It need not be
ashamed of being (what in many parts of it at least it is) the
offspring of an Act of Parliament, unless it is a shame for our laws
to be the results of our legislature. Juries, which sensitively
shrank from the rude touch of parliamentary remedy, have been the
subject of not fewer than, I think, forty-three Acts of Parliament,
in which they have been changed with all the authority of a creator
over its creature, from Magna Charta to the great alterations which
were made in the 29th of George II.
To talk of this matter in any other way is to turn a rational
principle into an idle and vulgar superstition, like the antiquary,
Dr. Woodward, who trembled to have his shield scoured, for fear it
should be discovered to be no better than an old pot-lid. This
species of tenderness to a jury puts me in mind of a gentleman of
good condition, who had been reduced to great poverty and distress;
application was made to some rich fellows in his neighbourhood to
give him some assistance; but they begged to be excused for fear of
affronting a person of his high birth; and so the poor gentleman was
left to starve out of pure respect to the antiquity of his family.
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