• Object type: Painting
• Formal Title: Sir William Blackstone
• Creator: unknown
• Date Created: circa 1755
• Origin: London
• Current Location: National Portrait Galery, London

It was said of William Blackstone that:

"He it was who first gave to the law the air of a science. He found it a skeleton and clothed it with life, colour and complexion. He embraced the cold statue and by his touch, it grew into youth, health and beauty."

Jeremy Bentham said Blackstone:

"... taught jurisprudence to speak the language of the scholar and the gentleman; put a polish upon that rugged science, cleansed her from the dust and cobwebs of the office and, if he has not enriched her with that precision which is drawn only from the sterling treasury of the sciences, has decked her out to advantage from the toilet of classical erudition, enlivened her with metaphors and allusions and sent her abroad in some measure to instruct."

His Commentaries on the Laws of England was published just as more and more commoners were able to read and write and finally could find out for themselves, without the intervention of lawyers, just what the law was.

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