Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/640

 626 V. BENCH AND BAR proof of this. Our huge mass of legal literature is a treasure that no other race possesses. Our records and reports of cases, many of them still imperfectly known, carry our legal history back almost to the Conquest. There the law can be seen in its growth, taking on new forms to meet new conditions. The genius of the Norman lawyer has developed our legal system from one precedent to another. Beginning with the barbarous legal ideas of the Anglo- Saxon, the Norman in the course of two centuries produced a rational coherent system of law, and a procedure capable of indefinite expansion. The growth and changes in our law have followed Lord Bacon's rule : " It were good, there- fore, that men in their innovations would follow the example of time itself ; which, indeed, innovateth greatly, but quietly, and by degrees, scarce to be perceived." The further fact, that this system of law has been applied by practically but one court, has rendered the common law uniform. It rep- resents the slow and patient work of generation after gen- eration of able men. To use a fine figure of Burke's, our legal system has never been at any one time " old, or middle- aged, or young. It has preserved the method of nature; in what has been impiroved, it was never wholly new ; in what it retained, it was never wholly obsolete." Like some ancient Norman house, " it has its liberal descent, its pedigree and illustrating ancestors, its bearings and ensigns armorial, its gallery of portraits, its monumental inscriptions, its rec- ords, evidences, and titles." The design of these essays is to survey " the gallery of portraits " that belongs to the English law. It will not be possible to advert to legal doctrines further than may be necessary to illustrate the acts of eminent lawyers. An attempt will be made to describe the men who have assisted in the growth and development of our jurisprudence. Un- like France, England has never had a noblesse of the robe. Lawyers have found their rewards in the same honors that England has given to her admirals and her generals. The peerage is a fair standard by which to judge of the honors that have been attained by excellence in the law. While great soldiers are represented in the House of Lords by the