:
the law by which he is condemned is inscribed not only on brass or
marble, but on the conscience of the offender, and his guilt is commonly
proved by the testimony of a single fact. But our relations to each
other are various and infinite; our obligations are created,
annulled, and modified, by injuries, benefits, and promises; and the
interpretation of voluntary contracts and testaments, which are often
dictated by fraud or ignorance, affords a long and laborious exercise
to the sagacity of the judge. The business of life is multiplied by the
extent of commerce and dominion, and the residence of the parties in
the distant provinces of an empire is productive of doubt, delay, and
inevitable appeals from the local to the supreme magistrate. Justinian,
the Greek emperor of Constantinople and the East, was the legal
successor of the Latin shepherd who had planted a colony on the banks
of the Tyber. In a period of thirteen hundred years, the laws had
reluctantly followed the changes of government and manners; and the
laudable desire of conciliating ancient names with recent institutions
destroyed the harmony, and swelled the magnitude, of the obscure and
irregular system. The laws which excuse, on any occasions, the
ignorance of their subjects, confess their own imperfections: the
civil jurisprudence, as it was abridged by Justinian, still continued a
mysterious science, and a profitable trade, and the innate perplexity
of the study was involved in tenfold darkness by the private industry
of the practitioners. The expense of the pursuit sometimes exceeded the
value of the prize, and the fairest rights were abandoned by the poverty
or prudence of the claimants. Such costly justice might tend to abate
the spirit of litigation, but the unequal pressure serves only to
increase the influence of the rich, and to aggravate the misery of the
poor. By these dilatory and expensive proceedings, the wealthy pleader
obtains a more certain advantage than he could hope from the accidental
corruption of his judge. The experience of an abuse, from which our
own age and country are not perfectly exempt, may sometimes provoke
a generous indignation, and extort the hasty wish of exchanging our
elaborate jurisprudence for the simple and summary decrees of a Turkish
cadhi. Our calmer reflection will suggest, that such forms and delays
are necessary to guard the person and property of the citizen; that the
discretion of the judge is the first en