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VOLUME. Consolidat.n Ruffhead's Arguments against.
If there are any men to whom the necessity of a reform should be appear more striking than to another, one should have thought it should have been to those few persons to whom from the nature of their engagements it must have fallen to give them a more universal and attentive perusal than any other. In a word to those who having published them and made studious to them, must have been at the pains of classing the contents and reviewing them sheet by sheet.
However strange it may seem, for want of keeping
steadily in view or indeed it should seem for want of attending to at all the influence of Voluminousness
upon Notoriety & of that again upon Execution, it's efficacy
Men Lawyers have not been wanting to apologize
for (for it would have been two much to defend)
this scandal of the Law. The reader may
perhaps be curious to see their arguments: & as
scarce nothing which can contribute to give satisfaction
to mankind upon a point of such importance
can well be deemed superfluous, I will take the
liberty to give it at some length.
"It hath been observed", says Owen Ruffhead in
the Preface to his truly valuable Edition of the
Statutes,+ + p. 20 "that in early times former Laws were
consider'd no longer in force, than as they were preserved
in the last publication; & by this means,
it is said, the Laws were kept within narrow
bounds, untill they were greatly enlarged, both in
number & artificial construction, by King Edw. 3."
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This method, continues he it may be allow'd + + & so on down to illustration.
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This argument when brought together a little more closely stated in few words, may be reduced
to the following propositions. 1 If the method in
question had been pursued till now, longer than it was many curiosities
would have been lost. 2 therefore many it was not
then expedient. 3 therefore if it were adopted
now many curiosities would be lost. 4 therefore
it would not be now expedient
As to the 2 first of these propositions, I will leave
any one that pleases to make the most of them:
but the matter of fact contained in the 3d.
& the inference in the 4th, seem equally ill-founded
& unsupportable.
Whether the gratification to of the depraved taste of
a few hundred Antiquarians some centuries hence
supposing that were at stake is to be put in
competition with the attainment of all those ends
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for which Laws were made is a question to which
I will refer to the reader for an answer. seems sufficiently answer'd when it is stated
But I know not how it has happen'd that, not
this Author only, but one of a superior class + + v. Barrough's Obs. on the Stat.
should have tacitly taken it for granted [+] [+] that at this time of day, Repeal was tantamount to annihilation: as if that
there were no way for the "repealed & obsolete Acts" could not to "guide"
unless they governed: and as if the Laws of
Athens & of Sparta were the less unfit for the purposes
of "Historical proof & illustration": because they for not being
are not acknowledged as binding by the either by a
of that country dominion nor of by the Ch. Justice of in
our own.
Under the incurious barbarism of the middle ages,
before the invention of that admirable art
which has rescued the products of the intellect places works of the least degree of
value importance from the teeth out of the reach of time, it has
happen'd indeed in many instances, & so it
behoved to do, that Repeal has been followed by
neglect & neglect by deposition. But what Analogy
can there be in this respect between those & the present
or any future age?
COMPOS. Consolidation Ruffhead against [ ][ ][BR][ ]
COMPOSIT. Consolidation. Ruffhead's arguments against
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