Blackstone, Sir William

Sir William (1723-1780), an English jurist. He was born in London and was educated at a London school called Charterhouse, at Oxford University, and later for the law. In 1758 he began a series of lectures at Oxford on English law. He divided his comments into four books on the rights of persons, the rights of things, public wrongs, and private wrongs. Published in book form these lectures are known as Blackstone's Commentaries and are frequently, if not universally, the first law book placed in the hands of a law student. Blackstone is criticized for being too much of an essayist and not enough of a lawyer; for not distinguishing clearly between legal and popular uses of a word; for falling into contradiction; and for setting up a literary defense of English law as a perfect and perfected body of law, instead of a crude, growing code full of injustice as well as of admirable provisions. Lawyers regard Blackstone rather as an essayist,--a Lord Macaulay turned loose in a law school.