英国法释义preface

COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS OF ENGLAND BOOK THE FIRST. BY WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, Esq. VINERIAN PROFESSOR OF LAW, AND SOLICITOR GENERAL TO HER MAJESTY __________ O X F O R D PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS M. D C C. L X V. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TO THE QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY, THE FOLLOWING VIEW OF THE LAWS AND CONSTITUTION OF ENGLAND, THE IMPROVEMENT AND PROTECTION OF WHICH HAVE DISTINGUISHED THE REIGN OF HER MAJESTY'S ROYAL CONSORT, IS, WITH ALL GRATITUDE AND HUMILITY, MOST RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY HER DUTIFUL AND MOST OBEDIENT SERVANT, WILLIAM BLACKSTONE. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Preface THE following sheets contain the substance of a course of lectures on the laws of England, which were read by the author in the university of OXFORD. His original plan took it's rise in the year 1753: and, notwithstanding the novelty of such an attempt in this age and country, and the prejudices usually conceived against any innovations in the established mode of education, he had the satisfaction to find (and he acknowledges it with a mixture of pride and gratitude) that his endeavours were encouraged and patronized by those, both in the university and out of it, whose good opinion and esteem he was principally desirous to obtain. THE death of Mr VINER in 1756, and his ample benefaction to the university for promoting the study of the law, produced about two years afterwards a regular and public establishment of what the author had privately undertaken. The knowledge of our laws and constitution was adopted as a liberal science by general academical authority; competent endowments were decreed for the support of a lecturer, and the perpetual encouragement of students; and the compiler of the ensuing commentaries had the honour to be elected the first Vinerian professor. IN this situation he was led, both by duty and inclination, to investigate the elements of the law, and the grounds of our civil polity, with greater assiduity and attention than many have thought it necessary to do. And yet all, who of late years have attended the public adminstration of justice, must be sensible that a masterly acquaintance with the general spirit of laws and the principles of universal jurisprudence, combined with an accurate knowlege of our own municipal constitutions, their original, reason, and history, hath given a beauty and energy to many modern judicial decicions, with which our ancestors were wholly unacquainted. If, in the pursuit of these inquiries, the author hath been able to rectify any errors which either himself or others may have heretofore imbibed, his pains will be sufficiently answered: and, if in some points he is still mistaken, the candid and judicious reader will make due allowances for the difficulties of a search so new, so extensive, and so laborious. THE labour indeed of these researches, and of a regular attention to his duty, for a series of so many years, he hath found inconsistent with his health, as well as his other avocations: and hath therefore desired the university's permission to retire from his office, after the conclusion of the annual course in which he is at present engaged. But the hints, which he had collected for the use of his pupils, having been thought by some of his more experienced friends not wholly unworthy of the public eye, it is therefore with the less reluctance that he now commits them to the press: though probably the little degree of reputation, which their author may have acquired by the candor of an audience (a test widely different from that of a deliberate perusal) would have been better consulted by a total suppression of his lectures; -- had that been a matter entirely within his power. FOR the truth is, that the present publication is as much the effect of necessity, as it is of choice. The notes which were taken by his hearers, have by some of them (too partial in his favour) been thought worth revising and transcribing; and these transcripts have been frequently lent to others. Hence copies have been multiplied, in their nature imperfect, if not erroneous; some of which have fallen into mercenary hands, and become the object of clandestine sale. Having therefore so much reason to apprehend a surreptitious impression, he chose rather to submit his own errors to the world, than to seem answerable for those of other men. And, with this apology, he commits himself to the indulgence of the public. FOOTNOTES Acknowledgements: COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS OF ENGLAND (1765-69) By Sir William Blackstone Based on the first edition printed at the Clarendon Press (Oxford, England), together with the most material corrections and additions in the second edition. Copyright: HTML, javascript and footnote coding are proprietary to Lonang Institute and are not in the public domain. All bracketed latin translations are proprietary to Lonang Institute and are not in the public domain. All spelling and punctuation modernization is proprietary to Lonang Institute and is not in the public domain. © Copyright 2003 Lonang Institute. Footnotes: In the original text, footnotes for each chapter were rendered sequentially in lower case letters, that is, a to z, generally skipping the letters j and v, which were apparently reserved for additions or corrections and were (when used) often out of alphabetical sequence. This alphabetical sequence was repeated as often as necessary in each chapter, so that there would often be several footnotes a in the same chapter, and so on for each of the letters. In this edition, all footnotes have been rendered as endnotes and converted to numbers, so that each note has a unique numerical designation for that chapter. The original sequence of notes has been preserved as they appear in the text, regardless of whether the letter denoting the note was in sequence or not. Spelling and Punctuation: The Commentaries were printed, consistent with the common practice of the time, frequently rendering the letter s in an elongated form, complete with a cross-hatch, looking very similar to the letter f. Thus, when scanning the original edition, the OCR software recognized the intended s as an f. We have attempted to correct as many instances of such misspellings as posible, but some errors may still exist and we welcome anyone bringing them to our attention. Similarly, in the original edition, whenever a quotation exceeded a single line, a quotation mark was placed at the beginning of each line of the quotation. We have attempted to eliminate all such redundant quotation marks in keeping with modern usage. The intention in presenting this electronic edition of Blackstone's Commentaries is to make it as readable as possible to the contemporary viewer. Consequently, the spelling of some words has been modernized, for example, jail and jailer instead of gaol and gaoler.