10 court of appeals of maryland

be known for what it is—a caricature. * * * Look where
we may, we shall hardly find any other political entity which
has had so eventful and yet so perfectly continuous a life. And
then it is so purely English, perhaps the most distinctively
English part of all our governmental organization.²¹

The commission which was issued in the appoint-
ment of justices, the "commission of the peace,"
as it was called, was in itself an enduring institu-
tion, settled in form in 1590, carrying historical
encrustations, but occasionally reformed and re-
fined. It was always a joint commission for the
justices of each county, and recited that the persons
named had been appointed, and that of these some
one of a selected and specified few, originally men
with legal training, should be present taking part,
in order to constitute an acting body: quorum ali-
quem vestrum, A, B, C_f D, etc,, unum esse vol-
umus.²² From this latter clause originated the
modern parliamentary word "quorum". When
lawyers were no longer appointed, it became
merely a distinction among the laymen; and to be
one of the specified justices "of the quorum", as
they were known, was a considerable honor in
older England. To give Sir Roger de Coverley an
impressive funeral, Addison set it down that:²³
"The coffin was carried by six of his tenants, and
the pall held up by six of the quorum."

In provincial Maryland the justices had a like
relative position, and the commission of the peace
was issued in substantially the English form, but

21. Maitland, Collected Papers, I, 468, 470.

22. Holdsworth, I, 290, and, for the full form, 670. Somewhat the
same form, used in commissioning a Court of Delegates, is de-
scribed in 1 Harris & McHenry, 411.

23. Spectator, No. 21.