10 July 1805

Evidence (3)

Note

Introd

'. Equity Cases

Peculiar /The peculiar and [...?]/ jurisdiction of a Court of Equity is that which has /takes/ cognizance of chronical causes.

Could it have been imagined by any unlearned fancy, that the distinction, a distinction rendered palpable by every day's practice, should to this hour have remained invisible to every learned eye.

Mr Mitford, in his elaborate analysis of the business of a Court of Equity, deservedly looked up to as an oracle by the practisers[?] of those Courts betrays not the slightest suspicion of it. Under /With/ the name /title/ of Lord Riderdale[?], and Lord High Chancellor of Ireland this gentleman, now fills the office of the highest Equity Judge of Equity in that part of the United Kingdom, under a unusual[?] persuasion of a degree of fitness at least equal to that of any Judge who ever sat on any such Bench. Neqin[?] suprâ, sed par negotia.

This example is but one among so many others that concurr in proving, that under the jurispridential system, to discharge the business of judicature with the highest applause, it is by no means necessary to have any clear conception of the nature of it. Whay should in Equity a Judge, while doing the business of Equity know what the business /practice/ of Equity consists in, any more than a Common Law know what theft is, while he is hanging men for theft? Why should a Judge have any tolerable concenption what the rules of evidence either are or ought to be or are, while he is writing about evidence? See further in[?] title Method, the [...?] rule of evidence.