1821. May 5.

First Lines

Divisions

Of the manner in which this wretched substitute to real and genuine law is

formed, take this description. In the course of a suit in which

application is made of the rule of action thus composed, the judge, on

each occasion,

pretends to find ready made, and by competent

authority endured with the force of law, and at the same time

universally known to be so in existence, and so in force, a

proposition of a general aspect adopted to the purpose of affording

sufficient authority and warrant for the particular decision or order

which, on that individual occasion, he accordingly pronounces and

delivers.

Partly from the consideration of the general propositions so framed, as

above, by this or that judge or set of judges, partly from the

confederation of the individual instruments or documents expressive of such

individual decision or order as above, or framed in consequence of

and in alleged conformity thereto, partly from the consideration

of such

discourses as have been, or are supposed to have been, uttered

whether by the judge or by the advocates on one or both sides

, a class of

lawyers have, under the names of general

treatises or reports of particular cases conceived in the composition of an

immense and continually

encreasing

chaos — the whole of it written, and a

vast portion of it printed and published, constituting an ever

encreasing

body of that which, having law for its subject, may, in so

far with propriety be termed being not only written but

printed be termed with propriety written though in actual usage

it forms the matter which

passes under the denomination of unwritten law.