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RS6
If you will believe Sr John David who wrote when the
method of publishing Reports in Law French was in
Preface p.7. vogue that language was "by long and continual use" "grown"
so apt, " so natural, and so proper for the matter & subject
Blackt. of "Reports" as no other " was significant enough to express
thickness not to one more than another Court hand very blind. the same" & more words there are, than what have been cited
to the same purpose.
The pleasant part of the Story is, that with this choice Language
the advocates who yet found means some how or other
to make themselves understood, had nothing to do: their Arguments
were constantly in English: in consequence of an express Statute [3b Ed: c15] and the industrious
note takers whom nothing would serve in spite of the Legislator
but their favourite jargon were obliged to add to their other
difficulties the drudgery of extemporary translation.
The same [Sr John Davis] eloquent and so on as
in another paper]
---page break---
When Sr. John Davis Preface to his reports p.8. the Cicero of antient Ireland,
enters upon this ground in the word of Pangyric he imprudently
conjures up an objection to skirmish with which
all the charms of his splendid eloquence strive in vain to
lay.
He is as far indeed as others from suspecting, that when
the terms of that discourse which Lawyers use is such as
can be understood these can be any thing further wanting
in order to make the Law known, or that the nature of his
discourse calls upon him to apologize for that any such confusion.
But ...or .. of a still more obvious nature offer'd
themselves to observation in that time &c.
The locking up of the memorials of the law in a foreign
language is a cause that the Law is unintelligible to the
People. I tell you - Nay (say he) for allow be me but an Hyperbole
& I will show you that this language is learnt master'd without much
PROMULG. Comm. Law. Language. Davis.
---page break---
difficulty of the Professors.
The Temple of Jurisprudence is long since cleansed
of that abomination; which though he had he defended as successfully
as he has done it lamely, there would have
remained much work for him to do under the head of Promulgation
which it never enter'd into his imagination to
conceive.
To take any active measures to make it known, was with
him a work of supererogation: it's justification was compleat,
if no inordinate pains were taken to keep it that it [concealed] might
secret.
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