[have been by Sir Edward Coke (r)) there were two sorts of collegiate houses; one called inns of chancery, in which the younger students of the law were usually placed, "learning and studying (says Fortescue (s)) the originals, and, as it were, the elements of the law; who, profiting therein, as they grew to ripeness, so were they admitted into the greater inns of the same study, called the inns of court." And in these inns of both kinds, he goes on to tell us, the knights and barons, with other grandees and noblemen of the realm, did use to place their children, though they did not desire to have them thoroughly learned in the law, or to get their living by its practice; and that in his time there were about two thousand students at these several inns, all of whom, he informs us, were filii nobilium, gentlemen born.

Hence, it is evident, that (though under the influence of the monks our universities neglected this study, yet) in the time of Henry the sixth it was thought highly necessary, and was the universal practice, for the young nobility and gentry to be instructed in the originals and elements of the laws. But by degrees this custom has fallen into disuse; which seems principally owing to these reasons; first, because in these societies all sorts of regimen and academical superintendence, either with regard to morals or studies, have been thought impracticable, and therefore entirely neglected: secondly, because persons of birth and fortune, after having finished their usual courses at the universities, have seldom leisure or resolution sufficient to enter upon a new scheme of study at a new place of instruction.]

At the present day the inns of Chancery have accordingly sunk into insignificance, and an admission to them is no longer of any avail to the student in his progress to the bar. And even the resort to the inns of court is now very much confined to those to whom the knowledge of

practice is absolutely necessary, that is, such as are intended for the profession (t).

The inns of court still enjoy, however, their antient and exclusive privilege of conferring the rank or degree of barrister at law (u); the possession of which (or of the higher degree of serjeant) constitutes an indispensable qualification for practising as an advocate or counsel in the superior courts (x). No other means of obtaining it exist but that of becoming enrolled as a student in one or the other of these inns, and applying, after a certain period, to its principal officers (or benchers) for a call to the bar. As a qualification for the call, the student must have kept commons for three years (i. e. twelve terms), by dining in the hall of the society into which he has obtained admission, at least three times in each term; and by the present educational system (as lately established) no student shall be eligible to be called to the bar, who shall not either have attended during one whole year the lectures of two of the Readers, or have satisfactorily passed a public examination (y). And, accordingly, a public examination, for all the inns collectively, periodically takes place, extending to all students who are desirous of submitting themselves to that test of proficiency (z). The

(t) The inns of court are the Inner Temple, the Middle Temple, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's Inn. The inns of chancery are Clifford's Inn, Clement's Inn, Lyon's Inn, New Inn, Thavies' Inn, Staples' Inn, and Barnard's Inn. Furnival's Inn (which formerly belonged to the latter class) has now ceased to exist as a law society. As to the constitution of the inns of court and chancery, see Rex v. Barnard's Inn, 6 Ad. & El. 17, and the cases there quoted; see also Dugd. Orig. Jur. pref. to 3rd Report.

(u) For further information as to barristers, vide post, bk. v. c. III.

(a) In order to practise as an advocate in those courts in which the civil law obtains, the degree of doctor of laws must be first obtained at one of the English universities.

(y) Rules of the Inns of Court. See the Rules for the Public Examination of Students, Michaelmas Term, 1861. The lectures above referred to are given on Constitutional Law and Legal History; on Jurisprudence and the Civil Law; on Equity; on the Law of Real Property; and on the Common Law of England.

(z) As an inducement to students to propose themselves for examina

.

business of legal education, however, in this country, is also in a great measure conducted (as it has always been) in private channels; the usual plan being to obtain admission into the chambers of a practising barrister, conveyancer, or special pleader, where, in addition to the opportunities of observing the course of practice, the pupil enjoys for some years the advantage of private tuition in the grounds and principles of the law. Even academical instruction, indeed, may be obtained in other schools than those of the inns of court; for though no provision for instruction in the municipal laws of England was antiently made, as we have seen, at Cambridge or at Oxford, the deficiency has been long since redressed by the munificence of private donors, who at each university have founded professorships, with appropriate endowments for that purpose (a).

tion, studentships, tenable for three years, of fifty guineas a year, have been recently founded by the Inns of Court; one of which is conferrible on the most distinguished student at each public examination. See the

same Rules for the Public Examination of Students.

(a) There are also professorships of law in colleges of the University of London, viz. at King's College and at University College.

SECTION II.

OF THE NATURE OF LAWS IN GENERAL.

By the term Laws we here intend to denote the rules [of human action or conduct; that is, the precepts by which man, the noblest of all sublunary beings, a creature endowed with both reason and free-will, is commanded to make use of those faculties in the general regulation of his behaviour.

Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator, for he is entirely a dependent being. A being, independent of any other, has no rule to pursue, but such as he prescribes to himself; but a state of dependence will inevitably oblige the inferior to take the will of him on whom he depends as the rule of his conduct; not, indeed, in every particular, but in all those points wherein his dependence consists. This principle, therefore, has more or less extent and effect, in proportion as the superiority of the one and the dependence of the other is greater or less, absolute or limited. And consequently as man depends absolutely upon his Maker for everything, it is necessary that he should, in all points, conform to his Maker's will.

This will of his Maker is called the law of nature. For as God, when he created matter, and endued it with a principle of mobility, established certain rules for the perpetual direction of that motion; so, when he created man, and endued him with free-will to conduct himself in all parts of life, he laid down certain immutable laws of human nature, whereby that free-will is in some degree regulated and restrained, and gave him also the faculty

[of reason to discover the purport of those laws. Such, among others, are these principles,-that we should live reputably, should hurt nobody, and should render to every one his due; to which three general precepts Justinian has reduced the whole doctrine of law (a).]

The constitution and frame of humanity are in this respect, as in all others, so contrived as to afford a striking proof of the benevolence of the great Creator. For he has so intimately connected, so inseparably interwoven the laws of eternal justice with the happiness of each individual, that if the former be punctually obeyed, it cannot but induce the latter. In consequence of which mutual connexion of justice and human felicity, we ought to consider the law of nature not as made up of a multitude of abstracted rules and precepts, referring merely to the fitness or unfitness of things, as some have vainly surmised, but as graciously reduced to [this one paternal precept, "that man should pursue his own true and substantial happiness." This is the foundation of what we call ethics, or natural law; for the several articles into which it is branched in our systems, amount to no more than demonstrating that this or that action tends to man's real happiness, and therefore concluding that the performance of it is a part of the law of nature; or, on the other hand, that this or that action is destructive of man's real happiness, and therefore that the law of nature forbids it.]

But though the real basis of the law of nature is a tendency to promote human happiness, and though to a certain extent this consideration affords a practical test, whether a given course of conduct be naturally right or not, yet the fallibility of human reason, and its inability to judge of the ultimate consequences of things, will in general preclude the application of such a test to particular

(a) Juris præcepta sunt hæc, honeste vivere, alterum non lædere, suum cuique tribuere."-Inst. l. 1, 3. The word honeste in this passage has

been rendered by Blackstone, vol. i. p. 40, honestly, which (as remarked by Christian) scarcely conveys the full meaning.