most experienced citizens; but there is less honesty than in a republic, and less strength than in a monarchy. A monarchy is indeed the most powerful of any; for, by the entire conjunction of the legislative and executive powers, all the sinews of government are knitted together, and united in the hand of the prince. Thus these three species of government have all of them their several perfections and imperfections. Democracies are usually the best calculated to direct the end of the law; aristocracies to invent the means by which that end shall be obtained; and monarchies, to carry those means into execution.

But, happily for us of this island, the British Constitution has long remained, and I trust will long continue, a standing "monument of example to other nations." For, as with us, the executive power of the laws is lodged in a single person, they have all the advantages of strength and dispatch, that are to be found in the most absolute monarchy; and as the legislature of the kingdom is entrusted to three distinct powers, entirely independent of each other ; first, the king; secondly, the lords spiritual and temporal, which is an aristocratical assembly of persons, selected for their piety, their birth, their wisdom, their valour, and their property; and thirdly, the house of commons, freely chosen by the people from among themselves, which makes it a kind of democracy.

In the king, lords, and commons, is lodged the sovereignty of the British Constitution: nothing

SECTION III.

OF THE LAWS OF ENGLAND.

THE municipal law of England, or the rule of civil conduct prescribed to the inhabitants of this kingdom, may with sufficient propriety be divided into two kinds; the lex non scripta, the unwritten, or common law; and the lex scripta, the written, or statute law.

The lex non scripta, or unwritten law, includes not only general customs, or the common law properly so called; but also the particular customs of certain parts of the kingdom; and likewise those particular laws that are by custom observed only in certain courts and jurisdictions.

When I call these parts of our law leges non scriptæ, I would not be understood as if all those laws were at present merely oral, or communicated from the former ages to the present solely by word of mouth; because their original institution and authority are not set down in writing, as acts of parliament are, but they receive their binding power, and the force of laws, by long and immemorial usage, and by their universal reception throughout the kingdom. In like manner as Aulus Gellius defines the jus non scriptum, to be that, which is "tacito et illiterato hominum consensu et moribus expressum."

This unwritten, or common, law, is properly distinguishable into three kinds : 1. General customs;

which are the universal rule of the whole kingdom, and form the common law, in its stricter and more usual signification. 2. Particular customs; which for the most part affect only the inhabitants of particular districts. 3. Certain particular laws; which by custom are adopted and used by some particular courts, of pretty general and extensive jurisdiction.

I. As to general customs, or the common law properly so called; this is that law, by which proceedings and determinations in the king's ordinary courts of justice are guided and directed. This, for the most part, settles the course in which lands descend by inheritance; the manner and form of acquiring and transferring property; the solemnities and obligations of contracts; the rules of expounding wills, deeds, and acts of parliament; the respective remedies of civil injuries; the several species of temporal offences, with the manner and degree of punishment; and an infinite number of minuter particulars, which diffuse themselves as extensively as the ordinary distribution of common justice requires. Thus, for example, that there shall be four superior courts of record, the chancery, the king's bench, the common pleas, and the exchequer; that the eldest son alone is heir to his ancestor; that property may be acquired and transferred by writing; that a deed is of no validity, unless sealed and delivered; that wills shall be construed more favourably, and deeds more strictly; that money lent upon bond is recoverable by action of debt; that breaking the public peace is an offence, and punishable by fine and imprisonment; all these are doctrines that

can endanger or hurt it, but destroying the equilibrium of power between one branch of the legislature and the rest.

As the power of making laws constitutes the supreme authority, so, wherever the supreme authority in any state resides, it is the right of that authority to make laws; that is, in the words of our definition, to prescribe the rule of civil action.

It remains therefore only to consider in what manner the law is said to ascertain the boundaries of right and wrong; and the methods which it takes to command the one and prohibit the other.

For this purpose every law may be said to consist of several parts: one, declaratory; whereby the rights to be observed, and the wrongs to be eschewed, are clearly defined and laid down: another, directory; where the subject is instructed and enjoined to observe those rights, and abstain from the commission of those wrongs: a third, remedial; whereby a method is pointed out to recover a man's private rights, or redress his private wrongs: to which may be added a fourth, usually termed the sanction, or vindicatory branch of the law; whereby it is signified what evil or penalty shall be incurred by such as commit any public wrongs, and transgress or neglect their duty.

With regard to the first of these, the declaratory part of the municipal law, this depends not so much upon the law of revelation or of nature, as upon the wisdom and will of the legislature.

The directory part of our law, virtually includes the former, the declaration being usually collected

from the direction. The law that says, "thou shalt not steal," implies a declaration that stealing is a crime. And we have seen that, in things naturally indifferent, the very essence of right and wrong depends upon the direction of the laws to do or to omit them.

The remedial part of a law is so necessary a consequence of the former two, that laws must be very vague and imperfect without it. For in vain would rights be declared, in vain directed to be observed, if there were no method of recovering and asserting those rights, when wrongfully withheld or invaded. This is what we mean, properly, when we speak of the protection of the law. When, for instance, this declaratory part of the law has said, "that the field or inheritance, which belonged to "Titius' father, is vested by his death in Titius;" and the directory part has "forbidden any one to enter on another's property without the leave of the owner:" if Caius after this will presume to take possession of the land, the remedial part of the law will then interpose its office; will make Caius restore the possession to Titius, and also pay him damages for the invasion.

With regard to the sanction of laws, or the evil that may attend the breach of public duties; it is observed, that human legislators have for the most part chosen to make the sanction of their laws rather vindicatory than remuneratory, or to consist rather in punishments, than in actual particular rewards. Of all the parts of a law, the most effectual is the vindicatory. For it is but lost labour to say, "do this, or avoid that," unless we also declare, "this shall be the consequence of your non-compliance."