to subject to the discretion of the Judges the Law of Parliament and the
privileges of the House of Commons, and in a great measure the judicial
privileges of the Peers themselves: any intermeddling in which on their
part we conceive to be a dangerous and unwarrantable assumption of
power. It is contrary to what has been declared by Lord Coke himself,
in a passage before quoted, to be the duty of the Judges,--and to what
the Judges of former times have confessed to be their duty, on occasions
to which he refers in the time of Henry VI. And we are of opinion that
the conduct of those sages of the law, and others their successors, who
have been thus diffident and cautious in giving their opinions upon
matters concerning Parliament, and particularly on the privileges of the
House of Commons, was laudable in the example, and ought to be followed:
particularly the principles upon which the Judges declined to give their
opinions in the year 1614. It appears by the Journals of the Lords, that
a question concerning the law relative to impositions having been put to
the Judges, the proceeding was as follows. "Whether the Lords the Judges
shall be heard deliver their opinion touching the point of impositions,
before further consideration be had of answer to be returned to the
lower House concerning the message from them lately received. Whereupon
the number of the Lords requiring to hear the Judges' opinions by saying
'_Content_' exceeding the others which said '_Non Content_,' the Lords
the Judges, so desiring, were permitted to withdraw themselves into the
Lord Chancellor's private rooms, where having remained awhile and
advised together, they returned into the House, and, having taken their
places, and standing discovered, did, by the mouth of the Lord
Chief-Justice of the King's Bench, humbly desire to be forborne at this
time, in this place, to deliver any opinion in this case, for many
weighty and important reasons, which his Lordship delivered with great
gravity and eloquence; concluding that himself and his brethren are upon
particulars in judicial course to speak and judge between the King's