ll, by healing
petty differences and preventing vexatious prosecutions. But, in order
to attain these desirable ends, it is necessary that the magistrate
should understand his business; and have not only the will, but the
power also, (under which must be included the knowlege) of
administring legal and effectual justice. Else, when he has mistaken
his authority, through passion, through ignorance, or absurdity, he
will be the object of contempt from his inferiors, and of censure
from those to whom he is accountable for his conduct.

YET farther; most gentlemen of considerable property, at some period
or other in their lives, are ambitious of representing their country
in parliament: and those, who are ambitious of receiving so high a
trust, would also do well to remember it's nature and importance. They
are not thus honourably distinguished from the rest of their
fellow-subjects, merely that they may privilege their persons, their
estates, or their domestics; that they may list under party banners;
may grant or with-hold supplies; may vote with or vote against a
popular or unpopular administration; but upon considerations far more
interesting and important. They are the guardians of the English
constitution; the makers, repealers, and interpreters of the English
laws; delegated to watch, to check, and to avert every dangerous
innovation, to propose, to adopt, and to cherish any solid and
well-weighed improvement; bound by every tie of nature, of honour, and
of religion, to transmit that constitution and those laws to their
posterity, amended if possible, at least without any derogation. And
how unbecoming must it appear in a member of the legislature to vote
for a new law, who is utterly ignorant of the old! what kind of
interpretation can he be enabled to give, who is a stranger to the
text upon which he comments!

INDEED it is really amazing, that there should be no other state of
life, no other occupation, art, or science, in which some method of
instruction is not looked upon as requisite, except only the science
of legislation, the noblest and most difficult of any. Apprenticeships
are held necessary to almost every art, commercial or mechanical: a
long course of reading and study must form the divine, the physician,
and the practical professor of the laws: but every man of superior
fortune thinks himself _born_ a legislator. Yet Tully was of a
different opinion: "It is necessary, says he[e], for a senator to be