LAW AND LAWYERS. THE LANGUAGE OF THE LAW. NOTHING more singular can well be imagined than the language of our law in early times, when the English, the French, and the Latin were all employed. The proceedings in court (after the statute of Edward III.) were carried on in English, reported in French, and entered upon record in Latin. There is no doubt, that the French was introduced into our judicial proceedings by the Normans, on the conquest; and, indeed, William I. is said to have ordained, not only that the pleadings in all courts of justice should be in that language, but likewise that it should be taught at schools. In Chaucer's time, these schools appear to have been in full operation. Of the Prioress Eglantine, the poet says, Frenche she spake full fayre and fetisly, After the schole of Stratford atte Bowe, For French of Paris was to hire unknowe. Prologue, ver. 124. VOL. I. B Some curious information relative to the introduction and decline of the French language in England, may be found in the Preliminary Dissertation prefixed to Chaucer's Works. The reason given by Fortescue (De Laudibus, c. 48.) for the introduction of the French language is as follows: "Likewise the Frenchmen, after their coming into England, reckoned not the accounts of their revenues but in their own language, lest they should be deceived therein, neither had they delight to hunt, and to exercise other sports and pastimes, and at dice-play and the hand-ball, but in their own proper tongue. Wherefore the Englishmen, by much using of their company, grew in such a perfectness of the same language, that at this day, in such plays and accounts, they use the French tongue. And they were wont to plead in French, until by force of a certain statute, that manner was much restrained. But it could never be wholly abolished, as well by reason of certain terms, which pleaders do more properly express in French than in English, as also, for that declarations upon original writs cannot be pronounced so agreeably to the nature of those writs as in French; and under the same speech the forms of such declarations are learned: moreover all pleas arguments, and judgments, passed in the king's courts, and entered into books, for the instruction of them that shall come after, are evermore re ported in the French tongue. Many statutes also of that realm are written in French." The statute to which Fortescue alludes, is the 36 Edward III. which enacts, that all pleas, &c. shall be pleaded, shewn, defended, answered, debated, and judged in the English tongue, and entered and enrolled in Latin. "But though," as Dugdale observes," the pleadings in French ceased with this. statute, yet the terms of law in that language being accounted more significant than any other, were still retained." It is said by Selden, that the statute of Edward III. took its rise from an inconvenience, rather supposed than felt; for though some kind, of knowledge of law terms may be increased thereby, yet, unless the science is professionally studied, "it will breed nothing but notions and. overwhelming conceits, which often engage men in law-suits to their great loss;" he adds, however, that, "thus in part, the reproach of Normandy rolled away, like that of the Israelites at Mount Gilgal." Mr. Barrington has remarked, that, with proper deference to such an authority, few law-suits have ever been occasioned by what he apprehends, and that it is not only a wise measure, for the reasons mentioned in the preamble,* * The preamble runs as follows: "Because the Laws, Customs, and Statutes of this realm are not commonly |