LAW REFORM.
481
After Lord Coke and Littleton himself, there is no higher authority in the law than Shepherd, the author of the Touchstone, who, in another of his works, called “ England’s Balm, or Proposals by way of Grievance and Remedy, &c., towards the Regulation of the Law and better Administration of Justice,” reminds his legal brethren, that “ taking away the abuse of the law will establish the use of the law—stabilit usum qui tollit abusum—and that rooting up the tares will not destroy the wheat.”* If the House require further authorities upon this point, I can refer them to one of the most instructive books published of late years upon this matter, that of Mr. Parkes, a respectable solicitor in Warwickshire, who, in giving a history of the Court of Chancery, has collected most of the authorities upon the subject of Legal Reform. But our predecessors, members of this House in the 17th century, an age fruitful of great improvements, most of which were retained in more quiet times, undertook the amendment of the Law systematically, and with a spirit and a wisdom every way worthy of so great a work. In 1654, a Commission was formed partly of the House, partly of learned strangers. At the head of the former, I find my honourable friend the Solicitor General’s less learned and more martial predecessor, called in the Journals “ Lord General Cromwell.” † But in front of the latter stands “ Mr. Mathew Hale,” afterwards the great Chief Justice, whose name is ever cited amongst the most venerable * There is certainly a notion of Mr. Justice Doddridge being the author of this excellent book, or at least standing in the same relation to it that C. B. Gilbert does to Bacon’s Ab.; for the dates of some works cited in it make it impossible he should have written it all. † O. Cromwell was member for Cambridge town ; Mr. Tindal for the university. VOL. II.
2 H