Note 118 — Book II.

In commenting upon the Statute de finibus levatis, 27. Ed. 1. Mr. Barrington observes, “the Statute consists of four chapters, and the first states, the great perjury which prevailed among Jurors at this time, which offence in a witness was not now punishable by any Act of Parliament; it may be perhaps thought a reflection on the common Law to assert, that this crime was totally disregarded, but yet we do not hear of any such prosecution, except the attaint of a Jury be considered as such.” (Observ. on Anc. Stat. 176.) It will not, I trust, be considered as a want of respect for the high authority in question, to observe, that the general position intended to be supported, seems to be refuted by the latter part of the passage, if, as I conceive, the Juror was, in those times, of necessity a witness: it was part of his qualification that he was a witness, the two characters being then blended. This is, I submit, evident from the 17th chapter of the present book. A separation of character seems to have been the gradual effect of posterior times. Nor is this all. The punishment of a Juror, when guilty of perjury, appears from the present chapter of Glanville to have been imposed by an Act of Parliament. If this Act, like most, if not all, of those mentioned in the following pages, be not now extant, it is assuredly no small part of the merit of Glanville, that he has preserved the substance of those public Records, of which no other trace can be found.