Some faint idea of the bulk of our English records may be obtained, by
adverting to the fact, that a single statute, the Land Tax Commissioners'
Act, passed in the first year of the reign of his present majesty,
measures, when unrolled, upwards of _nine hundred feet_, or nearly twice
the length of St. Paul's Cathedral within the walls; and if it ever
should become necessary to consult the fearful volume, an able-bodied man
must be employed during three hours in coiling and uncoiling its
monstrous folds. Should our law manufactory go on at this rate, and we do
not anticipate any interruption in its progress, we may soon be able to
belt the round globe with parchment. When, to the solemn acts of
legislature, we add the showers of petitions, which lie (and in more
senses than one) upon the table, every night of the session; the bills,
which, at the end of every term, are piled in stacks, under the parental
custody of our good friends, the Six Clerks in Chancery; and the
innumerable membranes, which, at every hour of the day, are transmitted
to the gloomy dens and recesses of the different courts of common-law and
of criminal jurisdiction throughout the kingdom, we are afraid that there
are many who may think that the time is fast approaching for performing
the operation which Hugh Peters recommended as "A good work for a good
Magistrate." This learned person, it will be recollected, exhorted the
commonwealth men to destroy all the muniments in the Tower--a proposal
which Prynne considers as an act inferior only in atrocity to his
participation in the murder of Charles I., and we should not be surprised
if some zealous reformer were to maintain, that a general conflagration
of these documents would be the most essential benefit that could be
conferred upon the realm.--_Quarterly Rev._
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