to present Mr. Tapes with a copy of it. So
delighted was I, in fact, with the discovery
that any gentleman who had arrived at the
dignity of Barister-at-law, should dare thus
practically to impugn the "wisdom of
successive ages," that I rushed off incontinently
to Tapes, and, interrupting him in the
elaboration of the seventy-first folio of a draft
assignment of a cow-shed, desired his
immediate perusal of the book, and as sound and
speedy an opinion of it as he could give.
"Before you give me that opinion, however,
Mr. Tapes," I said (and every book in his
extensive law library seemed to utter a hollow
groan at the words), "allow me to tell you a
short story:

"Once upon a time, the philosophers of the
period were thrown into great perplexity by
the assertion that a bowl of water containing
a live fish did not weigh more than the same
bowl and water weighed without the fish.
On what principle of pneumatics, hydrostatics,
or hydraulics, this eccentric doctrine
could be accounted for, the philosophers were
unable to determine. At length one of the
body— a young man probably, and evidently
an unworthy member of that grave and reverend
society— suggested that it might be as
well, before exhausting any more theories, to
weigh the bowl. This being done, lo! the
bowl and water when it contained the fish,
proved to be heavier than the bowl and water
without the fish, by exactly so much as the
weight of the fish. Now, I wish you to
understand, Mr. Tapes, that, in my view of
the matter, the author of this book is the
unworthy philosopher who has had the temerity
to weigh the bowl."

I subsequently made it my business to
learn Mr. Tapes's opinion, of the book, which
he gave me in this wise:

"Sir," said that gentleman, in his severest
legal manner, "I have perused and examined
the treatise which you submitted to me, and
I am bound to say, that it very fairly meets
the requirements (however exorbitant they
may be) of a loose, and legally speaking
degenerate age, and contains many
admirable forms. You will be aware, however,
at the same time, that the many excellent
and matured forms which are at present in
use have been sanctioned by the accumulated
wisdom of successive——"

"Mr. Tapes," I interrupt, "no more of
that an you love me. Are you aware that
the venerable sapience of which you were
about to speak, consigned your fellow-creature
to the gallows, up to a period not very
remote, for stealing sheep, or for stealing
anything that was worth more than
ten-pence? It consigned others to the terrible
torture of the peine forte et dure? It made
it necessary that before the absolute ownership
of property could pass from vendor
to purchaser, that an absurd ceremony
should be gone through, which you yourself
will remember as livery of seisin? That
subsequently remedied by a decree that two
deeds (the one supposed to be executed
the day before the other) should be necessary
to a conveyance of law in the place
of one? That remedied again, it ruled by
a Parliamentary enactment, that one deed
should be as effectual for the same purpose
as two? At this very day makes it incumbent
upon me, before I can be admitted
to copyhold property, to be placed at one
extremity of a long stick, the steward of the
manor at the other, and two tenants by copy
of Court Roll clinging on indiscriminately by
the centre; I having eventually to pay very
handsomely for my share in this genteel
comedy? Now, Mr. Tapes, I would ask you if
this is the most desirable foundation on which
to erect our great system of jurisprudence, and
whether it may not be possible, after all, that
the wisdom of successive ages should turn
out to be not absolutely infallible?"

To this Mr. Tapes made answer by asking
my permission to state a case. "Supposing,"
said that gentleman, "that I had made use of
the remarkably concise form which I find at
page sixty-six of Mr. Prior's book, instead of
the more solid and lengthy conveyance which
I prepared for you some little time ago.
Suppose that this deed of conveyance should at
some future period come under the investigation
of a lawyer of— we will say — not very
liberal views, and that he, not recognising the
familiar verbiage of the usual form, should
throw a doubt on its validity. Before
whom would the doubt be argued? Before
the very men who are most notoriously
wedded to precedent, and who look upon any
departure from the rule laid down by the
accumulated wisdom of successive ages, with
orthodox horror. This being the case, I must
state that I shall not incur the responsibility
of adopting the short form (excellent though
I allow it to be) until the system of
conveyancing, of which it is the fruit, shall have
received the sanction of Parliament."

Assuming the latter argument urged by
Mr. Tapes to possess some show of reason,
I will merely, by one example, endeavour to
explain what it is the design of Mr. Prior to
effect, and I will leave it to my readers to decide
whether an application to Parliament,
resulting in the adoption of his system,
would confer any lasting benefit upon the
public. In the conveyance of the barber's
shop from Jones to myself,— which may
be taken as a fair average specimen of a
simple conveyance in fee,— I find a wondrous
expenditure of words. It commences with a
voluminous recital of the deed whereby Jones
became possessor of the property. It then
sets forth, in as many words as possible, how
that that gentleman and I have agreed, the
one to sell and the other to buy. Then,
follows the witnessing part, and an elaborate
statement of the amount of purchase-money,
and that Jones gives me a receipt for the
same. Then, that gentleman, after floundering