8 August 1805

Evidence

Introd. Jurisprudent

Ch. III Lawyer's Art

For an exemplification of the arts practised on this ground by lawyers /lawyercraft/, it will not be either necessary, or so much as of use , to look to any one but /any further than to/ Blackstone. He is the source to /oracle from/ /channel through/ which whosoever thinks it worth his while to think at all /trouble himself/ about law, derives /draws/ whatever notions /conceptions/ he thinks it worth his while to frame concerning the complexion and character of jurisprudential law. No other mind can present so fair a title as this parent mind to exceptence as the character of the legitimate representative of the professional part of the public mind: all other books put together have no so extensive a circulation as that one book. On everything that to common law dead and living, the works of all other authors put together do not contribute so huge a share as his to the formation of the public mind. Scarce any /Not that, unless by a miracle, any/ other lawyer ever speaks of jurisprudential law without bestowing on it the homage of his praise /admiration/: but with all his exertions in this line: but no other lawyer in the extravagance of his adoration ever came up /went beyond/ /could ever venture to outfly/ the extravagance of Blackstone. He if any one /man/, may be regarded as the representative, the genuine representative, the foreman, the chairman, the mouthpiece, the speaker of the profession. After him to bring to [...?] on this /any such/ occasion the language of any other dead author would be useless, if any living author, useless and invidious /any other author, would if he were dead be useless, if living/.

If praise, lavished on a bad system, for the purpose of keeping out a better be matter of imputation, what other quarter could any imputation be fixed with less danger of injustice?