Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 3himself master of special pleading; Williams's edition of Saunders had not then appeared. The book was studied, when studied at all, in the old folio edition. Mr. Webster took this up, translated the Latin and Norman French into English, and made an abstract of every case in this book. This gave him a familiarity with the forms of special pleading. This is a necessary science to every lawyer. The subtilty in the method of reasoning found in special pleading had its origin in the Aristotelian philosophy; and if at times justice has been strangled by it, still it has often assisted to bring a subject to its points and bearings, and to give the powers of ratiocination a directness, that could not be expected under the form of a simple negation in reply to numerous allegations. At all events, it was necessary to be known in order to meet those, who by having some knowledge of it were apt to affect a superiority over those who had neglected to make themselves masters of the science. Here, too, he discovered, that a profound knowledge of English History was necessary to make a lawyer, and that law was, in a good degree, an textit{historical science. To this end, he devoted much time to this study, and then he had not the facilities, which have since been presented to the reader. David Hume was a deep and learned philosopher, but he does not afford the student so much knowledge of the growth of English law as others have since done. Hume generalized where others have since detailed. Lingard, Turner Halfem and others have saved the student of this day many hours of laborious research, then necessary for those who wished for a proper share of knowledge in the origin and progress of English law. Mr. Gore having become acquainted with the capacity and acquirements of Mr. Webster, the office relation between t...