo;ue, the American student 
 
 O 7 
 
 has but narrow means of original research. His 
 investigations must, for the present, l^e pursued at 
 second-hand, by the aid of materials inadequate m 
 tjiemselves, and, too often, collected with little j tidg- 
 ment or discrimination. The standard of linguistic 
 science in England is comparatively low. British 
 scholars have produced few satisfactory discussions 
 of Anglo-Saxon or Old English inflectional or struc- 
 tural forms, and it is to Teutonic zeal and talent that 
 we must still look for the elucidation of most points 
 of interest connected with either the form or the 
 signification of primitive English. A large pro- 
 ■ portion of the relics of Anglo-Saxon and of early 
 English literature remains still unpublished, or has 
 been edited with so little sound learning and critical 
 ability as to serve less to guide than to lead astray. 
 Hence, in the determination of ancient texts, we 
 must often accept hasty conjecture, or crude oj^inion, 
 in place of established fact. But a better era has 
 commenced. Englishmen are learning, from Conti- 
 nental linguists, to do what native scholarship and 
 industry had hitherto proved unable to accomphsh ;
 
 72 MR. MAESn's ADDRESS. 
 
 and we may liope tliat, at no distant day, the yet 
 hidden treasures of British philology will all be 
 made accessible, and permanently secured for future 
 study, by means of the art which has been styled 
 Ars omnium Artiibi Conservatrix. 
 The general inferiority of English and French to 
 Scandinavian and Teutonic scholars, in philological 
 and especially etymological research, is a remarkable, 
 but an indisputable fact, and its explanation is not 
 obvious. I can by no means ascribe the difference 
 to an inherent inaj^titude on our part for such subtle 
 investigations, to a native insensibility to the delicate 
 relations between allied sounds and allied significa- 
 tions; but I believe the cause to lie much in the 
 different intellectual habits which are formed in early 
 life, by the use of the respective languages of those 
 nations. The German is remarkably homogeneous in 
 its character. An immense proportion of its vocabu- 
 lary consists either of simple primitives, or of words 
 obviously compounded or derived from radicals, 
 which still exist in current use as independent voca- 
 bles. Its grammatical structure is of great regularity, 
 and there are few tongues where the conformity to 
 general rules is so universal, and where isolated, 
 unrelated philological facts are so rare. At the 
 same time, there is enough of grammatical inflec- 
 tion to familiarize the native speaker with syntac-
 
 T3 
 
 tical principles imperfectly exemplified in Freucli 
 and English, and a sufficiently complex arrangement 
 of the period to call into constant exercise the 
 logical faculties required for the comprehension of 
 the rules of univei*sal grammar. While, therefore, 
 I by no means maintain that German has any 
 superiority over English for the purposes of poetry, 
 of miscellaneous literature, the intercourse of society, 
 or the ordinary cares and duties of life, yet as, in 
 itself, an intellectual, and especially a linguistic 
 discipline, it has great advantages over any of the 
 tongues which embody the general literatm-e of 
 modern Europe. The German boy comes out of 
 the nursery scarcely a worse grammarian, and a far 
 better etymologist, than the ancient Roman, and 
 is already imbued with a philological culture -^'hich 
 the Englishman can only acquire by years of painful 
 study. Hence, we account readily for the com- 
 parative excellence of German dictionaries and other 
 helj)s to the full knowledge of the language, while 
 in English, having no grammar — we have till lately 
 possessed no grammars, and we still want a dic- 
 tionary. In both English and French, the ety- 
 mology is foreign, or obscured by great changes of 
 form, the syntax is arbitrary and conventional (so 
 far as those terms can be applied to anything in 
 language), the inflections are bald and imperfectly
 
 74 
 
 distinguished, and the number of solitary exceptional 
 facts, especially in French, is very great. "When I 
 speak of the poverty of French inflections, I am 
 aware I contradict the accidence, which shows a 
 very full system of varied terminations, l^ut the na- 
 tive language is learned by the ear, and the spoken 
 tongue of France reduces its multitude of written 
 endings to a very small list of articulated ones. The 
 signs of number and of person, and often of tense and 
 gender, to which the inflections are restricted, though 
 well marked in written French, disappear almost 
 wholly in pronunciation, and for those who only 
 speak, they are non-existent.'" While, therefore, for 
 speaking French by rote, as natives do all tongues, 
 no grammar is needed, yet few written dialects re- 
 quire grammatical aid more imperiously; while, at 
 the same time, the grammar is of so special a char- 
 acter as to teach little of general linguistic prin- 
 cij^le. 
 
 The German philologist, then, begins where the 
 Englishman and the Frenchman leave off — or, rather, 
 at a point to which the great mass of French and 
 English literary men never attain ; and, with such 
 an advantage in the starting ground, it would be 
 strange if he did not surpass his rivals. 
 
 * Aimais, aimait, aimaicnt are identical in sound ; and aimer, aimez, 
 aimai, aime, aimes, and aimeea differ so little from the former group, that 
 ignorant persons often confound them all in writing, as well as in speaking.
 
 MR, MAESH's ADDEE6S. Y5 
 
 The American student shares with the English- 
 man and the Frenchman in the defect of early 
 grammatical discipline, and, possessing few large 
 libraries, no collections of rare early editions, no 
 repositories of original manuscripts, he labors 
 under the further inconvenience of a want of access 
 to the primitive sources of etymological instruction. 
 For the present, therefore, he must renounce the 
 ambition of adding anything to the existing stores 
 of knowledge respecting English philology, and 
 content himself with the humbler and more seliish 
 aim of appropriating and elaborating the material 
 which more fortunate or better-trained European 
 scholars have gathered or discovered. We must, in 
 the main, study English with reference to practical 
 use, rather than to philosophic principle; aim at the 
 concrete, rather than the absolute and the abstract. 
 And this falls in with what is eminently, I will not 
 say happily, the present tendency of the American 
 mind. We demand, in all things, an appreciable, 
 tangible result, and if a particular knowledge can- 
 not be shown to have a vahie^ it is to little purpose 
 to recommend its cultivation because of its icoiih. 
 We must all, then, men of action and men of 
 thought, alike, study English in much the same way, 
 and by the aid of the same instrumentalities — the 
 practical man, because he aims at a practical end;
 
 Y6 
 
 tlie philosopliic thinker, because lie is destitute of 
 the means of apj^roximating to his end by any 
 higher method than the imperfect course which 
 alone is open to the American scholar. 
 
 There are circumstances which recommend the 
 study of English specially to us Americans, others 
 which appeal equally to all who use the Anglican 
 speech. Of the former, most prominent is the fact 
 that we, in general, require a more comprehensive 
 knowledge of our own tongue than any other people. 
 Except in mere mechanical matters, and even there 
 far more imperfectly, we have adopted the principle 
 of the division of labor to a more limited extent than 
 any modern civilized nation. Every man is a dab- 
 bler, if not a master, in every knowledge. Every 
 man is a divine, a statesman, a physician, and a lawyer 
 to himself, as well as a counsellor to his neighbors, 
 on all the interests involved in the sciences appro- 
 priately belonging to those professions^ We all 
 read books, magazines, newspapers, all attend learned 
 lectures, and too many of us, indeed, write tjie one, 
 or deliver the other. We resemble the Margites 
 of Homer, who iio'xx' ri-tldTaro tp/a, practiced every art, 
 and if, as he xaxwj 6' yJ^iVraro tfavTa^ buuglcd in all, we, 
 too, must fall short of univei'sal perfection, we still 
 need, with our multifarious strivings, an encyclopedic 
 training, a wide command over the resources of
 
 MK. marsh's address. TT 
 
 our native tongue, and, more or less, a knowledge 
 of all its special nomenclatures. But this very fact 
 of the general use of the whole English vocabulary 
 among us is a dangerous cause of corruption of 
 speech, against which the careful study of our 
 language is an important antidote. Things much 
 used inevitably become much worn, and it is one of 
 the most curious phenomena of language, that 
 words are as subject as coin to defacement and abra- 
 sion, by brisk circulation. The majority of those 
 who speak any tongue incline to speak it imperfectly, 
 and where all use the dialect of books, the vehicle of 
 the profoundest thoughts, the loftiest images, the 
 most sacred emotions, that the intellect, the fancy, 
 the heart of man has conceived, there special precau- 
 tions are necessary, to prevent that medium from 
 becoming debased and vulgarized by corruptions of 
 form, or, at least, by association with depraved beings 
 and unworthy themes. While, therefore, I would open 
 to the humble and the unschooled the freest access 
 to all the rich treasures which English literature 
 embodies, I would inculcate the importance of a 
 careful study of genuine English, and a conscientious 
 scrupulosity in its accurate use, upon all who in any 
 manner occupy the position of teachers or leaders of 
 the American mind, all wliose habits, whose tastes, 
 or whose vocations, lead them to speak oftener than 
 to hear.
 
 78 3rR. maesh's addeess. 
 
 But, as I observed, tliere are considerations, com- 
 mon to tlie Englishman and tlie American, which 
 powerfully recommend the study of our language to 
 thinking men. One of the most important of these 
 LS a repetition of the argument I have just used, 
 but in a more extended application. I allude to 
 what, for want of any other equally aj)propriate 
 epithet, I must characterize by a designation much 
 abused both by those who rally under it as a watch- 
 word of party, and by those to whom it is a token of 
 offense — I mean the conservatism of such studies. It 
 is doubted, by the ablest judges, whether, except in 
 the introduction of new names for new things, Eng- 
 lish has made any solid improvement for two centu- 
 ries and a half, and few are sanguine enough to 
 believe that future changes in its structure, or in its 
 vocabulary, unless in the way just stated, will be 
 changes for the better. It is obvious, too, that, in 
 proportion as new grammatical forms, and new desig- 
 nations for familiar things and thoughts, are intro- 
 duced, older ones must grow obsolete, and, of course, 
 the existing, and, especially, the earlier literature of 
 England, will become gradually less intelligible. The 
 importance of a permanent literature, of authori- 
 tative standards of expression, and, especially, of 
 those great, lasting works of the imagination, which, 
 in all hi'ghly-cultivated nations, constitute the " vol- 
 
 \
 
 MR. marsh's address. Y9 
 
 innes paramount'''' of their literature, lias been too 
 generally appreciated to require here argument or illus 
 tration. Suffice it to say, they are among the most 
 potent agencies in the cultivation of the national 
 mind and heart, the strons^est bond of union in a 
 homogeneous people, the surest holding ground 
 against the shifting currents, the ebb and flow of 
 opinion and of taste. 
 
 ISTow, the Anglo-Saxon race is fortunate in possess- 
 ing more such volumes paramount than any other 
 modern people. The Greeks had their moral and 
 sententious Hesiod; their great tragic trio; their 
 comic Aristophanes and Menander ; they had Hero- 
 dotus, and Thucydides, and Plato, and Xenophou ; and, 
 above all, their epic Homer, whose story and whose 
 speech were more closely interwoven with the very 
 soul of the whole Hellenic people than was ever other 
 secular composition with the life of man ; the Romans 
 had Ennius, and Terence, and Plautus, and, at last, 
 but only when all was lost, Horace, and Virgil, and 
 Cicero ; the Italians have Dante, and Petrarch, and 
 Tasso, and Ariosto ; the Icelanders have Laxdsela, 
 the story of Njall, and the Chronicles of Snorro ; and 
 we, more favored than all, have Chaucer, and Spen- 
 ser, and Bacon, and Milton, and Shakspeare — each, 
 in his own field, as great as the mightiest that ever 
 wielded the peii in the like kind; and, beyond all
 
 :.tt'c 
 
 80 ivn?. ]\rARSHS addeess. 
 
 these, we liave tlie oracles of our faitli, stamped witli 
 the self-approving impress of certain verity, and ren- 
 dered, hj English pens, in a form of rarer beauty 
 than has elsewhere clothed the words of God in the 
 speech of man. 
 
 Now, all these books have been for centmies a 
 daily food, an intellectual pabulum, that actually has 
 entered into and moulded the living thought and 
 action of gifted nations; and, in the case of the 
 Anglican people, it will not be disputed that, work- 
 ing, as they have, all in one direction, their great 
 authors have been more powerful than any other 
 influence in first making, and then keeping, the 
 Englishman and the American what they are, what 
 for hundreds of years they have been, what, God 
 willing, for thousands they shall be, the pioneer race 
 in the march of man towards the highest summits of 
 worthy human achievement. The ]3ath of national 
 literature is that of those comets which long ap- 
 proach the central orb, and long recede, but never 
 return to the perihelion, and the language of a people 
 has ordinarily but one period of culmination. When 
 genius has evolved the best thoughts of a given state 
 of society, and elaborated the choicest forms of 
 expression of which a given speech is capable, it has 
 anticipated and appropriated the gi^eatest results of 
 that condition of human life, and subsequent litera
 
 MR. MARSHS ADDRESS. 81 
 
 ture is but reproductive, not creative in its character, 
 until some mighty, and, for the time, destructive 
 revolution, has dissolved and re-amalgamated the 
 elements of language and of social life in new and 
 diverse combinations. 
 
 That the English tongue, and the men who speak 
 it, will yet achieve great victories in the field of 
 mind, great works in the world of sense, we have 
 amj)le self-conscious assurance; but, in the existino- 
 state of society, it is vain to expect that any future 
 literary productions can occupy the place, or exert 
 the deep-pervading influence, of the volumes I have 
 named. To them, therefore, and to the dialect which 
 is their vehicle, the instinct of self-preservation impels 
 us tenaciously to cling, and when, through our appetite 
 for novelty, our incurious neglect of the beautiful and 
 the great, these volumes cease to be authorities in 
 language, standards of moral truth and aesthetical 
 beauty, and inspiriters of thought and of action, we 
 shall have lost the sj^rings of national greatness, which 
 it most concerned us to preserve. 
 
 We hear much, in political life, of recurrence to 
 first principles, and startling novelties not unfre- 
 quently win their way to popular acceptance under 
 that disguise. With equal truth, and greater sin- 
 cerity, we may say that, in language and in literature, 
 nothing can save us from ceaseless revolution but a
 
 82 
 
 frequent recourse to the primitive autliorities and 
 tlie recognized canons of liigliest perfection. 
 
 In commencing the study of early English^ y^^^^^o 
 persons are not unfrequently rej^elled by differences 
 of form, wliicli seem to demand a considerable 
 amount of labor to master, Uuliapjpilj, English 
 scholars, themselves often better instructed in other 
 tongues than in their own, have very frequently 
 sanctioned the mistake, and encoui'aged the indolence 
 of cotemporaiy readers, by editing modernized edi- 
 tions of good old authors, and, in thus clothing them 
 anew, so changed their outward aspect, and often 
 their essential character, that the parents would 
 scarcely be able to recognize their own progeny. 
 The British press has teemed with disgracefully- 
 mutilated and disguised editions, while scrupulously 
 faithful reprints of early English works have, until 
 lately, not been often attempted, or ever well encour- 
 aged. As a general rule, in the republication of 
 works which genius and time have sealed with the 
 stamp of authority, no change whatever, except the 
 correction of ob^dous typographical errors, should be 
 tolerated, and even these should be ventured on only 
 with extreme caution, because it often turns out that 
 what is hastily assumed to have been a misprint, is, 
 in fact, a form dehberately adopted by a writer, 
 better able to judge what was the true orthography 
 for the time, than any later scholar can be.
 
 83 
 
 The rule of Coleridge has nowhere a juster appli- 
 cation than here : That, when we meet an apparent 
 error in a good author, we are to j)resume ourselve8 
 "ignorant of his understanding, until we are certain 
 that we understand his ignorance." The number of 
 scholars who are so thoroughly possessed of the 
 English of the sixteenth, not to mention earlier 
 centuries, as to be safely entrusted with the cor- 
 rection of authors of that period, is exceedingly 
 small, and I doubt whether it would be possi- 
 ble to cite a sinMe instance where this has been 
 attempted, without grievous error, while, in most 
 cases, the book has been not merely lessened in 
 value, but rendered worse than useless for all the 
 purposes of philology and true literature." 
 
 * I will, at tlie risk of the imputation of liypercriticism, illustrate by a 
 single instance : The recently-discovered manuscript of the Earl of Devon- 
 shire's translation of Paleario's Treatise on the Benefits of Christ's Death 
 is evidently a copy, made by an ignorant transcriber, and its orthography is 
 extremely incorrect and variable. In preparing it for the press, it was, unfor- 
 tunately, deemed expedient to reform the spelling, for the sake of making it 
 more uniform and intelligiljle, as well as correct, and the task has been exe- 
 cuted with great care, and in as good faith as the erroneous principle 
 adopted would admit of. As a frontispiece, a fac-siniile of one of the very 
 small pages of the manuscript is given, containing eighteen linos, or about 
 one hundred and twenty-five words. In printing the text, the editor has 
 omitted a comma in the seventh line, and thereby changed, or, at least, 
 obscured, the meaning of a very important and very clear passage, which 
 contained the marrow of the whole treatise. Of course, such a departure 
 from the letter in a weighty period destroys the confidence of critical 
 readers in the edition, and the book, in a grammatical point of view, becomes 
 worthless. The manuscript in question is one of the most important recent 
 acquisitions to the theology of the Reformation and the early literature of 
 England, and the voluntary admission of any changes in its text shows a 
 want of exact scholarship in a quarter where we had the best right to 
 expect it
 
 84 MR. maesh's address. 
 
 But for the unfortunate readiness with which 
 editors and publishers have yielded to the popular 
 demand for conformity to the spelling and the vocab- 
 ulary of the day, the knowledge of genuine English 
 would now be both more general and further 
 advanced than it is. The habit of reading books as 
 they were written would have kept up the compre- 
 hension, if not the use, of good old forms and choice 
 words, w^hich have irrecoverably perished, and the 
 English of the most vigorous period of our litera- 
 ture w^ould not now be sneered at as obsolete and 
 unintelligible. 
 
 After all, the difficulties of acquiring a familiar 
 acquaintance with the dialect of the reign of 
 Edward III. are extremely small. Let not the 
 student be discouraged by an imperfect and irregu- 
 lar orthography, or, now and then, a forgotten word, 
 and a month's study will enable him to read, w4th 
 entire readiness and pleasure, all that the genius of 
 England has produced during the five centuries that 
 have elapsed since English literature can be said to 
 have had a being. 
 
 I cannot, of course, here dilate upon the value of 
 a familiarity with the earlier English writers, but I 
 may, perhaps, be indulged in a momentary reference 
 to the greatest of them, the perusal of whose works 
 alone would much more than compensate the little
 
 MR. maesh's address. 85 
 
 labor required to understand the dialect in which 
 they are written. Neither the prose nor the verse 
 of the English literature of the fourteenth century 
 comes up to the elaborate elegance and the classic 
 finish of Boccaccio and of Petrarch. But, in orisr- 
 inal power and in all the highest quahties of poetry, 
 no continental writer of that period, with the single 
 exception of Dante, can, for a moment, be comj^ared 
 with Chaucer, who, only less than Shakspeare, 
 deserves the epithet, myriad-minded, so happily 
 applied by Coleridge to the great dramatist. He 
 is eminently the creator of our literary dialect, the 
 inventor, or, at least, the introducer, of our finest 
 poetical forms, and so essential were his labors in 
 the founding of our national literature, that, without 
 Chaucer, the seventeenth century could have pro- 
 duced no Milton, the nineteenth no Keats. It is 
 through ignorance alone, that his diction and his 
 versification have been condemned as rude and 
 unpolished ; and, though there are some difficulties in 
 his prosody, which have not yet been fully solved, 
 the general flow of his verse is scarcely inferior to 
 the melody of Spenser. There can be little doubt 
 that his metrical system was in perfect accordance 
 with the orthoepy of his age, and it was full two 
 centuries before any improvements were made upon 
 his diction or his numbers.
 
 86 MK. marsh's address. 
 
 I said, ill the outset, that there were circumstances 
 in the position and the external relations of the Eng- 
 lish language which recommended its earnest study 
 and cultivation. I refer, of course, to the command- 
 ing political influence, the wide-spread territory, 
 and the commercial importance of the two great 
 mother-countries whose vernacular it is. Althouo^h 
 
 o 
 
 England is no longer at the head of the European 
 political system — a j^osition which she justly for- 
 feited when she j)ermitted her statesmen to sacri- 
 fice the cause of popular liberty upon the European 
 continent — yet, in spite of the errors of her rulers, 
 she is still the leading influence in the sphere of 
 commerce, of industry, of progressive civilization, 
 and of enlightened Christian philanthropy. 
 
 The British capital is at the geographical centi-e 
 of the terrestrious portion of the globe, and while 
 other great cities represent individual nationalities, 
 or restricted and temporary aims, the lasting, car- 
 dinal interests of universal humanity have their 
 brightest point of radiation in the city of London. 
 The language of England is spoken by greater num- 
 bers than any other Christian speech, and it is the 
 vehicle of a wider, purer, more beneficent moral 
 action than any other existing tongue. Its preva- 
 lence is everywhere marked by social order, by civil 
 and rehgious liberty, by general intelhgence and
 
 ME. jiaesh's addkess. 87 
 
 progressive knowledge, by enlightened and compre- 
 hensive charity; and it is remarkable that, while 
 some younger languages and younger races are 
 decaying and gradually disappearing from their 
 natal soil, the English speech and the descendants 
 of those who first employed it, are making hourly 
 conquests of new territory, and have already estab- 
 lished their posts within hailing distance throughout 
 the circuit of the habitable globe. The Euglish lan- 
 guage is the special organ of all the great, world-wide 
 charities which so honorably distinguish the present 
 from all preceding ages. With little of the specu- 
 lative universal philanthropy which has been so 
 loudly preached and so little practiced elsewhere, 
 the English people have been foremost m every 
 scheme of active benevolence, and they have been 
 worthily seconded by their American brethren. The 
 English Bible has been scattered by hundreds of 
 millions over the face of the earth, and English- 
 speaking missionaries have planted their maternal 
 speech at scores of important points, to which, had 
 not their courageous and self-devoting energy paved 
 the way, not even the enterprise of trade coukl have 
 opened a path. Hence, English is emphatically the 
 language of commerce, of civilization, of social and 
 religious freedom, of progressive intelligence, and of 
 active catholic philanthropy ; and, therefore, beyond
 
 any tongue ever used by man, it is of right tlie cos- 
 mopolite speecli. 
 
 That it will ever become, as some dream, literally 
 universal in its empire, I am, indeed, far from believ- 
 ing; nor do I suppose that the period will ever 
 arrive, when our many-sided humanity will content 
 itself with a single tongue. In the incessant change 
 which all language necessarily undergoes, English 
 itself will have ceased to exist, in a form identifiable 
 with its present character, long before even the half of 
 the human family can be so far harmonized and assimi- 
 lated as to employ one common medium of inter- 
 course. Languages adhere so tenaciously to their 
 native soil, that, in general, they can be eradicated 
 only by the extirpation of the races that sj)eak them. 
 To take a striking instance : the Celtic has less vital- 
 ity, less power of resistance, than any other speech 
 accessible to philological research. In its whole 
 knoxvTi history it has made no conquests, and it has 
 been ever in a waning condition, and yet, compara- 
 tively feeble as is its self-sustaining j^ower, two 
 thousand years of Koman and Teutonic triumphs 
 have not stifled its accents in England or in Gaul. It 
 has died only with its dying race, and centuries may 
 yet elai^se before English shall be the sole sjDeech of 
 Britain itself 
 
 In like manner, not to speak of other sporadic
 
 MR. MAPvSn's ADDRESS. 89 
 
 ancient dialects, the primitive language of Spain, 
 after a struggle of two and twenty centuries with 
 Phoenicians, and Celts, and Carthagenians, and Greeks, 
 and Romans, and Goths, and Arabs, is still the daily 
 speech of half a million of people. If, then, such be 
 the persistence of language, how can we look forward 
 to a period when English shall have vanquished and 
 superseded the Chinese and the Tartar dialects, the 
 many tongues of j)olyglot India, the yet-surviving 
 Semitic speeches, in their wide diffusion, and the 
 numerous and powerful Indo-European languages, 
 which are even now disputing with it the mastery ? 
 In short, the prospect of the final triumph of any one 
 tongue is as distant, as improbable, I may add, as 
 undesirable, as the subjection of universal man to one 
 monarchy, or the conformity of his multitudinous 
 races to one standard of color, one physical type. 
 The Author of our being has implanted in us our 
 discrepant tendencies, for wise purposes, and they 
 are, indeed, a part of the law of life itself. Divemty 
 of growth is a condition of organic existence, and so 
 long as man possesses powers of spontaneous develop- 
 ment and action, so long as he is more and better than 
 a machine, so long he will continue to manifest out- 
 ward and inward differences, unlikeness of form, antag- 
 onism of opinion, and varieties of speech. But yet, 
 though English M'ill not supersede, still less extirpate.
 
 90 MR. marsh's address. 
 
 the thousand languages now spoken, it is not unrea- 
 sonable to ex|')ect for it a wider diffusion, a more 
 commanding influence, a more universally-acknowl- 
 edged beneficent action, than has yet been reached, 
 or can hereafter be acquired, by any ancient or now- 
 existent tongue, and we may hope that the great 
 names which adorn it will enjoy a wider and more 
 durable renown than any others of the sons of man. 
 
 These brief remarks do but hint the importance 
 of the studies I am advocating, and it will be the 
 leading object of my future discourses more fully to 
 expound their claims, and to point out the best 
 method of pursuing them. 
 
 A series of lessons upon the technicalities of Eng- 
 lish philology would, it is thought, be premature, 
 and, moreover, adequate time and means for the 
 execution of an undertaking, involving so vast an 
 amount of toil, have not yet been given. That must 
 be the work, if not of another laborer, at least, of 
 other years, and our present readings must be 
 regarded only as a collection of observations upon 
 the principles of articulate language, as exemplified 
 in the phonology, vocabulary, and syntax of English ; 
 or, in other words, as a course preparatory to a 
 course of lectures on the Eng^lish tons^ue. Such as 
 I describe the course, too, I shall endeavor to make 
 each individual lecture, namely, a somewhat informal
 
 ME. MARSnS ADDRESS. 91 
 
 presentation of some one or more philological laws, 
 or general facts, in their connection with the essen- 
 tial character, or historical fortunes, of our own 
 S23eech. 
 
 I will not dilate on the difficulties attending the 
 preparation of so extensive a course, in a few weeks 
 of often-interrupted labor, without access to large, or 
 specially-selected, libraries, and, in fact, almost 
 wholly without appropriate aids and appliances — 
 difficulties which, duly weighed, would rather pro- 
 voke your censure of the speaker for undertaking 
 a task so much beyond his forces and his means, 
 than conciliate your indulgence for his imperfect 
 execution of it; but, I must be pardoned for 
 acknowledging what it will be no exaggeration to 
 call my perplexity, in determining upon the extent 
 to which the course ous'ht to assume a scientific or a 
 popular form. The lectures are, under the circum- 
 stances, essentially experimental, the character and 
 tastes of the small audiences, I was encom-aged to ex- 
 pect, uncertain; but the necessities of the case have 
 decided the question for me, and, as in many other 
 instances, where external conditions control our 
 action, in a way which my own judgment would 
 probably have approved. 
 
 The preparation of a series of thoroughly-scientific 
 discourses upon the English tongue, within the time 
 1
 
 92 MR. marsh's address. 
 
 and witli the means at my command, was impossible, 
 and the attempt could only have resulted in a discred- 
 ital)le failure. I, therefore, adopted the plan I have 
 described, as the only practicable course, and, not 
 improbably, also the best. This point being disposed 
 of, there remained only the embarrassment arising 
 from the uncertainty of the amount of philological 
 attainment generally possessed by my audience. I 
 have thought myself authorized to presume that, 
 however few in numbers, it would embrace persons 
 somewhat widely-separated in degree of culture, and 
 as I desire to make my discourses, so far as it lies in 
 my po^er, acceptable, if not instructive, to all, I shall 
 ask the scholar sometimes to pardon familiar, even 
 trite, statements of principle, illustrations which can 
 scarcely claim to be other than trivial, and repeti- 
 tions which clearness and strength of imj^ression may 
 render necessary for some, while I shall hope the less 
 advanced will excuse me when I indulge in specula- 
 tions addressed to those to whom long study has 
 rendered recondite doctrine more intelligible. In 
 the main, I shall address you as persons of liberal 
 culture, prepared, by general philological education, 
 to comprehend linguistic illustrations drawn from all 
 not widely-remote and unfamiliar sources, but who, 
 from unexcited curiosity, or the superior attractions 
 and supposed claims of other knowledges, have not
 
 MR. MAESn's ADDRESS. 93 
 
 made the English language a matter of particular 
 study, thought, or observation; and such I shall hope 
 to convince that the subject is possessed of sufficient 
 worth and sufficient interest to deserve increased 
 attention, as a branch of American education.
 
 B
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 \3\o^ This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 
 
 CHftESE-Ut;L 
 
 NOV 2 8196^ 
 
 t: 
 
 b 
 
 101983 
 
 Form L9-75m.7,'61(Cl437s4)444
 
 L 009 517 889 3 
 
 \ 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 LD 
 13^8 
 
 UC SOUTHERf i RtGlOtlAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 001324 939 6