Warburton, that if Blackstone's Commentaries had been published when he began the study of the law, it would have saved him the reading of twelve hours in the day. This work, which has proved of so much advantage to the law student, was on its appearance greeted with the sneers and whispered censures of many of our black letter lawyers. It became the fashion amongst a certain class to decry it. A gentleman, not long since dead, was told by one who prided himself on being of the old school, that there was scarcely one page in Blackstone in which there was not one false principle and two doubtful principles stated as undoubted law. Horne Tooke, who was always ambitious of a legal reputation, declared "that it was a good gentleman's law book, clear but not deep." It was in short, obnoxious to one charge, viz. that it was intelligible. Mr. Hargrave is reported to have said, that "any lawyer who writes so clearly as to be intelligible was an enemy to his profession." This will account for the unfavourable reception which Blackstone's Commentaries met with from some. CHAPTER III. SKETCHES OF EMINENT LAWYERS. Sir O. Bridgeman-Lord Macclesfield-Sir W. BlackstoneLord Chancellor King-Lord Alvanley-Fearne-BradleyPigot-Sir Julius Cæsar-Mr. Justice Burnet-Booth-Sir Thomas Plumer-Lord Gifford-Sir W. Grant-Sir John Leach. WE subjoin a few notices of some eminent lawyers of whom we have hitherto said nothing. SIR ORLANDO BRIDGEMAN has been called by Mr. Serjeant Hill, the father of conveyancers. He was attached to the monarchial party during the troubles in the reign of Charles I.; and when the parliament party obtained pre-eminence, he, with others, retired into the country and applied himself to the practice of conveyancing. "Betaking himself to his chamber," says North," he became the great oracle not only of his fellow-sufferers but of the whole nation in matters of law-his very enemies not thinking their estates secure without his advice." A poet, if his claim to so high a title will be admitted, has thus celebrated his praises "To those excellent conveyancers, Sir Orlando Bridgeman and the worthy Mr. Godfrey Palmer : Wise Greece and Rome did this in both combine To make addresses to the Delphian shrine; And with divine Apollo to advise, Was the preludium to an enterprise. Few Englishmen dare purchase an estate Help to entail their lands; whilst yourselves be Sir Jeffrey Palmer, to whom these verses were equally addressed, was, like Bridgeman, warmly zealous for the royal cause. "During all the troubles of the times," says Roger North, "he lived quiet in the Temple, a professed and known cavalier; and no temptation of fear or profit ever shook his principle. He lived then in great business of conveyancing, and had no clerks but such as were strict cavaliers. One, I have heard, was so rigid that he could never be brought to write Oliver with a great O. And it was said, the attorney (Palmer was made attorney-general on the restoration) chose to purchase the manor of Charleton because his master's name sounded in the style of it." In 1682, he published "Bridgeman's Conveyancer; being select precedents of Deeds and Instruments." Upon the dismissal of Lord Clarendon, the great seal was given to Bridgeman; but, according to Burnet, his practice having lain so entirely in the common law, he did not seem to know what equity was. "He laboured very much," says Roger North, "to please everybody; and that is a temper of ill consequence in a judge. It was observed of him, that if a cause admitted of divers doubts, which the lawyers call points, he would never give all on one side, but either party should have somewhat to go away with." Historians, following Burnet, have generally said that the chancellorship was taken from Bridgeman because he refused to put the great seal to a proclamation, dispensing with some penal laws; but this is untrue. There is no reason to doubt that his advanced age was the true, as well as the ostensible, cause of his resignation. Although the profession have always considered THOMAS PARKER, LORD MACCLESFIELD, in point of abilities, as having worthily filled the seat of Lord Nottingham and Lord Somers, his name is almost unknown to the public, except in reference to his unhappy fate. He is said to have practised in Derby, as an attorney, for some years before he was called to the bar; but, as one of his biographers has observed, this is probably a mistake, as he entered at the Inner Temple, in 1683, and was called in 1691, "not many months after the expiration of the required term of studentship." He soon rose to distinction as an advocate; and, being elected member for his native town, Derby, became, in parliament, a powerful supporter of the whig administration. He took an active part as one of the managers in the impeachment of Dr. Sacheverellone of the most ill-advised, and that is saying a good deal, that the whigs were ever engaged in. His political services soon obtained him his desired reward, and, on the death of Sir John Holt, he was appointed chief justice of the Queen's Bench. It is to this that Defoe alludes. Addressing the high church party, who regarded Sacheverell as a martyr, he says, "you are desired to take particular notice of her Majesty having severely punished Sir Thomas Parker, one of the managers of the House of Commons, for his barbarous treatment of the doctor, in pretending in a long speech to show, as he called it, the impertinence and superficial jingle of the doctor's speech. Her Majesty being, as you know, heartily concerned for this prosecution, hath testified her care of the doctor's character, in most justly punishing that forward gentleman, having condemned him for his boldness to perpetual confinement, being appointed to the constant drudgery of Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench; a cruel and severe sentence indeed!" When Lord Cowper resigned the great seal, on the formation of the Harley cabinet, strong efforts were made to induce Parker to accept it; but they were unavailing. Having been created Lord Parker, Baron of Macclesfield, by George the First, shortly after his accession, Parker was, in 1718, on the final retirement of Lord Cowper, appointed Lord Chancellor, and |