In a period
of thirteen hundred years the laws had reluctantly followed the changes
of government and manners, and the laudable desire of conciliating
ancient names with recent institutions destroyed the harmony and swelled
the magnitude of the obscure and irregular system.
The laws which excuse on any occasions the ignorance of their subjects
confess their own imperfections. The civil jurisprudence, as it was
abridged by Justinian, still continued a mysterious science and a
profitable trade, and the innate perplexity of the study was involved in
tenfold darkness by the private industry of the practitioners. The
expense of the pursuit sometimes exceeded the value of the prize, and
the fairest rights were abandoned by the poverty or prudence of the
claimants. Such costly justice might tend to abate the spirit of
litigation, but the unequal pressure serves only to increase the
influence of the rich, and to aggravate the misery of the poor. By these
dilatory and expensive proceedings, the wealthy pleader obtains a more
certain advantage than he could hope from the accidental corruption of
his judge.
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