Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/28

12 affecting is the cae of a uperior judge, if without any kill in the laws he will boldly venture to decide a quetion, upon which the welfare and ubitence of whole families may depend! where the chance of his judging right, or wrong, is barely equal; and where, if he chances to judge wrong, he does an injury of the mot alarming nature, an injury without poibility of redres!

vat as this trut is, it can no where be o properly repoed as in the noble hands where our excellent contitution has placed it: and therefore placed it, becaue, from the independence of their fortune and the dignity of their tation, they are preumed to employ that leiure which is the conequence of both, in attaining a more extenive knowlege of the laws than perons of inferior rank: and becaue the founders of our polity relied upon that delicacy of entiment, o peculiar to noble birth; which, as on the one hand it will prevent either interet or affection from interfering in quetions of right, o on the other it will bind a peer in honour, an obligation which the law eteems equal to another’s oath, to be mater of thoe points upon which it is his birthright to decide.

Roman pandects will furnih us with a piece of hitory not unapplicable to our preent purpoe. Servius Sulpicius, a gentleman of the patrician order, and a celebrated orator, had occaion to take the opinion of Quintus Mutius Scaevola, the oracle of the Roman law; but for want of ome knowlege in that cience, could not o much as undertand even the technical terms, which his friend was obliged to make ue of. Upon which Mutius Scaevola could not forbear to upbraid him with this memorable reproof, “that it was a hame for a patrician, a nobleman, and an orator of caues, to be ignorant of that law in which he was o peculiarly concerned.” This reproach made o deep an impreion on Sulpicius, that he immediately applied himelf to the tudy of the law; wherein he arrived to that pro- ficiency,