[Blackstone's conclusion]
Thus therefore, for the amusement and instruction of the student, I have
endeavoured to delineate some rude outlines of a plan for the history of
our laws and liberties; from their first rise, and gradual progress, among
our British and Saxon ancestors, till their total eclipse at the Norman
conquest; from which they have gradually emerged, and risen to the
perfection they now enjoy, at different periods of time. We have seen, in
the course of our enquiries, in this and the former volumes, that the
fundamental maxims, and rules of the law, which regard the rights of
persons, and the rights of things, the private injuries that may be offered
to both, and the crimes which affect the public, have been and are every
day improving, and are now fraught with the accumulated wisdom of ages:
that the forms of administering justice came to perfection under Edward the
first; and have not been much varied, nor always for the better, since:
that our religious liberties were fully established at the reformation: but
that the recovery of our civil and political liberties was a work of longer
time; they not being thoroughly and completely regained, till after the
restoration of king Charles, nor fully and explicitly acknowledged and
defined, till the era of the happy revolution. Of a constitution, so wisely
contrived, so strongly raised, and so highly finished, it is hard to speak
with that praise, which is justly and severely it's due: --- the thorough
and attentive contemplation of it will furnish it's best panegyric. It has
been the endeavour of these commentaries, however the execution may have
succeeded, to examine it's solid foundations, to mark out it's extensive
plan, to explain the use and distribution of it's parts, and from the
harmonious concurrence of those several parts to demonstrate the elegant
proportion of the whole. We have taken occasion to admire at every turn the
noble monuments of ancient simplicity, and the more curious refinements of
modern art. Nor have it's faults been concealed from view; for faults it
has, left we should be tempted to think it of more than human structure:
defects, chiefly arising from the decays of time, or the rage of unskilful
improvements in later ages. To sustain, to repair, to beautiful this noble
pile, is a charge intrusted principally too the nobility, and such
gentlemen of the kingdom, as are delegated by their country to parliament.
The protection of THE LIBERTY OF BRITAIN is a duty which the owe to
themselves, who enjoy it; to their ancestors, who transmitted it down; and
to their posterity, who will claim at their hands this, the best
birthright, and noblest inheritance of mankind.
THE END