COKE UPON LITTLETON—A WISE COURSE OF STUDY Paper read before the Pennsylvania Bar Association, By HON. CLEMENT B. PENROSE, of Philadelphia I have been greatly flattered by an invitation to write. a paper to be read before the Pennsylvania Bar Association, and while it is most gratifying to me-especially as coming through one whom I so highly esteem as my friend Simpson, even though our views with respect to statutory changes in the law are not entirely in accord,—as no subject has been suggested, I am somewhat embarrassed. There is an old French story of a leading lawyer in Paris, who, called upon by a young farmer for "advice,"-with no reference to any trouble or difficulty on the part of the client,―gave the advice in writing, "Never put off until to-morrow what can be done to-day." This having been duly paid for, was at once promptly acted on, with the result that a valuable hay crop, which would otherwise have been lost by reason of a tremendous rain storm which came up that night, was saved; and for the remainder of his life the client, on the anniversary of the consultation, was in the habit of sending to the lawyer a pair of fine pullets and a basket of newly laid eggs (this was, of course, before the days of cold-storage,)— always declaring that "next to the precepts of the Holy Scriptures, and of the blessed Church, there was nothing of such value as the advice of a good lawyer": a sentiment which no member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association will be disposed to question. But it is not for me to offer advice to the distinguished lawyers composing that body; and I shall, therefore, confine myself to a reference to my own experience with regard to the value of a certain course of study of some old books. It has not been very long-though as we grow older our ideas of "long" as applied to time change very materially -since it was supposed that the education of a lawyer could not be complete without his having mastered, or at least attempted to master, "Coke upon Littleton." That the idea was not well founded is demonstrated by the fact that there are many lawyers, most accomplished lawyers, who have not read the book at all. But so late as 1845, when Lord Campbell wrote the Lives of the Lord Chancellors, he thus expressed himself in his life of Lord Eldon : "I am grieved to hear that the reading of 'Coke upon Littleton' is going out of fashion among law students. When I was commencing my legal curriculum, I was told this anecdote:-A young student asked Sir Vicary Gibbs how he should learn his profession. Sir Vicary: 'Read Coke upon Littleton'. Student: 'I have read it twice'. Sir Vicary: 'Thrice?' Student: 'Yes, three times over, very carefully'. Sir Vicary: 'You may now sit down and make an abstract of it.'" "If," adds Lord Campbell, "my opinion is of any value, I would heartily join in this advice. The book contains much that is obsolete, and much that is altered by statutory enactment; but no one can understand the law thoroughly as it is, without knowing the changes it has undergone, and no man can be acquainted with its history without being familiar with the writings of Lord Coke. Nor is he by any means so dry and forbidding as he is generally supposed. He is certainly immethodical, but he is singularly perspicuous; he fixes the attention, his quaintness is often amusing, and he excites our admiration by the inexhaustible stores of erudition which, without any effort, he seems spontaneously to pour forth. Thus were our genuine lawyers trained. Lord Eldon read Coke upon Littleton once, twice, and thrice, and made an abstract of the whole work as a useful exercise,-obeying the wise injunction-legere multum non multa." Our own Sharswood, in the course of study given in the appendix to the lecture on Professional Ethics, after advising the reading of the Prefaces to the several volumes of Lord Coke's Reports, as "an admirable introduction to |