THE PREFACE.

I HOLD every man a debtor to his profession; from the which as men of course do seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavour themselves, by way of amends, to be a help and ornament thereunto. This is performed in some degree by the honest and liberal practice of a profession, when men shall carry a respect not to descend into any course that is corrupt and unworthy thereof, and preserve themselves free from the abuses wherewith the same profession is noted to be infected; but much more is this performed if a man be able to visit and strengthen the roots and foundation of the science itself; thereby not only gracing it in reputation and dignity, but also amplifying it in perfection and substance. Having therefore from the beginning come to the study of the laws of this realm with a mind and desire no less (if I could attain unto it) that the same laws should be the better by my industry, than that myself should be the better by the knowledge of them; I do not find that, by mine own travel, without the help of authority, I can in any kind confer so profitable an addition unto that science, as by collecting the rules and grounds dispersed throughout the body of the same laws for hereby no small light will be given, in new cases and

such wherein there is no direct authority, to sound into the true conceit of law by depth of reason; in cases wherein the authorities do square and vary, to confirm the law, and to make it received one way; and in cases wherein the law is cleared by authority, yet nevertheless to see more profoundly into the reason of such judgments and ruled cases, and thereby to make more use of them for the decision of other cases more doubtful; so that the uncertainty of law, which is the principal and most just challenge that is made to the laws of our nation at this time, will by this new strength laid to the foundation somewhat the more settle and be corrected. Neither will the use hereof be only in deciding of doubts, and helping soundness of judgment, but further in gracing of argument; in correcting unprofitable subtlety, and reducing the same to a more sound and substantial sense of law; in reclaiming vulgar errors, and generally in the amendment in some measure of the very nature and complexion of the whole law. And therefore the conclusions of reason of this kind are worthily and aptly called by a great civilian legum leges; for that many placita legum, that is, particular and positive learnings of laws, do easily decline from a good temper of justice, if they be not rectified and governed by such rules.1

Now for the manner of setting down of them, I have in all points to the best of my understanding and foresight applied myself, not to that which might serve most for the ostentation of mine own wit or knowledge, but to that which may yield most use and profit to the students and professors of our laws.

And therefore, whereas these rules are some of them

1 The Preface ends here in the Lincoln's Inn MS.

ordinary and vulgar, that now serve but for grounds and plain songs to the more shallow and impertinent sort of arguments; other of them are gathered and extracted out of the harmony and congruity of cases, and are such as the wisest and deepest sort of lawyers have in judgment and use, though they be not able many times to express and set them down: for the former sort, (which a man that should write rather to raise a high opinion of himself than to instruct others would have omitted, as trite and within every man's compass,) yet nevertheless I have not affected to neglect them; but having chosen out of them such as I thought good, I have reduced them to a true application, limiting and defining their bounds, that they may not be run upon at large, but restrained to point of difference. For as, both in the law and other sciences, the handling of questions by common-place, without aim or application, is the weakest; so yet nevertheless many common principles and generalities are not to be contemned, if they be well derived and deduced into particulars, and their limits and exclusions duly assigned.1 For there be two contrary faults and extremities in the debating and sifting out of the law, which may be best noted in two several manner of arguments: some argue upon general grounds, and come not near the point in question; others, without laying any foundation of a ground or difference or reason, do loosely put cases, which, though they go near the point, yet being put so scattered, prove not; but rather serve to make the law appear more doubtful than to make it more plain.

Secondly, whereas some of these rules have a con1 The Camb. MS. omits this paragraph.

currence with the civil Roman law, and some others a diversity, and many times an opposition; such grounds as are common to our law and theirs I have not affected to disguise into other words than the civilians use, to the end they might seem invented by me, and not borrowed or translated from them: no, but I took hold of it as matter of great authority and majesty, to see and consider the concordance between the laws penned and as it were dicted verbatim by the same reason. On the other side, the diversities between the civil Roman rules of law and ours, happening either when there is such an indifferency of reason so equally balanced, as the one law embraceth one course, and the other the contrary, and both just after either is once positive and certain, or where the laws vary in regard of accommodating the law to the different considerations of estate, - I have not omitted to set down with the reasons.

Thirdly, whereas I could have digested these rules into a certain method or order, which, I know, would have been more admired, as that which would have made every particular rule, through his coherence and relation unto other rules, seem more cunning and more deep; yet I have avoided so to do, because this delivering of knowledge in distinct and disjoined aphorisms doth leave the wit of man more free to turn and toss, and to make use of that which is so delivered to more several purposes and applications.1 For we see all the ancient wisdom and science was wont to be delivered in that form; as may be seen by the parables of Solomon, and by the aphorisms of Hippocrates, and the

1 The Camb. MS. leaves out from this word to "chiefly" inclusive, and substitutes the word "wherein."

moral verses of Theognis and Phocylides: but chiefly the precedent of the civil law, which hath taken the same course with their rules, did confirm me in my opinion.

Fourthly, whereas I know very well it would have been more plausible and more current, if the rules with the expositions of them had been set down either in Latin or in English, that the harshness of the language might not have disgraced the matter, and that civilians, statesmen, scholars, and other sensible men might not have been barred from them; yet I have forsaken that grace and ornament of them, and only taken this course: the rules themselves I have put in Latin (not purified further than the propriety of terms of law would permit; but Latin); which language I chose, as the briefest to contrive the rules compendiously, the aptest for memory, and of the greatest authority and majesty to be vouched and alleged in argument and for the expositions and distinctions, I have retained the peculiar language of our law, because it should not be singular among the books of the same science, and because it is most familiar to the students and professors thereof, and besides that it is most significant to express conceits of law; and to conclude, it is a language wherein a man shall not be enticed to hunt after words but matter. And for excluding any others than professed lawyers, it was better manners to exclude them by the strangeness of the language, than by the obscurity of the conceit; which is such as, though it had been written in not private and retired language, yet by those that are not lawyers would for the most part have been either not understood, or, which is worse, mistaken.