International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1,: No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850Various
Science
International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1,: No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850
Various
Art -- Periodicals; Literature -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
"Were manifold and substantial. He began by at once so regulating the
distribution of the business, as to remove all uncertainty of the matters
which should be taken up each day, and to diminish both the expense, and
the delay, and the confusion of former times. He restored to the whole
bar the privilege of moving in turn, instead of confining this to the
last day of the term. He almost abolished the tedious and costly practice
of having the same case argued several times over, restricting such
rehearings to questions of real difficulty and adequate importance." The
benefits conferred upon the country were far greater. Burke, once quoting
an argument of Solicitor-General, Murray, said that "the ideas of Murray
go to the growing melioration of the law by making its liberality keep
pace with the demands of justice and the actual concerns of the
world--not restricting the infinitely diversified occasions of men and
the rules of natural justice within artificial circumscriptions, but
conforming our jurisprudence to the growth of our commerce and our
empire."
The statement is just, and a finer panegyric it were impossible to write.
Our limits, unfortunately, enable us only to indicate the achievements of
Chief Justice Mansfield; but such indications must be given, however
briefly. He found the common law of England a reproach, and, according to
Professor Story, "he put England, America, and the whole civilized world
under the deepest obligations" by the permanent improvement which he
effected in the system. During the reign of George II. England had become
the greatest manufacturing and commercial country in the world, but her
jurisprudence had, in the meanwhile, made no provision whatever for the
regulation of commercial dealings. When questions arose affecting
purchases and sales, the affreightment of ships, marine insurances, bills
of exchange, and promissory notes, it was impossible to decide them;
there were no cases to refer to, no treatises to consult. Lord Mansfield
grappled with the difficulty and overcame it. His judicial decisions
supplied the deficiencies of law and became themselves law. His mode
of procedure was as philosophical as it was bold. From every case that
came before him he extracted a general principle of universal
application, and availed himself of it not only to rule the particular
case under consideration, but to serve as a guide in all similar cases
hereafter; and he would enlarge upon the principle thus brought out
until, as his contemporaries declare, all listeners were lost in
admiration at the strength and stretch of his understanding. Lord
Campbell tells us that the common law of England which Lord Mansfield had
to administer upon his elevation to the bench, "was a system admirably
adapted to the condition of England in the Norman and early Plantagenet
reigns, whence it sprang up." As high an authority in America declares
that
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