Thomas Moore (Lalla Rookh).
As in other cases mentioned in the [Preface], I find that these lines, so familiar in my day, appear to be unknown to younger men.
ON BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES.
In taking leave of our Author (Sir William Blackstone) I finish gladly with this pleasing peroration: a scrutinizing judgment, perhaps, would not be altogether satisfied with it; but the ear is soothed by it, and the heart is warmed.
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) (A Fragment of Government).
I think it worth while quoting from my notes this amusing piece of sarcasm aimed by a young man of twenty-eight at the most renowned legal writer of the time. A Fragment of Government (1776), the first of Bentham’s works, not only showed the utter folly of Blackstone’s praise of the English constitution, but also laid the foundation of political science. (The passage, which the quotation refers to, is in Sec. 2 of the Introduction to the Commentaries, “Thus far as to the right of the supreme power to make law ... public tranquillity.”)
Not only was the English constitution a subject of eulogy in Bentham’s day, but also English law, then in a most barbarous state, was alleged to be the perfection of human reason! Through the efforts of this great and original thinker many dreadful abuses were removed, but it is a remarkable illustration of the blind strength of English conservatism that his wise counsel has not yet been followed in many exceedingly important directions.
In the seventy-eighty period, with which this book mainly deals there was a strong agitation for law reform, which had some results.