ave
been changed with all the authority of a creator over its creature, from
Magna Charta to the great alterations which were made in the 29th of
George II.

To talk of this matter in any other way is to turn a rational principle
into an idle and vulgar superstition, like the antiquary, Dr. Woodward,
who trembled to have his shield scoured, for fear it should be discovered
to be no better than an old pot-lid. This species of tenderness to a
jury puts me in mind of a gentleman of good condition, who had been
reduced to great poverty and distress; application was made to some rich
fellows in his neighbourhood to give him some assistance; but they begged
to be excused for fear of affronting a person of his high birth; and so
the poor gentleman was left to starve out of pure respect to the
antiquity of his family. From this principle has risen an opinion that I
find current amongst gentlemen, that this distemper ought to be left to
cure itself; that the judges having been well exposed, and something
terrified on account of these clamours, will entirely change, if not very
much relax from their rigour; if the present race should not change, that
the chances of succession may put other more constitutional judges in
their place; lastly, if neither should happen, yet that the spirit of an
English jury will always be sufficient for the vindication of its own
rights, and will not suffer itself to be overborne by the bench. I
confess that I totally dissent from all these opinions. These
suppositions become the strongest reasons with me to evince the necessity
of some clear and positive settlement of this question of contested
jurisdiction. If judges are so full of levity, so full of timidity, if
they are influenced by such mean and unworthy passions, that a popular
clamour is sufficient to shake the resolution they build upon the solid
basis of a legal principle, I would endeavour to fix that mercury by a
positive law. If to please an administration the judges can go one way
to-day, and to please the crowd they can go another to-morrow; if they
will oscillate backward and forward between power and popularity, it is
high time to fix the law in such a manner as to resemble, as it ought,
the great Author of all law, in "whom there is no variableness nor shadow
of turning."

As to their succession, I have just the same opinion. I would not leave
it to the chances of promotion, or to the characters of lawyers, what the
law of