ch honor to himself as advantage to
his country. I copied over his lectures twice with my own hand, from
notes taken in the class; and when I have had occasion to consult
them, I can never sufficiently admire the penetration and clearness of
conception which were necessary to the arrangement of the fabric of
law, formed originally under the strictest influence of feudal
principles, and innovated, altered, and broken in upon by the change
of times, of habits, and of manners, until it resembles some ancient
castle, partly entire, partly ruinous, partly dilapidated, patched and
altered during the succession of ages by a thousand additions and
combinations, yet still exhibiting, with the marks of its antiquity,
symptoms of the skill and wisdom of its founders, and capable of being
analyzed and made the subject of a methodical plan by an architect who
can understand the various styles of the different ages in which it
was subjected to alteration. Such an architect has Mr. Hume {p.049}
been to the law of Scotland, neither wandering into fanciful and
abstruse disquisitions, which are the more proper subject of the
antiquary, nor satisfied with presenting to his pupils a dry and
undigested detail of the laws in their present state, but combining
the past state of our legal enactments with the present, and tracing
clearly and judiciously the changes which took place, and the causes
which led to them.

Under these auspices I commenced my legal studies. A little parlor was
assigned me in my father's house, which was spacious and convenient,
and I took the exclusive possession of my new realms with all the
feelings of novelty and liberty. Let me do justice to the only years
of my life in which I applied to learning with stern, steady, and
undeviating industry. The rule of my friend Clerk and myself was that
we should mutually qualify ourselves for undergoing an examination
upon certain points of law every morning in the week, Sundays
excepted. This was at first to have taken place alternately at each
other's houses, but we soon discovered that my friend's resolution was
inadequate to severing him from his couch at the early hour fixed for
this exercitation. Accordingly I agreed to go every morning to his
house, which, being at the extremity of Prince's Street, New Town, was
a walk of two miles. With great punctuality, however, I beat him up to
his task every morning before seven o'clock, and in the course of two
summers, we went,