Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-02-02 00:00:00

MAXIMS OF ANTIQUITY

Two remarkable cases were reported in our
columns a day or two since, in which occasions
occurred of practically illustrating those principles
of jurisprudence which are immutable, and for
authentications of which our judges refer back to
very ancient times. We have, in our own national
system of justice, and our own science of law, the
lex non seripta,—the common law of England,
which, for centuries, remained unwritten, and
which is still held paramount to all modern enact-
ments, in-clearness, brevity, 'and authority. But
as well as this, there are certain fundamental and
unchanging principles of justice and equity, the
precepts of which, it is true, are all:embodied in
Holy Writ, but certain expressions of which are
to be found in the writings of the jurists and
the moralists of antiquity, and even apart from
the divine instructions of Christianity itself.
They contain that divine essence of which it has
been said, "that by whomsoever manifested it
comes from God," and which we regard as that
eternal truth that must ever be the basis of
eternal justice. And all law must rest on this.
There can be no righteous judgment which has
not this for its foundation. It, therefore, was the
principle that pervaded their jurisprudence, from
which our oven system has been derived, and
which our Christianity has, of course, enabled us,
in many respects, to improve upon. Well has
it been observed of law learning, that "it
is an old feudal castle in perfect preservation,
which the legal architect, who aspires to the first
honours of his profession, will delight to explore
and learn all the uses to which its various parts
used to be put ; and he will the better understand,
enjoy, and relish the progressive improvements of
the science in modern times." No doubt he will ;
for he is thereby enabled to trace back its principles
to their origin, and to recognise their development
through the progress of that system of jurispru-
dence which has been gradually perfected in our
own judicial courts, until ours has become the
purest and fairest administration of justice that is
to be met with, perhaps, in the world.
But the standing maxims not only of human
wisdom, but of Divine justice —for justice, lik
truth, is divine —and which are to be found expressed
in terms so plain and so terse in those ancient classics
which continue, even in this utilitarian age, to be
the text-books of the learned, in the law as in
everything else, are those to which appeal is
constantly made, whenever a principle of juris-
prudence has to be elucidated or enforced. Jus-
tice is the motive by which we give to every man
that which is his due. And in equity—and in
law, where this is its basis—in all that is decreed,
and all that is done, more especially under
accusations of what is criminal or what is illegal,
this virtue must ever be religiously regarded.

And now to the two occasions we have referred
to, as practically illustrating the unimpaired value
and importance of those ancient and classical
maxims, which are still quoted and appealed to for
guidance and direction, in our own science and
system of law.

The first was that of the application to our
Court of Queen's Bench of a poor Curate in London
for a mandamus to the Archbishop of Canterbury
to hear his, the Curate's, appeal against the decision
of his Bishop—the Archbishop having confirmed
the said decision, though a most arbitrary one,
without giving the poor Curate any opportunity
of being heard in his defence. It is unnecessary
to make any further allusion to the facts of the
case here. Suffice it to say, that the Court
determined to grant the mandamus, on the ground
that the appellant had a right to be heard in his
defence, which he had not been ; and that the
LORD CHIEF JUSTICE justified this determination
by a precept of SENECA'S,—

Qui statuit aliquid, parte inaudita alters,
2Equum licet statuerit, haud nquus fecit."
That is to say, that he who decided in any case,
without hearing the other side of the question,
though he might determine justly, was not there-
fore just. Such was the maxim of SENECA some
eighteen hundred years ago. And SENECA was a
Roman philosopher, moralist, and jurist; and his
maxims, being those of eternal justice, will never
be out of date. SENECA, too, was a heathen,—a
fact which has a curious bearing in such a case as
that to which his maxim is applied ; which is that
of a Christian prelate condemned by the precept
of a Pagan moralist. " Strike ; but hear," is
another ancient maxim of very similar import.

The second instance was also one in which the
LORD CHIEF JUSTICE appropriated an ancient
classical apothegm ; but this time it was one of
OVID'S. It was a case which has a deep local
interest ; and let us hope that, on this account,
if on no other, the lesson it reads will be all the
more readily and the more thoroughly learned.
A Director of our late Borough Bank had
appealed against the verdict obtained against