statutes[l] she appoints, that one of the three questions
to be annually discussed at the act by the jurist-inceptors shall
relate to the common law; subjoining this reason, "_quia juris civilis
studiosos decet haud imperitos esse juris municipalis, & differentias
exteri patriique juris notas habere_." And the statutes[m] of the
university of Cambridge speak expressly to the same effect.

[Footnote i: _Dedicatio corporis juris civilis._ _Edit._ 1663.]

[Footnote k: Hale. Hist. C.L. c. 2. Selden _in Fletam_. 5 Rep.
Caudrey's Case. 2 Inst. 599.]

[Footnote l: _Tit. VII. Sect._ 2. Sec. 2.]

[Footnote m: _Doctor legum mox a doctoratu dabit operam legibus
Angliae, ut non sit imperitus earum legum quas habet sua patria, et
differentias exteri patriique juris noscat._ _Stat._ Eliz. _R._ _c._
14. Cowel. _Institut. in proemio._]

FROM the general use and necessity of some acquaintance with the
common law, the inference were extremely easy, with regard to the
propriety of the present institution, in a place to which gentlemen of
all ranks and degrees resort, as the fountain of all useful knowlege.
But how it has come to pass that a design of this sort has never
before taken place in the university, and the reason why the study of
our laws has in general fallen into disuse, I shall previously proceed
to enquire.

SIR John Fortescue, in his panegyric on the laws of England, (which
was written in the reign of Henry the sixth) puts[n] a very obvious
question in the mouth of the young prince, whom he is exhorting to
apply himself to that branch of learning; "why the laws of England,
being so good, so fruitful, and so commodious, are not taught in the
universities, as the civil and canon laws are?" In answer to which he
gives[o] what seems, with due deference be it spoken, a very jejune
and unsatisfactory reason; being in short, that "as the proceedings at
common law were in his time carried on in three different tongues, the
English, the Latin, and the French, that science must be necessarily
taught in those three several languages; but that in the universities
all sciences were taught in the Latin tongue only; and therefore he
concludes, that they could not be conveniently taught or studied in
our universities." But without attempting to examine seriously the
validity of this reason, (the very shadow of which by the wisdom of
your late constitutions is entirely taken away) we perhaps may find
out a better, or at least a more