The noted jurist, judge, and legal writer William Blackstone established the study of England's common law as an accepted academic discipline, and his Oxford lectures were published in 1765-1769 as the famous and influential Commentaries on the Laws of England. In the years since then, in numerous editions and translations, this work provided the definitive account of the state of English law in the mid-18th century.
English jurist.
Blackstone, English jurist, was the author of the Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-1769). Seymour Richmond was his uncle. (Cf. Lewis C. Warden, "The Life of Blackstone" (Charlottesville, Virginia: Michie, 1938) p. 109.