prosecuted in the queen's name, and punishable by the criminal law; such are murder, robbery, &c. Other injuries to private property, or persons, are private wrongs and are redressed by the application of the injured person to the courts of justice, which decide suits between man and man. The law regulating these various rights and prohibiting these wrongs, may be divided into the unwritten, or common law, and the written, or statute law. The former is of immemorial antiquity, and has gradually arisen from those fundamental maxims of justice known to the rudest nations, and which have been enlarged and adapted by successive judges to the growing wants of the community. The Roman law, though not regarded with much favour by our early judges, no doubt contributed largely to the formation and expansion of the common law. Indeed, Bracton, one of our earliest legal writers, who lived in the reign of Henry the Third, quotes verbatim from the Institutes of Justinian. The decisions of the English judges have been reported from the days of Edward the Second, and these judgments form precedents for their successors. The written, or statute law, consists of acts of parliament from Magna Charta to the present time. In a more technical sense, common law, law as administered in the courts of common law, is distinguished from equity as administered in the Courts of Chancery. When equity is spoken of as being administered in Chancery, we do not mean that there is no equity in the common law; but that the Court of Chancery administers justice or equity in certain cases where the ancient common law could not, or originally did not, afford relief, or, at least did not give it without multiplicity of suits or other inconveniencies. The superior courts of common law are the courts of Queen's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer, each of which has a chief with four puisne or inferior justices. The chief of the Exchequer is called Chief Baron, and the other judges of that court, barons. These three courts at one time had different departments of the law to deal with; but they are now almost assimilated. From each of them there is an appeal to the other two combined in a court called the Court of Exchequer Chamber, and from thence to the House of Lords, which is the court of last resort. The Court of Chancery is a very ancient court, which has gradually risen to great influence.. The Chancellor was in early times an ecclesiastic, and the remedies he in his court were founded in great measure on the Roman or Civil law, with which the clergy were familiar. gave In the courts of common law all issues or points of law are decided by the judge; issues of fact by a jury. Trial by a Jury is one of the inestimable privileges of an Englishman, and is looked upon as the glory of the English law, and, perfected by the experience of ages, has been, under Providence, the preserver of the liberties of England. |