Simple. As to the former, while the mechanical execution reflected great honour on the author as the principal reformer of the Clarendon Press, from which no volume had ever before issued equal in beauty to this, the work itself added materially to his former reputation as a lawyer and antiquary. It led him, however, into an unpleasant controversy with Dr. Lyttelton, Dean of Exeter, afterwards Bishop of Carlisle, in regard to the authenticity of an ancient roll, containing the Great Charter and the Charter of the Forest, belonging to Lord Lyttelton, which, however, Blackstone did not consider an original.

The first cause of any interest which he argued was that of Robinson vs. Bland, in Trinity Term, 1760. The question was whether a gaming-debt, contracted in France could be recovered in England. It is to be found reported 1 W. Blacks. 234, 256; 2 Burr. 1077. His argument is certainly elaborate and ingenious. The next cause in which he appears to have been engaged was, in a legal point of view, decidedly the most interesting that ever came before the courts,-namely, the common-law right of literary property. It was the case of Tonson vs. Collins, 1 Sir W. Blacks. 301, 321. Blackstone's admirable argument is to be found at p. 321. After this, it would be tedious and uninteresting to trace his connection with other important cases at the bar. In 1761, the appointment of Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas for Ireland was offered to him, but declined. In March of the same year, he was returned to Parliament for Hindon, in Wiltshire, and on May 6th received a patent of precedence. On the 5th May, 1761, he married the daughter of James Clitherow, Esq., of Boston House, in the county of Middlesex. Having by this marriage vacated his fellowship of All-Souls, he was on the 28th of July, 1761, appointed Principal of New Inn Hall, by the Earl of Westmoreland, then Chancellor of Oxford. This appointment, besides the rank it gave him in the university, assured him an agreeable residence. during the delivery of his lectures. In 1762, he collected and republished several of his pieces, under the title of Law Tracts, in two volumes octavo. In 1763, he was appointed Solicitor-General to the Queen, and elected about the same time a Bencher of the Middle Temple. In 1765 appeared the first volume of the Commentaries,-twelve years after the delivery of his original lectures; and the other three volumes were published in the course of the four succeeding years.

In 1766, he resigned the Vinerian professorship, and at the same time the principality of New Inn Hall. He had hoped that the professorship might be permanently connected with some college or hall, as Mr. Viner had contemplated, and thus a permanent settlement in Oxford be rendered agreeable. But this plan was rejected in convocation, and thus his views of a lasting settlement disappointed.

In 1768, he was returned to Parliament for the borough of Westbury, in Wiltshire, and took part in the debates relative to the election of John Wilkes, when his adversaries observed and pointed out an inconsistency between his position and the doctrine laid down in his Commentaries on the subject. He

published a pamphlet on the subject, which drew upon him severe sarcasms from the author of Junius. In the same year Dr. Priestley animadverted on his positions in the Commentaries relative to offences against the doctrine of the Established Church, and Dr. Furneaux addressed him some letters on his Exposition of the Toleration Act. He published an answer to Dr. Priestley, and in subsequent editions modified the passages in which errors and inaccuracies had been pointed out.

He was offered the Solicitor-Generalship by Lord North in January, 1770, on the resignation of Dunning. He accepted, however, the position of a Judge of the Common Pleas, on the resignation of Mr. Justice Clive. He was of course called to the degree of Sergeant, and gave rings with the motto "Secundis dubiisque rectus." "But, Mr. Justice Yates being desirous to retire" (to use Blackstone's own words) "into the court of Common Pleas, I consented to exchange with him; and accordingly (February 16th) I kissed his majesty's hand on being appointed a Judge of the King's Bench, and received the honour of knighthood." Sir Joseph Yates did not long survive his retirement; for on the Whit-Sunday following he was taken ill at church, and died on Thursday following, "to the great loss of the public, and the court of Common Pleas in particular, wherein he sat one term only." On this event Sir William Blackstone likewise "retired into the court of Common Pleas," which, says Burrow, "he was always understood to have in view whenever opportunity offered."

Sir William Blackstone maintained the reputation he had previously acquired by his performance of his duties on the bench. There are several very elaborate judgments of his, in his own reports, upon important and difficult questions, which display his ability and research to great advantage. The court of Common Pleas during the time of Blackstone differed in opinion only upon two cases. In both he dissented. The first was Scott vs. Shepherd, (2 W. Bl. 892,) relative to the distinction between actions of trespass and on the case; the other, Goodright dem. Rolfe vs. Harwood, (2 W. Bl. 937,) in which the judgment of the Common Pleas was unanimously reversed by the King's Bench, and that reversal confirmed by the House of Lords, upon the opinions of the Barons of the Exchequer. The opinion of Sir William Blackstone in the celebrated case of Perrin vs. Blake (1 W. Bl. 672) has been always highly esteemed as a most ingenious and able view of the knotty question which arose in that case, and has attained a very just celebrity. It may well be doubted whether Mr. Roscoe is sustained by the facts in the opinion which he has so confidently expressed,-that "after the publication of the Commentaries the legal acquirements of Blackstone rather declined than advanced."

He had purchased shortly after his marriage a villa, called Priory Place, in Wallingford. He exerted himself, with his accustomed activity, in the promotion of every plan for the improvement of his neighbourhood, not only substantially in the opening of roads and building of bridges, but ornamentally in the rebuilding of that handsome fabric, St. Peter's Church. Such were his employments at home. In London, besides the duties of his public post, he was generally engaged in some scheme of public utility. In the latter part

of his life he devoted much time to the consideration of the subject of prisondiscipline. He exerted himself, in conjunction with John Howard, to procure un Act of Parliament for the establishment of Penitentiary Houses near London, the objects of which should be "to seclude the criminals from their former associates; to separate those of whom hopes might be entertained from those who were desperate; to teach them useful trades; to accustom them to habits of industry; to give them religious instruction; and to provide them with a recommendation to the world, and the means of obtaining an honest livelihood after the expiration of the term of their imprisonment." The statute 19 Geo. III. c. 74 was accordingly passed; and, though it did not produce all the beneficial effects that were expected from it, it led the way to more just and rational views of prison-discipline. In one of his charges to a grand jury, he referred to the establishment of penitentiaries under this act in the following terms:"In these houses the convicts are to be separately confined during the intervals of their labours, debarred from all incentives to debauchery, instructed in religion and morality, and forced to work for the benefit of the public. Imagination cannot figure to itself a species of punishment in which terror, benevolence, and reformation are more happily blended together. What can be more dreadful to the riotous, the libertine, the voluptuous, the idle delinquent, than solitude, confinement, sobriety, and constant labour? Yet what can be more truly beneficial? Solitude will awaken reflection, confinement will banish temptation, sobriety will restore vigour, and labour will beget a habit of honest industry; while the aid of a religious instructor may implant new principles in his heart, and, when the date of his punishment is expired, will conduce both to his temporal and eternal welfare. Such a prospect as this is surely well worth the trouble of an experiment."

He indulged, also, in literary labours to some extent. The only fruits of these, however, are "An Account of the Dispute between Addison and Pope," communicated to Dr. Kippis, and by him published in the "Biographia Britannica," in the Life of Addison; and some notes upon Shakspeare, which are published in Malone's edition of 1780, marked by the final letter of his name.

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He did not, however, long continue to enjoy this life of quiet usefulness, honour, and happiness. Sedentary employments, such as those in which he delighted, are never conducive to health. As he advanced in age, he became corpulent, and was occasionally visited by gout, dropsy, and vertigo. About Christmas, 1779, he was seized with a violent shortness of breath, which his physicians attributed to his dropsical habit and to water on the chest; and their prescriptions gave him a temporary relief. He was able to come to town to attend Hilary Term,-when he was again attacked in a more formidable shape, chiefly in his head, which induced a drowsiness and stupor that baffled all the skill of his medical attendants. After lying in a state of insensibility for several days, he expired at his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, on the 14th of February, 1780, being in the fifty-seventh year of his age. He was buried at St. Peter's Church, Wallingford, his friend Dr. Barrington, Bishop of Llandaff, officiating at his funeral.

He had nine children, of whom seven survived him. Henry Blackstone, the reporter, was his nephew, and died from the effects of over-exertion in his profession. Of his sons, James enjoyed nearly the same university preferments as his father: he was Fellow of All-Souls, Principal of New Inn Hall, Vinerian Professor, Deputy High Steward, and Assessor in the Vice-Chancellor's Courts. He died in 1831.

The notes of decisions which he had collected while at the bar and on the bench, and which he had himself prepared for the press, were published after his death, in two volumes folio, agreeably to a direction in his will. They seem to be only such as he had selected out of many from his rough notes, either as being of a more interesting nature, or as containing some essential point of law or practice, or perhaps such only (particularly for the first few years) as he had taken the most accurate notes of. They were published under the superintendence of his executor and brother-in-law, James Clitherow, Esq., prefaced by a sketch of his life, from which the facts contained in this memoir have been principally taken.

"Having now given," says Mr. Clitherow, "a faithful, and, it is hoped, not too prolix, a detail of the life of this great man, from his cradle to his grave, it will be expected that it should be followed by the outlines at least of his character. A hard task for the pen of a friend! To do justice to the merits of such a character, without incurring the imputation of flattery, is as difficult as to touch on its imperfections (and such the most perfect human characters have) with truth and delicacy.

"In his public line of life he approved himself an able, upright, impartial judge, perfectly acquainted with the laws of his country and making them the invariable rule of his conduct. As a senator, he was averse to party violence and moderate in his sentiments. Not only in Parliament, but at all times and on all occasions, he was a firm supporter of the true principles of our happy Constitution in Church and State,-on the real merits of which few men were so well qualified to decide. He was ever an active and judicious promoter of whatever he thought useful or advantageous to the public in general, or to any particular society or neighbourhood he was connected with; and, having not only a sound judgment, but the clearest ideas and the most analytical head that any man perhaps was ever blessed with, these qualifications, joined to an unremitting perseverance in pursuing whatever he thought right, enabled him to carry many beneficial plans into execution, which probably would have failed if they had been attempted by other men.

"He was a believer in the great truths of Christianity from a thorough investigation of its evidence. Attached to the Church of England from conviction of its excellence, his principles were those of its genuine members,-enlarged ? and tolerant. His religion was pure and unaffected, and his attendance on its public duties regular, and those duties always performed with seriousness and devotion.

"His professional abilities need not be dwelt upon. They will be universally acknowledged and admired as long as his works shall be read, or, in other

VOL. I.-B

words, as long as the municipal laws of this country shall remain a.. object of study and practice. And, though his works will only hold forth to future generations his knowledge of the law and his talents as a writer, there was hardly any branch of literature he was unacquainted with. He ever employed much time in reading; and whatever he had read and once digested he never forgot.

"He was an excellent manager of his time; and though so much of it was spent in an application to books and the employment of his pen, yet this was done without the parade or ostentation of being a hard student. It was observed of him, during his residence at college, that his studies never appeared to break in upon the common business of life or the innocent amusements of society,—for the latter of which few men were better calculated, being possessed of the happy faculty of making his own company agreeable and instructive, whilst he enjoyed without reserve the society of others.

"Melancthon himself could not have been more rigid in observing the hour and minute of an appointment. During the years in which he read his lectures at Oxford, it could not be remembered that he had ever kept his audience waiting for him even for a few minutes. As he valued his own time, he was extremely careful not to be instrumental in squandering or trifling away that of others, who he hoped might have as much regard for theirs as he had for his. Indeed, punctuality was in his opinion so much a virtue that he could not bring himself to think perfectly well of any who were notoriously defective in it.

"The virtues of his private character, less conspicuous in their nature and consequently less generally known, endeared him to those he was more intimately connected with and who saw him in the more retired scenes of life.. He was, notwithstanding his contracted brow, (owing in a great measure to his being very near-sighted,) a cheerful, agreeable, and facetious companion. He was a faithful friend, an affectionate husband and parent, and a charitable benefactor to the poor,-possessed of generosity without affectation, bounded by prudence and economy. The constant accurate knowledge he had of his income and expenses (the consequence of uncommon regularity in his accounts) enabled him to avoid the opposite extremes of meanness and profusion.

"Being himself strict in the exercise of every public and private duty, he expected the same attention to both in others, and, when disappointed in his expectation, was apt to animadvert with some degree of severity on those who, in his estimate of duty, seemed to deserve it. This rigid sense of obligation, added to a certain irritability of temper derived from nature and increased in his latter years by a strong nervous affection, together with his countenance and figure, conveyed an idea of sternness, which occasioned the heavy but unmerited imputation, among those who did not know him, of ill nature; but he had a heart as benevolent and as feeling as man ever possessed.

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"A natural reserve and diffidence, which accompanied him from his earliest youth, and which he could never shake off, appeared to a casual observer,