Page:Armatafragment00ersk.djvu/372

 ¬therefore, the utmost that can be safely accom- plished, is most carefully to class and digest our written laws, but without alterations, and to dis- courage as much as possible that rage for legisla- tion which an eminent advocate, now dead, used to consider as an increasing disease, saying — " that no man in his time could sleep in his bed without tinkering at some act of parliament.'* — Yet here again the same question ought to be put to the legislature, and be patiently and anxiously considered — Is it certainly impracti- cable to go farther with safety, in our escape from the gulph that is hourly widening to swal- low us up ? ¬On examining the civil branch of Armatan jurisprudence, I was equally impressed with the ¬* From all accounts of this excellent and interesting person, I deeply lament that I did not know him. — He was universally beloved in the profession of the law, and I cannot give a stronger instance of it than that I have seen a bag which he gave many years ago to a young barrister, for whom he had a great friendship, who literally wore it to rags in the courts, and whom I once heard say,, that he would not sell even the tattered remnant of it for five hundred pounds. -strong ¬