He quotes at some length from a treatise "About Actions for Slander
and Arbitrements, what words are actionable in the law, and what not",
&c. by John March, of Gray's Inn, Barrister (London, 1674, 8vo.);
wherein the great increase of actions for slander is shewn, by
reference to old law books. The author urges the propriety of checking
such actions as much as possible, and quaintly observes, "as I cannot
balk that observation of that learned Chief Justice (Wray), who
sayes that in our old bookes actions for scandal are very rare; so I
will here close with this one word: though the tongues of men be set
on fire, I know no reason wherefore the law should be used as
bellows". Aubrey remarks upon this:- "The true and intrinsic reason
why actions of the case were so rare in those times above mentioned,
was by reason that men's consciences were kept cleane and in awe by
confession"; and he concludes the chapter with an extract from
"Europ? Speculum", by Sir Edwin Sandys, Knight, (1637,) in which the
advantages and disadvantages of auricular confession are discussed.
- J. B.]
ME. BAYNHAM, of Cold Ashton, in Gloucestershire, bred an attorney,
sayes, that an hundred yeares since there were in the county of
Gloucester but four attorneys, and now (1689) no fewer than three
hundred attorneys and sollicitors; and Dr. Guydot, Physician, of Bath,
sayes that they report that anciently there was but one attorney in
Somerset, and he was so poor that he went a'foot to London; and now
they swarme there like locusts.
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