Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/19



HE general expectation of o numerous and repectable an audience, the novelty, and (I may add) the importance of the duty required from this chair, mut unavoidably be productive of great diffidence and apprehenions in him who has the honour to be placed in it. He mut be enible how much will depend upon his conduct in the infancy of a tudy, which is now firt adopted by public academical authority; which has generally been reputed (however unjutly) of a dry and unfruitful nature; and of which the theoretical, elementary parts have hitherto received a very moderate hare of cultivation. He cannot but reflect that, if either his plan of intruction be crude and injudicious, or the execution of it lame and uperficial, it will cat a damp upon the farther progres of this mot ueful and mot rational branch of learning; and may defeat for a time the Rh