Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/53

§. 1. when firt his royal pupil determines to engage in this tudy. “It will not be neceary for a gentleman, as uch, to examine with a cloe application the critical niceties of the law. It will fully be ufficient, and he may well enough be denominated a lawyer, if under the intruction of a mater he traces up the principles and grounds of the law, even to their original elements. Therefore in a very hort period, and with very little labour, he may be ufficiently informed in the laws of his country, if he will but apply his mind in good earnet to receive and apprehend them. For, though uch knowlege as is neceary for a judge is hardly to be acquired by the lucubrations of twenty years, yet with a genius of tolerable perpicacity, that knowlege which is fit for a peron of birth or condition may be learned in a ingle year, without neglecting his other improvements.”

the few therefore (the very few, I am peruaded,) that entertain uch unworthy notions of an univerity, as to uppoe it intended for mere diipation of thought; to uch as mean only to while away the aukward interval from childhood to twenty one, between the retraints of the chool and the licentiounes of politer life, in a calm middle tate of mental and of moral inactivity; to thee Mr Viner gives no invitation to an entertainment which they never can relih. But to the long and illutrious train of noble and ingenuous youth, who are not more ditinguihed among us by their birth and poeions, than by the regularity of their conduct and their thirt after ueful knowlege, to thee our benefactor has conecrated the fruits of a long and laborious life, worn out in the duties of his calling; and will joyfully reflect (if uch reflexions can be now the employment of his thoughts) that he could not more effectually have benefited poterity, or contributed to the ervice of the public, than by founding an intitution which may intruct the riing generation in the widom of our civil polity, and inform them with a deire to be till better acquainted with the laws and contitution of their country.