AN inquiry into the antiquity of that summary method of conviction, which forms the subject of the following Treatise, or into the causes which occasioned its substitution for that mode of popular trial, which distinguishes our jurisprudence, is rather prompted by curiosity, than by any relation to the law upon the present subject as it now subsists since that is founded entirely upon the positive authority of acts of parliament, from which source alone the whole system derives its being. A few cursory remarks, however, upon the date and origin of a judicature, so remarkably contrasted with the spirit of our primitive institutions, may not, it is hoped, be altogether unacceptable or misplaced.

The office of a justice of peace has been so much enlarged by the duties annexed to it, in the execution of penal statutes, that there remains scarcely a resemblance between the present office and that of the ancient conservators of the peace, out of which it has been gradually formed. The first great alteration, that deserves to be remarked, is the manner of appointment. Till the commencement of the reign of Edward 3, those officers, like

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