{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.03135313531353135, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0033003300330033004, 'mean_word_length': 5.38421052631579, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
‘Observe how parts with parts unite / In one harmonious rule of right’: William Blackstone's Verses on the Laws of England

Recovering William Blackstone as a misunderstood Enlightenment pioneer of English law has become a commonplace of legal historical scholarship in recent decades. For nearly two hundred years Blackstone's monumental achievement in cataloguing the laws of England, 'discovering' within them a rational systematic framework (at risk - according to its commentator - of being squandered by misguided legislative activity), has been overshadowed by Jeremy Bentham's damning critique in A Fragment upon Government. Published in 1776, just a decade after the final volume of Commentaries on the Laws of England, the Fragment complained bitterly about Blackstone's early popularity, grumbling that Blackstone had 'obtained a greater share of esteem, of applause, and consequently of influence ... than any other writer who on that subject has ever yet appeared'. Bentham characterised this popularity as perplexing, based on the legal establishment's failure (or unwillingness) to recognise the volumes as 'obsequious quietism', a sustained old-Whig apology for the maintenance of the status quo.