Author
William Blackstone
1723–1780
Sir William Blackstone. Oxford jurist and judge. Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–69) codified the common law and became the foundational legal text of the Anglo-American world. Grounded English law in natural law theory in the tradition of Hooker. Standard reading at Princeton under Witherspoon; shaped the legal thought of the American founders.
From Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book the First
[Footnote A: Read in Oxford at the opening of the Vinerian lectures; 25 Oct. 1758.] MR VICE-CHANCELLOR, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE UNIVERSITY, THE general expectation of so numerous and respectable an audience, the novelty, and (I may add) the importance of the duty required from this chair, must unavoidably be productive of great diffidence and apprehensions in him who has the honour to be placed in it. He must be sensible how much will depend upon his conduct in the infancy of a study, which is now first adopted by public academical authority; which has generally been reputed (however unjustly) of a dry and unfruitful nature; and of which the theoretical, elementary parts have hitherto received a very moderate share of cultivation. He cannot but reflect that, if either his plan of instruction be crude and injudicious, or the execution of it lame and superficial, it will cast a damp…
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