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Prelud. XI
Proestanda in pendendis legibus
Not content with observing the figure it makes
upon parchment in the . . . . of the Senatehouse,
or in paper on the Lawyer's shelf,
he must trace it through all it's progress
and call up to his imagination its operation influence
on — on the Cottage of on attend it in imagination through the whole course several stages of it's progress into the hands of . . . . the peasant, [in the workshop
of] the artisan [in the closet of] the provincial
Magistrate & [in the hands of] his subordinate
co-adjutors. [Yet farther He must even follow it up (how hard his
fate to wander in those regions where Chaos
seem to have set up fixed his eternal empire)]
He must behold conceive it by anticipation exposed to
the rude assaults of plebian cunning, & to the
more disciplined . . . . . of forensic warfare.
Nor yet must he decline the painful task drudgery
of following it into the dim tortuous Labyrinth
of official practise
He must take Taking to him the Pantheon of universal
---page break---
Justice [for his guide] and watch the shocks
it suffers of the sophistication it meets with in
travelling through those dark recesses of that
watch the colour it assumes exhibits after it's congress
with the several various Quirks & fictions & Chimeras it
passes by in it's way
He must corroborate it if necessary against the sinister
bias impulses to which it is exposed to have impressed upon
it in. this its intricate progression. against the loss of efficacy strength it is exposed to suffer
They would be in an error much mistaken, who from thinking
any of the objections that they will meet
with subtle, should infer that they will not
occur to those who are interested in taking
advantage of them.
The flaws that may be assigned found, an attentive exami- discussion may discover in a Statute Law clear tho' they may be screened from
the observation of the composer by the crowd in
which he has placed it it stands, manifest themselves
much easier to him whose attention is called to
that clause singly or in conjunction with a few
and awaken'd by the occurrence coincidence of incidents relative
It is only by a some general and authoritative resolution
that this malady can have expect it's cure.
It is not every one that is sensible of it: it's mischief
of those who are it is not every one that regards it
of those again even who do, each considers that . .
to abstain would be but to withold a drop from the Ocean
I made choice of this . . . . .
as observing in it a likelyhood of it's affording to afford supplying the least
no scanty crop in number & in variety, of those defects
against of which it is my purpose to give warning.
Tabulatinius utilitas.
It cannot be but that the business of shifting the
surface
must occasion more or less distraction
Dist Diverticula parcit.
The very mechanical act of covering up the leaf before one,
& turning hunting out another, occasions necessarily an interruption in
the train of Ideas; and the Ideas [which are]
awakened by the several objects that are yet to
presents themselves in the course of the pursuit research often
a much greater: especially in those whose powers of
attention are weak and unsteady.
to the subject-matter of it.
Tis not the number of the words, [that does the business]
but their selection the choice
The redundancies of the Legislative Style, that
numerous as they are individually in individuo are so
far from being so in specie general, that very few I
believe I will be assignable to be found in the whole collection that
are not here exemplified. Some of these heads indeed
In some of them indeed Occasion may indeed possibly arise be taken of branching subdividing
out of them some from the observation of some
differences circumstances of distinction of breaking them into more minute
divisions. but few new topics will be found
that are new & not subordinate to one of these.
I shall exhibit the rules of composition so
far as they [result] are deducible from the
examples [of defect] it affords
The What censures that will may occurr will be the less [apt to be]
understood to be as confined to this not in particular, as
a writer of Dr Burn's judgment and experience,
(speaking doubtless by comparison) speaks of it in terms
of commendation as a judicious Statute Burn 354 Ed. 12th. of course
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