1255 
 c3 
 
Cornell University Library 
 KF 255.W19 1855 
 
 C.3 
 
 The Reporters chronologically arranged ^^ 
 3 1924 024 518 346 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924024518346 
 
THE 
 
 EEPORTERS, 
 
 CHRONOLOGICALLY AREANGED: 
 
 OCCASIONAL EEIARKS UPON THEIR RESPECTIVE MERITS. 
 
 \\^\\ 
 
 " Marry) Sir, they have committed false report." 
 
 DdGBER. Much Ado About Nothing. 
 
 Act V. Scene 1. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOKtf WILLIAM WALLACE, 
 
 MASTEH IN CHANCEKT FOE THE SUPEEME*COUaT OF PEHNSTLVAHIA. 
 
 f P (BUM, "gMut 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 T. & J. W. JOHNSON, 
 
 LAW BOOKSELLERS, PUBLISHERS, AND IMPORTERS, 
 
 197 CHESTNUT STREET. 
 
 1855. 
 
Entered, according^ to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, 
 
 BY JOHN WILLIAM WALLACB, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for thtf Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 
 
 % 
 
 c. SKESMAN £ SON, fKIKTERS. 
 
WILLIAM GEEEF, 
 
 OF CULFEFER COUHTT, IN THE STATE OP VIRGINIA ESQUIKE, 
 
 ■WHO, 
 
 AMIDST THE ENGROSSING INTERESTS 
 
 OF AN 
 
 ACTIVE AND DISTINGUISHED CAREER AT THE BAR, 
 HAS PtJRStlED, WITH A SUCCESS UNATTAINED IN ENGLAND OR AMERICA, 
 
 THE THIRD EDITION OF THIS TRACT IS INSCKIBBD, 
 
 IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OP THAT 
 
 "COMMUNICATION IN STUDIES," 
 
 WHICH FRANCIS BACON, THOUGHT WORTHY OP BEING RECKONED 
 
 OP GREATER BOND THAN 
 
 "NEAR ALLIANCE, AND STRAIT FRIENDSHIP AND SOCIETY." 
 
EEMAEKS 
 
 UPON THE VALUE OF OBSEEVATIONS CONCEKNING 
 THE KEPORTEES. 
 
 1. In a science like the law, in which the decisions of 
 each age are settled upon what it is supposed has been de- 
 termined in preceding ones, the canon of eepoets is a sub- 
 ject of capital importance. The very deference which is 
 paid to precedent makes it important that what purports 
 to be precedent should be really so, andthat the reliance 
 which is believed to be given to beacons should not have 
 been reposed upon false lights. We have, up to this date, 
 nearly thirty scores of different persons who have acted as 
 reporters ; nearly all of them self-constituted and without 
 having been subjected to any antecedent test of integrity, 
 education, or general capacity. Besides this, it is known, 
 that many volumes bearing the names of eminent lawyers, 
 and purporting to come from their pens, were not designed 
 for the press, were first published generations after their 
 authors' deaths, and from MSS. known not to have been 
 original. It is therefore quite to be expected that these 
 records should possess various grades of merit in almost 
 everything which belongs to reporting ; and we find ac- 
 cordingly that the judicial writings frequently contain 
 remarks upon their authenticity, genuineness, and other 
 characteristics. Such remarks, being casual, are scattered 
 through many books ; and it is matter of some surprise 
 that in England, at least, no systematic work on the sub- 
 ject has appeared. IfTearly a century ago. Sir Michael 
 Foster declared, that these "hasty and indigested reports" 
 
6 THE KEPORTERS, 
 
 had "become the burden and scandal of the profession:"^ 
 and the House of Lords were long before so well con- 
 vinced of the truth of the fact, that in 1698, they made a 
 standing order forbidding reports altogether.^ To Eng- 
 land alone, Americans would naturally look for the fallest 
 and best essays on the subject. The knowledge requisite 
 for the task belongs to a sort of which we in this country 
 suppose that there is a good deal among the men of the 
 Temples, or other Inns, and little anywhere else ; a kind 
 of hereditary, traditional knowledge, derived perhaps 
 from their unpublished MSS. ; descending a good deal, 
 from generation to generation, with the dust upon their an- 
 cient repositories, and partaking too much of the character 
 of an heir-loom to pass to us by cis- Atlantic severance. 
 Yet in England the only professed work is The Legal 
 Bibliography of Bridgman, a commonplace performance ; 
 meagre in all except the entries of time and place, and 
 one in which the reporters hold a grade, at best but sub- 
 ordinate to text-books. Something is to be found in the 
 sale catalogues of Clarke and "Worrall, and there is a note 
 on the subject in Gresley upon Equity Evidence.' Matter 
 more valuable than anything I have referred to, is con- 
 tained in Mr. Ram's book on Legal Judgments, yet even 
 there the whole subject is disposed of in less than five 
 pages. Our own country it is which has made the best 
 essays in this line, though these, too, are imperfect. A 
 good view, so far as it goes, is given in the Commentaries 
 of Chancellor Kent ;* but it is very general : an occasional 
 note is found in the Oases Overruled, of Dr. Greenleaf ; and 
 there are two short, though valuable articles, in one of our 
 law journals," — the former of them by Judge Metcalf, and 
 the latter by Mr. Charles Sumner; and these, with what is 
 found in the Legal Bibliography of Mr. J. G. Marvin, of 
 
 ' Letter to Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, Dodson's Life of Foster, 48 ; and 
 see Preface to the 1st edition of Foster's Report, Ixiv. 
 * Standing order. No. 77. 
 ' Page 402. * Vol. i. sect. xxi. ' American Jurist, vols. 8 and 12. 
 
CHEONOLOGICALLT AEEANGED. 7 
 
 California, published since the second edition of this tract 
 appeared, completes the circle of all that is known to me 
 upon the subject.^ My own tract, mere jottings from 
 memory or casual reading, aspires to no character beyond 
 that of a contribution ; but, in common with what is found 
 elsewhere, may serve to show that a good many observa- 
 tions have been made from time to time on the different 
 reporters. 
 
 2. It is, however, the misfortune of the subject, that 
 while we have these expressions of opinion, they are often 
 quite general, mostly but casual, and are seldom accom- 
 panied by the reasons on which they are founded, or 
 afford any light by which they may be examined. An in- 
 quiry arises then at once as to their value, and the sort of 
 interpretation which should be given to them. 
 
 ■ In addition to the great and various contributions to all parts of this tract, 
 which I have received from the friend vi^hose name appears in the inscription, 
 and after him from his friend, Mr. Robert M. Heterick, of the Virginia bar, I have 
 to acknowledge obligations to Mr. Justice Stroud, of the District Court of Phila- 
 delphia, to Mr. E. D. Ingraham, to Mr. T. I. Wharton, to Mr. A. I. Fish, and to 
 my late brother, Mr. Horace Binney Wallace ; all of whom have occasionally 
 given me information of which I have availed myself without other acknow- 
 ledgment than this. 
 
 I am credibly informed that a MS. on this same matter, by John Kinsey, 
 successively Attorney-General and Chief Justice of Pennsly vania before the Re- 
 volution, enlarged and brought down to more modern times by his son, James 
 Kinsey, Chief Justice of New Jersey, was in existence in this city within twenty 
 years. Independently of my informant's statement, the fact is not improbable. 
 The law library of the Pennsylvania Chief Justice seems to have been one of 
 the most complete of his day ; and his books, if one may judge from the double 
 autographs upon their titles, came to his son more undispersed than is usual iu 
 our land of gavelkind inheritance. Both gentlemen would appear to have ' 
 been something touched with Mr. Surface's elegant taste in the matter of their 
 books : many of which are tall paper copies, unusually nioe and complete, and 
 marked by those denotements which so ravish the eye of bibliographical free- 
 masonry, and knit together in one communion and fellowship, throughout 
 every age and in every clitjie, the elect of this sublimest science. Should any 
 possessor of the MS., which could not but be both curious and valuable, hap- 
 pen to stumble on this note, I would take it kindly, if under the comity of our 
 mutua mcissOudimu obtentu, he would inform me of the interesting possession. 
 (Feb. 17, 1844.) 
 
8 THE EEPOETEES, 
 
 3. In regard to notices of a commendatory character, 
 little need be said. Presumption, to some extent, is 
 usually in favor of a reporter ; and favorable notice only 
 strengthens, therefore, what, in a measure, might be pre- 
 sumed without it. My remarks have more reference to 
 criticisms of an opposite sort. Of these we may say that : 
 
 I. THEY CANNOT BE WHOLLY DISREGARBED. 
 
 4. Many proofs might be given of this. One, not more 
 striking perhaps than others, occurred lately in the Su- 
 preme Court of our own country. It is well known that 
 in a leading case,^ Chief Justice Marshall, some years since, 
 gave an opinion which had the effect of almost totally sub- 
 verting, in two States of our Union, the entire law of chari- 
 table uses. And though some other States did not adopt 
 the conclusions of the Chief Justice, his venerated name 
 was seized in all quarters of this land to originate litiga- 
 tion and uncertainty, and deeply to wound the whole body 
 of trusts for religious, charitable, and literary purposes ; — 
 truly called " the blessing, honor, and glory of any people." 
 That there should be fallacy in the dialectics of his strong, 
 clear, inferential mind was impossible. Error in conclu- 
 sion of his could arise but in one way ; from imperfect in- 
 formation somewhere near his premise: and it did, in 
 truth, arise from his taking as fact the statement of guides 
 not worthy of dependence. For a quarter of a century 
 the influences of his opinion were yet active in evil when, 
 in 1844, an endeavor to subvert a large foundation brought 
 the subject again before the Court, in the Girard College 
 case,^ and caused a more careful examination into it. The 
 opinion of Chief Justice Marshall was in review, and was 
 overruled. Mr. Binney showed at the bar that as to the 
 principal authority, cited by the Chief Justice, from one of 
 
 ' The Baptist Association v. Hart's Executors, 4 Wheat. 1-29. 
 2 2 Howard's S. C. Rep. 127-202. 
 
CHRONOLOGICALLT ARRANGED. "9 
 
 the old books, there were no less than four different re- 
 ports of it, all variant from each other.' That as to one of 
 the reporters, the case had been decided thirty years be- 
 fore the time of his report ; that he was not likely to know 
 anything personally about it; that "he certainly knew 
 nothing about it accura;tely :" that another reporter gave 
 two versions of the case "entirely different" not only from 
 that of his co-reporter, but likewise from another of his 
 own : that a fourth account, by a yet distinct reporter, was 
 "different from all the rest:" that "nothing is to be ob- 
 tained from any of these reports except, perhaps, the last, 
 that is worthy of any reliance as a true history of the case ;" 
 and that even this, the best of them, had been rejected in 
 modern times, " as being contrary to all principle." After 
 such evidence that these judicial historians., like others of 
 the title, were full of nothing so much as of most excellent 
 differences, the counsel might very well observe, that it is 
 " essentially necessary to guard against the indiscriminate 
 reception of the old reporters, especially the chancery re- 
 porters, as authority :" and certainly a knowledge less than 
 that which Chief Justice Marshall possessed in some other 
 branches of the law, would have reminded him, that most 
 of his authorities enjoyed a reputation but dubiously good, 
 while the character of one of them was notoriously bad. 
 
 5. Indeed, an antecedent probability that there may be 
 matter in these observations about the reporters, arises 
 from the general history of the volumes. And here we 
 may mention (not indeed as a very important circumstance, 
 but as one, nevertheless, which deserves to be noted) the 
 well-known political state of England during a great part 
 of the seventeenth century; a term of time during which, 
 as will appear farther on, were published most of the com- 
 mon law reporters whose authority has been judicially 
 questioned. It was the mistake of Charles I., that for 
 nearly the whole of his arbitrary measures, he endeavored 
 to obtain the sanction of the common law. 
 
 ' Binney's Argument in Vidal v. The City of Philadelphia, 88-9. 
 
10 THE REPORTERS, 
 
 ISoj, Ms Attorney-General, had found in the recesses of 
 his recondite lore some precedents which relieved the King 
 of most of the difficulties to which Parliament had reduced 
 him, for they gave to the crown the powers of the people. 
 And Charles, wanting force to distinguish these ill-ascer- 
 tained exceptions to the law from its clear and steady 
 principles, assumed them as authority, and made an issue 
 with his subjects on the ground of precedent and constitu- 
 tional right. Thus it was that the Attorney-General he- 
 came, in fact, the first lord of the treasury, and that to pro- 
 cure supplies for the government, the whole kingdom was 
 overrun with writs and patents and monopolies. Coming 
 in the garb of law, these measures of finance soon brought 
 themselves to its test, and claiming to rest upon ancient 
 precedents, of which it may be admitted that in nearly all 
 cases they had some semblance, stimulated every man 
 passionately to ask when and of what manner such pre- 
 cedents were. To what extent the agitation of these ques- 
 tions in the courts of law engaged the men of England, 
 I need not describe. The matter is familiar to all educated 
 persons, and is recorded with the power of wisdom and 
 the splendor of eloquence by the great historian of that 
 day.' 
 
 6. The matter thus referred to was calculated, I think, 
 to bring the law into an unnatural prominence. "We find, 
 accordingly, that judicial reports and proceedings, from 
 time immemorial recorded in another language, are now 
 ordered to be kept in English alone. And as if to avenge 
 the seclusion in which this knowledge had been held, the 
 nation, now roused from the lethargy in which it had so 
 long slept, dragged to light everything which bore so 
 much as semblance to the aspect of law. " Then came 
 forth," says an historian of the time, "a flying squadron 
 of thin reports;"^ and undoubtedly, there must have been 
 
 ' Clarendon's Hist, of the Rebellion, I. pp. 121-125 ; Oxford, 1826. 
 ' 5 Mod. viii. 
 
CHRONOLOGICALLY AEEANGED. 11 
 
 some specific cause for the sudden and unexampled in- 
 crease of this sort of pubhcation, at the epoch of which 
 we speak. "We find, for example, that Alleyn, Anderson, 
 ll^ew Benloe, John Bridgman, Brownlow, Bulstrode, Cal- 
 throp, Carter, Carey, Choice Cases in Chancery, Croke, 
 Grodholt, Cfoldsborouffh, Setley, Sutton, Jenkins, Keble, 
 Lane, Leonard, Ley, March, 1st Modern, Moore, Noy, 
 Owen, Palmer, Popham, RoUe, Saville, Siderfin, Styles, 
 Tothill, Vaughan, and Winch, all first issue from the press 
 between the years 1648 and 1688 ; and it is among these 
 volumes, which form the corpus of the ante-revolutionary 
 reporters, that the worst of all the books are contained. 
 I have indicated them by italics. 
 
 7. ISTor should we omit, in this connection, to mention 
 the well-known state of the press during the same term. 
 In tbe partisan fury which pervaded the nation, its germ 
 of power, as yet but nascent, seems to have been stimu- 
 lated to enormous growth,^ and the invention became the 
 minister of frauds to an extent which, even in this day, 
 we can scarcely conceive.^ The matter, in short, arrived 
 to a pitch so high, that soon after the Restoration, legisla- 
 tive aid was invoked towards a reformation ;^ though in 
 the inveteracy of the disorder, even legislative resources 
 were found quite inadequate to a cure. 
 
 8. But beyond these causes of corruption were others 
 far greater and more immediate. I mean that most ot 
 these reports are posthumous, were printed from MSS. 
 not original; and that even the originals were not de- 
 signed for the press. 
 
 9. Reporters nowadays make reporting a particular 
 study : they follow the courts regularly, take notes for the 
 purpose, examine the record and prepare the case ;* they 
 
 ' The Eikon BasiliM passed through fifty editions, in a single twelvemonth. 
 Hume, vi. p. 135; Oxford, 1826. 
 
 ^ See Pref. to the Rdigio Medici. ' Stat. 13 and 14 Car. H. c. 33. 
 
 ^ Some of them, I mean. ,1 should be sorry to lay such things to the charge 
 of some gentlemen who, of late, have undertaken the office of reporters; 
 things, certainly, that they know not of. 
 
12 THE EEPORTEES, 
 
 obtain the original written opinion of the court, often 
 submit the report to counsel and the court, and the 
 volumes appear so soon after the decision they record, 
 that if any error should exist, it could scarcely fail to be 
 corrected. But the old reports come to us under quite 
 different circumstances. A great many of them, I pre- 
 sume, are mere notes of students of law, who in former 
 times, instead of studying, as with us, entirely in the 
 offices of elder lawyers, used to attend the courts a great 
 deal, and get their knowledge of law, from hearing and 
 making notes of cases just as students now read them.^ 
 A yet greater difference exists as to the matter of contem- 
 porary publication. Cases in New Benloe go back to the 
 
 ' Frequent illustiation of the slender pains which were taken by many of 
 the older reporters to search the record may be had from the variations they 
 make in the mode of spelling the names of parties ; one occurs to me as fol- 
 lows: Almanson v. Davilfa (1 Lord Kaym. 679) ; Almaitzor v. Davillaci (1 Co- 
 myns, 94). Another more striking, Birkmyr v. Darnell (1 Salk. 27) ; Bowkmire 
 V. Darnell (3 Salk. 15) ; Burkmire v. Darnel (Cases Temp. Holt, 606) ; Id. v. Dar- 
 xtell (6 Mod. 248). In all these cases the names are idem sonantes, though spelt 
 so differently as to show that the reporter's knowledge of them was probably 
 derived only through the ear. Many of the older cases show upon their face 
 that they could never have been designed for anything monumental: e. g. 
 " Walmsley, J., said that Sir Christopher Wray, late C. J. of England, reported to 
 him that he, and all his companions of the K. B. were resolved," &c. (Twyne's 
 Case, 3 Rep. 80.) " Coke showed me a report, which he said he had from Edmund 
 Plowden, of a Judgment, &c." (Wharton v. Morley, Cro. Eliz. 22). " ie case est 
 commejes ay oye" (Evans v. Aysoough, Latch, 31). " And, as I heard, Anthony 
 Brown, Justice, afterwards declared, &o." (Graysbrook v. Fox, Plowden, 283.) 
 "But the judgment was reversed, as Hitcham told Yelverton" (Eiches and 
 Brigges Yelv. 4). " Nbta. Treby, C. J., related a case, &c." (Anon. 1 Salk. 280.) 
 " Mes adjornatur, sed tandem, ut audivi, un consultation fuit grant." (Wortley v. 
 Watkinson, 2 Levins, 255.) " His honor took time to consider of it; and afterwards, 
 as I was informed, determined" (Sampson v. Braggington, 1 Ves. 444). "Ex rela- 
 tione M'ri baronis Bury" (Badger v. Lloyd, Ld. Baym. 527), and of M'ri Jacob, 
 (Bp. of Salisbury v. Phillips, 537), and in infinite other places. Mr. Harris, in 
 his biography of Lord Hardwicke, mentions that the Chancellor had several 
 volumes of MS. reports of cases, some of which were denominated " Cases ex 
 relatione .Amitorum," vol.i., p. 54. And the reader of Andrews must, of course, 
 have observed, how many of his cases come, " ex relaiiane alterius." See pp. 70, 
 72, 74, 75, 76, &o. 
 
CHRONOLOGICALLY AREANGED. 13 
 
 year 1531, while the book was printed in 1661, one hun- 
 dred and thirty years after the decision of the cases it 
 records. Anderson, which goes to 1534, was printed in 
 1664, the same space of one hundred and thirty years 
 afterwards. In Owen, there is an interval of a hundred 
 years : in Brownlow, of eighty-three years : in Savill, of 
 ninety-five years : in Goldsborough, of seventy-two years : 
 in Popham, of sixty-four : in Lane of fifty-two : in Ley of 
 fifty-one. And so of other instances, where it is evident 
 enough that of many cases, the authors, like the worthies 
 of old, must have obtained a report "by faith:" though 
 not always, like them, " a good report ;" as was shown in 
 the Girard College case.' 
 
 10. The effects of this publication so many years after 
 date, will suggest themselves when you advert to the strong 
 probability that the printer, in consequence of it, must often 
 have had corrupted manuscript. While it is true that, prior 
 to those days, printed reports were nearly unknown, it is 
 to be remembered that a higher regard was then had for 
 precedent than has been the case at any time since.^ Of 
 course every lawyer would keep an adversaria, into which 
 he would copy whatever cases the note-books of older 
 lawyers happened to contain. A second lawyer would 
 perhaps transcribe from the copy : a third would perform, 
 for himself, the same office by the transcriber; and a 
 fourth, may be, put into his book what he liked from a 
 third : and so on. The drudgery of transcription, we may 
 also conceive, would not be taken by eminent lawyers 
 themselves, but be consigned to their clerks or students, 
 or other persons not always able to comprehend what it 
 was they were copying, nor to judge from the context 
 whether they were making exact sense or not ; or, what 
 is yet more probable, and would be more dangerous, in- 
 telligent enough to guess at a meaning which made some 
 sense, though not the true sense, and which would have 
 
 • See ante, 9. " See post, 29. 
 
14 THE REPORTERS, 
 
 just enough appropriateness to prevent that correction or 
 discovery of error which a palpable blunder could hardly 
 fail to insure. Thus the case of the reports is peculiar. 
 Most books, even when printed after death, are secured 
 from imposition because they subsist in a single copy, 
 written or revised by the author; and the faults of the 
 printed volume must be the faults of one descent. But 
 of the reporters, the original was lent, not to be printed, 
 but to be copied. It was vitiated by transcript after tran- 
 script; mistaken by blunders of the penman; enlarged 
 perhaps to introduce cases, and mutilated to exclude 
 them. Ignorance and interest, and accident and reckless- 
 ness and the haste of fraud, all combined to produce error; 
 and the work would be printed, at last, without the con- 
 currence of the author, without the consent of the pro- 
 prietor ; and thrust surreptitiously upon the world from 
 that copy, perhaps, which was the most corrupted of all.^ 
 
 • See on this' subject of frequent mediate transcription, Dr. Johnson's "Pro- 
 posals for Shakspeare." Works, ii. p. 125. Lond. lS06. 
 
 The practice of transcribing the reports and its tendency to deprave them, 
 is frequently mentioned in the reporters themselves : " Having lent my book," 
 says Plovirden, " to a very fevc of my friends, at their special instance and re- 
 quest, and but for a short time, their clerks and others, knowing thereof, got the 
 book into their hands, and made such expedition by virriting night and day, 
 that in a short time they had transcribed a great number of the cases, and 
 especially of the first, contrary to my own knowledge and intent, or ot those 
 to whom I had lent the book ; which copies at last came to the hands of the 
 printers, who intended (as I was informed) to make a profit of them by pub- 
 lishing them. But the cases being transcribed by clerks and other ignorant 
 persons, who did not perfectly understand the matter, the copies were very 
 corrupt; for in some places a whole line is omitted, and iii others one word 
 was put for another, which entirely changed the sense, and again in other 
 places spaces were left where the writers did not understand the words; and 
 divers other errors and defects there were, which, if the copies so taken had 
 been printed, would have greatly defaced the work and been a discredit to 
 me.'' Mr. Rowe, the editor of Benloe and Dallison, who was desired by the 
 printer to examine the reports bearing the names of these venerable partners, 
 before they were made public, tells us that he had spent some time in compar- 
 ing that part of the book which is Serjeant Benloe's, with some other copies he 
 himself had besides those which were then already extant ; and that he con- 
 
CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED. 15 
 
 11. All that conjecture thus opens to the mind as of 
 likelihood in this matter, is rendered yet more probable 
 by what may be observed in nearly every volume printed 
 about this time. Almost always you are assaulted, either 
 on the title or in the preface, by some note to convince 
 you that the work is printed from a genuine MS. Moore 
 you have "per V original jadis remainent en lei mains de Sir 
 G-effry Palmer^ chev. bart." &c. Anderson, in like manner, 
 
 eluded with some assurance, that it contains the original which was left by 
 that Serjeant, and that it is the most authentic copy of his whole work. He 
 notes the disproportion in number that the cases already printed bore to this. 
 In one copy which he had there were two hundred and forty cases, which 
 were many more than are in the best former edition ; in another about one 
 hundred ; and that was the Lord Coke's own copy, which he used and noted 
 with his own hand, and it is manifest, says Mr. Rowe, that those different 
 copies were but different notes and extracts from the original, wherein 
 such as collected them made use of their own judgments in the manner of 
 abridging and in the choice of the cases. The executors of Dyer tells us : 
 " Afler that this work came to our hands, being most earnestly required by 
 some of our loving friends to grant unto them the view thereof, the opinion 
 they had of the author seemed so to inflame them with desire to have the 
 same, as that the books themselves, or the copies thereof, without breach of 
 friendship, might not be denied them." The same practice is made evident 
 in the certificate of approval by the Judges to the reports of Latch : " These 
 reports," say they, " are all of Mr. Latch's hand, but as we conceive not origi- 
 nally taken by him, but excerpted out of some other MS. ;" a matter which is 
 heard of farther in the preface to Palmer's Reports, where it is said that Latch 
 stole one hundred and twenty of his cases out of a note-book he had borrowed, 
 and that he had corrupted them not a little in the transfer. The editors of 
 Sir W. Jones had cause, it would appear, for a similar complaint. " The MS. 
 being lent to Serjeant Glinne, presently afler the author's death, and by him 
 appropriated to his own use, was the reason," say they, " why it was no sooner 
 made public.'' And how he prized it, is shown, they think, " by his abridg- 
 ment of the greatest part thereof." The MSS. of Sir J. Kelyng are published, 
 because copies " were dispersed in several hands, which might hereafter be 
 published to the injury of the author ;" and Winch is given to the profession 
 from the same motive of preventing " spurious copies in prejudice of the pub- 
 lic." The editor of Leonard's voluminous reports speaks of them as having 
 been " transcribed by divers honorable and learned persons," who are named ; 
 and the resolve, at first made, of Mr. Edward Vaughan, not to publish his 
 father's reports, " begot importunities for copies,'' which were procured, and 
 soon after, " by what means he knows not, dispersed farther than he, intended 
 them, and as he had been informed, cited as authorities." 
 
16 THE REPORTERS, 
 
 "per Voriginal remaneant en lea mains de Vimprimeur." 
 " The originals themselves of all these reports," says 
 Hughes, the editor of Leonard, " all of them under his 
 own handwriting, are now in my hands." Of the reports 
 called or miscalled Noy's, the editor declares : " They 
 came into my hands with very much assurance that they 
 were his." Sir Harbottle Grimstone, who, however, as a 
 good lawyer, ought to have remembered that " uneore prist" 
 is requisite to a good plea as well as " de tout temps prist," 
 avers that he has the autographs of Croke, " and will be 
 ready at any time hereafter to produce them for proof or 
 confirmation." Goldsborough comes to you printed by 
 his original copy, as can be proved by " many living testi- 
 monies, who do and have very good reason to know his 
 handwriting, that, if need require, might be produced to 
 say as much." Should any one doubt the credit of Sir 
 John Bridgman's reports, he " may have sight of the 
 original, by the help of the stationer." The editor of Pop- 
 ham has his MS. " out of the library of a reverend and 
 learned serjeant-at-law, now deceased, and said therein to 
 be written with l^he proper handwriting of the Lord Pop- 
 ham." Yelverton, more satisfactory, comes from an 
 original " south son maine propre, remanent en les mains de 
 sr. Thomas Twisden, chevalier " kc. &c. The title announces 
 that Ley is printed according to his lordship's MS. 
 EoUe is " collegers par luy meme et imprimSes par Vorigi- 
 nal." " Reader!" (appeals the editor of Latch, in pomp- 
 ous and lying solemnity), " the testimonials of many sages 
 of the law, the judges, and his contemporaries, give you 
 an assurance, above all I can express, that the original of 
 this impression was all written by that worthy person's 
 own hand." " These are Sir Thomas Hetley's reports," 
 seizes on the eye as you open that thin reporter. Siderfin 
 is from "Voriginal south son maine propre;" and Sir J. 
 Kelyng, preferring English, comes from "the original MS. 
 under his own hand." So of other volumes printed about 
 these times. The editors, in short, seem always to take it 
 
CHRONOLOGICALLT ARRANGED. 17 
 
 for granted that fraud is a foregone conclusion ; and, by a 
 |jre-defence, make it clear that professional confidence had 
 been largely abused. 
 
 12. "We have, however, direct assertion of this fact in 
 contemporaneous history. SirHarbottle Grimstone (whose 
 strange appellatives did not prevent his being eminent as 
 leader of the Commons, and afterwards as Master of the 
 Rolls) published, in 1657, an Address to the Students of 
 the Common Laws of England. Its language on this sub- 
 ject is striking: "A multitude of flying reports, whose au- 
 thors are as uncertain as the times when taken, have of 
 late surreptitiously crept forth. "We have been entertained 
 with baiTcn and unwarranted products, infelix lolium et 
 ateriles avence, which not only tends to the depraving the 
 first grounds and reason of the young practitioners, who 
 by such false lights are misled, but also to the contempt 
 of divers our former grave and learned justices, whose 
 honored and reverend names have, in some of the said 
 books, been abused and invocated to patronize the indi- 
 gested crudities of those plagiaries ; the wisdom, gravity, 
 and justice of our present justices not deeming nor deign- 
 ing them the least approbation or countenance in any of 
 their courts." The younger Bulstrode, when publishing 
 in the same year his father's notes, refers to the matter in 
 very similar language : " "When I had reviewed these late 
 and flying reports (most of them being incerti temporis and 
 of late time published), not by the authors themselves 
 (who were profoundly learned), nor yet by them during 
 their lives fitted and prepared for the press, but after their 
 deaths thus published by others, yet not known by whom, 
 having not named themselves." " Thou hast not here," 
 says the editor of Goldsborough, in 1653, while language 
 was yet more nervous than polite, " thou hast not here a 
 spurious deformed brat, falsely fathered upon the name of 
 a dead man, too usual a trick played by the subtile game- 
 ster of this serpentine age." And if we wish more evi- 
 
 2 
 
18 
 
 THE REPORTERS, 
 
 dence still, it is found in the testimony of Styles. " The 
 press," says this reporter, in 1658, " hath been very fertile 
 in this our age, and hath brought forth many if not too 
 many births of this nature, but how legitimate most of 
 them are, let the learned judge. This I am sure of, there 
 is not a father alive to own many of them." 
 
 13. In truth, we may remark, that almost all the reports 
 published in the middle part of the seventeenth century 
 were posthumous ; and that it appears, generally speaking, 
 as though it were only where the work was edited by some 
 relative or person of character, or where a reference is 
 made to the place of deposit of the author's original MS., 
 that you can depend on the value of the book. The 
 matter is better suggested by a comparison of autho- 
 rity as presented in the grouping of a tabular exhibit. 
 
 ; NAME OF THE 
 
 EDIT. 
 
 ESITOE. 
 
 MS., IH WHOSE POSSESSION. 
 
 
 . EEPOETEE. 
 
 PMNOEPS. 
 
 
 
 
 F. Moore. 
 
 1663. 
 
 Son-in-law. 
 
 Sir GeflFry Palmer (son-in-law 
 
 s). 
 
 Dyer. 
 
 1585 
 
 Nephews and Ex'rs. 
 
 Sir Edward Coke's. 
 
 
 Croke. 
 
 1657. 
 
 Son-in-law. 
 
 Sir H. Grimstone (son-in-law's). j 
 
 Vaughan. 
 
 1677. 
 
 Son. 
 
 Son's apparently. 
 
 
 RoUe. 
 
 1675. 
 
 Sir M. Hale. 
 
 The printer's, for copy. 
 
 
 Yelverton. 
 
 1661. 
 
 Sir W. Wylde. 
 
 Sir Thomas Twisden's. 
 
 
 Anderson . 
 
 1664. 
 
 Original. 
 
 The printer's. 
 
 
 Wm. Jones. 
 
 1675. 
 
 Original. 
 
 Daughter's and executrix's. 
 
 
 Leonard. 
 
 1658. 
 
 Wm. Hughes. 
 
 Wm. Hughes, the editor's. 
 
 
 Noy. 
 
 1656. 
 
 No editor named. 
 
 No account of the MS. 
 
 
 Godbolt. 
 
 ? 
 
 No editor named. 
 
 No account of the MS. 
 
 
 Owen. 
 
 1656. 
 
 No editor named. 
 
 No account of the MS. 
 
 
 Popham. 
 
 1656. 
 
 No editor named. 
 
 No account of the MS. 
 
 
 Winch. 
 
 1657. 
 
 No editor named. 
 
 No account of the MS. 
 
 
 Littleton. 
 
 1683. 
 
 No editor named. 
 
 No account of the MS. 
 
 
 March. 
 
 > 1648. 
 
 No editor named. 
 
 No account of the MS. 
 
 
 Hutton. 
 
 1656. 
 
 No editor named. 
 
 No account of the MS. 
 
 
 Ley. 
 
 1659. 
 
 No editor named. 
 
 No account of the MS. 
 
 
 Lane. 
 
 1657. 
 
 No editor named. 
 
 No account of the MS. 
 
 
 Hetley. 
 
 1657. 
 
 No editor named. 
 
 No account of the MS. 
 
 
 J. Bridgman. 
 
 1651. 
 
 No editor named. 
 
 No account of the MS. 
 
 
 Carter. 
 
 1668. 
 
 S. C, Esq. 
 
 No account of the MS. 
 
 
CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED. 19 
 
 Every book in the upper bracket possesses authority ;. 
 scarcely one in the lower." 
 
 14. Indeed it was warrant enougb to call a book such a 
 man's "reports," that the cases in it, though manifestly 
 copied from some other MS., were copied in his hand- 
 writing : this is the history of Latch.^ Or, that it had 
 been abridged in any style, good, bad, or indifferent, from 
 
 ' The middle of the seventeenth century, as we have already said, was 
 marked by the unbounded fertility and pollution of the press; and particularly 
 by the immense number of tracts with which it teemed. It would seem indeed 
 as if our nuisance of the penny press is a mere resurrection of a filthy spirit that 
 was then stalking the earth, but more happily soon after was laid and forgotten. 
 " I know not," says Dr. Johnson, referring to the period, " whether this may 
 
 not properly be called the age of pamphlets They were undoubtedly 
 
 more numerous than can be conceived by any who have not had an opportu- 
 nity of examining them." (Origin and Importance of Fugitive Pieces. Works, 
 ii. p. 247, Lond. 1806.) And other intelligent judges have thought, that vast 
 as is the amount of ephemeral printing in England at this day, it is actually 
 less than that which prevailed at the time of which we speak ! It has occurred 
 to me — I give it but for a suggestion — that among these innumerable produc- 
 tions, now^f course " lieing in the sewer, lifeless and despised," there may be 
 reports so small and worthless that even their names have not reached us. 
 Just as we have certain evidence of many Plays having been in print and 
 under particular titles, while not even the extraordinary research which of late 
 years has been made into the early drama, has been able to discover one 
 single copy. [What book, for example, is that one referred to in Godolphin's 
 Orphan Legacy, 114, 4th ed. as " Law Cases collected, Ed. 1641, perused per 
 Hutton'?"] Sir Harbottle Grimstone, in 1657, expresses a fear that his father- 
 in-law. Judge Croke's MSS. " should be obtruded to the public by an incurious 
 law-hand, or through sordid ignorance of some others be prostituted in the con- 
 temptible pamphlet dress and character of such of their blind and misshapen 
 reports as some of our late justices and professors of the law are in that kind 
 abused." (Address to the Students of the Common Laws of England.) Cer- 
 tainly no reports that we know of have the exact dress or character of pamphlets, 
 as we now use that word, or as its supposed derivation (por un filet), seems 
 to limit it; though perhaps the author had reference to Noy, Owen, Hutton, 
 Lane, Hetley, and John Bridgman, all of which are small and thin folios. The 
 notion first above suggested derives an imperfect confirmation from the fact 
 mentioned by Sic Harbottle in regard to these reports, in another part of his 
 address: the then "present justices," he says, " not deeming nor deigning 
 them the least approbation or countenance in any of their courts." So that the 
 absence of judicial reference to these reports, if any such there were, is not a 
 sufficient evidence that they never existed. 
 
 * Prefatory certificate to Latch. 
 
20 THE EEPORTEES, 
 
 the reports of any eminent individual ; as was the case 
 with Noy.^ Or that the MS. used for copy, had been ex- 
 amined and approved by the person named as author ! 
 which is the case with Godbolt.^ Or even that a part of 
 it was reputed to have belonged to such person ; on which 
 infirm foundation rests the authorship of one part of 
 Popham.' In many cases, as in' Dallison's and "Winch's, 
 another part of Popham and a part of Owen, even these 
 slender ligaments are wanting to bind authorship to the 
 reputation of it; for, in the cases just named, the reputed 
 authors were dead and buried many years before the de- 
 cision of the cases which they are made to report/ The 
 names of eminent judges and lawyers \^uld appear, in 
 short, to have been presented to many of these books, 
 much as some name of heroism is given to a foundling. 
 It is certain, at all events," that with many of these reports 
 there is literally nothing "in a name," and that it is to be 
 taken as a designation of the book, much more than as a 
 warranty or even a representation of^ authorship.'. 
 
 15. It may naturally be asked, how the state of things 
 imperfectly set forth in what precedes could well exist, or 
 why we have no contemporaneous contradiction, by rela- 
 tives or critics, of an authorship thus unworthily fixed 
 upon the dead. Such contradiction does not exist, to any 
 large extent, certainly, in the books of reports which im- 
 mediately followed, and in no case, at all, I believe, with 
 
 » 1 Ventris, 81 ; 2 Keble, 652. = Title page to Godbolt. 
 
 ' Pref. to Popham. .* Gouldsborough, 153 ; Pref. to Winch. 
 
 ^ Humbly as men of sense must rate the diminutive science of bibliography, 
 none can deem it wholly without a value, when he sees the extraordinary 
 blunders into which celebrated judges have sometimes fallen, through a want 
 of it. In an important case in Virginia, for example, I find an eminent Judge 
 calling Lord Hardwicke to account for denouncing " Finch's Reports" as of 
 no authority. Mr. Justice Tucker can't understand why the book is of no 
 authority, and afSlrms that the name of the author, Sir Heneage Finch, on 
 whom he is at the trouble to collect those many tributes of elevated praise, 
 which no one ever disputed to belong to him, may weigh against the opinion 
 even of Lord Hardwicke (Smith v. Chapman, 1 Hening & Munford, 293.) 
 Everybody, I believe, knows that " Finch's Reports" is a pure pseudonyme. 
 
CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED. 21 
 
 circumstantial particularity. It may be attributed, I sup- 
 pose, partially to tbe absence of newspapers, advertise- 
 ments, reviews, and other means of conveying literary in- 
 formation, by wbicb, in our own day, we expect to. have 
 all such matters made known and settled; and as much 
 perhaps to " the tumult of those unhappy days," which 
 left scarce any man leisure to concern himself with the 
 curiosities of 'professional literature ; and when occasional 
 compositions of all sorts were so much neglected, that, ac- 
 cording to Dr. Johnson, a complete collection of them is 
 nowhere to be found.' 
 
 16. To revert, however, to the causes of the imperfection 
 of which we were speaking, in the earlier reporters. In 
 the extract which is made from Bulstrode, in § 12, preced- 
 ing, there is opened to our mind a source of error, of the 
 most perennial kind : the originalsjwere designed for private 
 use merely. Students, as we have said, were in the habit 
 of taking notes in the course of their apprenticeship, and 
 the bar in the course of their practice ; and the judges, 
 with whom the memoria prceteritorum eventorum, was matter 
 of essential accomplishment, would naturally if not neces- 
 sarily preserve memoranda of their own decisions. But 
 in no one of these cases would such records be designed 
 for more than private use, or as other than memoranda 
 for the owners themselves : nor would they be more full 
 or more carefully drawn than was necessary for such 
 an object.' How imperfect, from their nature, would be 
 
 ' Works, X. p. 86, Lond. 1806, Life of Addison. 
 
 ^ With the exception of Plowden,part of Coke, Styles, Saunders, and one or 
 two others, scarcely any of the ante-revolutionary reports were designed for the 
 press. " The volume of Sir William Jones,'' says his editor, " as may be easily 
 perceived, was not intended by him for the press." " These reports," says 
 Carthue's editor, " I did not design should have ever seen the light," Sir John 
 Vaughan's are printed without the editor's having received -any " particular 
 direction from the author for that purpose." Dyer, it is well known, left his 
 in an incomplete state ; and J. Kelyng's, with those known as Winch's, were 
 printed only to avoid the evil of more spurious impressions. Even Coke tells 
 us that a part of his were written aniidst the distraction of many pressing con- 
 cerns, and therefore that he could not " polish them as he desired." Pref. to 
 11th Reps. 
 
22 THE REPORTERS, 
 
 even the originals of sucL. reports ! And who can even con- 
 jecture how much the author, omitting in casual inatten- 
 tion or the " tempest of business," might design to supply 
 at his leisure and from the memoranda of others 1 or how 
 much he might suppose himself able to retain in unaided 
 memory? or how much, from particular circumstances, 
 he might not care to remember at all ? 
 
 17. To all the causes of imperfection which we have 
 noted, must be added another and an important one, viz. : 
 that many of the volumes which we call reports are trans- 
 lations from French or Latin originals never published. 
 In cases like Dyer's, the first eleven parts of Coke, Latch's, 
 Yelverton's, Salkeld's, Saunders' and some others, where 
 the work was first printed in the original and subsequently 
 translated, you have at least the means of verifying the 
 translator's work. But during the usurpation' (a time, as 
 we have said, very fertile in reports), the English having 
 been made the court language, and reports in other laur 
 guages prohibited, the editors translated their MSS. at 
 once into the national tongue. Thus it is that Croke, 
 Winch, Popham, Owen, Leonard, Hetley, J. Bridgman, 
 and others perhaps, though all written originally in 
 French or Latin, first appear to the world in the form of 
 a translation. And when you consider the cryptographic 
 abbreviations which in olden times marked alike the 
 court and the common hand ; that the original MS. hav- 
 ing been generally designed but for private use, would 
 be filled with symbols understood by the authors alone ; 
 and above all, that the usually anonymous translator was 
 secure from any comparison of his translation with the 
 original ; you can readily conceive the value of this ele- 
 ment of imperfection.^ 
 
 ' Anno 1649. The Act took effect from 1st January, 1650. Soobel, 142, 
 quoted in Johnson's Life of Coke, ii. p. 430. 
 
 * Sir Harbottle Grimstone, the son-in-law and first editor of Croke, says in 
 his translation of the Judge's MSS. : " I have taken upon me the resolution and 
 task of extracting and extricating these reports out of their dark originals (his 
 
CHROKOLOGICALLT ARRANGED, 23 
 
 18. In the argument of Vidal v. City of Philadelphia, 
 it was observed at the bar,^ by Mr. Binney, that the early 
 chancery reporters were even less accurate than their con- 
 tenaporaries at law ; and the sentiment was confirmed by 
 Judge Story,^ who speaks of them as " shadowy, obscure, 
 and flickering." The observation I take to be true ; and 
 that in regard to the early chancery reporters we may find 
 a yet additional cause of incorrectness, arising perhaps 
 from the history of equity. Though the binding nature 
 of precedents in equity is said to have been acknowledged 
 
 own father-in-law's handwriting !) they being written in so small and close a 
 hand, that I may truly say they are folia sibyllina, as difficult as excellent." 
 The editor of Sir William Jones complains, that the Judge's writing " was very 
 difficult to read, till mastered by patience and observation." This matter is 
 not without evidence of a practical importance : Sir Edward Sugden, examin- 
 ing a great question of law, has occasion to note it " In 2 Sid. 99," says he, 
 in his work on Powers, 17 n., "the words non tarn are, in citing this passage, 
 substituted for non tantum ; but they appear to make nonsense of the sentence. 
 The word, in Dyer, is abbreviated thus tm, which appears to be the proper 
 abbreviation foi tantum, and is decidedly used so by Dyer himself in another 
 
 place It is very important that the true reading of the passage in the 
 
 text should be determined." In fact this matter of the court-hand and of ab- 
 breviations has proved so constant a source of trouble, that the English Parlia- 
 ment, on more than one occasion, has had to interfere. In 1649, it was enacted 
 that after Jan. 1, 1650, all writs should be written in an ordinary, intelligible 
 hand or character, and not in the hand usually called court-hand ; and this wise 
 suggestion of Puritan ignorance was re-enacted and enlarged by the more en- 
 during legislation of constitutional sense. A statute of 4 Geo. II., oh. xxvi., en- 
 acts, that proceedings in the courts shall not be in any hand, commonly called 
 court-hand; but in words at length, and not abbreviated. In our own com- 
 monwealth, the grievance was strangled in its birth : for the " great law" of 
 William Penn, passed at Chester or Upland, immediately on his arrival in 
 America, in 1683, declares with particular solemnity, that all "pleading, pro- 
 cesses, and records in court, shall be in an ordinary and plain character, that 
 they may be easily read and understood." 
 
 The lawyer " who studies Shakspeare at the Inns of Court" will probably 
 recall as impressive an illustration as any to which his more professional 
 brother could point. See Childe Harold, Cant, iv., stanza xxx., note 8 ; where 
 a critic of France, misinterpreting the ptubs which Petrarch records of Laura, 
 and reading it partubus instead of perturbationibus, makes an unmarried lady 
 responsible for the birth of eleven children. 
 
 ' Binney 's argument, &c., 88. " 2 Howard's S. C. Rep. 193. 
 
24 THE REPORTERS, 
 
 a good while ago, both by Bridgman,' and by Lord C. J. 
 Treby, sitting with the lord keeper,^ it is yet true, as 3, 
 general thing, at any rate, that until the time of Lord 
 Hardwicke, equity was administered pretty much accord- 
 ing to what appeared to be good conscience applied to the 
 case. Hear such a man, for example, as Chief Justice 
 Vaughan. " I wonder," says he, in 1671, " to hear of citing 
 precedents in matters of equity ; for if there be equity in 
 a case, that equity is an universal truth, and there can be 
 no precedent in it;" and the error seems to have been a 
 vulgar one in the profession so late as 1765, when Black- 
 stone, quoting a Dutchman for authority, declared that 
 " there can be no established rules and fixed precepts of 
 equity laid down, without destroying its very essence."^ 
 While so little deference to precedent was had from 
 the woolsack, no great motive existed to record cases : and 
 hence until we come to the time of Peere "Williams, when, 
 under a succession of eminent men, equity began to as- 
 sume the shape of a science and a system, we have few 
 reports which inspire any considerable confidence as to 
 accuracy, even where the genuineness of the MSi and the 
 capacity of the author (as in the case of Vernon), have 
 not been brought into reasonable question. 
 
 19. These remarks, less particular and less fortified by 
 proofs than but for prolixity they would be, will perhaps 
 show that from foregone circumstances some of the re- 
 porters would not be likely to be eminently correct ; and 
 that the remarks of judges, discrediting them in particular 
 cases, are to be received with respect as not wholly impro- 
 bable. But it is equally necessary to remember that 
 
 II. THESE REMAKES ARE NOT TO BE OVER-ESTIMATED. 
 
 20. It may be said without ofience, I presume, that a 
 thorough knowledge of the old reporters is what no man 
 
 ' 1 Mod. 307. 2 3 Chan. Cas. 95. ' 1 Com. 62. 
 
CHEONOLOGICALLT AKKANGED. 25 
 
 at this day at all possesses ; and the same remark may be 
 more or less true of the lawyers for the last half century. 
 This was otherwise, however, until comparatively of later 
 times. Up to the year 1776, for example, the whole num- 
 ber of reports in England, both at law and in equity, did 
 not much exceed a hundred and fifty volumes ; while in 
 the United States there was not then, nor for many years 
 afterwards, so much as a single one. The reporters whom 
 in civility to contemporaries we now style old, were then 
 of course the hand-books of the law. We rarely open 
 one of them whose broad margin is not either graced or 
 disfigured by constant reference and comments with the 
 pen, often in difierent hands, and indicating an intimacy 
 of acquaintance to which we of this day are strangers. 
 But the chief justiceship of Mansfield formed an era in 
 the law ; and the reports of his chronicler, Sir James Bur- 
 row, worked a revolution in reporting. We have now 
 not far from two thousand volumes of reports ;^ and of 
 late years particularly the decisions of every court, digni- 
 fied and diminutive, are handed out to us in such pleo- 
 nastic numbers, and by the subjects of which they treat, 
 touch so much more nearly the practical concerns of men, 
 that the older reporters have fallen into comparative obli- 
 vion. I doubt, therefore, whether all, even of that little 
 which judges have said of late times, and in this country 
 particularly, about them, be founded upon a thorough 
 personal knowledge of their contents. " The number of 
 persons," says the witiy Mr. Puff, in The Critic, "who un- 
 dergo the fatigue of judging for themselves, is very small 
 indeed." In this day of " cheap reading," there is a good 
 deal of cheap writing, and even in the law — and on the 
 BENCH — there is a class, who, in Hooker's language, "talk 
 
 ' Figures which I east give the whole number at one thousand six hundred 
 and eight: but — dum loquimur ! Alas! the bookseller's boy opens the door, 
 with an armful of new volumes, most of them from the Western States — the 
 west of the western — where the sturdy stroke of the woodman must yet be 
 resounding in the tribunals of justice. (Note to the edition of 1845.) 
 
26 THE REPORTERS, 
 
 of the truth, which never sounded the depth from whence 
 it springeth."^ Sir Edward Sugden has deemed it worthy 
 of record, that of the decisions cited in his treatise on 
 Powers, the report of every case had been anxiously con- 
 sulted f and the result of his labor has been a text-book 
 which rose at once to almost the authority of judicial de- 
 cree.^ But how few there are who could bear fellowship 
 to such fidelity ! or who, stopping short, have yet followed 
 the advice somewhere given by Mebuhr to a student of 
 philosophy, never to quote at second-hand, even if the 
 citation be scrupulously verified, without stating through 
 what channel you have drawn. 
 
 21. The sort of quotation which I have spoken of as 
 common, leaves one sometimes at a loss, in this matter of 
 the books, to know how far he may depend upon criti- 
 cisms which he meets ; for no great reliance would be due 
 to learning which is but the repetition of other men's 
 statements ; themselves, perhaps, in turn, as worthless as 
 those which they originate. To illustrate what I mean : 
 A censure of Noy happens to be found in Hargrave and 
 Butler's Coke •* an elementary book, read, as of course, 
 by every student. The consequence has been, that whUe 
 reports as bad even as those ascribed to Noy, but whose 
 censures lie in books but little read, are often cited, the 
 attorney-general of Charles is scarcely named but to be 
 condemned. I doubt not, in the least, that Mr. Har- 
 grave's censure is just, nor that by him, it was made intel- 
 ligently ; but of the persons who have appropriated it as 
 their own, how many are there who have faithfully read 
 what they so unhesitatingly condemn? A Frenchman, 
 again, regards Sir W. Blackstone's reports as so inaccu- 
 rate that he excludes them from the list of reporters alto- 
 gether. How fiir he is right we need not inquire.' But 
 
 ' Eoolesiastieal Polity, Book i. 82. ^ pjef ^g Sugden on Powers. 
 
 » 2 Brod. & Bing. 535 ; 4 Law Reporter, 263 ; 3 Johns. Ch. Rep. 531. 
 
 * Page 54, a, n. 
 
 ' Dupin, Profession d'Avooat, tome ii. p. 575. The author remarks that the 
 
CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED. 27 
 
 the author of Mahomet, of Zayre and of M^rope, could 
 see in the yet sublimer productions of Shakspeare, little 
 beyond "ses farces monstrueuses qu'on appelle tragedies ;"^ 
 and I humbly venture to doubt whether Dupin, rejoicing 
 even as Monsieur is known to do in his feux d' artifice, 
 would yet taste the distinctions asserted for the squib- 
 firing youths of Scott v. Shepherd.^ 
 
 22. In other cases, the criticisms, by being false, have 
 been less innocent. Thus, from impressions taken up in 
 youth as to the personal habits of the individuals, or from 
 some other insufficient cause. Lord Mansfield forbade 
 counsel's citing Mosely and Barnardiston ;^ and his cen- 
 sures being found in very popular reporters, the volumes, 
 like 'Eoj, were for a long time scarcely ever quoted but to 
 receive accumulation of disgrace. And so they might 
 have rested in all time, had not the Earl of Eldon, who 
 usually examined things for himself, repelled the imputa^ 
 tion. More carefiil investigation than it was Lord Mans- 
 field's custom to give those things, make it plain, that 
 notwithstanding the repeated condemnation of the volumes, 
 one person has only repeated what somebody had said be- 
 fore him ; and that the error of all can be traced to the 
 single and perhaps unconsidered dictum of one imposing 
 individual." 
 
 English reports have become so numerous, "c* quUs se multipUent tellement 
 chaque jour qu'on croit inutile de lea specifier id. On se contentera d'en indiquer les 
 prindpaitxi auteurs. Ce sont Brooke ! Coke, Croke, Dyer, Hales ! Holt ! Fitzher- 
 bert! Plowden, Waughan." 
 
 ' Voltaire, De la tragedie Anglaise, CEuv. Com. xlvii. p. 272. Basle, 1787, 
 
 ^ Soott, an infant, by his next friend, v. Shepherd,, an infant, by his. guardian. 
 2 W. Black. 892. 
 
 ' 5 Bur. 2629, and 2 Biir. 1142. 
 
 *The manner in which the Earl of Eldon speaks of Lord Mansfield's flings 
 at Barnardiston is peculiar. The Earl, quoting a case in the House of Peers, 
 from this reporter, says : " Lord Mansfield, then Mr. Murray, argued that case 
 before Lord Hardwioke, and Mr. Barnardiston was at the bar at the same time, 
 although afterwards, when Mr. Murray had become Lord Mamsfield, when Mr. 
 
 Barnardiston's reports were cited, his lordship used to say, ' Barnard , what 
 
 you call him.' In that book; however, my lords, there are some reports of 
 
28 
 
 23. Numerous, indeed, might be the proofs that judges 
 have been content, in this matter, to draw from the stag- 
 nant reservoir of their predecessors' learning, rather than 
 at the spring of their own research and thought; and 
 hence we may say, as a , general rule, that with regard to 
 the character of the old reporters, statements earliest made 
 are more deserving of attention than those more late, con- 
 firming or enlarging them. If indeed these latter contra- 
 dict prior statements (referring to them, especially), the 
 case is altered; and, in some circumstances, might be 
 taken to be reversed. 
 
 24. But even the statements earliest made are not to be 
 received with a faith that is blind. Much of their value 
 depends upon circumstances : much, especially, upon the 
 person from whom they come. Some men deal largely in 
 these small things ; the curiosities of literature ; the mint, 
 anise, and cummin of the law : but such men are not always 
 proft)und in knowledge, nor comprehensive in their views ; 
 for except in minds happily constituted, these studies have 
 a tendency to contract the observation and to give dimi- 
 nutiveness to perception ; the critical eats out the compre- 
 hensive and the logical; and there is danger lest such 
 learning be elevated to an importance which it does not 
 merit. Although a book'may not be " of authority ;" yet 
 it needs not, as of course, to be pitched away with con- 
 tempt ; for the truth is spoken sometimes, even by those 
 who speak it least often. The remarks of legal bibliophi- 
 lists deserve to be received as suggestions ; for it is not 
 often that this sort of learning, in the nature certainly of 
 curious, is largely possessed by other members of the pro- 
 fession. We have stated the want of it in one illustrious 
 case ; that of the Chief Justice Marshall ; and it usually 
 happens that men of strong, logical minds, who reduce 
 their knowledge to general principles, and trust largely to 
 the pure strength of reason, are not tenacious in their 
 
 great value." 1 Dow & Clark (Dow N. S.), 11. The italics are not Lord 
 Eldon's, and the sarcasm, no doubt, is delicately sheltered. 
 
/ 
 
 CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED. 29 
 
 memory of insulated facts nor curious after diminutive 
 history. Their intellect finds its true perfection in being I 
 a law unto itself: and unless educated somewhat techni- ( 
 cally in the profession, they generally dispense with the 
 search for nice precedents. Theii again it may happen 
 that men of a widely difl:erent sort from those merely curi- 
 ous, persons of most active and comprehensive intelligence, 
 who have spoken about these things, may yet, from some 
 cause, be not always, in regard to them, most worthy of 
 confidence. Lord Mansfield has been more often quoted 
 for opinions about the reporters, I suppose, than almost 
 any other single judge. Yet I doubt whether this great 
 personage was the best authority on any point of learning 
 akin to antiquarian. In truth, the Lord of Caenwood 
 found it necessary to his system to discredit the old autho- 
 rities of every sort : he meant to pull up the landmarks 
 of the law, and to resettle it upon what he deemed the 
 principles of equity and common sense. His taste, too, 
 was more sympathetic with Pope than with Plowden: 
 and he had too much both of the power and independence 
 of genius, either to pursue authorities or properly to com- 
 pare their relative weight. Subsequent judges, it is well 
 known, have more than once disabled his lordship's judg- 
 ment about books. Lord Kenyon, while in the zenith of ^ 
 his knowledge, or Eldon, or Redesdale, or Sugden, in 
 England ; or with us, Richard Harrison of New York, 
 Daniel Dulany of Maryland, Edward Tilghman of Penn- 
 sylvania, or any of that consort of lawyers whom these may 
 be taken to represent, would probably be worthy of higher 
 credit on such points; men, I mean, who being emi- 
 nently formed for the law by the strong and logical struc- 
 ture of their minds, have " scorned delights and lived labo- 
 rious days" in the acquisition of its deep and varied learn- 
 ing. 
 
 25. There is another element, and an important one : 
 "By whom are these observations reported?" I speak 
 not here of the authority of the reporter, so much as of his 
 
30 THE REPORTERS, 
 
 manner. Some reporters are minute, others general. 
 One man gives you a daguerreotype, another but a pencil 
 outline. Burrow, is a very good reporter ; yet it cannot 
 be doubted that the awe with which something magic in 
 Lord Mansfield inspired every one about him, and which 
 led Sir James to treasure the minutest dictum that fell 
 from his lips, has given body and permanence to what 
 may have been a conversational, or suggestive, or Tpowr 
 sHnformer remark, not delivered as a judgment for pos- 
 terity. We are ignorant, of course, of the manner in 
 which an observation was uttered ; and, translated to 
 metal, a passing idea assumes the weight of judicial reso- 
 lution. 
 
 26. Even more to be regarded than the consideration 
 just named is another, which is this : that most of these 
 remarks are not what may be called natural expressions : 
 they are usually found in cases where a judge is combating 
 an authority, and where his mind may have been some- 
 what warped by the interest of his argument. Pressed by 
 an authority, it is found safer to discredit a reporter than 
 to depart from a precedent. Lord Mansfield was quite 
 unscrupulous in this way"; and the influence may be de- 
 tected in minds more dispassionate than his. Lord Ken- 
 . yon, for example, being urged, in Eorke v. Dayrell,' by a 
 report of Burrow's, was not restrained from questioning 
 the fidelity of this most faithful knight. He declared it 
 probable that in the report of Chitty v. Cooper,^ Lord 
 Mansfield had been misrepresented. But more critical 
 investigation shows that even Kenyon did not always 
 weigh his words in scales of gold ; and that, in this case, 
 his censure proceeded as much from his wish, as from his 
 candor. " If Lord Kenyon" (said Mr. Baron Parke more 
 recently in the House of Lords),^ "before he declared his 
 judgment in Eorke v. Dayrell, had fortunately referred to 
 his own note of Cooper v. Chitty, which has since been 
 pubUshed by Mr. Hanmer, from his lordship's original 
 
 > 4 D. & E. 40a. 2 1 Bur. 36. a 6 Bligh. N. R. 369. (A.D. 1832.) 
 
CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED. 31 
 
 manuscripts, instead of impeaching, he must have borne 
 testimony to the accuracy of Sir James Burrow's report. 
 
 The notes of Lord Kenyon and of Sir James 
 
 Burrow on this point, are in such perfect harmony, that 
 one may be considered a/ae simile of the other." A very 
 palpable hit, to be sure ; and one which, by a juxtaposition 
 of the two reports, the learned Baron makes sufficiently 
 pungent. "We can trace the same thing in the yet greater 
 mind of Chief Justice Marshall. In the opinion of this 
 great Judge to which I have already referred, he found 
 that his conclusion was at variance with a decision re- 
 ported by Sir William Blackstone. The reports of the 
 English commentator, it is known, do not sustain his 
 high reputation ; and the Chief Justice remarks that all 
 the respect which he entertained for the reporter of that 
 case could not prevent the opinion that it had been " inac- 
 curately reported.'" But when the matter came to be 
 more severely examined in the Girard College case, it was 
 shown by Mr. Binney, at the bar, that Blackstone's report 
 was entirely cqpfirmed by another of Eden's ; and that 
 both were " sustained by all that deserve the name of 
 authority in England."^ 
 
 27. The last circumstance which I shall mention, is one 
 which has particular application to our own country and 
 to this day. "We find it stated occasionally in the English 
 books, not that a reporter is inaccurate, not that reliance 
 cannot be placed upon his report, or that he is of bad au- 
 thority, but that he is " not authority." Take :^or example 
 Popham's reports. Chief Justice Hyde, in quoting a case 
 which is found there, while he vouches for the accuracy of 
 the case (having heard it), yet speaks of " the authority of 
 the book as none."^ So in regard to the reports of Sir John 
 Davis, a book of undoubted accuracy : when these were 
 cited, the court, not denying the accuracy of the reports, yet 
 
 ' 4 Wheat. 41. 
 
 2 Binney's Argument in Vidal v. The City of Philadelphia, 92. 
 
 3 1 Keble, 676. 
 
32 THE REPORTERS, 
 
 informed counsel that the book was not "canonical;"* 
 that is, I suppose, not authoritative, nor having the force 
 and binding efficacy of a rule. Again, BuUer tells us that 
 Comberback and Ifoy had been " forbidden to be cited. "^ 
 In another instance, Lord Hardwicke declares of a certain 
 book,' that it is better collected than most of the kind, yet 
 he characterizes it as " not of authority." The same great 
 Judge elsewhere refers to Ktzgibbon's reports, but adds : 
 " which I do not care to rely on, as it is of no authority ; 
 though this and some other cases are well reported in it ; 
 this particularly finely."'' Of Barnardiston, Lord Mans- 
 field " absolutely forbid the citing ;" yet he said nothing 
 against the correctness, of the particular case quoted; nay, 
 admitted that the reporter did surprisingly often stumble 
 upon what was right ; and, as would appear, made no ob- 
 jection against receiving other evidence to show exactly 
 the same thing which was found in the interdicted volume.* 
 So, when Serjeant Wynne referred to a report in Gilbert's 
 Cases in Equity, the court, we are told, " exploded the 
 book;"^ a form of expression rather denoting that the 
 accuracy of the case cited was not regarded as a question 
 open to debate. And again, to multiply as well as to end 
 our instances, when Mosely was quoted, the Chief Justice 
 told Mr. Impey, that the book was one which " he should 
 not have quoted ;"' and Mr. Mansfield, opposing counsel, 
 " owned that he had never seen such a book ;"' when, in 
 fact, the volume had been in print for more than a quarter 
 of a century," and when the case itself shows that Mosely's 
 report was correct, and could have been proved so at the 
 time. No remark, however, as to the probability or im- 
 probability of this last point, nor indeed about either point, 
 appears to have taken place. Mr. Impey receives Lord 
 Mansfield's remark exactly as if it were the overruling of 
 
 ' Latch, 238 ; S. C. Palmer, 462. 2 Clarke. 
 
 ' The Practical Register; see 2 Atk. 22. * 1 Kenyon, 71. 
 
 » 2 Bur. 1142. « Clarke. ' 5 Bur. 2629. 
 
 'lb. 19 Bridgmans Leg. Bib. 223. 
 
CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED. 33 
 
 a point of evidence : the book is excluded : there's an end 
 of that ; and what the counsel meant to show by it, he 
 shows independently of it, by producing a certificate to the 
 same effect from the register's book. 
 
 28. In all these cases, the objection seems to have been 
 of a technical sort ; an objection, not to the accuracy of the 
 report, but to the reception of the book in which it' is con- 
 tained. On the other hand, we often find reporters cited, 
 when the inaccuracy of their books is notorious ; as, for 
 example. Latch, Keble, Siderfin, Carter, several volumes 
 of the Modern Reports, the Cases in Chancery, and other 
 books. When these are cited, we find, perhaps, that their 
 general incorrectness is referred to ; and maybe an infer- 
 ence drawn from it, of incorrectness in a particular case 
 relied on at the bar ; but I am not aware that Judges have 
 ever "absolutely forbid" these books to be cited ; or "ex- 
 ploded" them, or spoke of them as being technically " not 
 of authority." In one case, LordEosslyn even speaks of a 
 book' as of " considerable authority," yet referring to a 
 case reported there, calls it "totally misreported." 
 
 29. The form-s of expression which I have mentioned, 
 seem to be peculiar; they would indicate a distinction 
 somewhat similar to that known at nisi prius, between 
 competency and credibility. I do not profess perfectly to 
 understand the matter. I take it, though, to be probable, 
 that the force and effect of what used to be known as pre- 
 cedent has, of late times, considerably changed. Formerly, 
 as every one knows, great deference was paid to authority, 
 in a strict and technical sense of the word ; a deference 
 perfectly intelligible, when you advert to the long, labori- 
 ous, and repeated arguments, and to the great delay which, 
 in former times, attended the investigation and settlement 
 of points of law.^ Precedents such as these were, pre- 
 cedents established after argument and re-argument, 
 
 ■ Precedents in Chancery ; see 5 Ves. Jr. 664. 
 
 ' See an account given by Chancellor Kent, of the manner in which cases 
 were argued in old times, both at the bar and on the bench. (1 Com. 487-8.) 
 
 3 
 
34 THE EEPORTEES, 
 
 iterated and repeated, followed by consultation and advise- 
 ment, were well worthy of respect. A divided bench 
 was unknown. Judgment was not given till every doubt 
 and shadow was dissipated, and all opinions were settled 
 and made one. The courts, too, were few and indepen- 
 dent of each other: the reports were still fewer, and re- 
 corded such cases as established principles rather than, as 
 now, what are but the varied and ever varying illustrations 
 of them.* 
 
 30. Wbile this entire submission to precedents prevailed, 
 there would naturally be some jealousy as to multiplying 
 the sources of them ; and it would not follow because a 
 book was unauthoritative, that it was false likewise. It 
 would be enough, I presume, that it was unknown or new, 
 unrecognized or suspected ; or perhaps that it had not 
 been approved or allowed by the Judges or licenser.^ Such 
 
 • I have mentioned, ante, § 20 n., that the whole number of volumes prior to 
 1776, does not much exceed 150; yet in these are contained reports from the 
 time of Edward I. ; a terra of about five hundred years. The 1800 volumes 
 which complete the now existing number, come to us within the last seventy 
 years. What is " behind ?" 
 
 2 The expressions, " of authority," " of no authority," " not of authority," are 
 each of them found in connections so various, that it is not possible to assign 
 any single meaning to the word. But the matter of " allowances" by the 
 Judges, to which I have just adverted, is one which it would be interesting to 
 see developed by a person who perfectly understood it. Every one accustomed 
 to open the old reporters is of course familiar with certain prefatory lines, be- 
 neath which are displayed the names of the Judges, varying from one to thir- 
 teen. And it is well known that the license of the press became so great dur- 
 ing the rebellion and usurpation, that with the return of Charles II. an act was 
 passed " for preventing abuses in printing," &o. This memorable act declared, 
 among other things, that " all books concerning the common laws of the realm 
 should be printed by the special allowance of the Lord Chancellor, or Lord 
 Keeper of the great seal of England for the time being, the Lord Chief Justice, 
 and Lord Chief Baron for the time being, or one or more of them, or by their, 
 or one or more of their appointments." It expired in 1692, after the Revolu- 
 tion ; having been in force for thirty years. 
 
 It is generally supposed that in consequence of this parliamentary require- 
 ment, the prefatory passports of which I have spoken, were given as mere 
 matter of form ; nor can I certainly say that they possess any higher virtue. 
 I have remarked, however, on comparing numbers of these certificates to- 
 
CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED, 35 
 
 a distinction, if it ever existed, could not have been strongly 
 marked even in England ; and in tMs land and day of 
 
 gether, that there is a difference, and apparently an intended difference, be- 
 tween their language ; and yet farther, that, in an imperfect degree, the strengtn 
 of the certificate does tally with the commonly received reputation of the 
 book. Thus, take the Year Books. The twelve Judges, not only " allow the 
 publishing" of the work, but also " recommend the same to all students of the 
 law ;" an act of civility not required of them by the statute. Moore is not only 
 " allowed" but is " approved," likewise ; and a certificate is added that it is 
 printed from a genuine manuscript. Yelverton is " allowed and approved for 
 the common good." Sir W. Jones receives a certificate nearly similar ; and 
 Sir Matthew Hale superadds to the " allowance" of KoUe's Reports, that they 
 are " very good." All these are books of authority. Descend, however, along 
 the scale of merit, and you find that Keble, Siderfin, Carthew, and Bulstrode 
 (all of which are very low upon it), are merely "allowed;" and that the Re- 
 ports in Chancery are only " licensed." 
 
 It is to be observed, too, that while, in some cases, the Judges certify to the 
 " great wisdom, learning, and integrity of the author," they do by no means affirm 
 that they have ever read his work, either in manuscript or in print. In other 
 cases it is clear that they had. " I have perused these reports" (says Chief Jus- 
 tice Wright, of Benloe and Dallison), "and I believe them to be the original 
 manuscript ; being taken with great judgment .... therefore I do allow and 
 approve them." Sir Francis North gives a certificate to Littleton, apart from 
 the other Judges ; they, indeed, but " allow" the book ; he declares that he 
 had found it " to be made with great judgment and truth ;" and Sir Matthew 
 Hale certifies, as we have said, that RoUe's " are very good." 
 
 Again, when certifying as to authorship, they do it in different language, for 
 different books ; in the majority of instances certifying but to a common intent ; 
 in the residue more particularly. Thus in the case of Ventris, Vaughan, Levinz, 
 Palmer, and several others, it is done by a sort of implication ; the certificate be- 
 ing as to " the wisdom, learning, and integrity of the author." Authorship, how- 
 ever, is not the point adjudged, as we should say ; the judgment being upon 
 the point of " wisdom, learning and integrity'j" authorship being presupposed. 
 But in the case of Moore, they declare directly that the work is printed from 
 " the original copy ;" and of Levinz, that the Reports are " all written with his 
 own hand." In some cases they certify against authorship ; as in Latch, where 
 it is declared that though the Reports " are all of Mr. Latch's hand ;" yet, as 
 the Judges conceive, they were " not originally taken by him, but excerpted 
 out of some other manuscript ;" a conception, in which, as appears by a volume 
 published long afterwards, the Judges were correct : for the cases were taken 
 from a note-book of Palmer's. In other cases they hold a significant reserve ; 
 as in Littleton, where, without any prceme, they " allow the printing of the book 
 entitled the Reports of Sir Edward Littleton." And the same exclusion of 
 conclusion appears in the separate certificate of Sir Francis North to the same 
 work ; he says nothing about the " wisdom, learning, and integrity of the au- 
 
36 
 
 " the free thought of the free soul," can hardly be regarded 
 as existing at all. Hence it does not follow that we 
 must discard a book, because English judges have said 
 that it was " not authority." The question with us must 
 be: "Is it false?" 
 
 31. Such qualifications as these, it may be thought, de- 
 tract largely from the value of the observations made by 
 Judges, and partially collected in the following pages. To 
 a certain extent this is true. But I take it that there is 
 scarcely less danger in regarding these observations in too 
 broad a sense, than in not regarding them at all. I heard 
 eminent counsel, for example, once declare at the bar of 
 
 thor," nothing about " the original manuscript." It is simply : " Finding these 
 Reports to be made with great judgment," &o. We have adverted to the cor- 
 rectness of the opinion given by the Judges in regard to Latch ; their reticence 
 about the authorship of Littleton is the more remarkable, inasmuch as though 
 the book in question has been treated directly, as a counterfeit (see post), the 
 evidence on the subject, one way or the other, is far from satisfactory. 
 
 It would be, as Hamlet says, " to consider too curiously," to consider this matter 
 more nicely ; nor do I by any means design to elevate these certificates to a 
 high grade of value. But perhaps they ought not to be wholly despised ; and 
 it is possible they may sometimes prove at least an imperfect introduction to 
 the history of the volume. 
 
 The reader will remember, of course, that it was only in the year 1662, that 
 the act against abuses of the press was passed ; and if the book were printed 
 before that time, that even the absence of a certificate would not, of itself, be 
 enough to damn it. Keilwey, as originally printed ; the first parts of Leonard, 
 all Dyer and Plowden, the canonical parts of Coke, some parts of Croke, are all 
 uncertified, from the cause I mention ; and March, Godbolt, Brownlow and Golds- 
 borough, Pophani, Hutton, Owen, Ley, Lane, Noy, Winch, Hetley, Bridgman, and 
 Bulstrode are in like condition ; though they, to be sure, are books of far inferior 
 merits. However, it was not altogether unusual, even before the passing of tlie 
 act, to have some sort of recommendatory notice from a person of note. Bulstrode, 
 in 1655, recommends the 12th part of Coke. " John Clarke," whose certificate 
 would appear to have outlived his fame, conceives, in 1656, that Hetley's Re- 
 ports " may be very useful, and so fit to be printed." Sir Philip Jermin, in 
 t646, had perused the Lord Hobart's Reports, and conceived that the printing 
 would be for the good of the kingdom and the common law. And even after 
 the expiration of the Act of 1662, the same sort of recommendatory notice by 
 a single individual sometimes appears ; though the old " allowance" from all 
 the Judges was still frequently procured. You even find the practice trans- 
 ferred in 1790 to this country. See the first volume of Mr. Dallas's Reports. 
 
CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED. 37 
 
 the Supreme Court of the United States, as a general truth, 
 that the old reporters were not to be credited, except so 
 far as they report what accords with good sense : and my 
 Lord Hohart is made to declaim somewhat after the same 
 fashion, where he says:' "Presidents tant hahent de lege, 
 quam de justicia." But this, certainly, is to make a trim 
 reckoning. Such dogmas, in an unrestricted acceptation, 
 would strike at the root of all authority. "Who is to de- 
 cide how far a report " accords with good sense ?" or how 
 much a precedent may have in it of "justice ?" And how 
 far the reporter or the translator maybe in error yet corri- 
 gible, or the court in that sort which, as matter decided, 
 must, as a general rule, be followed ? 
 
 32. I apprehend that in this matter we can make no 
 such uncircumscribed remark. Erroneous or defective 
 reports are but the perturbations of the Law : and a greater 
 mistake would be made by assuming them as its normal 
 forces, than is more usually made from not introducing 
 them into the investigation at all. "We must look at every 
 volume and every case in connection with its circum- 
 stances; circumstances wh'oh give to every such matter 
 both distinguishing color and discriminating effect. "We 
 must bring to the inquiry all practical knowledge of what 
 has been said about the book : regarding these declara- 
 tions, however, not as law, and still less as gospel ; but 
 merely as suggestive elements from which to form opinion. 
 "We must know the history of the volume, so far as in this 
 day we can recover it; the habits and opinions of its 
 author, and the circumstances of its publication. And 
 thus, though we may reach neither the comprehensiveness of 
 general conclusion nor the certainty of demonstration, we 
 may yet attain for each case to a measure of probability. 
 In the instance of some single reporters, this may often be 
 done with considerable fulness and success ; though to go 
 through the whole body of the early reporters, and for every 
 volume to reclaim from forgetfulness a long-fleeted history ; 
 
 ' Hob. 270. 
 
38 THE REPORTERS, 
 
 this is a task which would be difficult indeed ; though it 
 is one which, if successfully performed, would recompense 
 great pains. My few notes, let me repeat, are a mere out- 
 line ; loose leaves, penned with no profound knowledge 
 of the subject, and deserving no implicit reliance from any 
 one who, after examining the case of a book, may think 
 that he has cause to doubt what I have affirmed of it. Any 
 person, in characterizing one after another a series of works 
 so immensely numerous as the British Reports, must take 
 much of his criticism upon trust. Mine is nearly all so 
 taken. I print in truth but as the most agreeable form of 
 keeping what I am unwilling to throw away, while I am 
 conscious that it is scarcely worth preserving. I give it 
 but as an offering from my note-book to any one who with 
 better skill, and more learning, and more taste for the 
 thing, may hereafter perfect the survey of a field upon 
 which, as yet, I have but placed my foot. Using the 
 quaint illustration of Lord Bacon, "I shall content myself 
 to awaken better spirits, like a bell-ringer which is first 
 up, to call others to church."' 
 
 33. It is easy indeed to conceive, how a man unplagued 
 by the claims of professional things, and possessing ade- 
 quate disposition, capacity, and knowledge, might expand 
 and fill and illustrate this subject. It would grow greatly 
 under his hands. But it is a matter which, if it were well 
 done, could not be done quickly. It would be, in truth, a 
 great eflbrt of professional abihty. It would require of 
 whomsoever should undertake it, that first of all he should 
 have read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested the 
 whole body of early reporters, running backward through 
 the course and process of five hundred years. He would 
 have to bring down and centralize from the cognate 
 sources of general and legislative, literary, manuscriptal, 
 and antiquarian history, whatsoever could shed even a re- 
 flected light upon their significance and meaning. He 
 would have thoroughly to study the thousand volumes of 
 
 ' Bacon, xvi. Note A. A. A. Montague's ed., 1827. 
 
CHROKOLOGICALLY ARRANGED. 39 
 
 modern reports (multiplied perhaps to a thousand more 
 before he had finished them), and ascertain with perfect 
 precision how far, of later times, the cases of each early 
 reporter had been doubted, denied, or overruled. He 
 should have, above all, the "mind capacious of such 
 things;" the sagacity to conjecture, and the judgment to 
 consider, and qualities of comprehension and order to 
 combine and arrange his extensive lore : to all superadd- 
 ing such accomplishment and taste as might present the 
 whole with form and finished shape. 
 
 34. Indeed, we cannot long contemplate this matter of 
 The Reporters without framing in our minds, something 
 quite beyond what it is in the power of individual enter- 
 prise to achieve at all. And having touched the great 
 subject, let me, in conclusion of these remarks, and at the 
 expense, perhaps, of close connection, here venture to pre- 
 sent for the consideration of other persons, at some fixture 
 time, a Proposition for a new edition of the Early Re- 
 porters, to be undertaken by the Government of England. 
 
 35. The profession needs, at the present time, and will 
 continue more and more with each succeeding year, to 
 need: 
 
 I. An exact reprint of the existing volumes, preserv- 
 ing, as nearly as possible, their identity of paging and 
 other mechanism. The earlier reports — ^by which I mean 
 those prior to the Revolution — have been constantly referred 
 to by page and case and extract, for more than a century ; 
 many of them for more than two. By page and case and 
 extract, they have become inwrought through all our law ; 
 through our institutional works, which can never, at once, 
 be displaced ; and through more voluminous productions, 
 which will never again be reprinted. As long as Coke 
 Littleton, and Blackstone remain text; while Viner shall 
 continue to be a compend of the older decisions ; until we 
 cease to cite the hundred volumes of reports which give 
 splendor to modern jurisprudence ; just so long shall we 
 have to seek the same page upon the Year Book, the same 
 
40 THE REPORTERS, 
 
 case in Dyer and Croke, the same extract from Moore and 
 Yelverton, on which our fathers' eyes have rested, and 
 from which they have drawn that wisdom which we seek. 
 n. A second series ought to present faithful transla- 
 tions of all the repOlPters: each volume to be preceded by 
 as full an account of its author and history as could be ob- 
 tained, its cases throughout to be enlightened by syllabuses ; 
 to be broken up by paragraphs and such other kindly at- 
 tentions as the printer can give, and to be accompanied 
 with a table of cases at the beginning, and table of matters 
 at the end; conveniences in which the old books are 
 greatly defective. History somewhere makes mention of 
 a polite ambassador, who, writing a hand so bad that no 
 one could read it, yet always sent to his correspondent, 
 along with a transcript by his secretary, the indecipherable 
 original by his own hand ; the former to convey his mean- 
 ing, the latter to show his respect. It is from somewhat 
 similar doubleness of motive, that with the exact reprint 
 already mentioned, we ought to have such another form 
 as is contemplated in this second series : the originals for 
 legality, the translations for legibility ; the one for com- 
 mon use, the other for severe research. It is known that 
 the Norman French, in which so many of the old^ reporters 
 are found, is a language perfectly complete ; full, ^sensible, 
 and pasy — ^to those who understand it; but, like other 
 languages, dead letter to all who have not learned it. And 
 the inducements to learn, or after having learned, to re- 
 member it, are now so few, that the majority of lawyers, 
 and even the majority of well-educated lawyers, read it 
 with difficulty and dissatisfaction, if indeed they read it at 
 all. Upon the value of a series such as this second one, I 
 need not enlarge. Indeed, so much of our repugnance to 
 reading the old reporters, arises from their ponderous size 
 and ill appearance, their acid-stained and dirty paper, their 
 unusual spelling and character, and their unintelligible 
 and obsolete mechanism of every sort ; that it is indispen- 
 sable to our reading them with satisfaction, that they 
 
CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED. 41 
 
 should appear more clean, presentable, and in the fashion 
 of the times. And with the completion of but this second 
 series, we should have the whole body of adjudicated law 
 presented to professional research and convenience, in a 
 form at once attractive and intelligible. But the enter- 
 prise should not perish here. A matter of importance is, 
 m. A Harmony of the reports. Every one knows that 
 from the time of Dyer, to the time of George I., the same 
 cases are constantly reported by different reporters, some- 
 times by as many as half a dozen at once. A familiar 
 though not a striking illustration presents itself in the lead- 
 ing case of Manby v. Scott, of which Mr. John William 
 Smith' observes, that the argument of Sir Orlando Bridg- 
 man is to be found in Bridgman's Judgments ; that of Mr. 
 J. Hyde, in 1 Modern, 124 ; and that of Hale, C. B., in 
 Bacon's Abridgment ! while disjecta membra of the corpus 
 of the case are strewn over three reporters, including two 
 new ones, at once ; Keble 69, 80, 87, 206, 337, 361, 383, 
 429, 441, 482 ; 1 Modern, 124 ; and 1 Ventris, 24, 42, and 2 
 Ventris, 155. Speaking generally, we may say that the older 
 contemporary reports sometimes contradict one another, 
 and sometimes confirm one another even' on points which, 
 but for their concurrence, we should think had hardly 
 been decided. Besides this, one reporter will give you the 
 judgment of the court, in the form of an abstract princi- 
 ple ; another will state you the facts on which it went; a 
 third perhaps record the argument of counsel ; a fourth, 
 last of all, supply something omitted by each of the others. 
 Many too are mere copies, and all derived from perhaps 
 an erroneous original ; sometimes being copied literally, 
 and sometimes abridged. "Without connection with the 
 book in which they are originally contained, all the con- 
 temporary reports of the same cases should be arranged in 
 parallel columns, or in some other form of juxtaposition, 
 by which the case might be seen through all the narratives 
 at once. The process to which I refer is one perfectly 
 
 I 1 Leading Cases, 282, n. 
 
42 THE EEPOBTEES, 
 
 familiar to the biblical student, as that by which, the 
 "Harmonists," at various times, have reduced to a single 
 view, the different narratives of the evangelists. Perfectly 
 to complete the collection there should be 
 
 IV. A recompilation or monograph of the reports, 
 which would be made of course, in a large degree, out of 
 the preceding, but still more out of MSS. still existing in 
 England, many of which are better reports than any that 
 have ever been printed.* In this, the cases should be 
 reported anew, fully, and in an orderly, clean, and modem 
 manner ; with the names and offices of counsel and judges, 
 with dates and all such notes and marks, suppliances and 
 developments, as would make the report clear, natural, and 
 easy to be read ; each case so reported to be accompanied 
 by pervading and accurate reference to all prior and sub- 
 sequent decisions. If such a recompilation or recast 
 were made, it would become, from thenceforth, the great 
 referendary of the profession. In all subsequent treatises 
 and opinions, it alone would be the record of decisions : the 
 three preceding series would be preserved but for eluci- 
 dating existing books, and by way of certification and 
 proof of the new recompilation. A work of this sort would 
 be of infinite value. It is for that service of order, and 
 series, and connection which, among other qualities, would 
 mark this last compilation, that in another, the sacred de- 
 partment of literature, the venerable Lightfoot has left a 
 name that two centuries has had no power to touch, and 
 which every one who seeks to attain to knowledge of 
 God's Truth must continue to revere so long as there shall 
 remain any virtue or any praise. The idea which, as to 
 this series, I have in my mind, will be readily understood 
 by any one who has seen the " Chronicle" of Dr. Light- 
 
 • See Appendix ; where there is "a Chronological Statement of the Printed 
 Law Reports of the Contemporary Manuscripts, by which they may be Authenti- 
 cated and Improved," here reprinted from a very scarce pamphlet, published in 
 London, in 1834, by Richard Pheney, No. 117 Chancery Lane. I am ignorant 
 of the author. 
 
CHEONOLOGICALLT AEEANGED, 43 
 
 foot, or, yet better, the Arrangement of the Old and "Sew 
 Testaments by Dr. Townsbend, Prebendary of Durham. 
 It is not too much, I think, to say, that by the mere force 
 of clear and sequent narrative ; by arranging in chronolo- 
 gical and historical order, the scattered relations of the 
 sacred volume, these learned divines have assisted more 
 to give men and women intelligent knowledge of the 
 sacred history than has been done by all the commentaries 
 and annotations that have ever appeared. 
 
 36. Beyond these four series, — each referring minutely 
 and at every step to all the others — no essential improve- 
 ment, I think, can be made. I forget not, of course, Lord 
 Bacon's Proposal for the Improvement of the Law ; * but 
 
 '"There is to be made," says he, "a perfect course of the law ' in serie 
 temporis,' or Year Books, as we call them, from Edward I. to this day. In the 
 compiling of this course of law, or Tear Books, the points following are to be 
 observed : 
 
 " First, — All cases which are at this day clearly no law, but constantly ruled 
 to the contrary, are to be left out ; they do but fill the volumes, and season the 
 wits of students in a contrary sense of law. And so, likewise, all cases where- 
 in that is solemnly and long debated, whereof there is now no question at all, 
 are to be entered as judgments only, and resolutions, but without the arguments, 
 which are now become but frivolous ; yet, for the observation of the deeper sort 
 of lawyers, that they may see how the law hath altered, out of which they may 
 pick sometimes good use, I do advise, that upon the first in time of those obso- 
 lete cases, there was a memorandum set, that at the time the law was thus 
 taken, until such a time, &c. 
 
 " Secondly. — ' Homonymia,'' as Justinian calleth them ; that is, cases merely of 
 iteration and repetition, are to be purged away ; and the cases of identity, which 
 are best reported and argued, to be retained instead of the rest ; the judgments, 
 nevertheless, to be set down, every one in time as they are, but with a quota- 
 tion or reference to the ease where the point is argued at large : but if the case 
 consist part of repetition, part of new matter, the repetition is only to be 
 omitted. 
 
 " Thirdly. — As to the ' Antinomia,' cases judged to the contrary, it were 
 too great a trust to refer to the judgment of the composers of this work, to de- 
 cide the law either way, except there be a current stream of judgments of later 
 times ; and then I reckon the contrary oases amongst cases obsolete, of which 
 I have spoken before ; nevertheless this diligence would be used, that such 
 cases of contradiction be specially noted and collected, to the end those doubts, 
 that have been so long militant, may either by assembling all the Judges in the 
 Exchequer Chamber, or by Parliament, be put into certainty. For to do it, by 
 
44 THE REPORTERS, 
 
 it has always appeared to me that in this proposal the 
 great Chancellor went beyond what was practicable : and 
 by endeavoring, in a great degree, to codify the common 
 law, destroyed, as we know that he failed to secure, the 
 success of a splendid design. The idea of Lord Bacon 
 partook too much of the splendid visions of his New 
 Atlantis. It could not have been completed vnthout 
 universal agreement upon questions throughout the course 
 of adjudicated law, upon many of which there will ever 
 continue to be, as there ever has been, a difference of con- 
 clusion ; questions, indeed, which belong not so much to 
 the imperfections of the law, as to the infirmity of man's 
 mind. If the project had been accomplished, it could 
 never have superseded the older books, nor our inconveni- 
 ence in referring to them. It could, at best, have served 
 but for a comment of authority upon them. It was codi- 
 fication in effect, and therefore in effect impossible : — and 
 failed. Indeed, I think it clear that nothing can be done 
 which shall render worthless, or even of unessential im- 
 portance, the older reporters as now we have them.* 
 
 bringing them in question, under feigned parties, is to be disliked. ' Nihil 
 habeat forum ex scena^ 
 
 " Fourthly. — All idle queries, which are but seminaries of doubts and uncer- 
 tainties, are to be left out and omitted, and no queries set down but of great 
 doubts well debated, and left undecided for difficulty ; but no doubting or up- 
 starting queries, which, though they be couched in argument for explanation, 
 yet were better to die than to be put into the books. 
 
 " Lastly. — Cases reported with too great prolixity, would be drawn into a more 
 compendious report I not in the nature of an abridgment, but tautologies and 
 impertinencies to be cut off; as for misprinting and insensible reporting,which 
 many times confound the students, that will be obiter amended ; but more prin- 
 cipally if there be anytliing in the report, which is not well warranted by the 
 record, that is also to be rectified ; the course being thus compiled, then it 
 resteth but for your majesty to appoint some grave and sound lawyers, with 
 some honorable stipend, to be reporters for the time to come, and then this is 
 settled for all time." (Proposal for Improvement, &o. Bacon, v. p. 347, Mon- 
 tague's ed., 1827.) 
 
 ' An illustration occurs in the recent case of Luraley v. Gye, in the Queen's 
 Bench, Trinity Term, 1853, 2 Ellis and Blackburn (75 English Common 
 Law), 216; in which, upon a suit by Mr. Lumley, the manager of the Queen's 
 
CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED. 45 
 
 They may become — they have become — greatly antiquated ; 
 but in the keen research of an intellectual profession, 
 they must ever be referred to as they appear in their 
 source and spring : and the endeavor of wisdom should 
 therefore be, not to change, but to present them. I do 
 not forget that the law is in a constant state of transition ; 
 that even now it has ceased to be a fixed and exact science, 
 and that we appeal to precedents more as corroborations 
 of argument than as conclusive of truth : that with the 
 disuse of old actions and the introduction of new, "the 
 principles of the system which crystallize around its 
 forms,"' are constantly broken up and reshaped ; and that 
 through progressive developments it may at last be trans- 
 lated to new conditions of existence. 
 
 37. But I say, that to obliterate the records of the old 
 reports is impossible. You might as well repeat the folly 
 of revolutionary France, and begin anew with the year 
 " One." In the physical world, every vestige of the ruined 
 past may be swept away. Ifot so in the intellectual and 
 moral. As now the old reports are, so will they continue 
 to be, — in every state — the cradle of our jurisprudence. 
 In the law, the present is ever born of the past. " It is 
 there," to use another's language, ^ " that it had its infancy ; 
 that the foundations of its being were laid ; and it is there 
 and there alone, that we can trace its pedigree and test its 
 legitimacy." And because the system is ever in progres- 
 
 Theatre, for enticing away from his troupe a celebrated opera singer, we find 
 Mr. Justice Coleridge citing with the utmost profusion and freedom, — transla- 
 ting them, page after page — cases from the abridgments of Brooke and Fitz- 
 herbert, and from the earliest as from the latest of the Year Books. It is inte- 
 resting, indeed, to see with what perfect facility he handles them, and how he 
 applies old cases from the days of the Church's catholicity, and decisions as to 
 whether or not the chaplain, who is " the servant of God," is bound to sing in 
 mass every day ; " for at one time he is disposed to sing it, and at another not ;" 
 to the case of singers of less pious times, and to the engagements of Madame 
 Mara, Mademoiselle Wagner, and others of the prima donnas and dramatic 
 artists of infidel days. 
 
 > H, B. Wallace, Table Talk. " 12 H. N. Hudson's. 
 
46 THE REPORTERS, 
 
 sive change, and we are no longer, like our fathers, 
 familiar with the older books as of course — ^it is, I think, 
 that we should know them in a measure, by constraint. 
 We may be assured that others will know them; that 
 others will use them ; that others will be ready to pervert 
 them. And the danger consists, not so much in the dark- 
 ness of universal nescience, as in the glimmering and 
 distorting light of defective knowledge. The ignorance 
 which at one time works its ill through contemptuous or 
 unthinking disregard, is manifested at another in blind 
 dependence. For superstition is the elder and strongest 
 sister of presumption : as both alike are the children of 
 ignorance.' 
 
 I need not urge, I am sure, that no philosophical know- 
 ledge of the law can ever be had without reference to its 
 origin and history ; to the elements of its composition and 
 the strata of its growth. The best proof of all law — ^the only 
 proof of much law — are the forms of action, matters which 
 have their foundations in the early decisions ; and prin- 
 ciples are thus often rested upon what appears to be a 
 base that is purely and sometimes absurdly technical. 
 Could we have the Year Books well presented to us, 
 where pleadings are so largely and so constantly discussed, 
 iand see, in the development of their latent wisdom, 
 with what intelligence, with what constant reference to 
 substantial justice and to homebred convenience, all these 
 
 ' "It is much to tie regretted," says a. recent American writer, whose 
 treatise on a practical subject compels, nevertheless, a frequent reference to the 
 old reports, " that some patient industry has not as yet achieved a translation of 
 the Year Books. Almost any reference to them at the present day is perhaps, 
 with some reason, thought pedantic ; and yet instances are frequent of cases 
 being misquoted in later publications. References to the Year Books are not 
 unfrequent in the late English Reports. Yet any one who has sought to trace 
 in them a principle to its foundation, will be struck with the apparent contra- 
 rieties which they present, which would doubtless be to some extent explained 
 could the contents of these volumes be presented in a more iamiliar shape." 
 (Mr. William Henry Rawle, Treatise on the Law of Covenants for Title, p. 182, 
 n. Philada., 1852.) 
 
CHRONOLOGICALLY AERANGED. 47 
 
 things were conceived and settled, we should understand 
 how it is that a precedent becomes of value, and that the 
 common law has received its eulogy of being in its every 
 part, at once " the transcript of the highest rules of right, 
 and the consummation of experimental wisdom." "We 
 should seek no higher argument than precedent, because 
 we should feel and should know that precedent was itself 
 the embodiment of all argument, and the form into which, 
 however repeated, it would ever be resolved. 
 
 38. In making such a body of Eeports as are presented 
 in the foregoing sketch, little is requisite beyond intelli- 
 gent labor ; labor in the first place, thoroughly to learn 
 the older books ; to copy, verify and translate ; intelli- 
 gence to arrange, supply, refer and perfect. The profes- 
 sion in England contains a hundred men, in each genera- 
 tion of it, any score or decade of whom, if devoting 
 themselves to the enterprise with a tithe of the fidelity 
 which has marked the Eecord Commission, would in half 
 a century — ^perhaps in half that time — raise a monument, 
 that should cast its light to distant ages. The undertaking, 
 of course, would quite transcend the resources of indivi- 
 dual ability ; and might exhaust " the hourglass of one 
 man's life." It could be achieved only by the enterprise 
 of government delegating unstinted resources through 
 the agency of commission, to be renewed if necessary 
 from generation to generation till the whole was fiiUy ac- 
 complished. But is it not an enterprise which would well 
 become the Parliament of England ?* The great philoso- 
 
 ■ We find at this day, even in the ranks of the Peerage, many of the imme- 
 diate representatives of the older Reporters, who, it might be naturally sup- 
 posed, would regard it as both a duty and a delight to rescue their ancestral 
 fame from the discredit which in many cases has attached to it by these post- 
 humous and unprepared publications. My general recollection recalls to me, 
 for example, that Lord Monson, Lord Brooke (the princely heir of War- 
 wick), and the Earl of Mexborough, are all descendants of Saville ; as Lord 
 Monson, with the Earl of Yarborough, and Lord Sondes, also, is of Anderson ; 
 the Earl of Buckinghamshire and the Marquis of Lothialj, of Hobart ; the 
 Earl of Huntingdon, of Davis ; the Earl of Verulam, of Croke ; the Earl of 
 
48 THE REPORTERS, 
 
 phic statesman of that country has told us, in words which 
 can never die, that English jurisprudence has not any 
 other sure foundation, nor consequently the lives and 
 properties of the subject any sure hold but in the maxims, 
 rules, principles, and juridical traditionary line of deci- 
 sions contained in the notes taken from time to time, 
 and published mostly under the sanction of the Judges, 
 called Reports.* And in this our western world the strain 
 of noble thought has been taken up and carried onward. 
 Closing his fine remarks upon the respective merits of the 
 Reporters of England, Chancellor Kent is forced to forget 
 their differences of every sort ; and pausing to cast his 
 retrospective view upon them, as a venerable and har- 
 monic whole, breaks forth with the ardor of genius, into 
 the language of eloquence and sensibility and virtue : 
 " They abound," declares this elegant scholar,^ " in pa- 
 thetic incident, and displays of deep feeling. They are 
 faithful records of those ' little competitions, factions and 
 debates of mankind,' that fill up the principal drama of 
 human life ; and which are engendered by the love of 
 power, the appetite for wealth, the allurements of plea- 
 sure, the delusions of self-interest, the melancholy perver- 
 sion of talent, and the machinations of fraud. They 
 give us the skilful debates at the bar, and the elaborate 
 opinions on the bench, delivered with the authority of 
 oracular wisdom. They become deeply interesting, be- 
 cause they contain true portraits of the talents and learn- 
 
 Leioester, of Coke ; the Earl of Clare, and Baron Deoies on the Peerage of Ire- 
 land, of Fitzgibbon ; the Baroness de Grey Ruthyn, and the youthful Marquis 
 Hastings, of Yelverton ; the Earl of Bradford, of Sir Orlando Bridgman ; and 
 the Earl of Lisburne, of Vaughan. Doubtless there are others which escape 
 my memory. (Note in 1843.) 
 
 The whole subject of Reporting and Reports, has of late attracted some 
 attention in England ; and a complete revisal of existing volumes, and a new 
 plan for future ones, is strongly recommended. (Law Magazine, vol. x1. 0. S., 
 1848, p. 1 i Law Review, vol. vii., p. 223 ; vol. x., p. 395, and vol. xii., p. 261.) 
 
 ' Burke's Works, vol. vii., p. 554 : Boston, 1834. 
 
 2 1 Com. 496. 
 
CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED. 49 
 
 ing of the sages of tlie law l^or 
 
 do I know where we could resort, among all the volumes j 
 of hjiman composition, to find more constant, more tran- 
 quil, and more sublime manifestations of the intrepidity 
 of conscious rectitude. If we were to go back to the iron 
 times of the Tudors, and follow judicial history down 
 from the first page in Dyer to the last page of the last 
 Reporter, we should find the higher courts of civil judica- 
 ture, generally, and with rare exceptions, presenting the 
 image of the sanctity of a temple, where truth and justice 
 seem to be enthroned, and to be personified in their de- 
 crees." 
 
 39. Surely that statesman of England under whom 
 these " Judgments of the Just," — ^the greatest records of 
 his country — should be properly collected, embodied, and 
 illustrated, would have title to be named with, gratitude, 
 when, of his political career, naught else might remain 
 but "the memory of its vanity, its errors, or its guilt !" 
 
THE REPORTEES. 
 
 KOTULI CURI^ EEGIS. 
 
 6 Eic. I.— 1 John (1194-1199.) 
 
 The title is " Rotuli Curise Eegis : Rolls and Records 
 of the Court held before the King's Justiciars or Justices." 
 Every reader of law books is familiar, I presume, with 
 the fact of there being many unpublished reports yet pre- 
 served in different collections in England, and which, of 
 course, form but an insignificant portion of the vast body 
 of manuscripts and records which must have long existed 
 in a kingdom of such civilization, antiquity, and power. 
 We find the attention of Parliament more than once 
 directed, within the last two centuries, to a subject so 
 nearly allied with the national fame ; but it was reserved 
 for the present day to give to these memorials of the past 
 that thorough examination and arrangement, which was 
 due to their great interest. In the year 1800, the British 
 House of Commons presented an address to George m., 
 setting forth the vast number of these manuscripts in dif- 
 ferent parts of the realm ; that they were unarranged, 
 Tindescribed, unascertained, and going to destruction from 
 natural as well as accidental causes ; and praying the king 
 to give such directions as he should think proper for their 
 preservation and convenient use. In consequence of this 
 address, the Record Commission was established, and im- 
 mense .numbers of documents illustrating the ancient 
 
52 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 jurisprudence, religion, government, topography, genealo- 
 gies and history of Great Britain, Ireland, and the ancient 
 dependencies, have been rescued by it from the neglect 
 and disorder of centuries, and brought into system, light, 
 and practical value. Many volumes have been printed by 
 the government, in order to give information to the public 
 of the commissioners' progress ; and copies have been very 
 liberally presented to libraries in this country.' The com- 
 mission has always embraced a considerable number of 
 lawyers, and some of the most valuable of the publications 
 are those connected with juridical proceedings. There 
 are now lying before me, two royal 8vos., edited by Sir 
 Francis Palgrave, and bearing the title above given. The 
 learned editor supposes them to be the earliest consecu- 
 tive judicial records now existing anywhere. They begin 
 from the Quinzaine of St. Michael, in the 6th year of 
 Richard Cceur de Lion, A.D. 1194, or soon after his return 
 from the Holy Land. Sir Francis states that the usage of 
 preserving a regular written record of judicial proceeding 
 was certainly practised in England in the preceding 
 reign, and suggests, that the loss of all records prior to 
 those now published may be attributed to the fact, that 
 "when it was declared that legal memoiy extended not 
 beyond the first year of Richard's reign, the earlier judi- 
 cial records, deprived of their practical utility, were cast 
 aside and neglected, and ultimately destroyed either by 
 neglect or design." The suggestion is a very natural one : 
 though perhaps it is as natural to presuppose the loss of 
 the records, and that legal memory was bounded by the 
 reign of Richard, because it was impossible to declare 
 what had been done before. 
 
 ' About 34 copies were distribated, originally, in the United States, to colle- 
 giate and other libraries ; and copies have been given since, by the govern- 
 ment, on special application. Indeed, the Commission has disposed of them 
 very liberally everyvphere. They are in most of the larger collections, both in 
 Europe and America ; in places, too, where they can be but little read. I have 
 seen them alike in the silent and deserted palace of the Doges, at Venice, and 
 in the sweet seclusion of the Redwood Library at Newport, in America. 
 
THE COMMOK LA"W KEPOETEES. 53 
 
 I extract some farther remarks of this learned editor, a 
 part of which I am sure will not be uninteresting to the 
 American reader. " Much as the loss of these documents 
 may be regretted," he continues, — " for no other source can 
 supply the information which they would have afforded 
 concerning individual transactions — still we have no rea- 
 son to suppose that they disclosed any principles of law 
 beyond those established by the surviving records. The 
 main outlines of that peculiar and national system, the 
 English Common Law, were fully fixed and drawn. Our 
 jurisprudence had assumed all those characteristics through 
 and by which, greatly as they have been altered from age 
 to age, it is distinguished at the present day. Beginning 
 with Grianville; continuing 6ur inquiries upon the Eolls 
 existing from the reign of John in regular succession; 
 comparing these records with the commentary furnished 
 by the Year Books ; and lastly opening the volumes of 
 the Reporters properly so called : we could, if human life 
 were adequate to such a task, exhibit what the world can- 
 not elsewhere show ; the judicial system of a great and / 
 powerful nation, running parallel in development with 
 the social advancement of the people whom that system 
 ruled. In the history of the English Constitution, our legal 
 records are amongst the most important elements. The 
 law restrained the sovereign before he was controlled by 
 his great Council. And the most important functions 
 anciently vested in the High Court of Parliament arose 
 from the dispensation of justice, exercised in ordinary 
 cases by the judges to wh*om the king delegated his au- 
 thority and power. 
 
 " But the interest of our judicial records is not local, or 
 peculiarly appertaining to this our country. They are the 
 property not merely of England, but of the English people 
 wheresoever settled or dispersed. We have here the 
 germ and foundation of the laws obtaining in those states, 
 which, rising beyond the ocean, seem appointed to pre- 
 serve the language and the institutions of England be- 
 
54 THE COMMON" LA"W BEPOETEES. 
 
 neatli other skies, and when the empire of the parent 
 commonwealth shall have passed away like a dream. !If or 
 will these muniments be without great value in the esti- 
 mation of those able and learned men, who, amongst 
 foreign nations, and more particularly the Germans, are 
 applying themselves to the study and discussion of juris- 
 prudence with a laborious research into historical facts, 
 and an enlightened pursuit of legal science, which may at 
 once excite our national emulation and check our national 
 pride. For in England, no branch of study, no pursuit, 
 receives so little elegance from the acquirements of litera- 
 ture, or the investigations of philosophy, as the law. Its pro- 
 fessional members are distinguished for their knowledge 
 and their talent, but they labor to cultivate and adorn every 
 field except their own : and while we thus reject the em- 
 bellishments derived from human intellect, our practical 
 legislators have never yet sufficiently recognized the truth 
 that the positive laws of man can stand upon no other 
 sure foundation but those immutable principles, which 
 ought to be as much the rule of conduct for communities, 
 as for the individuals of whom they are composed." 
 
 I need scarcely observe that these volumes are not of 
 any great practical utility in this our day ; but as a vene- 
 rable and authentic memorial of the early forms of the 
 law, and as such the exponents of its principles likewise, 
 they possess an interest which is imparted by no other 
 work. (Edns. 2 vols, royal 8vo. 1835.) 
 
 STATE TEIALS. PRDTCIPALLT K B. 
 
 9 Hen. II.— 1 Geo. IV. (1163-1820.) 
 
 With Jardine's Index, 34 toIs. Lond. 1809-1826; Index, 1828. 
 
 Most members of the profession, I presume, though 
 they may not have studied Mr. Warren's law books, have 
 yet read his novels. Such wiU vividly recall the scene in 
 " Ten Thousand a Year," where Mr. Aubrey, having been 
 
THE COMMON LAW KEPOETERS. 55 
 
 dispossessed of Ms ancestral estates of Yatton, by Tittle- 
 bat Titmouse, leans from his native dignity and habitual 
 elegance, to consider how he shall now apply his talents 
 and attainments to secure to himself and his family the 
 independence so dear to an honorable mind. He is talk- 
 ing with the Attorney-General (under which title, I believe, 
 Sir John Copley was meant to be represented), who says 
 to him,i^in recommending a course of reading, " You'll 
 find Eeeves's History of the English Law of infinite ser- 
 vice to you : I should read it in the evenings. It is ftiU 
 of interest in every point of view. I read every word of it 
 very carefully, soon after I left college. And, by the way, I'll 
 tell you another book by which I did the same — the ' State 
 Trials ;' ay, by Jove, Aubrey, I read every word of them, 
 speeches, examinations, cross-examinations of witnesses, 
 reply, and summing up. That's where I first learned how 
 to cross-examine a witness. Consider; the counsel em- 
 ployed were, you know, generally first-rate men : and then 
 you learn a great deal of constitutional law." 
 
 In this point of view, the State Trials are valuable, but 
 they possess a yet deeper and more philosophic interest. 
 " The annals of criminal jurisprudence," says Mr. Burke, 
 " exhibit human nature in a variety of positions, at once 
 the most striking, interesting, and affecting. They pre- 
 sent tragedies of real life, often heightened in their effect 
 by the grossness of the injustice and the malignity of the 
 prejudices which accompanied them. At the same time, 
 real culprits, as original characters, stand forward on the 
 canvas of humanity as prominent objects for our special 
 study. They exhibit many splendid examples of the un- 
 fortunate and the guilty, and present man as he is in 
 action and principle, and not as he is usually drawn by 
 poets and speculative philosophers." 
 
 The first collection under the title of State Trials was 
 published anonymously, in 1719. It was an enterprise of 
 
 * Ten'Thousand a Year, Chap, Xlf. 
 
56 THE COMMON LAW REPOETERS. 
 
 the booksellers, who spared, they tell us, no pains or ex- 
 pense to procure whatever was valuable of the kind. 
 They had had recourse to different libraries where they 
 had intimation that there was anything worth inserting, and 
 offered large encouragements to everybody who should 
 contribute matter towards rendering their design com- 
 plete. In this way matter enough was obtained ^om a 
 great variety of unconnected sources to fill four folio 
 volumes, which, including an index, constituted the work 
 in its editio princeps. Mr. Thomas Salmon was the editor. 
 In the course of the same year, a supplemental volume 
 came forth, having the same external form as the four al- 
 ready mentioned, and containing some important ad- 
 ditional cases. 
 
 A second edition appeared in 1730, presenting a con- 
 siderable number of new cases, some earlier, many later, 
 and some interspersed, which a renewal of the induce- 
 ments originally offered by the booksellers is said to have 
 brought to light, and which were sufficiently numerous to 
 increase the work to six volumes. In this edition, which 
 continued the cases through the reign of George I., the 
 matter was arranged more chronologically than in the 
 first. 
 
 In 1735, two supplemental folios (reprinted in 1766), 
 were added to this second edition, containing many im- 
 portant civil cases, and so forming a supplement, rather 
 than a continuation of the former editions, both of which, 
 and the first one particularly, were confined to cases of a 
 criminal nature, or "State Trials," properly so called. 
 Prom the initials M. K, signed to the Preface, I suppose 
 that Mr. SoUom EmlyN, known to the profession by a 
 useful edition of Hale's Pleas of the Crown, was the 
 editor of this edition. 
 
 A third appeared in 1742, under Mr. Emlyn's care 
 eilso. It was in six volumes, differing in no respect worth 
 noting from the second, except a different paging, a some- 
 what different arrangement of certain cases, and a few 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 57 
 
 additional notes. It did not compreliend the two sup- 
 plemental folios of 1735. 
 
 "With a reprint of these two folios in 1766, called the 
 7th and 8th volumes of the State Trials, there appeared 
 two new volumes, by whom edited I am unable to dis- 
 cover, which, in point of time, though with some ante- 
 cedent trials, principally followed the former collections, 
 a-nd brought the whole down to 1760. 
 
 An edition, called the fourth, in elephant folio, of all 
 these ten volumes, was begun in 1775, and finished with 
 an eleventh in 1781. It is the one called Hargrave's State 
 Trials, though Mr, Hargrave himself took some pains to 
 disclaim an editorial responsibility. The first ten volumes, 
 he tells us, were printed literally irom the preceding 
 editions, without his ever seeing so much as one sheet of 
 them, except that one in the first which contains the title 
 and his own preface ; and that the only part of the whole 
 work besides for which he was responsible, was the pre- 
 face and supplemental cases, with some annotations upon 
 them, in the last. 
 
 Early in the present century, Mr. "William Cobbett, 
 known to the public in various ways, and, among others, 
 as having afterwards had some personal acquaintance 
 himself with State Trials in America, set on foot a new 
 edition. Although the first twelve volumes of the work 
 bear Cobbett's name upon their title, this person was 
 nothing more than the originator of the work, which is 
 generally and more justly known as Howell's State Trials. 
 It consists of thirty-three large and closely-printed octavos, 
 to which was added, as a thirty-fourth, an excellent Index, 
 by Mr. David Jardine, favorably known as the author of 
 the Criminal Trials, published in the Library of Enter- 
 taining Knowledge.' This edition contains a vast number 
 of additional cases. It details in a chronological series 
 the various cases which had appeared in the former vo- 
 
 ' 6 Clark & Finnelly, 224. ' 
 
58 THE COMMON LAjW REPORTERS. 
 
 lumes with less regard to sucli arrangement, and it has 
 the great convenience of an octavo form. Mr, Thomas 
 Bayley Howell, who was the original editor of the work, 
 lived to carry it but to the 22d volume. His health gave 
 way under the immensity of the work, which was no less 
 than seventeen years in passing through the press ; and 
 the book in its remaining twelve volumes, was completed 
 by his son, Mr. Thomas Jones Howell. This edition, 
 which has thrown all that preceded it into obsoleteness, 
 and almost into oblivion, is not likely, so far as it goes, to 
 be improved for many years ; and a continuation, which 
 now begins to be wanted, will probably be a mere pro- 
 gression of Howell. 
 
 It will hardly be expected, of course, that I should speak 
 to a certain intent in every particular, of the character 
 or authority of a book like this State Trials. It is a vast 
 work, the record of the higher criminal jurisprudence of 
 England through a term of seven hundred years ; a col- 
 lection of reports written by hundreds of different persons, 
 some of them known but little, and many of them known 
 not at all ; a compilation which did everything when it 
 secured mechanical convenience, chronological order, and 
 general access to the scarce and scattered contents — un- 
 published and unknown — of nearly every antiquarian 
 library of England. Some cases in the work, of course, 
 are good, some bad; some jejune, some most interesting: 
 some of high authority, some not law at all. I may say 
 generally, perhaps, that as to matters of constitutional his- 
 tory, scarcely any book is of higher credit ; while as to 
 matters of legal doctrine, until you come to the revolution 
 of 1688, scarcely any can be lower.* As a whole, it is well 
 enough characterized by Mr. Peere Williams,^ who, re- 
 ferring to the trial of one of the Earls of Warwick,' in a 
 case before the K. B., in 1736, cites the State Trials thus : 
 " Though the case," he says, " is not to be found reported 
 
 ' 20 Hpwell's State Trials, 682. 2 3 Peere Williams, 456-7. 
 
 ' 13 Howell's State Trials, 939. 
 
THE COMMON LAW KEPORTERS. 59 
 
 in any law book, yet it appears at large in a very useful 
 book, which I shall mention for no other purpose but to 
 direct to the .finding it in the Journal of the House of 
 Lords; and they will be allowed to be of the highest 
 authority: I mean State Trials," &c. 
 
 Besides the great work, commonly called The State 
 Trials, there have been several abridgments of them, with 
 other works of a kindred sort. One abridgment, in 
 nine volumes, 8vo. : six of them (or eight, perhaps) ap- 
 peared in 1720 ; the residue in 1731 ; the years following 
 respectively the dates of the two editions that have been 
 mentioned. " A ITew Abridgment and Critical Review 
 of the State Trials," appeared in 1737 or 1738. Both were 
 edited by Mr. Salmon, abeady named, a Jacobite gentle- 
 man of great zeal, who occasionally expresses his senti- 
 ments upon the administration of " Mr. Guelph," in a w&j 
 that shows that whatever else King George had brought 
 away from Hanover, he had left behind him some of the 
 laws which regulate its press. 
 
 JENEINS. EX., CH., AOT) JE EEROE. 
 
 4 Hen. HI.— 21 Jao. I. (1220-1623.)' 
 
 Jenkins was a contemporary of Coke, and compiled these 
 reports during the civil wars between Charles and the 
 
 ' Should the reader here and there doubt whether the dates assigned to some 
 of the early reporters are severely exact, he must remember that many of those 
 reporters arrange their cases, not chronologically (as is now usual), but accord- 
 ing to the alphabet, omitting the year ; that some, too, have no arrangement at 
 all : and that thus, after the inquirer may have read every line of their gigantic 
 tomes, he may yet remain in doubt as to the exact term embraced by the 
 volume. 
 
 A similar remark applies to the editions, and possibly to the biographical 
 notices interspersed through the tract. As to the first, I have indicated their 
 years so far as I could ascertain them ; but nothing was so common in the 
 matter of the reports as to print new titles, or make some slight alteration in an 
 impression, so as to make it difficult to say, without a minute comparison, 
 whether the edition be new, or only altered. In regard to the latter, I have, of 
 course, been unable to refer to parish records and original commissions. > 
 
60 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 Parliament. The volume, as would be conjectured from 
 the term which it embraces, is more in the nature of a 
 digest than of reports ; but it contains several cases not 
 found in any other work. The author, who was a Welsh 
 Judge, was a dauntless adherent to the king, and on this 
 account was put into the Tower and [N'ewgate, by order of 
 the Long Parliament. It was in prison that he composed 
 his book, and it is to the hard treatment which he had re- 
 ceived that he refers in the preface to them. " They were 
 written," he says, "amidst the sounds of drums and 
 trumpets," when he was "broken with old age and con- 
 finement in prisons, where his fellow-subjects, grown wild 
 with rage, had detained him for fifteen years." I^otwith- 
 standing the inconvenient chambers in which the vene- 
 rable Judge composed this memorial of his learning, it is a 
 work of admitted accuracy, and, though rather brief in the 
 style of abridgment, possesses very considerable authority? 
 and is frequently cited in the older books.^ It is usually 
 called Jenkins's Centuries ; a name which it derives from 
 the works being divided into several books, of which each 
 contains a hundred cases. 
 
 An interesting account of Judge Jenkins is given by 
 Mr. D'Israeli.' "A mighty Athlet," says this author, 
 " in the vast arena of the first English Kevolution, was 
 one of our greatest lawyers ; whose moral intrepidity ex- 
 ceeded even his profound erudition in the laws of our 
 
 constitution Judge Jenkins takes no station in the 
 
 page of our historians ; yet he is a statue which should be 
 placed in a niche." He was brought before the Parlia- 
 ment for the loyalty of his conduct, but dreading to execute 
 a man in whose learning and honesty the nation had such 
 confidence, these reformers of courtly corruption offered 
 to settle a pension upon him, if he would acknowledge 
 their authority. Jenkins treated their proposition with 
 
 • 1 Wils. 9 ; 3 Atk. 53 ; and see 5 Serg. and Eawle, 292 ; 6 Johns. 170 ; 19 
 Connect. 376. 
 'Com. on the Life and Reign of Charles the First, vol. 5, p. 110, Lend. 1831. 
 
THE COMMON LAW BEPOETEES. 61 
 
 scorn ; and when threatened with execution, defied all . 
 forms of martyrdom they could invent. " To put me to 
 death in this cause," said he, " is the greatest honor I can 
 possibly receive in this world : and for a lawyer and judge 
 to die for obedience to the laws, will be deemed by the 
 good men of this time a sweet-smelling sacrifice, and, by 
 this and future times, that I died full of years, and had an 
 honest and honorable end." "I will tell you," he con- 
 tinues, in full prospect of the event of his execution, " all 
 that I intend to do and say at that time. First ; I will eat 
 much liquorice and gingerbread to strengthen my lungs, 
 that I may extend my voice far and near. Multitudes, no 
 doubt, will come to see the old "Welsh Judge hanged. I 
 shall go with venerable Bracton's book hung on my left 
 shoulder, and the Statutes at Large on my right. I will 
 have the Bible, with a ribbon, put round my neck, hang- 
 ing on my breast All these were my civil counsel- 
 lors, and they must be hanged with me ! So, when they 
 shall see me die, affirming such things, thousands will 
 inquire into these matters ; and having found all I told 
 them to be true, they will come to loathe and detest the 
 present tyranny." 
 
 In fact, this brave old man bore himself with such suc- 
 cessful heroism, that he quite put the Parliament to bay, 
 and so effectually condemned to live "in Sinope" the 
 rebels who had condemned him to die elsewhere, that 
 after the day had been named for putting him to death, 
 one of the Parliament moved that the house should sus- 
 pend the day of execution, and in the meantime force 
 him to live in spite of his teeth.^ 
 
 Jenkins was the author of the well-known treatise. Lex 
 TerrcB, as also of other tracts written against the pro- 
 ceedings of "the rebellious Long Parliament," and which 
 are recommended as " very seasonable to be perused by 
 all such as would not be deluded by the unparaUelled pro- 
 ceedings and seditious pamphlets of this licentious and 
 
 ' See Foster's British Statesmen, p. 358; New York, 1845. 
 
62 THE COMMON LA"W REPORTERS. 
 
 ungrateful age." " They consist," says Mr. D'Israeli, " of 
 a microscopical volume, where, as if it was designed as a 
 satire on all other law books, is contained the erudition of 
 a folio." 
 
 Though so loyal a subject, Jenkins appears to have 
 been strongly animated by a love of constitutional liberly, 
 in the best and catholic sense of that word. He with- 
 stood the king in the outset. "We did, and do," says he, 
 "detest/monopolies and ship-money, and all the grievances 
 of the people, as much as any men living ; we do well 
 know that our estates, lives, and fortunes are preserved by 
 the laws, and that the king is bound by his laws." But 
 when he found that Charles was to be stripped of all his 
 rights, aiud a despotism worse than his tyranny to be 
 established by usurpers, with the same resolution, and 
 with indomitable energy, he maintained his royal master's 
 cause. He appears, withal, to have been a man of enlarged 
 policy and conciliating views. "Let not the prevailing 
 party," he writes in one place, "be obdurate. That which 
 is past is not revocable. Restore his Majesty. Receive 
 from him an act of oblivion, a general pardon, assurance 
 for the arrears of the soldiery, and meet satisfaction for 
 tender consciences."^ 
 
 Born 1586, at Hensol, Griamorganshire ; educated at Ox- 
 ford ; member of Gray's Inn ; died Dec. 6th, 1663, setat. 
 81. (Edns.— Fr. fol. 1661 ; Eng. fol. 1734, 1771-77.) 
 
 TEAR BOOKS, K. B., C. P., EX., AND ASSIZ. 
 
 1 Ed. I.— 28 Hen. VIII. (1307-1537.) Voi. I., oe Paet I. 
 1 Ed. XL— 1 Ed. III. (1307-1828.) 
 
 The cases M€|moranda Scaccarii, in the time of Ed- 
 ward I., occupy but the first forty-three pages of the 
 volume. They are. not, in any proper sense, reports, being 
 
 > Works, p. 212. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 63 
 
 mere extracts from the records of the Exchequer, They 
 run from Michaelmas, 2 Edward I., to Trinity, 29 Edward 
 I., omitting six years during that interval, and the six con- 
 cluding years. 
 
 The great improvements in the judicial arrangements 
 and administration introduced by Edward I., make it 
 worth noting, perhaps, what I learn from Mr. Foss, that 
 Keilwey reports eight cases in the 6th year of this reign, 
 Jenkins a few in the 18th and 34th ; Fitzherbert, in his 
 Abridgment, some ; and that the Abbreviatio Placitorum, 
 published in 1811, contains a valuable selection from the 
 EoUs of Pleading in the Court of King's Bench. 
 
 At what time the practice of Reporting, properly so 
 called, first began, I cannot discover. Judge Fortescue 
 Aland' supposed^ that the Doom Book, or Liber Judicialis 
 of Alfred, contained judgments given by the Saxon judges, 
 or, more likely, by the king and his counsel, and so pre- 
 sented the reports of those times. Sir John Davis,^ quoting 
 Chaucer, thinks that, " assuredly there were reports 
 digested in years and terms as ancient as the time of King 
 William the Conqueror;" while Lord Coke,'' in illus- 
 trating " the reporting of particular cases," goes back to 
 the time of " Almighty God himself," when he delivered 
 his decisions, to be reported by Moses. Sir Matthew Hale 
 speaks more sensibly of reports in the time of Edward L, 
 which he had seen; not mere extracts, it would appear, 
 from the Rolls, like the Memoranda Scaccarii, now in print, 
 as the Year Book of Ed. L, but reports of what the Judges 
 said.* Mr. Selden, it would seem, also had a copy of .Ihese 
 
 ' De quo vide post, tit. " Fortescue." " Preface to Fortescue's Reports. 
 
 ° Preface Dedicatory of liis Reports. * Preface to 6 Rep. 
 
 ' While telling us, for example, that the reports of the terms and years are 
 not continuous throughout this reign, he yet says they are " very good, but very 
 brief," adding that, " either the Judges must have spoken less, or the reporters 
 were not so ready-handed as to take all they said." Further on, he speaks of 
 " interlocutions betwreen the Judges and the pleaders." (Hist, of the Common 
 Law, 157; Dublin, 1792.) I suppose the volume of Reports of which he 
 
■64 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 reports, temp. Ed. I., wMcli, apparently, was a larger col- 
 lection than Hale's, since he cites from it as far up as to 
 page 280 a} In Calvin's case, also,^ we are told that Coke 
 " cited a ruled case out of Hengham's Eeports, Tempore 
 Ed. I., which, in his argument, he showed the court written 
 in parchment in an ancient hand of that time." The 
 contents of the case are stated by Coke, and show that it 
 was in fact a report, as distinguished from a roll. Bracton 
 also cites at least one thousand cases decided in England 
 prior to and during the time of Henry HI. (when he him- 
 self wrote), and often in a way which would lead to the be- 
 lief that he was quoting what the Judges said.' These, of 
 course, were prior to the reign of Edward I. Mr. Green, 
 who refers me to these authorities, says he supposes that 
 reporting began in the reign of Henry HI., notwithstanding 
 what is said by Sir John Davis, and by Chaucer. " Par- 
 ticular cases," he adds, " are mentioned historically, and 
 sometimes in detail, by the monkish historians ;" and there 
 are cases mentioned elsewhere,' but they are not reports, 
 any more than such notices as Horace "Walpole gives you 
 in his letters of the trials of the Scottish Lords, or of the 
 Duchess of Kingston, would be entitled to that name." 
 
 Farther than to this point it is hardly worth while to 
 trace the genealogy of our subject, involved as it is in the 
 obscurity which six centuries cast about it. For with all 
 the evidence of early reports adduced from Hale, Selden, 
 and Coke, the fact that in the early records "the reasons 
 and causes of the judgments are frequently expressed in 
 
 speaks is the same which he bequeathed to Lincoln's Inn, as " Reports Tempore 
 E. I. and E. IL one vol." 
 
 ' See hia notes to Fortesoue de Laudibus, ch. 26, u. 15; ch. 32, n. 18, where 
 we have a regular report ; to Hengham Magna, ch. 2, ii. 14 ; and to Hengham 
 Parva, ch. 6, n. 9 j all in one volume. Lond. Fol. 1737. 
 
 2 7 Rep. 9 b. 
 
 3 See lib. 2, cap. 8, fol. 26 a; lib. 3, cap. 2, fol. 125 b.; Id., cap. 12, fol. 
 128 a ; Id. cap. 13, fol. 130 b. ; lib. 4, cap. 28, fol. 207 b. ; &c. Edn. 1640. 
 
 « See 1 Reeves, 84, 85, 227, 228. 
 
 6 See Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. ii. p. 15; Phil. 1824. 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPORTERS. 65 
 
 the record,"' though the practice of so expressing them 
 ceased afterwards, involves, and must leave the whole 
 matter in doubt. Unless Mr. Eoss, who is a true genius 
 at kindling into new life the long-buried ashes of judicial 
 greatness, should solve the matter, no person, I think, in 
 these times, will ever have the curiosity to examine, the 
 eye to discover, or the ability to decide, to whom it is that 
 the Reporters of England and America owe so large an 
 arrear of centennial celebrations, for their long neglect, 
 and that the honor is due of having first led the way to that 
 mighty line, which even now seems stretching "to the 
 crack of doom !" A point much more interesting than 
 that of the origin of reports, would be whereabouts they 
 are likely to end. 
 
 When in this Year Book you come to Reports, you can- 
 not but be struck with the peculiar manner of them ; 
 quite unlike that of modern days. The report seems to 
 be almost an exact transcript of whatever was said or 
 done in court during the trial of a cause, and often ends 
 with the statement or argument of counsel (being as far as 
 the case was proceeded in during the first day), without 
 the least mention of what became of it finally. The same 
 thing happens in other volumes of the Year Books. This, 
 of course, gives to the Eeport a mutilated aspect, and an 
 air of starehness not very inviting to a modern reader !^ 
 
 This volume, usually cited as Maynard's Edward I. and 
 n., does not form pai-t of the Year Books as known in 
 the old editions, and prior to 1678. It was first printed 
 in that year by Sergeant Sir John Maynard, one of the 
 Lords Commissioners in the time of Charles II., and a well- 
 known and very learned' antiquarian lawyer of that time, 
 who collected it out of ancient MSS. 
 
 Besides the MS. from which Maynard printed, which 
 came from Lincoln's Inn, Selden, in his Dissertation upon 
 Eleta, refers to another in the Middle Temple, which he 
 
 ' See Preface to 3 Eep. ^ 2 Reeves, 358. » 10 Clark & Finnelly, 654. 
 
 6 
 
66 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 prefers and quotes. This latter contains several cases not 
 in the other, and some of these are cited by Selden to 
 show how early and how extensively many principles of 
 the civil law had been incorporated into the common law 
 of England. I suppose this to be the same MS. now in 
 Lincoln's Inn.' 
 
 I have already spoken of the Year Book of Edward I. 
 That of Edward 11. extends throughout the reign to 
 Trinity in his 19th year, 1326, excepting Michaelmas and 
 Hilary in the 16th year. Maynard states that they were 
 compiled by Eichard de "Winchedon, not otherwise, I be- 
 lieve, known to the profession. Some of the cases are in 
 the K. B., but most of them are in the C. B. The Abbre- 
 viatio Placitorum already referred to, supplies a record of 
 cases in the K. B. throughout the reign, and Jenkins gives 
 us some others in the 5th, 15th, and 18th years of it.^ 
 (Edns. 1678.) 
 
 Vol. II., OR Pabt II., 1 Ed. II.— 11 Ed. III. (1328-13S8.) 
 
 This volume, with which the Tear Books originally 
 began, is cited as the First Part of Edward HE. It con- 
 tains a continuous and well-reported series during the 
 term mentioned; after which there is a chasm till we 
 come to the next volume, a term of seven years. It ap- 
 pears, however, from the return of the Inner Temple to 
 the Commissioners appointed by Parliament some years 
 ago, to inquire into the MS. records of the kingdom, that 
 there still exists in that library, a chronicle of the judicial 
 proceedings during this interval. A MS. in that collec- 
 tion embraces exactly the deficient term ; is said to be 
 very fairly written in a coeval hand, and upon examining 
 the tenth year with the printed copy, the two appear to 
 oe so nearly alike as ' to induce the belief that the MS. for 
 that year was used in the printed edition. This unpub- 
 
 ' General Report of the Commissioners on Public Records, 1837, p. 375. 
 ' Foss, Judges of England, vol. iii. p. 209. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 67 
 
 lished MS. was quoted in tlie English Court of Exchequer 
 as late as 1841.^ (Edns. 1562, 1596e*,' with references to 
 Brooke and Fitzherbert.) 
 
 Vol. hi., ok Part III., 17 Ed. 111.-40 Ed. III. (1344-1867.) 
 
 This volume, cited as the Second Part of Edward HI., 
 contains only the following years, to wit : the 17th, 18th, 
 21st, 22d, one term of the 23d, the 24th, and so on till the 
 30th inclusive : then come in the 38th and 39th, which 
 close the book. (Edns. 1585c, 1619*, with references to 
 Brooke & Fitzherbert.) 
 
 Vol. IV., OR Parts IV. and V., 40 Ed. III. and 1 Ed. III. to 1 Ric. II. 
 (1367 and 1327-1378.) 
 
 Part rV"., cited sometimes as the Third Part of Edward 
 m., and sometimes as Quadragesms, from the year in 
 which the part begins, contains reports from the 40th to 
 the 50th Ed. m. (Edns. 1600*c.) 
 
 Part v., though it is likewise in the reign of Edward HE., 
 
 ' 8 Meeson & Welsby, 184, n. a. 
 
 ^ In 1689 the thirteen Judges of England had occasion to lament how scarce 
 the older editions of the Year Books had become in the country where they were 
 printed ; to an extent, say they, which had proved " of no small detriment" to 
 the study of the law itself It was a somewhat striking incident of a summer 
 ramble in the North, that, in 1847, far along the track of 200 years afterwards, 
 and when nearly twice as long a term as had intervened between the date 
 when the Year Books were printed and that in which the Judges complained 
 of their scarceness — I should note a copy of them in a college library of the 
 United States, the gift to it of an American merchant. In the library of Brown 
 University, Providence, Rhode Island, bound in as fragrant Russia as ever shed 
 its odors through the palace-workshop of Hayday, M'Kenzie or Riviere, may 
 be seen an edition of the Year Books, the gift of Mr. John Carter Brown, 
 made from those volumes which, in honor of their rarity, I have here de- 
 noted with a *. And in the very good library of the late Charles Chaun- 
 cey, Esq., of Philadelphia, I remember to have seen the volumes, even more 
 rare than some of those at Brown University, that are designated by the 
 letter c. 
 
68 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 is distinguished from Ms Year Book or Quadragesms, by 
 being cited as the Liber Assizarum. It contains cases in 
 every year throughout the reign, and is styled by Lord 
 Coke, a book of great authority in the law.' These two 
 parts were much preferred by the old lawyers to the .two 
 preceding volumes in this reign; they are more clear, 
 more precise ; and the cases occasionally turn upon points 
 of law, whose interest has, in some measure, survived to the 
 present day. Still the whole of Part TV. is filled with in- 
 terminable digladiations about the forms and pleadings 
 of real actions ; and now that such suits have fallen into 
 oblivion, the volunie must be regarded more as a memo- 
 rial of the subtle genius which marked the ancient plead- 
 ers than as a work of practical value. (Edns. 1561, 1606*, 
 with references to Brooke.) 
 
 That the reader may have the means of finding all 
 the evidences which remain to show how justice was ad- 
 ministered through this long and splendid reign of a mili- 
 tary king, I add, from a recent work,^ to whiMi in much 
 that I say about the Year Books, I am indebted, a record of 
 the few other places in which its jurisprudence is reported. 
 Jenkins reports several cases in most of the years up to 
 the 47th ; omitting, however, those of fourteen of those 
 years, viz., 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 16th, 18th, 
 25th, 31st, 32d, 37,th, and 38th. To Keilwey's Reports of 
 the times of Heniy YII., Henry VIII., and Elizabeth, are 
 added fifty-five cases in Itinere of this reign, which were 
 dated between the 1st and 47th years. Benloe reports a 
 case in the 32d year, before the Justices of Assize in 
 Suffolk; and the State Trials contain the proceedings 
 against Roger Mortimer, Earl of March ; Thomas de 
 Berkele ; and John de Stratford, Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury ; principally extracted from the EoUs of Parliament. 
 
 Here, if the continuity of external form were not broken 
 in upon by giving place to the order of time, would come 
 in what is sometimes called The Year Book of King 
 
 ' 1st Institute, 198 b. 
 
 ' The Judges of England, by Foss, vol. iii. p. 388, 389. 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPORTERS. 69 
 
 Ricliard 11. ; the work hereafter mentioned, and more 
 commonly known under the style of Bellewe's Cases 
 Temp. Richard.* "With cases decided in the 2d, 6th, 7th, 
 8th, 12th,' 13th, 21st, and 22d years, and reported in Jen- 
 kins's Second Century, I believe that that book gives us 
 all the printed cases in the time of Richard 11. 
 
 Vol. v., ok Pakt VI., 1 Hen. IV.— 1 Hen. VI. (1399-1423.) 
 
 The Year Book of Henry IV. is complete so far as 
 years are concerned, but very defective as to terms ; no 
 less than twenty out of forty-four being omitted. In one 
 of those that are preserved we have^ the well-known case 
 of the Eival Grammar Schools ; often cited, even at this 
 day,^ to illustrate the damnum absque injuria, and to show 
 an apparent exception to the rule of law that a remedy 
 exists for every wrong. The case is interesting ; and the 
 reader may be entertained by an exhibition of it. Two 
 monks of the Priory of Lantone, in Grloucestershire, it ap- 
 pears, had kept the Grammar School in that town, the 
 matter of education being, as their counsel seemed to 
 argue, " une chose espirituel," or affair of the Church ; and 
 it having belonged to that Priory " de temps dont memory 
 ne court," &c., " d'aver le governance des dits esoholers et 
 d'enformer les enfans et autres." Of later times, however, 
 as we learn, " Un autre master, le defendant, levy un eseole 
 en meme le ville per quod I'ou les plaintiffs soloient prendre 
 d'un enfant per le quarter 4tOd., or ils ne pr eigne forsque 
 12d.; ad damnum," &c. Till, who, with Horton, was ap- 
 parently the counsel of the new master, demurred. " Son 
 breve," h^ says, "ne vaut rien." But Skrene, the counsel 
 of the Priory, replies : " II est ban action sur le case et les 
 plaintiffs ont ore monstra comment ils sont en damage." 
 Hankford, one of the Judges, says to this : " Damnum 
 puist estre absque injuria ; comme si jay un molyn et mon 
 vieine leve un autre molyn, per ont le profit de monmolyn est 
 
 ' See post, under that title. ^ 12th year ; fol. 47 a. 
 
 " 1 Smith's Leading Cases, 131 c. 
 
70 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 diminish, javer nul action vers lui, uncore il est damage a 
 moi." And Thirwitt, another of the Judges, agrees with 
 him ; and apparently answering a suggestion, " que enfor- 
 macion des enfans est chose espirituel," and so belonged to the 
 Priory, says, " Si homme reteign un master in son meason 
 d'enformer les enfans, il sera damnum al common master del 
 ville ; uncor jeo croy que il n'aver un action." Skrene, the 
 counsel of the Priory (mentioning the curious historical 
 fact, that "Le masters de St. Paul's claime q'uil ne sera 
 autres masters en tout le City de Londres forsque eux"), still 
 contends that whereas the Masters of the Priory of Lan- 
 tone had shown their title, and had shown wherein they 
 were damaged, to wit, in that the new master had taken 
 away their scholars and forced them to teach for 12d. in- 
 stead of 40<?. a quarter, they were entitled to judgment. 
 His opponent, Hill, opens the ground of the demurrer, 
 urging that the plaintiffs show no estate, but simply " un 
 ministry pur le tempi," and he asks, when another master 
 " qui est aussi apris de faculty, comme les plaintiffs, vient 
 pour enformer les enfans ;" which he says is a " vertuous et 
 charitable chose et ease al people ;" and* which cannot be 
 punished "per notre ley ;" how can the new master be 
 prevented ? The court thought that he could not be pre- 
 vented at all. "Thirwitt, J., indeed, appears somewhat 
 disposed to avoid the main question, and suggests that if 
 the Priory claims the keeping of the school because the 
 "enformacion des enfants esicAosespiVziMeZ," then the matter 
 is perhaps not cognizable in the Court of Common Pleas ; 
 but Hankford, J. (responding to a suggestion of the Pri- 
 ory's counsel, that if a man owning a market, and another 
 market was raised to the nuisance of the old market, an 
 assize would lie ; or that if the customers of this last, in 
 coming to it, were beaten, by which its profits were dimi- 
 nished, an action on the case would be maintainable) goes 
 to the root of the matter. He replies, that in the cases 
 above put, the party has a freehold of inheritance in the 
 market, " Mes ici les plaintiffs ont nul estate en le scholemas- 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPORTEES. 71 
 
 tership mes pur le temps non certain." He adds, " II sera 
 encounter reason que un master sera disturb a tenir schole 
 on luy pleist, sinonque le fait en case un university fuit cor- 
 porate et eschole foiindre sur auncient temps ;" and concludes 
 with his old illustration : " en cas d'un molyn {commejeo disoy 
 avant) si mon vicine levy un molyn, autres que soloient moul- 
 der a mon molyn, aient a T autre molyn, peront mon toln est 
 amenus, pur eel cause jeo navera mon action." The Repor- 
 ter concludes, " Et V opinion del court fuit que le hrief ne 
 gist pas." 
 
 We can readily conceive what a talk the " interloper," 
 who took half their scholars away and reduced the quarter 
 bills of the rest so cruelly, must have made about four 
 hundred and fifty years ago among the monks of Lantone, 
 as they walked about the cloisfers of their Priory; and 
 vsdth what eagerness the little children of the hamlet 
 round about waited to know whether they were to go to 
 school any more to the " new schoolmaster." (Edns. 1562, 
 1575.) 
 
 In the Year Book of Henry V. we find that notwith- 
 standing this reign was so glorious in military conquest, 
 England was still devoted to the furtherance of her inter- 
 nal trade. We have in this book^ a suit on a bond by 
 which some man had bound himself generially not to ex- 
 ercise his business ; the court decided, that as imposing 
 a general restraint it was void. Mr. Justice Hall seems 
 to have considered the taking of such a bond as a great 
 offence, and exclaims : " L' obligation' est voide en que le con- 
 ditione encounter common ley ; et per Dieu si le plaintiff fuit 
 id il irra al prison tanq il ust fait fine au roy." 
 
 The Year Book of Henry V. wants the 3d, 4th, 6th, and 
 10th years, two terms in the 2d and 8th years, and three 
 terms in the 5th year. The 7th year is not divided into 
 terms. 
 
 Both parts, in style and also in the subjects, are said to 
 
 ' 2 Smith's Leading Cases, 182. 
 
72 THE COMMON LAV REPORTERS. 
 
 be more interesting than any of the preceding books ; but 
 in point of judicial learning, were thought by Sir Matthew 
 Hale not to arrive near the perfection of those in the last 
 twelve years of Edward m.* It is probable, however, 
 notwithstanding this and all the taste with which I may 
 have inspired them by my copious extracts, that the ma- 
 jority of readers in this day will be, content to take their 
 knowledge of the judicial administrations in these reigns 
 (or in that of King Henry IV"., at least), from the same 
 source as the great Duke of Marlborough is said to have 
 got all that he knew of the military history of England 
 during the same period, — ^the plays of William Shakspeare.^ 
 Jenkins^ reports several cases throughout the reign of 
 Henry IV., the 4th, 5th, 12th, and 13th years only being 
 omitted. He gives us alsb some cases in 1st, 4th, 9th, and 
 10th years of Henry V. (Edns. 1563, 1570 ; both Year 
 Books were reprinted in 1605.) 
 
 ' 3 Reeves, 254. 
 
 2 " In what history did your Grace find that incident ?" said Burnet to the 
 Duke of Marlborough, on hearing him quote some anecdote concerning the 
 wars of Yorlt and Lancaster, which was new to the Bishop. " In Shakspeare's 
 Plays," answered the Victor of Blenheim ; " the only history of those times I 
 ever read." (Sir Walter Scott, Crit. and Mis. Essays, yol. iii. p. 13.) It would 
 appear, by the way, that personages more germane to onr matter than either 
 Jacques' banished duke, or he of Marlborough, have been willing to find, if not 
 " sermons in stones," yet " good in everything." When Mr. Douglass opened his 
 new theatre in Philadelphia, in 1754, so profane a novelty caused great ofience 
 to the respectable Society of Friends, by whom the province was then largely 
 populated ; and a deputation of preachers was sent to William Allen, Chief 
 Justice of Pennsylvania, with a petition for the prohibition of sucli indecencies, 
 and the expulsion from the city of such as exhibited them. His honor rejected 
 the petition ; and with less of courtliness, one would think, than need have 
 marked a high functionary of the crown, informed the deputation " that he had 
 learned more moral virtue from plays than from sermons." (Dunlap, Hist. 
 Am. Theat. p. 21.) With so early a precedent, it is not, perhaps, surprising, 
 that the ablest of Allen's successors, should, in our own day, vouch Sir John 
 Falstaff as authority on a point of law. See Riddle v. Weldon (5 Whart. 9), 
 where Chief Justice Gibson, delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court of 
 Pennsylvania on the rights of a lodger to exemption from distress, says, that 
 Poins's friend speaks with " legal precision," when he demands : " Can I not 
 take mine ease in mine inn ?" 
 
 ' 2d Century. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 73 
 
 VOIS. VI. AND VII., OB PaETS VII. AND VIII. 1 HeN. VI.— 1 Ed. IV. 
 
 (1423-1462.) 
 
 The Year Book of Henry VI. is divided, it will be seen', 
 into two parts, the first ending with his 20th year. From 
 the aQcession of Henry VI., it is said that the Year Books 
 begin to be more suited to the taste of modern readers ; 
 though, if some of them will read a few pages in this 
 volume of the series, they will be at a loss to understand 
 what sort of antiquity marks the earlier ones. The state- 
 ment of the case, antiquaries tell us, is more fall; questions 
 of law are more thoroughly discussed, and the opinions of 
 the Judges are given more at large. (Edns. 1587, 1601 (of 
 vol. n.), 1609 (of vol. I.)) 
 
 The Second Part of Henry VI. used to be particularly 
 esteemed, and, along with the last part of Edward IH., 
 the Book of Assizes of Edward IV. and Henry VH., was 
 recommended by Sir Matthew Hale, in 1668, as the most 
 useful part of the Year Books, and such as the student 
 might " single out for his ordinary constant reading !'" 
 The style of this volume, like that of most of the Year 
 Books, is still very quaint, and we find counsel responding^ 
 to one of the Judges, who was putting a case to him from 
 the bench about making a view in assize : " En le nom de 
 Dieu, Sir, comment pott le vieu estre fait en ce casf" The 
 series of Henry VI. is incomplete ; the 5th, 6th, 13th, 15th, 
 16th, 17th, 22d to the 26th, and the 29th years, with some 
 terms in the 1st, 8th, 10th, 12th, and 14th, and Easter 
 Term in the 32d year, being wanting. Besides the cases 
 in the Year Book, a few cases in this reign are found in 
 Benloe and Dallison, and some in the 3d Century of Jen- 
 kins. The cases in the short restoration of this monarch, 
 1470-1, are found in the Year Book of his successor, be- 
 tween the 10th and 11th years of that reign. (Edns. 
 1567, 1601, with references to Brooke and Eitzherbert.) 
 
 ' Hale's Preface to Rolle's Abridgment 
 
 2 y. B. 22nd, Hen. VI. p. 11, about the middle of the page. 
 
74 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 Vols. VIII. and IX., oe Parts IX. and X. 1 Ed. IV.— 1 Ed. V. (1462-1484.) 
 
 Part I. is cited as the Year Book of Edward IV., and 
 sometimes as "Annals" during his reign. It extends 
 throughout the reign, and includes, between the 10th and 
 11th years, the cases heard during the restoration of Henry 
 VI., in 1470. Several terms are omitted, but no whole 
 year. (Edns. 1599 and 1640, with references to Brooke, 
 and other books.) 
 
 Part n., though it is likewise in his reign, is called The 
 Long Quint, being confined to cases heard in the fifth 
 year of this reign. (Edns. 1587, 1638, with references to 
 Brooke.) Both parts, particularly the last, are said by Mr. 
 Reeves to be " full of excellent learning."' In the Year 
 Book of 1 Edward IV.,^ says Mr. Green, we find the re- 
 porter, after a case upon the subject of pleading, addressing 
 his reader: '^^ Quaere bene de cest pleding, monfils;" an ap- 
 pellation very common in Littleton, and which Lord Coke 
 supposes to apply to a son de son corps engendr6. 
 
 Vol. X., OK Part XI., 1 Ed. V.— 28 Hen. VIII. (1484-1537.) 
 
 This volume presents only an interrupted series, con- 
 taining the three months of Edward V., two Michaelmas 
 terms, the 1st and 2nd of Richard m., the 1st to the 
 21st years of Henry VH., omitting the 17th, 18th, and 
 19th years ; while the only years of Henry V III, are the 
 12th, 13th, 14th, 18th, 19th, 26th, and 27th. 
 
 Edward reigned but two months and sixteen days ; and 
 eight pages of this Year Book, containing fourteen cases, 
 in Trinity Term, are devoted to the cases decided in this 
 brief term. One of these reports is of a Chancery case, 
 heard before the Bishop of Lincoln, Chancellor, on the 
 28d of June, 1483, and adjourned till the 25th, " on which 
 day," the Report continues, "Richard Plantagenet, brother 
 
 ' Vol. iv. p. 1 12. ' Page 3, 17fh line from bottom. 
 
THE COMMON LATV REPORTERS. 75 
 
 of King Edward IV., late King of England, Duke of 
 Gloucester, Protector of England during the tender age 
 of King Edward V., claimed to be King of England, and 
 on the same day proclaimed the day of his coronation, by 
 force of which all the King's Courts were discontinued," 
 
 Richard HI. seems to have taken a minute personal 
 participation in the administration of his justice. His 
 Year Book reports a case* in which he is found conferring 
 in person with his Judges, on three questions of law, all 
 of them, it is curious to observe, relating to the abuse of 
 judicial process, or the falsification of judicial records. 
 The case is interesting every way ; and it is most interest- 
 ing as showing, even in the reign of Eichard m., and 
 before "the iron times of the Tudors," how pure and in- 
 dependent was the administration of English justice! 
 The Judges resolve all the King's questions with intelli- 
 gence and candor ; but they all agree and declare that they 
 alone shall render any legal judgment on them, et non 
 Dominus Hex per se in camera sua, nee aliter coram se, nisi 
 perjusticios suos : Ht hcec est voluntas Regis, viz. : per justicios 
 suos et legem suam, unum est dicere. (Edns. 1619, 1620, 
 with reference to Brooke, and preceding Year Books.) 
 
 It is observed that in the Year Book of Henry VII., we 
 find the Judges and counsel sometimes quoting cases, and 
 that Bracton is referred to. The Year Book of Henry 
 VHI., particularly after the 12th year of that king, is said 
 to be inferior to any of the Year Books which precede it, 
 a fact which is attributed to the very sufficient cause, that 
 the stipend which had been paid in former reigns was 
 dropped in the time of Henry VHI. 
 
 The reader who often opens the later editions of the 
 Year Books, and of the Abridgments of Brooke and Fitz- 
 herbert, has noted, of course, the constant references from 
 the Year Books to the Abridgments, and vice versd. They 
 almost form supplements to each other ; and some of the 
 
 » 2d Richard III. p. 9, case 22. 
 
76 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 cases which, appear in the Tear Books with an ad- 
 journatur merely, are reported in full in the Abridgments. 
 It has been supposed that -the authors of these early 
 Abridgments had access to the records, from which they 
 perfected their reports.' 
 
 When the Year Books were reprinted, in 1678, they 
 were recommended by Lord Nottingham, and the other 
 Judges, " to the students and professors of the law, as a 
 principal and essential part of their study;" but so com- 
 pletely have they been swept into wreck by the tide of 
 time, that, in 1809,^ when Sergeant "Williams cited a case 
 from 7th Edward m., Mansfield, C. J., told the Sergeant 
 that it was "a great way to go back for a precedent;" 
 while Mr. Justice Heath irreverently exclaimed : " Come 
 to modern precedents, — something within three hundred 
 years !" Lord Chief Justice Gibbs, also, is reported by 
 Lord Lyndhurst to have said that " he could get authorities 
 in the Year Books for any side in anything."^ The Judges 
 of the King's Bench, it should, however, be added, seem to 
 regard them more dutifully ; for some years afterwards,* a 
 precedent was quoted from this same reign, and, being in 
 point, ruled the case. In 1839,* too. Chief Justice Tindal 
 spoke of a case cited by Mr. Cresswell, from Y. B. 18 
 Edward IV"., as "very direct and satisfactory." In the 
 recent case already referred to {ante, p. 44), of Lumley v. 
 Gye, in the Queen's Bench, so lately as 1853, they were 
 cited profusely, and much at length, and, in my opinion, 
 with the utmost pertinence, by Coleridge, J., upon a 
 question relating to the engagement of an opera singer in 
 the Queen's Theatre, in London. Even in America, as 
 lately as 1847, Chief Justice Gribson, of Pennsylvania, 
 speaks^ of a confusion in the law which " ought to have 
 
 ' 3 Ves. Jr. 656. « 2 Taunt. 201. 
 
 ' 11 Clark & Finnelly, 427-441. . " 1 Barn. & Cresswell, 415. 
 
 6 10 Adolph. & Ellis, 783 ; and see in the C. P., 2 Brod. & Bing. 469, and 4 
 Bing. 564. 
 
 ' 7 Pennsylvania State, 331. 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPOETERS. 77 
 
 sent tlie profession to the Year Books, for tlie original 
 cases to which references were given," and in which they 
 would find that the matter" had " merely floated in the 
 professional brain without an adjudged case to support it, 
 or anything better than the oliter dictum of a very dis- 
 tinguished Chief Justice, who took it as he found it set 
 down in the digests and text-books." 
 
 It is well known that among the MSS. of Lincoln's Inn, 
 the Middle and Inner Temples, the University College, 
 Cambridge, and other English collections, there are many 
 volumes of yet unpublished reports. It is to such MSS., 
 probably, that Coke refers when citing Hingham's* and 
 Spelman's reports f and the annotators of Dyer, when 
 quoting Tanfield, Warberton (quoted also in Lutwych, 
 61, 66, 132, 134, 137, 139, 286, &c.). Harper, Turner, Ean- 
 dal, Mason, Rhodes (quoted also in Cro. Eliz. 399), and 
 other reports, now among the MSS. of Lincoln's Inn, not 
 known to exist in print.^ A considerable number of these 
 MSS. have belonged to eminent lawyers, by whom they 
 were regarded with high professional pride. Sergeant 
 Maynard had an enormous collection of them, now in Lin- 
 coln's Inn, as are also those of Sir Matthew Hale, John Cox, 
 and George Hill, Esquires. Sir Matthew, in bequeathing 
 his to the Inn, speaks of them in terms of the greatest es- 
 timation. Lord Eedesdale's collection was also very good, 
 and is referred to with satisfaction by the Earl of Eldon,"* 
 in the House of Peers. These various MSS. have been 
 
 ' 7 Rep. 9 b. 
 
 2 2 Inst. 49, 50, case of Anne Boleyn; 3 Inst. 17, 121, 126; Spelman's Re- 
 ports are quoted in 2 Brownlow, 35. 
 
 ' In 12 Viner's Abridg. 127, (Jones v. Say), there is a reference to Wiseman's 
 Reports ; in Styles, 301, to Godfrey's Reports ; in Hargrave and Butler's Coke 
 Littleton, 290 a, to Egerton's Reports ; in the same work, 15 a, to Glyn's Re- 
 ports; in 1 Salk. 136, to Widdrington; in Cro. Eliz. 753, and also in PoUexfen 
 65, to Justice Windham's Reports. I have likewise, somewhere, seen a re- 
 ference to Hyde's Reports. There are also among the MSS. of Lincoln's Inn, 
 ' Reports by Chibburn, by Burnett, by Cheke, and al. See Appendix for a fur- 
 ther account of the various MS. Reports in England. 
 
 « 1 Bligh,N. S. 539, S. C. 1 Dow and Clark (1 Dow N. S.), 11. 
 
78 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 from time to time the subjects of Parliamentary commis- 
 sions, and have been careMly examined, collated, and ar- 
 ranged by eminent lawyers, under direction of the several 
 Inns of Court, Universities, and other public institutions 
 which own the collections ; and it is said that nearly all the 
 chasms, and most of the imperfections, existing in the early 
 reports, can be supplied by them.* The commissioners have 
 strongly recommended a new and complete edition of the 
 Year Books; and, should the original text be accompanied 
 with a good translation, the folio reduced to the octavo size, 
 the Gothic supplied by the Roman letter, the whole enlight- 
 ened by a full and well-dig€feted index, and, finally, pre- 
 sented upon clean white paper, so as to have the advan- 
 tages of a modern style, we may safely say they would, 
 without doubt, be exceedingly interesting. Unlike most 
 of the reports which succeeded, the Year Books, it is well 
 known, possess the highest authenticity. To the profes- 
 sion they are the ^entis incunabula nostrce ; while to the 
 man of literary and historical tastes, they would give a 
 graphic, minute, and very authentic portrait of English 
 life, customs, and manners. It is in this point of view, 
 probably, that they would be of most value. But as it is, 
 even the best edition is printed so closely, and in such 
 elephantine 'form ; so many of the court-hand abbrevia- 
 tions retained ; so little separation into paragraphs, or dis- 
 tinction between what is said by the Bench, and what at 
 the Bar, that they are nearly unintelligible to any person 
 not a legal antiquary. And taken with the fact that much 
 of their learning has long since passed, with the persons 
 who possessed it, to the land where all things are for- 
 gotten, it is not probable that in their present form they 
 
 ■ Thus, with njany minor chasms, the whole of Edward I., except the few 
 Exchequer cases, is wanting: also, in Edward III., anno 11 to 16, 19, 20, 31 
 to 37. The whole of Richard II. Of Hen. V., the 3d, 4th, and 6th years. Of 
 Hen. VI., the 5th, 6th, 13th, 15th, 16th, 17th. Of Hen. VII., the 17th, 18th, 
 and 19th. These same sorts of chasms occur in many of the subsequent re- 
 porters ; so frequently, indeed, and so irregularly, that they are seldom men- 
 tioned in the present tract. 
 
THE COMMON LA"W REPORTERS. 79 
 
 will again be read, though, of course, they will always be 
 occasionally referred to. I have already said that one dif- 
 ficulty with persons not acquainted with these volumes, is 
 the confused way in which the observations of the court 
 are mingled with the arguments of counsel. All parties 
 seem to be constantly interrupting each other, in the most 
 " disputatious and all-togethery" style, and the reader is 
 •puzzled to say who is judge and who counsel. The 
 same manner is found in other old reports. A small 
 work, entitled Gibbs's Judicial Chronicle, 8vo., Camb., 
 Mass., 1834, pp. 55, in which the author, a gentleman of 
 our country, acknowledging his obligation to Dugdale, 
 has arranged in chronological order, the names of the 
 Judges, the stations which they filled, the date of their 
 entrance and exit, and by what reports their decisions are 
 embraced, is of much use in putting this matter into right 
 order. (Edns. : I have never been able to find more than 
 one complete fedition of the Year Books, prior to the great 
 one now used, and printed by subscription from 1678 to 
 1680 ; though it is certain that particular volumes of theiii 
 have been printed more than once. I have given them as 
 I find them given by Dugdale,' or have seen them myself. 
 The only edition now much known, or that anybody but 
 an antiquary of antiquaries-— who would go "beyond 
 beyond," — ^would care to possess, is the one already re- 
 ferred to, — ^that of Sergeant Maynard, — ^which begins with 
 Edward I., and appeared in 1678-80. The tables are more 
 complete and full than in any of the earlier forms of these 
 curious records. All these editions are in Norman 
 French.) 
 
 BELLEWE'S CASES T. EIC. K. B., C. P. 
 
 1 Rio. II.— 23 Ric. II. (1378-1400.) 
 
 This book must not be confounded with another, some- 
 times cited as Bellewe's Cases, Temp. Ren. VIII., ^e., and 
 
 ' Orig. Jur. p. 58, &c. 
 
80 THE COMMON LAV EEPOETEES. 
 
 described further on under the title of New Cases, 
 Petit Brooke, or Little Brooke, K placed in its chro- 
 nological order, the present volume would follow the Year 
 Books of Edward IH. It supplies exactly the chasm now 
 existing between the 3d part of those Year Books, and 
 the Year Book Henry IV.,^ and is therefore sometimes 
 cited as the Year Book of King Eichard 11.^ Bellewe is a 
 mere alphabetical abridgment. Matthew Hale, in speals* 
 ing of the reports of Richard H., says :^ "We have no 
 printed continued reports of this king's reign ; but I have 
 seen the entire years and terms thereof in a manuscript, 
 out of which, or some other copy thereof, I suppose Fitz- 
 herbert abstracted those broken cases of this reign in his 
 abridgment." 
 
 Bellewe's Cases T. Eic. H. is very rare, Mr. Green, 
 whose collection of Eeporters is complete, has a copy, the 
 only one I ever saw, except the copy that I have myself. 
 The title is, "Les ans du Hoy Ricard le Second, collect ' en 
 semlV hors de lea Abridgments de Statham, Fitzherhert et 
 Brooke, per Richard Bellewe de Lincoln's Inn, 1585." 
 
 BEKLOE ; DALLISON. C. P. 
 
 IHen.VII.— 22-Eliz. (1486-1580.) 
 
 Besides these cases, Benloe contains one or two earlier 
 reports. The editor was John Rowe, a faithful and intel- 
 ligent Sergeant of the Middle Temple, who took conside- 
 rable pains to collate and veriiy the MSS. of his author's 
 reports, and who possesses more than a professional title 
 to our interest, since he was father to that Eowe, who 
 wrote Jane Shore and The Fair Penitent. Dr. Johnson 
 remarks," to the praise of his independence, that in oppo- 
 sition to the notions diligently propagated in his time, of 
 
 ' See ante, p. 68. ^ Dugdale's Orig. Jur. p. 58. 
 
 * History of the Common Law, 175. Dublin, 1792. 
 
 * Works, X. p. 60. Lond. 1806. Life of Rowe. 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPOETERS. 81 
 
 the dispensing power, he ventured to remark how low his 
 reporters had rated the prerogative. 
 
 Though published under a joint name, there is no con- 
 nection that I am aware of between the reports of Benloe 
 and those of Dallison, except that they were both edited 
 by Mr. Rowe, have a common preface, and are both usu- 
 ally bound in the same volume. Each volume is com- 
 plete in itself, begins with its own paging, and is usually 
 quoted by itself ; Benloe's part as Old Benloe. The au- 
 thor's mode of reporting, as stated by Mr. Eowe, is a 
 sufficient voucher for its accuracy; his practice, it is said, 
 having been to note upon the record a short statement of 
 the point in question, and the judgment given thereon. 
 Their authority is a matter of which their reputable editor 
 speaks as a thing well known in his day, and about which 
 he thinks that it were " impertinent to say anything after 
 they have been so long received and incorporated into the 
 body of the law as there has been occasion to use them." 
 Benloe's part of this volume is sometimes cited as ISew 
 Benloe ; especially in some of the editions of Coke's Re- 
 ports. This is a mistake. I^ew Benloe is a book men- 
 tioned farther on. The confusion has probably arisen 
 from the fact, that the present volume was printed in 
 1689, and of course, after the other Benloe, which was 
 printed in 1661. But this last volume had acquired the 
 title of Ifew Benloe prior to 1689, probably to distinguish 
 it from the cases of Benloe in the work next named, and 
 extant as early as 1602.* There is a vacancy in the paging 
 of Benloe from p. 161 to p. 176, both inclusive. 
 
 In regard to Dallison's Reports, Mr. Rowe states, that 
 he had taken more particular heed about them on account 
 of a reflection which seems to be cast upon them by Sir 
 Harbottle Grimstone, who quotes an inquiry which Lord 
 Hobart had made when Sergeant Henden, in 1631, cited 
 certain reports of Dallison, " demanding of the Sergeant 
 by what authority those reports of Dallison's came in 
 
 ' Bridgman's Leg. Bib. 17. 
 
82 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 print." The book to which Hohart refers was, of course, 
 not this one (which was not in print at all till more than 
 a half century afterwards, when published by Mr. Eowe), 
 but, as Winch, who originally reports the inquiry,' men- 
 tions, the Reports of Dallison, printed at the end of Ashe's 
 Tables, and the same next referred to^ as likewise ap- 
 pended to Keilwey. Mr. Rowe mentions, at all events, 
 that the cases cited before Lord Hobart as Justice Dalli- 
 son's are not found in this, the Judge's more authentic 
 work. Sergeant Henden may perhaps not have meant, 
 himself, to vouch for the genuineness of the book he 
 quoted : he need not have done so, for he quoted but in 
 opposition to a citation made by his brother Harvey, who 
 vouched, " as authority, a note which he said he had seen 
 in Justice Manwood's study. "^ 
 
 Even of the reports published as Dallison's, by Rowe, 
 the editor calls our attention to the fact that Dallison 
 could not have reported them all, and refers to a case in 
 Gouldsborough,'' 43 Eliz., where, when Coke, A. G., "cited 
 a case which he said was in Dallison's Reports, 9 Eliz.," 
 Godfrey denied it, for that "Justice Dallison was dead 
 long before 9 Eliz."" If Coke had studied the Bible as 
 carefully as his spiritual pastor and master. Archbishop 
 Whitgift, once recommended him to do one part of it, he 
 might have retorted upon the reverend Judge the case of 
 the Pentateuch, in which, as is known, the grave lawgiver, 
 Moses, records his own death, and several posthumous 
 occurrences, in the fall course of Ms narrative.*^ Com- 
 mentators explain the matter by the suggestion, which 
 will account for the same thing, more than once occurring 
 in the Reporters, that the book is substantially genuine ; 
 but that those subsequent parts, which are inconsistent 
 
 ' Winch, 4a. ^ See post, tit. Keilwey. 
 
 Winch, 42. •• Page 153. 
 
 ^ It appears, however, that the judgment in the case in Gouldsborough, was 
 in conformity with the case vouched by Coke as from Dallison's Reports. 
 ^ Deuteronomy, xxxiv. 5. 
 
THE COMMON LAW RKPORTERS. 83 
 
 with a unity of au]tliorsliip, liave been added by some 
 other person who completed what, from death or other 
 cause, the author had left unfinished. In the case of our 
 Reporter, I should incline to suppose the work essentially 
 Dallison's, since Lambard, an accurate and intelligent an- 
 tiquary and lawyer,' quotes, as early as the year 1570, as 
 his, what Mr. Eowe states is verified by the book now 
 printed. The date of Lambard's quotation must have 
 been soon after the most of the reports were made. And 
 Coke, notwithstanding what he had been told fi-om the 
 bench, by Justice Godfrey, cites it in at least three cases 
 afterwards, as Dallison's,^ and as conclusive against Stam- 
 ford's Pleas of the Crown, itself an authority of weight. 
 Edns. Fr. Folio, 1689. 
 
 ' Perambulation of Kent, 398, ed. of 1576. 
 
 ^ 3 Inst. 61, 73, 109. In the Girard College Case, one of the counsel, whose 
 great research into the old books, struck me as much, perhaps, as anything 
 which characterized his fine argument, observed, that after looking, he had not 
 yet been able to find a case for which he had been referred to Dallison ; and 
 I have very seldom known any one who was not confused by references to 
 that reporter. In fact both Benloe, and Benloe and Dallison, are unwelcome 
 referees to the profession generally, and very difficult to be either found or 
 consulted. I will, therefore, remark, by way of restoring order to their con- 
 fusedness, that there is, 
 
 1. Benloe and Dallison, the present work. 
 
 2. Benloe and Dallison, as I suppose, differing from the 1st, though cited 
 exactly like it, as " Benloe and Dallison," only with " placets" instead of pages. 
 In regard to this I must explain. I have already remarked that before Mr. 
 Rowe's edition of Benloe and Dallison was published, certain cases of these 
 two reporters were printed at the end of Ashe's Tables, and in the same form 
 at the end of Keilwey. In the former they appear without any paging, and 
 with the word " Appendix" awkwardly fixed on the title. The probability is 
 that these same cases were also bound in a thin volume by themselves ; the 
 word " Appendix" being taken away. In Style's Reports, printed as early as 
 1658, 1 find at p. 423 a reference to " Dallison's Rep. 32," as if published by 
 itself. 
 
 3. Benloe and Dallison in Ashe ; i. e. at the end of Ashe's Tables. 
 
 i. Benloe and Dallison in Keil ; i. e. at the end of Keilwey's Reports. 
 
 5. Old Benloe, sometimes cited as New Benloe. 
 
 6. New Benloe, sometimes cited as Old Benloe. 
 
 7. In addition to these sufficient causes of confusion, it is to be remembered 
 that in no one of the forms of Benloe and Dallison, are the cases of the two 
 
84 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 KEILWEY. K B.,' 0. P. 
 
 12 Hek. VII.— 22 Hen. VIII. (1496-1531.) 
 
 TMs volume records many decisions in these reigns, not 
 printed in any prior reports, and contains, in addition, 
 some cases incerti temporis, and some temp. Ijd. III. 
 
 Appended to the 2d and 3d editions only, as I suppose, 
 are some cases by Judge Dallison and Sergeant Benloe, 
 being the same already referred to, that are in Ashe's 
 Tables,* and on which Lord Hobart cast suspicion, by de- 
 Reporters blended, but that both are kept distinct : in Mr. Rowe's edition with 
 new and separate paging for each Reporter ; in Ashe's Tables, with no paging 
 at all I and in Keilwey, with paging merely consecutive to the principal work. 
 Benloe's cases, in each form of Benloe and Dallison, are, therefore, by persons 
 who cite untechnically, simply cited as " Benloe ;" in which same way, by the 
 same class of persons, " New Benloe," an entirely distinct work, is also cited. 
 So that a reference to these books, unless it be made very technically, and is 
 moreover, fortunate enough to meet with a very technical reader, is almost 
 sure to be regarded as a false reference. 
 
 The usual form of technical citation is, 1, " Benloe and Dal.," or sepa- 
 rately " Benloe," or Old " Benloe ;" " Dallison ;" by which reference is com- 
 monly meant to be made to Mr. Rowe's edition of those Reporters; but even 
 when this edition is referred to, if the citation to the Reporters be jointly, you 
 must look both into Benloe and into Dallison to be sure you have followed the 
 reference ; for the paging, as I have said, is new for each Reporter, and the 
 reference may be either to Benloe or to Dallison. 
 
 2. "Benloe in Ashe," or "Dallison in Ashe;" concerning which see post, tit. 
 
 3. " Benloe in Keil," or " Dallison in Keil ;" concerning which see post, tit. 
 
 4. " Old Benloe," being the Benloe in " Benloe and Dal.," and concerning 
 which see the present title, Benloe and Dallison. 
 
 5. " New Benloe," a work no way connected with Dallison, and concerning 
 which see post tit. " New Benloe." 
 
 Is my reader in any way enlightened by this painful ex,egesis 1 
 • The .cases of Benloe and Dallison first appeared, it is suggested to me by 
 Mr. Green, in Ashe's Rvi imuh, or Tables, published in 1609. Ashe, in this 
 table, refers to these cases as being in the end of it, where he prints them. 
 He would have hardly so referred to them, nor so printed them, had they been 
 in print already. From Ashe's Tables they appear to have been transferred, 
 with scarce any alteration, into the end of Keilwey. That the cases in one 
 were taken from those in the other, is proved by the fact, I. That the cases 
 are the same in both, not excepting two that were rejected out of Mr. Rowe's 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 85 
 
 manding "by what authority those reports of Dallison's 
 came in print."^ They appear, with few exceptions, to be 
 mere abridgments, or short copies, from the reports of 
 Benloe and Dallison, just before mentioned, while these 
 last were in MS.^ 
 
 The volume, prior to the appearance of Sir George 
 Croke's reports, was sometimes quoted under the title 
 Croke, having been edited by John Croke, a man of 
 more note, it would appear, than in our day commonly 
 edits books : he was Speaker of the House of Commons, 
 in Queen Elizabeth's reign, and for many years a Justice 
 of the King's Bench, in the time of her successor. The 
 reader, anxious to obtain more of the history of this editor, 
 will find it in Mr. Manning's Lives of the Speakers of the 
 House of Commons, p. 273. Lond., 1851. (Edns. Er. 
 fol. 1602, 1633, 3d, with new references, said to be by 
 Joseph Washington,^ Esq., a collateral ancestor of General 
 Washington, 1688.) 
 
 MOOEE. KB., C.P., EX., A:ND CH. 
 
 3 Hen. VHI.— 19 Jao. I. (1512-1621.) 
 
 Sir Erancis Moore was one of the most eminent lawyers 
 of his tiiae ; and his reports being from a genuine MS., have 
 
 edition of Dallison, of 1689, or not found in the MS. from which it was printed, 
 viz., pi. 2 and pi. 11, of the cases from Dallison, in Ashe and Keilwey. H. 
 That the reports are in the same words in both ; and III. That with few ex- 
 ceptions, all the mistakes in one are found in the other. That they were first 
 printed in Ashe, seems probable, from this fact, that some of the errors which 
 appear in the cases as given in Ashe, are corrected in them as they appear 
 in Keilwey ; c. g.; In Ashe, Benloe's cases are thus numbered — 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 
 6, 7, 8,9, 8,9,12, 13, 11, 12, 16, 17, 18, 16,20,21, 19,20,24,22,23,24,25,26, 
 27, &c., whereas, in the like cases in Keilwey, the only error is in repeating 8, 
 9, and 22, 23, 24. The publication which contains the most of these mistakes 
 was probably the earliest ; some of them having been seen and corrected in 
 the next reprint. 
 
 ' Winch, 43. 2 See ante, " Remarks," § 10 n. 
 
 ' Booksellers' Catalogue, at the end of 3d Mod., edn. of 1700. For a further 
 account of Joseph Wajjjjngton, see post, tit. Modern, n. 
 
86 THE COMMON LAW EEPORTERS. 
 
 always enjoyed a reputation for accuracy,* They were 
 well known and were cited in MS. many years before 
 their publication f and, in coming before the profession, 
 had the advantage of an editor whose capacity for his 
 office was quickened into zeal by filial respect. Sir Geoffiey 
 Palmer, an eminent lawyer of the Restoration, and by 
 whom they were published, was a son-in-law of Moore. In 
 addition to this, they were first printed with the re- 
 corded assent of Sir Matthew Hale,^ who married a grand- 
 daughter of Sir Francis, and who, we may infer, deemed 
 them not unworthy of the fame of his children's ancestor. 
 Sir Francis Moore was born at Isley, near "Wantage, in 
 Berkshire, in 1658 ; and was educated in the Temple, where, 
 in 1607, he was reader. He was then, and had been pre- 
 viously, in Parliament, and while a member, is supposed 
 to have drawn the well-known statute of Charitable Uses, 
 which was passed in the 43d of Elizabeth.^ His familiarity 
 with the law of uses is handed down to the profession 
 in the conveyance known as that of Lease and Release, a 
 contrivance in conveyancing, of which he was the in- 
 ventor.' He was made a Sergeant in 1614, and, in 1616, 
 knighted by King James, at Theobald's. He died No- 
 vember 20th, 1621, aged 63, and is buried at GreatFawley, 
 near Wantage." Besides his reports, Moore was the au- 
 thor of Readings made before the Temple, on the Statute 
 of Uses, which were abridged by himself, and printed by 
 Duke, the commentator on that statute, in 1676, and 
 afterwards, again, by Bridgman, in 1805. (Edns. — ^Fr. 
 fol. 1663, by Sir Geoffi:ey Palmer; and in 1675, 1688, 
 without any additions, except, perhaps, a stifi" and formal 
 
 ' Fortesciie, 77 ; Mr. Peere Williams, arguendo, 3 Peere Williams, 452; 2 
 J. P. Smith, 126 ; Binney's argument in Vidal v. City of Philadelphia, 94. 
 2 By Twisden in 1649 (Style, 204), and by Green and Wild, 1652 ; id. 323-4. 
 ' Prefatory Certificate to Moore, 
 * Duke's Law of Charitable jUses, title, ed. of 1670. 
 5 2 Modern, 252. 
 ^ Herbert's Antiquities of the Inns of Court, 270. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 87 
 
 portrait, of little interest. There is an abridgment of them 
 in English, by "William Hughes, Esq., 8vo. 1665.) 
 
 DYEE. K B., C. P., EX., AND CH. 
 
 4 Hen. VIII.— 24 Eliz. 1513-1582. 
 
 According to Coke,' who bought (either himself or 
 some of his family), from Dyer's descendants, the Judge's 
 estate of Stoughton, and who, we may suppose, had means 
 of information beyond the mere professional, these cases 
 were never intended by Dyer, in this form, to have been 
 made public. Sir Edward styles them, however, " a 
 fruitful collection;" and they have been always regarded 
 as among the best of the old reports. The cases are not 
 so fully presented as in Coke and Plowden, but resemble 
 more the concise notes of a man of business, containing 
 an accurate state of the case, with the objections and 
 answers, as short as might be. The work is undoubtedly 
 genuine, having been published by Dyer's nephews, to 
 whom the MSS. came by his last will. It was published 
 originally in French, in which language it appeared six 
 different times. In 1688, it was edited by Treby, after- 
 wards Chief Justice of the King's Bench, who gave to the 
 public, in the margin of the book, some highly authori- 
 tative notes,^ — ^not, as I understand it, of his own (though 
 Lord Hardwicke,' Sir Francis Buller,'' Sergeant Williams,' 
 and Chief Justice Gibbs,° all speak of them as having been 
 written by him), but, as Mr. Creen informed me, and as, 
 indeed, Treby himself states, in the preface to his edition, 
 — " collected by the care of five or six of the most eminent 
 and learned lawyers that this last age hath had, and whose 
 worth, learning, and abilities are yet fresh in the memory 
 of many living ;" the book, together with the original 
 
 ' Pref. to 10 Rep. 
 
 « 2 D. & E. 84 ; 1 Williams' Saunders, 59 n. ; Id. 77 n. ; 4 Dow, 203. 
 . 3 1 Vesey, 386. ■> 2 D. & E. S4. 
 
 6 Williams' Saun(^, 59 n. ^ 4 Dow, 202. 
 
88 THE COMMON LA"W EEPOETERS. 
 
 manuscript notes and references having got, as he further 
 tells us, into the collection of a person of honor, who was 
 very curious in his collection, and so, by a purchase, into 
 the hands of Treby's publisher. In 1794, Mr. Vaillant 
 gave to the profession a yet much more improved edition, 
 in English, containing several cases not found in the old 
 ones, and now printed from Dyer's MSS., a part of which, 
 from some private reasons, his editors, on the first publi- 
 cation, "thought fitt not to make them vulgarr." Dyer's 
 MSS. reports are often quoted by Lord Coke ; but it would 
 seem that he referred to some MSS. not ever yet pub- 
 lished, since some of the cases cited by him (as in 3d Inst. 
 61, 126, 127 ; 4th Id. 61), do not appear to be in the 
 printed reports. 
 
 From Mr. Vaillant's laborious researches, I am able to 
 collect the following commonplace extracts of time and 
 place. James Dyer was born, 1612, at the seat of his 
 family, Wincalton and Round Hill, in the county of So- 
 merset. It is said by "Wood, that he was a commoner of 
 Broaidgate Hall, now Pembroke College, Oxford ; and 
 that he removed thence without taking any academical 
 degree, probably about the year 1530, to the Middle 
 Temple. Here he seems to have soon distinguished him- 
 self; for in 1552 he performed the office of Autumnal 
 Eeader to the Society, a distinction, at that time, conferred 
 but on such as had reached eminence. He had already, 
 on the 10th of May preceding, been called to the degree 
 of Sergeant of Law, and, in the following !N"ovember, was 
 made King's Sergeant. Upon the meeting of the last Par- 
 liament of Edward YI., in March, 1552-3, he was chosen 
 Speaker of the House of Commons, and in this capacity, 
 we are told, made "an ornate oration before the King." 
 The Parliament sat but for a month, and I do not find that 
 Dyer is otherwise mentioned. Edward VI. died soon after 
 this date, but the Speaker of the youthful Protestant ap- 
 pears to have retained the favor of his Romanist successor. 
 Mary made him, 19th October, 1553, one of her Sergeants. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 89 
 
 In this office Dyer's name appears on the commission 
 which tried Sir iJTicholas Throckmorton, for being con- 
 cerned in Sir Thomas Wyatt's rebellion,' when the jury, 
 with a freedom quite unconstitutional in that day, defied 
 the Queen, and acquitted the prisoner. Though' Dyer 
 does not appear to have acted unworthily of the judicial 
 independence on that occasion, and is said to have pro- 
 fessed the Protestant religion at all times, he received 
 soon after, a yet higher mark of Mary's favor. On the 
 20th May, 1557, being at that time Recorder of Cam- 
 bridge, and a Knight, he was appointed a Judge of the 
 Common Pleas, whence, in the next year, April 23d, he 
 was promoted to the Queen's Bench, on which he sat as a 
 Puisn^ Judge for the residue of Mary's reign. On the 
 accession of Elizabeth, he was returned, ITov. 18th, 1559, 
 to the Common Pleas, of which he was appointed Chief 
 Justice in the January following. In this j)lace he suc- 
 ceeded Sir Anthony Browne, whom Elizabeth, with less 
 of grace than in Dyer's case had marked her Catholic 
 sister, " removed for his attachment to the ancient super- 
 stitions;" and of whom it is recorded, with an expression 
 of surprise, that he was willing to remain a Puisn^ Judge 
 of that Court, in which, as Chief Justice, he had once pre- 
 sided.^ In the office of the Chief Justice of the Common 
 
 ' Howell's State Trials, vol. i. p. 869. 
 
 ^ " They order," said I, " these things better in France." A reputable news- 
 paper of this morning, makes mention of a Chief Justice of one of the New 
 England States, who resigned his office in order to accept the more lucrative 
 post of a clerkship in a large grist-mill ! (May 14th, 1849.) And the Phila- 
 delphia Legal Intelligencer of Feb. 22d, 1S50, announces that " Edwin Sleeper, 
 Esq.," whom the editor characterizes as " a good lawyer, and a gentleman of 
 learning, industry," &c., " has withdrawn from his connection with the Court 
 of Common Plears, to re-embark in the — umbrella trade.'" This flexile power of the 
 American character has sometimes been the subject of merry-making sneer. 
 There is something, certainly, which shocks our sympathies as members of an 
 elevated and liberal profession — and ought, perhaps, to shock them — in thus 
 reducing all of us to one mechanic level. On this principle the law becomes a 
 mere trade, and not always a trade of the most honest character. We are re- 
 minded, too, nearly and too personally, of Mr. Burke's rich thoughts and beau- 
 
90 THE COMMON LAW REPOKTERS. 
 
 Pleas, Dyer remained for more than twenty years, de- 
 voting himself with exemplary fidelity and reserve to 
 its laborious duties, which he performed with high and 
 almost universal praise. He died at his seat of Great 
 Stoughton, in Huntingdon, an estate added hy himself to 
 his ancestral possessions, March, 1582, at the age of 70 
 years. For a further notice of Dyer, than that given by 
 Mr. Vaillant, see Manning's Lives of the Speakers of the 
 House of Commons, p. 200, Lond., 1851. 
 
 It will be obvious by recurring to the preceding dates, 
 which here, as in subsequent cases, I insert, not for their 
 own interest, of course, but as serving, at times, to illus- 
 trate the Eeports — that Dyer, having been born only in 
 1512, must have got many of the earlier cases from some 
 borrowed source. His cases begin, in a regular series, 
 from 28th Henry VHI. (1537), in or about which year he 
 is supposed, by Mr. Vaillant, to have been called to the 
 bar. It has been suggested that his own reports begin 
 from that date ; but there are other circumstances which 
 lead to the idea that they begin later, or about 6th Ed- 
 ward VI. (1652.) 
 
 It may be worth noting that Dyer is the first book 
 regularly called " Reports." The ordinary titles prior to 
 the publication of his cases, in 1585, were Year Books, in 
 which the quotations are always to reign and years ; An- 
 nals, Commentaries (which was Plowden's title), or Cases, 
 
 tiful language : the decent drapery of life is rudely torn off; the superadded, 
 ideas, furnished from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the heart 
 owns, and the understanding ratifies, as necessary to cover the defects of our 
 naked, shivering nature, and to raise it to dignity in our own estimation, are 
 exploded as a ridiculous, absurd, antiquated fashion. 
 
 With all this, however, it seems to be the fact, that with no pride of place, 
 we are behind no people upon earth in the higher pride of mind. Looking 
 at American jurisprudence as a great whole, and as presented to us in the de- 
 cisions of our thirty-one Sovereign States, it stands upon a basis of at least equal 
 dignity and elevation with England's own, in its highest and most finished 
 state, and, in some respects, in advance of it. Surely we have not '■ blundered 
 into an elevated jurisprudence." 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPOKTERS. 91 
 
 whicli wasthe style of Petit or Little Brooke, next named. 
 (Edns. Fr. fol. 1585, 1592, 1601, 1621, 1672, 1688, by 
 Treby ; Vaillant's, 3 vols. 8vo. 1794 ; and at Dublin in the 
 same year. There is also an abridgment of Dyer by Ire- 
 land.) 
 
 BEOOKE'S NEW CASES ; PETIT OE LITTLE 
 BEOOKE. 
 
 6 Hen. VIII.— 6 Mart. (1515-1558.) 
 
 Cases in the time of Henry Vm., Edward VI., and 
 Maiy, with some earlier and uncertain cases. The sur- 
 name of Petit or Little, which is given to this production 
 of our author, is derived, I suppose, from the size of the 
 volume, which is very diminutive, and in those days of 
 folios must have been remarkable, as well as somewhat 
 endearing. Or more likely, because, as the title tells us, 
 it is " escrie ex le gra<tnd abridgment composed per Eo- 
 bert Brooke, Chevalier, &c." Little Brooke, was, proba- 
 bly, a familiar style of citation in those early days, when 
 all sizes of Brooke were manuals of the bar ; and the 
 name has come down to us with more dignity than was 
 expected by those who originally used it. The volume is 
 occasionally cited, as Bellewe's Cases temp. Hen. VIH. &c. ; 
 though more commonly under some of the titles placed 
 at the head of the paragraph. The collector was Bellewe ; 
 but the cases are selected out of Brooke. 
 
 The Prefaces to Bellewe's Cases temp. Eich. H., says 
 that, the " good liking" of the collector's labor, bestowed 
 in the collection of Brooke's New Cases, did not a little 
 prevail with him in publishing the cases of Eichard; 
 and "if I shall perceive," continues the author, "that 
 these years of Eichard 11. do find the like favor at your 
 hands, it may encourage me to set the printer on work for 
 all such other old years of other kings as are scattered in 
 the said abridgments, and which I have in a readiness at 
 
92 THE COMMON LAW EEPOETEHS. 
 
 this present." "Whatever favor, or whatever want of it, 
 the second publication may have found at the reader's 
 hands, no other collection, that I know of, by Bellewe, ever 
 appeared in print. 
 
 From different sources,' I learn that Robert Broke, or 
 Brook, whose name this volume usually bears, son of 
 Thomas Broke of Cleverly in Shropshire, by Margaret his 
 wife, daughter of Hugh Grovesnor, of Farmot, was born 
 at Cleverly, in the County of Salop, laid a foundation of 
 literature at Oxford, and was educated in the law, at the 
 Middle Temple, or in Gray's Inn, " where he became the 
 completest lawyer of his time." In 1542, he was elected 
 Autumn Reader of that house, and in the latter end of the 
 year, in Lent, 1550, elected Double Reader. In 1552 he 
 was made Sergeant, and in 1554 returned from London to 
 the House of Commons, of which he was elected Speaker. 
 The marriage of Queen Mary with Philip of Spain is said 
 to have been the object of assembling of Parliament. 
 The session has, however, been more known from Pro- 
 testant historians, who revile it for its proceedings and 
 penalties against heretics, and its efforts to restore the 
 Papal power. Brooke was a zealous member of the an- 
 cient religion, and gave so much satisfaction to the Queen 
 by his zeal in its cause that she made him, in 1554, Chief 
 Justice of her Bench ; an office, however, for which he 
 was well qualified. He died Sept. 5, 1558, and is buried 
 in the chancel of Cleverly Church, where a fine monu- 
 ment, on the north wall, may yet be seen erected to his 
 memoiy. "We find his argument at the bar in Plowden, 
 p. 12. (Edns. Fr. 16mo. 15—, 1587, 1604, 1625, 1628.) 
 
 MARCH. 
 
 This volume would appear to be a mere translation of 
 Petit Brooke, but is arranged differently ; Petit Brooke 
 
 ' Collected in Manning's Lives of the Speakers of the House of Commons, 
 Lond. 1851, p. 205. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 93 
 
 being in chronological order, and Marcli in alphabetical. 
 (Edns. 12mo. 1651.) 
 
 NEW BENLOE. K. 3., C. P., EX. 
 
 22 Hem. VIII.— 4 Cab. I. (1531-1628.) 
 
 Principally cases in the reigns of Henry "VlU., Edward 
 VI., and Mary and Elizabeth ; with a few select cases in 
 the subsequent two reigns. There is a vacancy in the 
 impressions of New Benloe, from p. 44, where the book 
 aj)pears, from the word Finis, to have been originally 
 meant to end, to p. 88, both inclusive ; and the four pages 
 preceding 44 are wrong numbered, being duphcates of 
 preceding pages. This book is sometimes quoted as Old 
 Benloe' from a cause which has been already stated,^ 
 (Edns. Fr. fol. 1661.) 
 
 ANDERSON. C. P. AND COURT OF WARDS. 
 
 25 Hen. VIII.— 2.Jao. I. (1534-1604.) 
 
 This book, which is said on the title page to come from 
 a genuine MS., is referred to in one case with respect by 
 Sir Edward Sugden; who, in defending a position of his 
 own, cites Anderson's Report of Chudleigh's Case, as 
 "indisputably" better than Lord Coke's.^ The same able 
 writer, speaks in the same place of the author, as a pro- 
 found and industrious lawyer, who was assiduous in his 
 attendance at court, as is evident from the reports in his 
 time, and singularly ready in the application of his great 
 learning to the legal questions which were moved before 
 him. Some of the earlier cases cannot have been taken by 
 himself. The style of Chief Justice Anderson, in many 
 of his cases, is more full and circumstantial than was usual 
 in times prior to his volume. At the end of his book are 
 
 ' Plowden, 367, 368. ' See ante, p. 83, tit. Benloe and Dallison. 
 
 = Treat, on Powers, 6th ed. 22. See post, tit. " Coke." 
 
94 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 thirty cases in the Court of "Wards. They begin at page 
 87 of vol. 2. 
 
 Edmund Anderson was of a family originally settled in 
 Scotland, but which afterwards passed first into Northum- 
 berland, and thence into Lincolnshire. The surname was 
 originally Lisle ; but one of the family falling in love with 
 an heiress of the name of Anderson, assumed a privilege 
 oftener conceded by the world to women, and abandoned 
 a name to secure a fortune. The fortune descended with 
 the name adopted, since it is recorded of our Reporter, 
 that he began the world with a no less comfortable dis- 
 tinction than the rental of a thousand pounds a year. 
 After perfecting his grammatical studies in the country, 
 he spent some time at Lincoln College, Oxford, whence 
 he removed to the Liner Temple for his professional 
 education. Here, notwithstanding the title which his 
 handsome independence gave him to enjoy himself as a 
 man of fashion, he appears to have been grave, regular, 
 and assiduous. . . In 1568 he was both Lent and Sum- 
 mer Reader, and seven years .afterwards. Double Reader ; 
 and about 1578 was appointed Queen's Sergeant, and after- 
 wards one of the Justices of Assize. From the beginning 
 of his judicial life he distinguished himself in maintaining 
 the orthodoxy of the realm as then recently established 
 by the English Reformers. In 1681, on the !N"orfolk Cir- 
 cuit, he set so vigorously on the famous Browne, founder 
 of the sect called Brownists, that the Bishop of IlNrorwich 
 felt called on to write to Lord Burleigh, and express his 
 hope that the Judge might receive the thanks of the 
 Queen for the services he had done to Religion. In the 
 spring following. May 4th, 1582, Anderson was accord- 
 ingly appointed Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, 
 for his efforts in establishing the Protestant religion, as 
 his professional brother. Brook, had not long before been, 
 for his efforts in upsetting it. 
 
 In Pennsylvania, Judges are elected by the people. 
 Chief Justices are drawn by lot for a three years' term. 
 
( 
 
 THE COMMON LAW EEPORTEES. 95 
 
 and glide along the judicial canvass in succession, like 
 figures of the Magic Lantern, tumbling off at one end, 
 and then turning up at the other. An Installation is, of 
 course, a poor affair — " beautiful in its simplicity," said a 
 Frenchman, who went in short-clothes and pumps, ex- 
 pecting to see in one a splendid pageant — " but in other 
 respects not imposing." It was different three centuries 
 ago in the land of our fathers ; and the following account 
 of Anderson's, preserved in a letter from Fleetwood, Recor- 
 der of London, to Lord Burleigh, may serve, if no longer 
 for instruction, at least for entertainment : " On Saturday, 
 in the morning, my Lord Chancellor did awhile stand at 
 the Chancery bar, on the side of the hall. And soon after 
 that the Justices of the Common Pleas were set, his 
 Lordship came to the Common Pleas, and there sat down. 
 And all the sergeants standing at the bar, my Lord Chan- 
 cellor called Anderson by name, declared unto him her 
 Majesty's good likings and opinion of him, aiad of the 
 place and dignity her Majesty had called him unto. And 
 then my Lord Chancellor made a short discourse, what 
 the duty and office of a good Justice was. And in the 
 end, his Lordship called him up into the midst of the 
 court ; and then Mr. Anderson kneeling, his commission 
 was read : and that done, his Lordship took the patent 
 into his hand ; and then the clerk of the Crown, Powle, 
 did read him his oath. And after, he himself read the 
 oath of Supremacy, and so kissed the book. And my 
 Lord Chancellor took him by the hand, and placed him 
 upon the bench. And then Father Benloos, because he 
 was antient, did put a short case. And then Sergeant 
 Fleetwood put the next. To the first my new Lord Chief 
 Justice did himself only argue. But to the next that 
 Fleetwood put, both he and the residue of the bench did 
 argue. And I assure your Lordship," added the Recorder, 
 "he argued veiy learnedly ; and with great facility delivered 
 his mind. And this one thing was noted in him, that he 
 despatched more orders, and answered more difficult cases 
 
96 THE COMMON LAW EEPOllTEES. 
 
 in that one foreno'on, than were despatched in a whole 
 week in the time of his predecessors." 
 
 In 1583, the Chief Justice Avas knighted, and in 1586 
 sat in judgment as a commissioner on Mary, Queen of 
 Scots, as he did afterwards, in 1587, on Secretary Davison, 
 who was charged' with illegally issuing the warrant for 
 her execution. The Puritan Historians, Peirce* and I^eal,* 
 while ready to apologize for the burning of Servetus, have 
 bequeathed to Anderson the apostolic benediction of all 
 the dirt they could leave behind them for his much 
 better treatment of Dissenters in England. One of his 
 offences seems to have been in 1659 towards a Genevan 
 Doctor of the name of Udal, " a worthy man, whom," they 
 allege, "he endeavored to trick out of his life," by inter- 
 rogating him, as Ecclesiastical Commissioner of the Queen, 
 about some publipations for which he was afterwards cri- 
 minally tried. The ill will which this matter called forth, 
 does not appear, however, to have intimidated the Chief 
 Justice at all, as his biographer records^ that in 1596, on 
 going the JiTorthern Circuit, " he behaved himself in ex- 
 actly the same way, declaring that all who opposed the 
 established Church were enemies to the State, and dis- 
 turbers of the public peace, and directing the grand juries 
 to inquire of them that they might be punished." In- 
 deed a letter by some ecclesiastical doctor to " a person 
 of quality," would give a shocking confirmation of his 
 doings in this connection. " Since my Lord Anderson 
 hath obtained to ride this circuit," says this writer, "the 
 ministry is grown into intolerable contempt; which is 
 universally imputed unto him, both by those that would, 
 
 and those that would not have it so." My Lord, 
 
 in his first and second charge at Lincoln, insinuated with 
 wonderful vehemeney, that the country is troubled with 
 Brownists, with Disciplinarians, as he called them ; and 
 
 ' Vindication of The Dissenters. London, 1717, 8vo. p. 129. 
 
 2 History of the Puritans, vol. j. pp. 509, 589. 
 
 " Biographia Britannica, vol. i. p. 138, tit. Anderson. 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPOETEES. 97 
 
 erectors of Presbyteries. I speak the truth to you, sir, 
 having been at Alford these fourteen years, I never heard 
 of any Brownist, but only one Thomas Man, who pre- 
 sently fled upon his schism ; nor do know any minister or 
 other in all this country, that doth so much as favor the 
 erecting of a Presbytery. . . . And this judge, with so 
 much wrath, so many oaths, and such reproachful revil- 
 ings upon the bench, carrieth himself that there is offence 
 taken at it by persons of principal credit and note, 
 throughout all the circuits."' 
 
 However, though so terrible in enforcing all the laws of 
 English orthodoxy, Anderson deserves the reputation of 
 an upright and independent judge. His reports record 
 more than one instance of his disregard of court interest, 
 and of his fearlessness, both of the Queen and nobles. 
 To him vre are probably indebted for one of the earliest, 
 most independent, and impressive assertions of the right 
 of the subject to have every cause of his imprisonment dis- 
 tinctly set forth, in order, that upon complaint, .the Judges 
 may relieve and help, "as by office and oath they are 
 bound to do."^ The declaration of the Judge is worth the 
 reading by every student of constitutional history. It 
 gives evidence how deeply and how distinctly the rights 
 of English freemen, as afterwards made safe by the Act of 
 Sabeas Corpus, were conceived and maintained by the 
 English Courts nearly a century before, and " in the iron 
 times of the Tudors." 'Eon is this the only evidence of 
 Anderson's fearlessness of the Crown and the powerfdl 
 courtiers who supported it. He defied, in a memorable 
 case,^ the favorite of Elizabeth — ^the powerful Earl of Lei- 
 cester — informing him and the Queen, who, on her letters 
 patent being disregarded, had granted a special and very 
 urgent letter under her signet and sign-manual, to admit 
 a creature of Leicester's to an office in the Common 
 Pleas, that the Judges " could not comply with the letter, 
 
 ' Biographia Britannica, vol. i. p. 138, tit. Anderson, note. 
 ' Anderson, 297, case coot. ' Anderson, 152, case coi. 
 
 7 
 
98 THE COMMON LAW EEPOETERS. 
 
 because it was inconsistent with their duty and to their 
 oaths of office." And when the Queen, offended with 
 their answer, appointed her Chancellor, the Lord Chief 
 Justice of her Bench, and the Master of the Eolls, to hear 
 the matter further, and her sergeant to set forth her pre- 
 rogative, the Judges of the Common Pleas advanced yet 
 further. They asserted " that as the Judges were bound 
 by their oaths of office, so her Majesty was restrained by 
 her coronation oath from such arbitrary impositions;" 
 and "that as she had no power to grant offices in that way, 
 so they had no -right to suffer such offices to be filled by 
 virtue of her grants." The dignity and steadiness of the 
 Bench was too great for the Crown, and the Queen and 
 Leicester were obliged to yield. 
 
 The Chief Justice was sometimes accused of a slavish 
 adherence to precedents,* but the evidence of contem- 
 porary Eeporters shows that he was quite able to rise 
 above them in cases where it was fit that the law should 
 be untrammelled. " "What !" says he in one case,^ " shall 
 we not give judgment because it is not adjudged in the 
 books before ? We will give judgment according to rea- 
 son ; and if there be no reason in the books, I will not 
 regard them." 
 
 On the whole. Sir Edmund Anderson appears to have 
 been a fearless and independent man, somewhat stern, but 
 withal of great integrity, and though he maintained, a 
 little strongly, whatever was established by law, he sup- 
 ported with no less of firmness all that belonged to the 
 ancient, native constitutional liberty of Englishmen. 
 That he comprehended, imperfectly, the subject of reh- 
 gious liberty, is not surprising ; for that was a plant of 
 growth later than his day. He was, probably, more re- 
 spected than loved ; but as an able lawyer, and a judge 
 of great experience and probity, he retained his post 
 under Tudors and Stuarts for a term of four-and-twenty 
 
 ' Eiographia Eritannica, 'vol. i. p. 139, tit. Anderson. 
 ' Gouldsborough, 4to. 1653, p. 96. 
 
THE COMMON I»kW REPORTERS. 99 
 
 years, in spite alike of his detestation by the Puritans, 
 and of his intractable disregard of the prerogative pre- 
 tensions. He died_ at London, August Ist, 1605, and was 
 interred with great pomp on the 15th of September fol- 
 lowing, at his country seat of Eyworth, in Bedfordshire. 
 His descendants are numerous, in our own day, in the 
 English Peerage. Among them are the Earl of Yarbo- 
 rough, Lords Monson and Sondes; and his name is 
 directly represented in the baronetage by the Eev. Sir 
 Charles John Anderson, of Broughton, in Lincoln. 
 
 The curiCus collector will take care that his Anderson 
 has a print of the author, by Paithorne. In some copies 
 it is wanting, but is worth having for the sake of the en- 
 graving. (Edns.: Pr. fol. pt. 1st, 1664; pt. 2d, with cases 
 in the Court of Wards, 1665.) 
 
 LEONARD. K. B., C. P., EX. 
 
 31 Hen. VHI.— 13 Jao. 1. (1540-1615.) 
 
 " Leonard's Eeports," says Sir Edward Sugden,' " were 
 always in high estimation ;" and this opinion is confirmed 
 by Lord Ifottingham, who says, in speaking of the volume, 
 that it is one of the best books which have lately come 
 out f and also by Sir George Treby, who, quoting the 
 book, said that Lord Nottingham " gave a just account of 
 it."^ The work is from a genuine MS., which, however, is 
 given but in the form of a translation. The majority of 
 cases are in later reigns than Henry ViLl., and some ap- 
 pear to be reported twice over. (Edns. : Pol., translated 
 from Prench by W. Hughes ; 4 Parts : Part L, 1658; Part 
 n., 1659; Part HI., 1663; Part IV., 1675. A second 
 and improved edition in 1687. A table of the principal 
 matters to the first three parts, and usually placed at the 
 
 ' Treat, on Powers, 6th ed. 16. ' Duke of Norfolk's Case, S. C. C. 31. 
 
 ' 8 Howell's State Trials, 1131. 
 
100 THE COMMON LAW EEPOETEES. 
 
 end of the thiird Part, is sometimes wanting in the first 
 edition.) 
 
 PLOWDEK K B., C. P., EX. 
 
 3 Ed. VI.— 22 Eliz. (1550-1580.) 
 
 In every sort of professional excellence, Plowden's Ee- 
 ports (or Commentaries, as he styles them), rank among 
 the best reports of any age. Their author thoroughly 
 understood a reporter's duty, for he tells his readers, that 
 before the case came to be argued, he had copies made of 
 the record, and took pains to study the points of law 
 arising thereupon; so that, if he had been "put to it, he 
 was ready to have argued when the first man began." He 
 attended the arguments with the utmost assiduity, and 
 gives them on both sides at length, always following the 
 course of reasoning precisely with the precedents quoted, 
 in the exact style of a formal debate. In reporting the 
 judgment of the court, he gives severally the opinions of 
 the Judges at length; and, in those cases which arose 
 upon demurrers or special verdicts, the pleadings also. 
 To insure the utmost accuracy, after he had drawn out 
 his reports, he submitted them in many instances to the 
 Judges or sergeants who argued the points. Cases dis- 
 cussed in this ample way, with all the arguments of each 
 side, considered, distinguished, and commented on by the 
 experience and learning of the bench, must be so thoroughly 
 sifted, says Mr. Reeves,' that no one can mistake the 
 grounds or the point of the decision. The labors of 
 Plowden have not failed of their reward. Lord Coke, in 
 one place,^ speaks of his reports as " exquisite and elabo- 
 rate," and in another assures us, that they are, "as they 
 well deserve to be, of high account."' "Better authority," 
 said Lord EUenborough," "could not be cited." "They 
 
 ' 5 Hist. Eng. Law, 241. 2 Pref. to 3 Rep. 
 
 » Pref. to 10 Rep. * 10 East., 16 ?. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 101 
 
 bear, most deservedly," is Mr. Hargrave's testimony,' " as 
 high a character as any hook of reports ever published in 
 
 S)urlaw." "Distinguished," says Chancellor Kent,'' " for 
 authenticity and accuracy, and exceedingly interesting and 
 instructive hy the evidence they afford of the extensive 
 learning, sound doctrine, and logical skill of the ancient 
 
 ^^ English bar." Similar testimony is found elsewhere.^ 
 Plowden is one of the very few of the older books pre- 
 pared for the press, and published in the author's lifetime. 
 (Edns. : It was published originally in two parts. The 
 first appeared in Fr., 1571, and both parts afterwards in 
 1578, 1584, 1588, 1599, 1613, 1684; Eng., 1761, 1779; 
 Dublin, 2 vols., 8vo., 1792, and London, 1816, in the same 
 size. The translation was enriched by a great number of 
 additional notes and references, which, Mr. Hargrave re- 
 marks,* are generally very pertinent, and indicative of 
 great industry and judgment in the editor.) 
 
 This most accurate of reporters was born in 1519, of an 
 ancient family of his own name, long seated at their estate 
 of Plowden, in the conservative district of Shropshire. He 
 began the study of the common law in the Middle Temple, 
 A. D. 1539, being then 20 years old. "Wood, in his Athense, 
 adds, that he spent three years in the study of arts, 
 philosophy, and physic, at Cambridge, and four at Oxford, 
 where, in ^fiTovember, 1552, he was admitted to practise 
 surgery and physic. "Whether this was with a view of 
 abandoning the law, or only under the inspiration of that 
 sentiment expressed by an original thinker of our own 
 time, that nothing more enlarges and enriches the mind 
 than to lay it genially open to impressions of pleasure 
 from the exercise of every species of talent, no record 
 enables us now to judge. His Nota Bene on the Cases of 
 The Mines, p. 338, proves the keenness with which he had 
 pursued the science of metallurgy, as it has been thought 
 also to impugn the construction made in the case, in the 
 
 ' 1 Inst. 23 a, n. ; Hargrave & Butler's ed. ^ ^l Com. 483. 
 
 * Observations on the Statutes, p. 240-1, n. ; Dublin, 1767. 
 
102 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 latitude wherein it is taken.* It is certain, if he felt at any 
 time distaste for the profession of his earlier choice, that 
 in the end he was but the more strongly attached to it by ^ 
 his temporary defection, for, in 155T, he is found as 
 Summer Eeader in the Middle Temple, and, in 1560, Lent 
 Eeader, having been made Sergeant-at-Law, Oct. 27,1558. 
 This eminent reporter died Feb. 6, 1584-5, setat. 65, in 
 strict communion with the ancient faith, his unswerving 
 adherence to which, through life, it is said, alone prevented 
 his promotion to the highest judicial office.^ He was 
 Treasurer of the Temple during the rebuilding of the Great 
 Hall, in one of the windows of which his arms, with the 
 date of 1576, still remain ; and in testimony of his great 
 professional merits, of his long connection with the society, 
 and of the esteem in which he was held by the members, 
 he was buried in the Temple Church, where a monument 
 still remains to his memory. 
 
 The grandson of the Reporter, who bore his ancestral 
 name, forms an important link in the History of America, 
 having been made by Charles I. "Earl Palatine, Governor 
 and Captain-General of the Province of New Albion, in 
 North America." His grandson, Francis, came'^to this 
 country as Governor of New Albion, and, with his wife 
 and children, was massacred by the Indians before 1698. 
 Mr. Burke's " Visitation of the Seats and Arms of the 
 Noblemen and Gentlemen of Great Britain,"* tells us that 
 the descendants of our Reporter still maintain an honorable 
 rank in that country. 
 
 It has been supposed^ that Hale v. Petti^ne of Plow- 
 den's cases, furnished to Shakspeare part of the scene of 
 the grave-diggers in Hamlet. Whether Shakspeare ever 
 
 ' Note to the London edition of 1816. 
 
 ' Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queens of England, vol. v. p. 270. Phil., 
 1847. 
 
 » Vol. i. p. 6. 
 
 * By Sir John Hawkins, note to Hamlet, Act V. Scene 1 ; Isaac Reed's 
 Shakspeare, vol. xviii. p. 320, London, 1803. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 103 
 
 studied the Reports of Plowden, then still in Iforman 
 French, or whether only in the pervading ubiquity and 
 power of his genius, he was uttering, in the unreal dia- 
 logue of clowns, the actual language of ermined non- 
 sense, may not now be easy to decide. His grave-diggers, 
 it is certain, have left a satire on the " sober follies of the 
 wise," by arguments so like their own as to have originated 
 the conjecture that Plowden must have been transcribed 
 for the entertainment of the groundlings. 
 
 Sir James Hales, one of the Justices of Common Pleas, 
 and the son of Sir John Hales, eminent as a Baron of the 
 Exchequer, had committed suicide, in his sober senses, by 
 drowning himself in a river or water-course near his house 
 in Canterbury. The coroner, with his jury, sat upon the 
 body, and presented that, "passing through ways and streets 
 in the same city unto the aforesaid river," Sir James had 
 "voluntarily entered the same, and himself therein 
 feloniously and voluntarily drowned." A lease to him 
 and his wife as joint tenants, was seized by the Crown as 
 forfeited by the felony of his suicide, and re-granted to 
 Petit, who endeavored to enter, while Lady Hales, claim- 
 ing as survivor in joint-tenancy to her lord, sued Petit for 
 the trespass. It being admitted that if Six James had 
 committed felony in his lifetime, the lease was forfeited, 
 the question before the court was, whether Sir James, in 
 drowning himself, had committed suicide in his own life- 
 time. For if the felony was not committed until after he 
 was dead, then Lady Hales clearly had the case. A Justice 
 of the King's Court — himself a son of one of the King's 
 Barons of the Exchequer — charged with having committed 
 a felony when alive, was an allegation not common in 
 Westminster Hall, and to have committed the offence 
 after he was dead, was an imputation still more alarming. 
 The experimentwm in eorpore vili was a reproach which no 
 one could throw upon the counsel. It was clearly a great 
 case. Six sergeants-at-law argued it, and their dialectics 
 would have done honor to all the monks that ever as- 
 
104 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 sembled roiind the cell or tlie shrine of the saint of Canter- 
 bury himself. 
 
 Lady Hales's counsel contended, that to make the felony, 
 both the cause of the death, and the death itself, must 
 unite and be complete. "A man could not hefelo de se 
 until thfe death of himself be fiilly had and consummate." 
 The death must precede the felony, and d fortiori, the for- 
 feiture, which was its consequence. 5ere, admitting that 
 the cause of his death — the throwing himself into the 
 water — ^was done in his lifetime, and so completed, still, 
 the death was a thing subsequent, and not complete in his 
 lifetime. When he was dead, he was not alive. The death 
 was not to have relation to the cause of it, as was shown 
 by a position assumed as admitted, that if A gave B a 
 mortal stab, of which B died, only some time after, A 
 might give away his goods to after the stab and before 
 the death, and the gift would be good ; and by a case cited 
 from 11 Henry IV., where two constables had voluntarily 
 let a man escape that had given a woUnd to another, who 
 afterwards died of it : yet it was not' felony in the con- 
 stables, " for the death hath no relation to the cause of it, 
 nor was he that gave the wound a felon before the party 
 dieth." Although " the forfeiture comes at the same in- 
 stant that he dies, yet in things of an instant there is a 
 priority of time in consideration of law, and the one shall 
 be said to precede the other, although both shall be said 
 to happen at one instant, for every instant contains the 
 end of one time and the commencement of another. And 
 accordingly here the death and the forfeiture shall come 
 together, and at one same time, and yet there is a priority, 
 that is, the end of his life makes the commencement of 
 the forfeiture, though, at the same time, the forfeiture is 
 so near to the death, that there is no mean time between 
 them, yet notwithstanding that, in consideration of law, 
 the one precedes the other, but by no means has the for- 
 feiture relation to any time in his life." 
 
 This clear and lucid explanation of the whole matter it 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPORTEES. 105 
 
 was not easy to answer ; and four sergeants, Walsh, 
 Comly, Eenloe, and Carus, argued e contra for Petit. 
 They contended that the forfeiture was to have relation to 
 the act done in the party's lifetime, which was the cause 
 of his death, and upon this that the parts of the act were 
 to be considered. " And "Walsh said, that the act con- 
 sists of three parts. The first is the imagination, which 
 is a reflection or meditation of the mind, whether or no it 
 is convenient for him to destroy himself, and what way it 
 can be done. The second is the resolution, which is a de- 
 termination of the mind to destroy himself, and to do it 
 in this or that particular way. The third is the perfection, 
 which is the execution of what the mind has resolved to 
 do. And this perfection consists of two parts, viz. : the 
 beginning and the end. The beginning is the doing of 
 the act which causes the death, and the end is the death, 
 which is only a sequel to the act." 
 
 These elementary divisions were amplified and enforced 
 in a style worthy of their conception, and until the matter 
 was fairly twisted into a state fit for the judicial explica- 
 tion. 
 
 In giving judgment upon their late brother, "the Lord 
 Dyer said that five things were to be considered in the 
 case. First, the quality of the offence of Sir James Hales ; 
 secondly, to whom the offence is committed ; thirdly, what 
 shall he forfeit? fourthly, from what time the forfeiture 
 shall commence ; and fifthly, if the term here shall be 
 taken from the wife." 
 
 On the first point, it was clear that Sir James had been 
 acting by the instigation of the devil, and was a murderer ; 
 on the second, that as the king, as head, " had lost one 
 of his mystical members," the offence was against him; 
 on the third, that his majesty, having the right to the goods 
 of felons, on account of the loss he suffered in their death, 
 and " not in respect that holy church will not meddle with 
 them," was entitled to Sir James's goods. But the great 
 point of difficulty, the fourth point — that is to say, whether 
 the Eight Honorable Justice, who had so lately drowned 
 
106 THE COMMON LAW EEPOKTERS. 
 
 himself, had done so while he was alive — seems to have 
 been settled conclusively by Sir Anthony Browne. " He 
 said Sir James Hales was dead ; and how came he to his 
 death? It may be answered, by drowning. And who 
 drowned him? Sir James Hales. And when did he 
 drown him ? In his lifetime. So that Sir James Hales, 
 being alive, caused Sir James Hales to die ; and the act of 
 the living man was the death of the dead man. And then 
 for this offence, it is reasonable to punish the living man 
 who committed the offence, and not the dead man. But 
 how can he be said to be punished alive, when the punish- 
 ment comes after his death ? Sir, this can be done no 
 other way but by divesting out of him, from the time of 
 the act done in his life, which was the cause of his death, 
 the title and property of those things which he had in his 
 lifetime." 
 
 William Shakspeare, to whom the ease came for final 
 judgment, placed it on grounds not touched by the ser- 
 geants or the court, and never yet reversed. His argument 
 is, that as the water was running water, and came down 
 stream, the unfortunate felo de se did not drown himself 
 at all : the water drowned him. Here is his view of it: 
 
 " Ist Clown. It must be se offendendo ; it cannot be else : 
 for here lies the point : if I drown myself wittingly, it 
 argues an act, and an act hath three branches ; it is, to act, 
 to do, and to perform : argal, she drowned herself wit- 
 tingly. 
 
 " 2,d Clown, l^ay, but hear you, goodman delver. 
 
 " 1st Clown. Give me leave. Here lies the water ; good : 
 here stands the man ; good : if the man go to the water 
 and drown himself, it is will he, nill he, he goes, mark 
 you that ; but if the water come to him and drown him, 
 he drowns not himself : argal, he that is not guilty of his 
 own death, shortens not his own life. 
 
 " '2d Clown. But is this law ? 
 
 " 1st Clown. Ay, marry is't ; crowner's 'quest law." 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPOETEKS. 107 
 
 OWEE". E. B., C. P. 
 
 4 Mabt— 13 Jao. I. (1556-1615.) 
 
 In the soutli aisle of Westminster Abbey I remember to 
 have seen a monument, where two lateral Corinthian 
 columns, rising from a large base, support their" entabla- 
 ture. Underneath the arch, the figure of a Judge, leaning 
 on his arm, reposes in his robes. The erection attracts 
 the eye of visitors as more impressive than most about it. 
 A tablet above the figure records the name of Thomas 
 Owen, Esquire, son of Richard Owen, by Mary, daughter 
 and heiress of Thomas Osley, of Shropshire, Esq. It 
 states that fi-om his youth he had applied himself to the 
 study of the laws, and was made Sergeant in the time of 
 Queen Elizabeth, — ^that he afterwards became a Justice of 
 the Common Pleas, and that he died Dec. 21st, 1598. 
 
 The book now called his Eeports is occasionally cited ; 
 but, I believe, enjoys no particular reputation one vs^ay or 
 the other. No satisfactory account is given of the manu- 
 script from which it is taken, and it is but a translation 
 from an unpublished original in French. Among the 
 manuscripts in Lincoln's Inn are : " Reports de la Reverend 
 et erudite Thomas Owen, un des Justices de Comon Banhe al 
 Westm." 28-39 Eliz., "transcribed out of his own book, 
 July, 1600." Some of the cases in this book are not in 
 the printed volume.' Only a few of the cases in his book 
 are in the reign of James ; the greater portion belong to 
 that of Elizabeth. As Owen died in 1598, four years 
 before the accession of James, the former cannot be 
 genuine. There is a chasm in the paging from 76 to 81, 
 notwithstanding which, the work is perfect. (Edns. : Fol., 
 1656.) 
 
 ' General Keport of the Commissioners on Public Eeoords, 1837, p. 336. 
 
108 THE COMMON LAW EEPORTERS. 
 
 NOT. K. B., C. P. 
 
 1 Eliz.— 25 Car. I. (1559-1649.) 
 
 Noy was Attorney-General to Charles the First, and a 
 lawyer of great acuteness, industry, and antiquarian lore. 
 His reports (in MS. probably), are frequently referred to 
 by Lord Hale, in his notes to the 1st In st. ; but this volume is 
 called by Mr. Hargrave " a loose collection of notes," which 
 he thinks Noy could not have intended for the public eye :' 
 Chief Justice Bridgman, referring to the work,^ says, that 
 there are in it " many scattered things, and some not of 
 his time, and I credit them not;" though he remarks that 
 in another report which he had seen, " there are the very 
 same words that are in Noy." Sir Francis BuUer' said 
 that the book has always been considered " as a bad au- 
 thority," a condemnation in which Lord Thurlow agreed.'' 
 The cases, or a great majority of them, seem to be scraps 
 of cases, dicta, reported without any "state of the case," 
 and having a very loose and relateless shape. In fact, 
 there is ground to suppose that the book is an imposture, 
 or at best but an imperfect abridgment of Noy's note-book, 
 by one of his students. Thus, when the volume was cited 
 before Justice Twisden,' he said that he " wholly rejected 
 that authority, for that it was but an abridgment of cases 
 by Sergeant Size, who, when he was a student, borrowed 
 Noy's reports, and abridged them for his own use." To 
 the same effect is 2d Keble, 652 ; and 2d Johnson's Re- 
 ports, p. 72, where, in addition to a discrediting remark 
 about the book generally. Chancellor Kent speaks of a 
 case in it as solitary, anomalous, and which cannot be 
 law." 
 
 ' 1 Inst. 54 a, n., Hargrave & Butler's ed. 
 
 s Carter, 194. « 3 D. & E. 424. * Worrall. « 1 Ventris, 81. 
 
 * See on the way that Noy made notes, Heylin's Life of Laud, p. 301; also, 
 Foster's British Statesmen, vol. i. p. 158, n. 158, note f. New York, 1846. 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPORTERS. 109 
 
 I know of few characters that have fared more hardly 
 at the bar of posterity than the unfortunate Attorney-Ge- 
 neral of Charles the First. In the law, if Justice Twisden 
 be correct, he has had to bear the dishonor of what it is 
 certain never belonged to him ; while in political history, 
 without that dignity and place, the fall from which ca- 
 nonizes their names and justifies the tears we shed for 
 Charles and Strafibrd, he has been held more responsible 
 than either of them for the rebellion, anarchy, and blood- 
 shed which befell their common country. His contem- 
 porary. Lord Clarendon, records that he was among the 
 most indiscreet of all the king's advisers, "thinking," 
 says the grave historian, " that he could not give a clearer 
 testimony that his knowledge in the law was greater than 
 all other men's, than by making that law, which all other 
 men believed not to be so : so he moulded, framed, and 
 pursued the odious and crying project of soap ; and with 
 his own hand drew and prepared the writ for ship-money ; 
 both which will be the lasting monuments of his fame."' 
 While in our day, when the distance of two centuries 
 might begin, at least, to shed a softening color on the 
 past, Carlyle has memorized him on a page for the mil- 
 lion, which contains so much of the entertaining as to 
 make unimportant the fact that it has nothing at all of 
 the true. "In the 3d year of Oliver's abode at St. Ives," 
 says this writer, in his Letters and Speeches of Cromwell,^ 
 " came out the celebrated writ of ship-money. It was the 
 last feat of Attorney-General !N"oy, a morose, amorphous, 
 cynical law pedant, and invincible living heap of learned 
 rubbish ; who had fished up from the dust abysses, this and 
 other old shadows of 'precedents' promising to be of 
 great use in the present distressed state of the finance de- 
 partment. The Vinters (says Wood), illuminated at his 
 death, made bonfires, and drank lusty carouses. To them, 
 as to every man, he had been a sore aflELiction. His heart, 
 
 • Hist, of the Rebellion, i. p. 130. Oxford, 1826. 
 = Vol. i. p. 71, Am. ed. 1845. 
 
110 THE COMMON LAW REPORTEES. 
 
 on dissection, adds old Anthony, was found ' all shrivelled 
 up like a leather penny purse.' His brain, said the pas- 
 quinades of the day, was found reduced to a mass of dust; 
 his head was a bundle of old sheepskin writs, and his 
 belly consisted of a barrel of soap. Some indistinct memory 
 of him still remains as of a grisly law Pluto, and dark law 
 monster, kind of infernal king, chief enchanter in the 
 Domdaniel of Attorneys ; one of those frightful men who, 
 as his contemporaries said and repeated, dared to decree 
 injustice by a law." 
 
 Surely if ever man's soul needed the consolation of 
 Yorick's ghost, it is that of our reporter ! 
 
 Noy appears to have been a man of elegant tastes, and 
 a patron of the Arts. 
 
 Born in Cornwall, 1577; member of the Parliaments of 
 1620, 1623, and 1625 ; in all of which he acted energe- 
 tically with the patriot party. A. G. in 1631 ; died at 
 Tunbridge Wells in Kent, August, 1634,* whither he had 
 gone for the restoration of his health, broken down by 
 study and exertion. The place had then lately been 
 brought into fashion by the extraordinary cure of Dudley, 
 Lord North, who having, at the age of 24, been given over 
 by the Faculty as an incurable, for his addiction to sen- 
 sual appetites, visited this place in 1603, drank its waters, 
 recovered his health, and lived till 85 ! (JEdns. 1656, 1669.) 
 
 BROWOTiiOW. C. P. 
 
 11 Eliz.— 1 Cae. I. (1569-1625.) 
 
 Lord Bacon, in his essay upon Judicature, speaking 
 of "the clerks and ministers of justice" underneath the 
 Judges — " those that may be accounted the left hands of 
 courts," — declares " that justice cannot yield her fruit with 
 sweetness among the briars and brambles of catching and 
 
 ■ Or " at his house at Biainfoid, County of Middlesex." Siographia Biitan- 
 nica, vol. ii. p. 1399, n. 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPOBTEES. Ill 
 
 polling clerks." He denounces those clerks that are 
 " full of nimble tricks and shifts, whereby they pervert 
 the plain and direct courses of courts, and bring justice 
 into oblique lines and labyrinths." "On the other side," 
 says he, " an ancient clerk, skilful in precedents, wary in 
 proceeding, and understanding in the business of the 
 court, is an excellent finger of a court, and doih many 
 times point the way to the Judge himself." And Lord 
 Bacon's high estimate of the practice of the court, ren- 
 ders natural such reports as are sometimes found in 
 the older books — as in 4th Leonard, 198 — ^where we find a 
 point of law "agreed by the court, and affirmed by the 
 clerks." 
 
 Brownlow and Goldsborough were Prothonotaries of 
 the Common Pleas. Their reports were published after 
 their deaths ; and though not exclusively so confined, are 
 chiefly composed of such practice cases as were constantly 
 arising in the old law. From an inscription of his age 
 upon an engra^ving, where he is costumed in his Protho- 
 notarial robes, Brownlow appears to have still held the 
 oflSce of Chief Prothonotary of the Common Pleas, at the 
 venerable age of 86. His experience, therefore, ought to 
 be entitled to all the respect which Lord Bacon claims for 
 " an ancient clerk." At the same time, I am bound to 
 add, that I remember no judicial expression of com- 
 mendation in these reports ; and in referring to the case 
 of Coventry v. Windall, the report of which attributes cer- 
 tain expressions to Lord Hobart, which Hobart himself 
 (who likewise reports the case), does not record as having 
 been said — Tilghman, C. J., remarks : " The probability 
 is, that in Brownlow's report of the case, these expres- 
 sions of Hobart are inaccurately stated."' 
 
 The first volume of Brownlow is by Brownlow and 
 
 ■ 6 Serg. and Bawle, 527. Some of the oases in Brownlow and in Yelverton 
 seem to be neatly verbatim. See Bedell v. Lull, 1 Brownl. 144, S. C, Yelver- 
 ton, 151 ; Cobb V. Hunt, 1 Brownl. 98, S. C, Yelv. 119. 
 
112 THE COMMON LAW EEPORTEES. 
 
 Goldsborough : the second by Brownlow alone. The old 
 and technical citation of the book is 1st and 2d "Brown- 
 low," though this form is not always observed in modern 
 times.' Among Sergeant Maynard's MSS. in Lincoln's 
 Inn, are "l^rotes taken in the Common Pleas by Mr. 
 Goldsborough, one of the prothonotaries of the same court, 
 concerning amendments of writs and arresting of judg- 
 ments in all manner of actions."^ This collection is dif- 
 ferent from the printed volume. (Edns. : Eng. 4to. They 
 were first printed in two parts, ann. 1651 and 1652. In 
 1654, a 2d edition of Part I. came out, and is often found 
 in company with the first edition of Part 11. In 1675, a 
 third edition of Part I. and a second edition of Part IE. In 
 the edition of Part I., printed in 1651, there is no table of 
 cases. Some copies of Brownlow have a "wra effigieg" 
 already referred to, of the great Prothonotary; as "for- 
 midable a likeness" as his posterity could desire.) 
 
 EEPOETS. K B., C. P., EX., Sc, T6. 
 
 14 Eliz.— 14 Jac. 1. (1572-1616.) 
 
 Lord Coke's Eeports begin shortly before the date when 
 Plowden, after the labor of thirty years, had closed his 
 volume. From the writings of these two persons the law 
 derived new lustre; and the strength of it, says Mr. 
 Beeves,^ was considerably advanced. The styles of these 
 Reporters, are, however, widely diverse. Of Plowden's, 
 I have already spoken. It is necessarily truthful, logical, 
 and exact ; and has the merit — a first rate one in judicial 
 reports — of presenting with absolute clearness and per- 
 spicuity the points and ground of the judgment. Coke 
 is much more summary ; and without tracing any form of 
 
 ' 10 Adolph. and Ellis, 770,? where the first volume is cited as 1 Brownlow, 
 and the second volume as 2 Brownlow and Goldsborough. 
 * See Appendix. 
 ' 5 Hist. Eng. Law, p. 242. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 113 
 
 argument, Ms general course is to give a state of the case, 
 then what was "moved," and the effect of all that was 
 said on both sides ; concluding with the resolutions of the 
 court. But throughout all parts of the report, and even 
 in giving the "resolutions," his inexhaustible learning, 
 and ever salient mind, break forth ; case being followed 
 up by case, quotation leading in quotation, illustration 
 opening into illustration, and successive inference made 
 the premises for new conclusion, every part, moreover, be- 
 ing broken with conclusions and exceptions, or protected 
 in a labyrinth of parentheses, till order, precision, and 
 not unfrequently clearness itself, is lost in the perplexed, 
 though imposing array. 
 
 The transcendent professional fame of Coke, and the 
 depth and extent to which his Reports have reached as 
 foundations of our law, will justify a somewhat enlarged 
 notice of the volumes. 
 
 He began his practice of noting down the legal transac- 
 tions of the day in the year 1580 ;' perfecting, during his 
 hours of leisure, the information which he thus acquired. 
 At length, in 1600, twenty years after the date when he 
 thus began, he brought out the 1st volume,^ and soon 
 after the following two ; being, during this time, Attorney- 
 General. These were all which appeared in the reign of 
 Queen Elizabeth. His 4th appeared in 1603, and the 5th, 
 in about two years afterwards, and while he was still At- 
 torney-General.^ The following five parts followed be- 
 tween the years 1607 and 1616,^ while he held successively 
 the Chief Justiceship of the Common Pleas and King's 
 Bench ; and these, with the six parts already mentioned, 
 making together eleven parts, formed all the volumes 
 which were published in his lifetime ; and, as would ap- 
 
 ' Woolrych's Life of Coke, 28, and Pref. to 1st Reports. 
 
 * Johnson's Life of Colce, ii. p. 406. » Id. p. 414. 
 
 * The 6th, in 1607 ; the 7th, in 1608; the 8th, in 1611 ; the 9th, in 1612 ; 
 the 10th, in 1613 (in this he styles himself Chief Justice of England) ; the 
 11th, in 1615. Id. 416-424. 
 
 8 
 
114 THE COMMON LAW EEPOKTEES. 
 
 pear from Ms preface to the last one, all that were then 
 intended to be published at any time. He died in 1634 ; 
 and twenty-one years afterwards there was printed a 12th 
 volume, and again about three years after this, a 13th.* 
 
 A notice of these last may be interesting. Coke, having 
 become, in the later years of his life, dissatisfied with the 
 measures of the royal party, and quite opposed to it, it 
 was thought by some of the more intemperate royalist 
 advisers, that there might be found in his possession let- 
 ters or other communications which would disclose the 
 designs of the commonwealth faction. A council warrant 
 was accordingly sent to search Coke's seat at Stoke ; and 
 under the designation of " dangerous and seditious pa- 
 pers," to which alone the warrant applied, a general 
 pillage was made of the great lawyer's study. The origi- 
 nal MS. of Coke Littleton, Sir Edward's last will and 
 testament, with about fifty other MSS., not so particularly 
 described, were carried off,^ as within the designation of 
 
 ' Johnson's Life of Coke, ii. p. 426-7. 
 
 ^ See id. 323 for a curious " Note of such things as were found in a trunk of 
 Sir Edward Coke, taken from Pepys, his servant." The contents of La Fleur's 
 pocket, as described in The Sentimental Journey, were scarcely more varions 
 and entertaining. I give an extract. " 1. Two black books : in one, his in- 
 denture between Sir Edward Coke and John his son, and Edmund Doyley 
 and Sir Lionel Tallmash, and others : in the other book nothing. 2. A table- 
 book embroidered with gold and silk. 3. Six keys tied together. 4. Three 
 other keys tied together, of which one is a great one. 5. Two gold rings ; 
 one set with a fair turk&es, and the other with a pointed diamond. 6. One silver 
 seal, with his arms, set in white bone. 7. One black box, wherein is a little 
 box with a jewel of diamonds. Item in that black box : three silver seals ; 
 three gold rings ; one seal graved and enamelled ; one other bigger ring ena- 
 melled ; one seal engraved ; one other seal engraved ; one other ring with a 
 woman's head engraved in the same form ; one little old gold ring with a 
 signet of brass, and two of gold ; three silver and gilt clasps of a book, and one 
 clasp of silver; a piece of silver bullion; one corner of a book, silver gilt. 
 8. One great iron key. 9. An old gold crown piece, a twenty-two shilling 
 piece, two angels of 1 1»., seventy pieces of 10s. 6d. ; two pieces of 20s. apiece ; 
 four crowns of 5s. 6d. apiece, all put in an old purse. 10. One lid of an old 
 painted box. 11. An exemplification of a decree under the Great Seal at the 
 request of Sir Edward Coke, between him and Sir Roger Townsend. 12. A 
 bundle of letters and papers concerning Doyley's Estate Papers, concerning 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPORTEKS. 115 
 
 " dangerous;" and it seems likely, considering tlie politi- 
 cal charges which had been brought against Colie's printed 
 Reports, that if any reports in MS: were found, they were 
 taken too. Coke, who was then in his 84th year, and in 
 his last illness, died soon after ; Lady Hatton, his wife, from 
 whom he was separated, made no effort to recover the 
 papers; and after "a havoc," says Mr. Johnson, which 
 " appears to have been most wanton and iniquitous," and 
 a detention of seven years, the papers, or such of them as 
 could be found, were on motion of Coke's son restored by 
 order of the House of Commons to his family.* Certain 
 of them, which are specified, hut among which are not in- 
 cluded these two parts of the Reports, the House desired that 
 the heir should publish. It was many years after this 
 order that the 12th and 13th volumes of the Reports first 
 came forth, and I do not perceive that either of them 
 contains any reference to their history. To the twelfth 
 part there is prefixed a certificate from Bulstrode, who 
 was Chief Justice of Wales, in which he says, dryly, that 
 after reading it, he conceived it was Lord Coke's " collec- 
 tions ;" but the value of this certificate is apparent from 
 the preface to his own reports, published two years after- 
 wards,^ and which indicates at the same time, that profes- 
 sional opinion had pronounced against the volume, and 
 that in a way to cast some censure upon him: "I must 
 confess," he says, " the book was brought to me after it 
 was fully printed and not before, with a desire that I 
 would read and peruse it, and give the party that brought 
 it my judgment whether I conceived they were the collec- 
 tions of Sir Edward Coke. I did accordingly read and 
 peruse it, but found therein so many gross mistakes, 
 omissions, misprintings, and imperfections, that I told the 
 party that brought it, that it was not fit for public view 
 
 FepySghis servant, and the trunk sent unto him, 16th April, 1633, and the books 
 in it." The residue of the list is in keeping with what precedes ; and I 
 note " One paper of poetry to his children." 
 
 ' Johnson's Life of Coke, ii. p. 331, 458. = Quoted, id. 426. 
 
116 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 with SO many defects in it ; but that I did conceive they 
 were the collections of Sir Edward Coke, and that there 
 were many good and useful cases in them, but never fitted 
 nor prepared for the press." The character and value of 
 the 12th Eeports was prominently brought before the 
 public in a matter which agitated the profession in Eng- 
 land in 1851-2, — ^the right of the Crown to issue certain 
 commissions to inquire and report upon the states, 
 discipline, studies, and revenues of the two TJniversities. 
 It appears that the 12th and 13th parts, though ori- 
 ginally written like the others, in French, were never 
 published in that language. The first edition of the 
 12th part, in 1656, was in English. It is not very cor- 
 rectly translated, and though there are at least five manu- 
 script copies in the original French, all accessible* — one of 
 them, Sergeant Maynard's, the most authentic, probably, 
 of all, containing "many and material variations" fi:om 
 the received edition of 1656, and omitting at least one 
 principal case altogether — ^this old translation of 1656 is 
 still the only one known to the profession. An intelli- 
 gent reviewer speaks of this volume of Lord Coke's labors 
 as one in which an anonymous editor has thrown together 
 without method or discrimination, the rejected sweepings 
 of that great lawyer's maturer labors ; loose notes of the 
 judgments and private opinions of himself and others ; 
 extracts from text writers and reporters ; memoranda of 
 private conferences, and of extra-judicial interlocutions at 
 ■Whitehall, York House, Lambeth, and Sergeants' Inn ; — 
 forming, together, a very untrustworthy collection of 
 doubtful law, and a noble ? record of judicial honesty at a 
 very momentous crisis of our history. 
 
 The preface to the 13th part (which is signed by 
 some person styling himself I. G.) speaks of the original 
 
 > Hargrave's MSS. No. 34, a selection; Lansdowne MSS. No. 601 (Sir M. 
 Hale's copy) and 1079 ; Harleian MSS. No. 4815-6 ; Maynard's MSS. in Lincoln's 
 Inn, Ixxx. See General Report of the Commissioners on Public Records, 1837, 
 p. 382; and The Law Review, vol. 15, pp. 281, 288. 
 
THE COMMON LA"W EEPOETEES. 117 
 
 being in Coke's own handwriting; but there is nothing 
 said in the work to clear away those doubts which an edi- 
 tor of any intelligence would perceive must arise in every 
 man's mind in r^ard to a posthumous publication from 
 MSS. which had met vicissitudes so public and consider- 
 able as Coke's. But whether genuine or not, this part, 
 like the 12th, is very little esteemed; being not only 
 posthumous, and never designed for the press, but loose, 
 also, and undigested.^ But to return to the volumes pub- 
 lished by Coke himself. 
 
 The eleventh part of the Reports was published, he tells 
 us,' " in the tempest of many other important and press- 
 ing business," and therefore he could not "polish" them 
 as he desired ; though, if he might judge, the matter of 
 them, he would say, was not inferior to any of the other. 
 This expression of apology, which every reader must have 
 noted, has reference to his memorable difficulties with 
 Lord EUesmere, Bacon, King James and his council, 
 and which ended in his being displaced from the bench. 
 I cannot believe, however, that even this great conflict, 
 which might well have driven other interests from lesser 
 minds, did more, with Coke, than prevent that " polish- 
 ing" of which he speaks ; if indeed his words be more at 
 all than matter of defensive commendation. His ten 
 volumes already printed, had just been the subject of 
 Bacon and EUesmere's sharpest inquisition ; and it is in- 
 credible that the man who vnthheld his commentaries on 
 Littleton from the world till his 82d year was about to 
 remove him from all earthly labor and capacities, and who 
 considered his other Institutes so imperfect that he never 
 published them at all, would now expose himself to 
 effective attack from enemies who thus far had found and 
 left him invulnerable. My own notion is, therefore, that 
 the first eleven Eeports stand essentially upon the same 
 
 ' 4 Barn, and Aid. 614; 10 Barn, and Cres. 275; Howell's State Trials, 
 vol. ii. p. 381. 
 ^ Preface to 11th Reports. 
 
118 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 footing ; a different one from that of the 12th and 13th. 
 Let us then inquire into the character of these eleven 
 parts which have been the subject of criticism too im- 
 portant to be disregarded. « 
 
 Lord Eedesdale declared, in an important case in the 
 House of Lords, that while he had a great respect for the 
 memory of Sir Edward Coke, he was yet ready to accede 
 to an assertion, made by some of Sir Edward's contempo- 
 raries, that " he was too fond of making the law, instead 
 of declaring the law, and of telling untruths to support his 
 own opinions."* Sir Edward Sugden, in another place, 
 says: "Let not our just admiration of Sir Edward 
 Coke's profound legal learning carry us too far. His sys- 
 tem of turning every judgment into a string of general 
 propositions or resolutions, has certainly a very imposing 
 appearance, but it is a system of all others the least cal- 
 culated to transmit a faithful report ;" and he suggests 
 that, " the bias of a man's own sentiments may involun- 
 tarily lead him to pervert the opinions of others in order 
 to support his own."^ Of the reasonableness of Sugden's ' 
 remark, no one will doubt ; and going, as it does, princi- 
 pally, to what I think cannot be considered other than a 
 bad model for reporting, and designed thus to lead the 
 student to an analysis of Coke's cases before citing them ; 
 it is one which I should say deserves constant remem- 
 brance an,d application. Lord Kedesdale's is criticism of 
 a very different sort ; and notwithstanding my eminent 
 respect for the ex-chancellor of Ireland, I could have 
 wished that he had referred to those contemporaries of 
 Coke who have left this terrible censure upon the Chief 
 Justice ; that we might see whether his lordship meant to 
 speak to a certain intent (as he usually did speak), or 
 only to the more common purpose. It would be gratify- 
 ing to know whether that excellent collection of MSS. 
 
 ' Case of the Earldom of Banbury, reported in Nicolas on Adulterine Bas- 
 tardy, p. 461. 
 ' Treat, on Powers, 23 n. 6th ed. 
 
THE COMMON LAW KEPORTERS. 119 
 
 which Lord Eedesdale was known to possess and to be 
 acquainted with,' and from which Lord Eldon had himself 
 derived assistance, might not have contained something 
 on this subject not known to the public, but referred to by 
 their possessor. In the absence of any such reference I 
 will state what occurs to me. 
 
 The only writers who were contemporaneous, or within 
 a century of being so, recalled by me, who criticise Coke's 
 Eeports, are : 
 
 L Lords Bacon, EUesmere, and the Privy Council. In 
 June, 1616, being then sequestered from the Council 
 Chamber, and made " to forbear riding the summer Cir- 
 cuit, as Justice of Assize," Coke was ordered during this 
 vacation, and "while he had thus time to live privately 
 and dispose himself at home, to take into his considera- 
 tion his books of Eeports, wherein, as His Majesty was 
 informed, there be many exorbitant and extravagant 
 opinions set down and published for good law."^ 
 
 n. Parsons, the Jesuit's answer to Coke's 6th volume. 
 
 in. Chief Justice Anderson's report of Shelly's case, 
 which contains (in French), the following note : " The 
 Attorney, Master Coke, has lately made a report in print 
 of this case, with the arguments and agreements of the 
 Chancellor and other Judges, but nothing of this was said 
 in the court, nor there declared."^ 
 
 IV". Lord Hobart, referring, A. D. 1618, to a citation 
 made from Coke, says, " It is no report of the resolutions 
 of the court, but an addition of his own, and that sudden 
 and interposed."^ 
 
 V. Siderfin's report of what Finch said, A. D. 1658, in 
 
 ' 1 Bligh. N. S. 539 ; S. C. 1 Dow & Clark (1 Dow N. S.), 11. 
 
 ^ Act. Council Reg., June 30, 1616, quoted in Nicholson's £ng. Hist. Library, 
 237, 2d ed. 1714; also in Johnson's Life of Coke, p. 309. 
 
 ' 1 Anderson, 71 " Notor—Ze Mturney Master Cooke, ad ore fait report en print 
 de cest case ove jlrgumentes et Us Agreements del Chanceler et auters Juges mes rien 
 de c. fuit park en le Court ne la momtre." 
 
 < Hobart, 300. 
 
120 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 arguing Heyns v. Villars,* st. : "But there is a report by 
 the Lord Anderson, in his private reports, that Lord Coke, 
 at that time Attorney-General, had greatly abused him 
 and others of the Judges, in reporting such judgments and 
 resolutions, in Shelly and Chudley's case, as they never 
 delivered." 
 
 VI. Lord Holt's remark,'' that Gage's case in 5 Eep. 
 45 h, is misreported ; a statement repeated by Chief Jus- 
 tice Willes,^ who remarks that Coke often gives his own 
 opinion instead of the opinion of the court. In the 
 case referred to, it is clear, from the record in Coke's own 
 entries, that he has stated that the court decided exactly 
 the reverse of that which they did decide. 
 
 Vn. Justice Gould's remark* (A. D. 1789), of a doc- 
 trine set forth by Coke in The Eeports, that he " always 
 thought it a singular doctrine of his own, and not any 
 part of the judgment of the court." 
 
 Except a statement — not important, I think, nor requir- 
 ing a particular answer — ^by Ellis, J.,' of- something once 
 said by Thos. Jones, as to the source of one of Lord Coke's 
 reports — a matter which Jones himself, who reports the 
 case, does not, however, mention — and a remark* of Lord 
 
 ' 2 Sid. 99. " Mes, est Report per le Snr. Anderson, en ses private Reports que le 
 Snr. Co. (a tiel temps Attorney-General) ad grandment abuse luy et auters des 
 Judges en reportartt tiels Judgments et resolutions en Shelly et Chudley's case que 
 Us ne unques delieer." 
 
 2 1 Salk. 53. ' Willes, 569 ; and see Fortesoue, 188. 
 
 « W. Black, 1234. 
 
 5 1 Mod. 205: " Ellis said, that in Lloyd v. Gregory (1 Jones, 405, Cro. Car. 
 502), reported in Jones, it was made a point; and that Jones, in his argument, 
 denied the case of Hunt v. Singleton (Cro, Eliz. 473, 564, 3 Co. 60). He said 
 that himself and Sir Rowland Wainscott reported it, and that nothing was said 
 of that point. But that Lord Coke followed the report of Bridgman, who was 
 three or four years their puisnS, and that he mistook the case." Admitting all 
 that 1 Modern says, that Ellis said, that Jones said, it does not fix the least 
 " want of veracity on Coke, or even any want of care on him : it shows nothing 
 more than what I suppose to be true of many of Coke's reports, that he, in 
 common with many of the old reporters, was sometimes indebted to other 
 persons for what he reports. 
 
 « 11 Clark and Finnelly, 180 ?. 
 
THE COMMON LATV EEPORTERS. 121 
 
 Campbell's, in later times, that Lord Coke is supposed to 
 have "invented" many rules that are to be found in his 
 reports, — I recall no other authoritative censures of Coke. 
 In regard to those which I have presented, I would ob- 
 serve, taking them up in the same order in which I have 
 given them : 
 
 1. The order of the Privy Council seems to have been a 
 political and personal matter, set on foot by the terrible 
 hatred of Bacon to Coke, and consummated by the high 
 ideas entertained by James, of his princely prerogative. 
 Of the bitter, personal, open, and uncircumscribed malig- 
 nity which existed between Coke and Bacon, in their 
 fierce efforts for the honors of the crown, I need not speak 
 to educated persons. Bacon had tried every means of 
 supplanting his great rival, over whom he felt as superior, 
 in some respects, as he must have known that he was be- 
 neath him in others. Coke's integrity in office, his abili- 
 ties, his great professional attainments, were beyond the 
 reach of any shaft. And Bacon, availing himself of an 
 uneasy state of mind caused in the king by some strong 
 language which was said to have been used at the bar 
 about the prerogative, without reproof from the bench, 
 persuaded the king to give an order that the Judges 
 should proceed in no such cases till His Majesty should 
 be consulted, and his pleasure made known. The royal 
 order was given by a letter from Bacon, which Coke, with 
 all the other Judges, returned to the king, declaring that 
 the command of the letter was an unlawful one, and could 
 not be obeyed by them but with a violation of their oaths.* 
 The matter was imperfectly adjusted ; but Bacon's resent- 
 ment was stimulated to the most active malignity, and he 
 set himself in a new way of operation to break his great 
 adversary. The refined and exquisite taste of Bacon, we 
 may readily believe, had more than once turned with aver- 
 sion from the disordered style which marks the writings 
 of his great rival ; and I have thought that his memorable 
 
 • Bacon, vii. p. 333, Montague's ed. 1827. 
 
122 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 attack upon Coke's reports may have been the rather in- 
 stigated by peculiar circumstances which happen to attend 
 the case of Chudleigh. That case Bacon himself argued ;* 
 and it happens to be the one of which the report in Lord 
 Coke has been the most censured, and upon the most 
 reasonable ground. In the nature of things, it cannot be 
 a true report ; and the only mistake is in regarding it as 
 that which it Was never intended to be. For Coke, though 
 he says that he did not hear the argument at all, yet gives 
 what, in the argument, was to be "considered ;"^ and in 
 the judgment, the opinions — "not in the same form as 
 they were delivered," but merely " such a summary col- 
 lection of the effect and substance of them all as the matter 
 would permit."^ The order of the Privy Council issued : 
 but it is remarkable, while it says, that as His Majesty 
 " is informed many exorbitant and extravagant opinions 
 be set down and published as good law," the language 
 does not necessarily imply that such opinions were set 
 down and published as the judgments of the court; or if it ■ 
 does, does not imply that they were falsely so set down 
 and published. Some of the various proceedings which 
 took place in consequence of that order, are preserved, and 
 explain its object, as they likewise prove, I think, its es- 
 sential malignity. It is worth while to advert to them. A 
 commission of some sort, we may premise, and, indeed, 
 more than one commission, appears to have issued under 
 it, and we have returns from both Bacon and EUesmere, 
 who, doubtless, were upon them. The first, of October 
 16, 1616, and as follows, is from 
 
 Bacon to the King. 
 
 " This morning, according to your Majesty's command, 
 we have had my Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench 
 before us, we being assisted by all our learned Council, 
 except Sergeant Crew, who was then gone to attend your 
 
 ' 1 Rep. 121. ! Ibid. 3 Id. 132. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 123 
 
 Majesty. It was delivered unto him that your Majesty's 
 pleasure was, that we should receive an account from him 
 of the performance of a commandment of your Majesty 
 laid upon him, which was, that he should enter into a re- 
 view and retraction of such novelties, and errors, and 
 offensive conceits, as were dispersed in his Reports; 
 that he had had good time to do it ; and we doubted not 
 but he had used good endeavor in it, which we desired 
 now in particular to receive from him. 
 
 "His speech was, that there were of his Reports, 
 eleven books, that contained about five hundred cases ; 
 that, heretofore, in other Reports, as namely, those of 
 Mr, Plowden, which he reverenced much, there had been 
 found, nevertheless, errors, which the wisdom of time had 
 discovered, and later judgments controlled ; and enume- 
 rated to us four cases in Plowden, which were erroneous ; 
 and thereupon delivered into us the enclosed paper, 
 wherein your Majesty may perceive, that my lord is an 
 happy man, that there should be no more errors in his five 
 hundred cases, than in a few cases of Plowden. Your 
 M£|jesty may also perceive, that your Majesty's direction to 
 my Lord Chancellor and myself, and the travail taken by 
 us and Mr. Solicitor, in following and performing your 
 direction, was not altogether lost ; for that of those three 
 heads, which we principally respected, which were the 
 rights and liberties of the Church, your prerogative, and 
 the jurisdiction of other your courts, my lord hath scarcely 
 fallen upon any, except it be the Prince's case, which also 
 yet seemeth to stand but upon the grammatical of French 
 and Latin."^ 
 
 The insignificance of the errors, and Coke's resolute 
 bearing on the subject, is further shown in one of Bacon's 
 "Remembrances of his Majesty's declarations touching 
 the Lord Coke," which is as follows : " That his Majesty, 
 desirous yet to make a further trial of him, had given him 
 
 ' Bacon, vii. p. 343, Montague's ed. 1827. 
 
124 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 the summer's vacation to reform his Eeports, wherein 
 there may be many dangerous conceits of his own uttered 
 for law, to the prejudice of his crown, Parliament, and 
 subjects ; and to see, whether by this he would in any 
 part, redeem his fault. But that his Majesty hath failed 
 of the redemption he desired, but hath met with another 
 kind of redemption from him, which he little expected. 
 For, as to the Reports, after three months' time and 
 consideration, he had offered his Majesty only five animad- 
 versions ; being rather a scorn, than a satisfaction to his 
 Majesty : whereof one was, that in the Prince's case, he 
 had found out the French statute, which was ' fik aisne,' 
 whereas the Latin was ' primo-genitus ;' and so the Prince 
 is Duke of Cornwall in French, and not Duke of Corn- 
 wall in Latin. And another was, that he had set Mon- 
 tague to be Chief Justice in Henry VIII.'s time, when it ' 
 should have been in Edward VI. 's time, and such other 
 stuff; not falling upon any of those things, which he 
 could not but know were offensive. That, hereupon, his 
 Majesty thought good to refresh his memory, and out of 
 many cases, which his Majesty caused to be collated, to 
 require his answer to five, being all such as were hut ex- 
 patiations of his own, and no Judgments ; whereunto he re- 
 turned such an answer, as did either justify himself, or 
 elude the matter, so as his Majesty seeth plainly ' anti- 
 quum obstinet.' "' 
 
 A letter from the Chancellor, of 22d October, 1616, 
 illustrates in the same way, the character of the objections 
 which, had been made to these Eeports, and Coke's perfect 
 contempt for them all. 
 
 LoBD Chancellor Ellbsmere to the King. 
 
 " According to your Majesty's directions signified unto 
 me by Mr. Solicitor, I called the Lord Chief Justice before 
 
 ' Bacon, vii. p. 351, Montague's ed. 1827. 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPOETERS. 125 
 
 me on Thursday, the 17th of this instant ; in the presence 
 of Mr. Attorney and others of your learned council, I did 
 let him know your Majesty's acceptance of the few ani- 
 madversions, which, upon review of his own labors, he 
 had sent, though fewer than you expected, and his excuses 
 other than you had expected, as, namely, in the Prince's 
 case, the want of the original in French ; as though, if 
 the original had been ' primo-genitus,' in Latin, then he 
 had not in that committed any error. I told him further, 
 that because his books were many, and the cases therein, 
 as he saith, 500, your Majesty, out of your gracious favor, 
 was pleased that his memory should be refreshed ; and 
 that he should be put in mind of some passages dispersed 
 in his books, which your Majesty, being made acquainted 
 with, doth as yet distaste, until you hear his explanation 
 and judgment concerning the same. And that, out of 
 many, some few should be selected, and that at this time 
 he should not be pressed with more, and these few not to 
 be the special and principal points of the cases, which 
 were judged, but things delivered ly discourse, and, as it 
 were, hy expatiation, which might have been spared and for- 
 borne, without prejudice to the judgment in the principal cases. 
 " Of this sort, Mr. Attorney and Mr. Solicitor made choice 
 of five specially, which were read distinctly to the Lord 
 Chief Justice. He heard them with good attention, and 
 took notes thereof in writing, and, lest there might be any 
 mistaking either in the declaring thereof unto him, or in 
 his misconceiving of the same, it was thought good to 
 deliver unto him a true copy. Upon consideration 
 whereof, and upon advised deliberation, he did yesterday, 
 in the afternoon, return unto me, in the presence of all 
 your learned council, a copy of the five points before 
 mentioned, and his answer at large to the same, which I 
 make bold to present herewith to your Majesty, who can 
 best discern and judge, both of this little which is done, 
 and what may be expected of the multiplicity of other 
 
126 THE COMMOK LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 cases of the like sort, if they shall be brought to further 
 examination."' 
 
 It would extend too far an examination, which to some 
 maybe already tedious, should I enumerate the five several 
 points and answers, which were thus stated and made. 
 One only, the first, may be mentioned by way of example. 
 The point objected against Coke, was his saying, in his 
 Reports, " that in many cases the common law shall con- 
 trol acts of Parliament, and sometimes shall adjudge them 
 to be merely void; for where an act of Parliament is 
 against common right and reason, the common law shall 
 control it, and adjudge it void." Sir Edward justifies 
 himself perfectly : " The words of my report," says he, 
 " do not import any new opinion, but only a relation of 
 Buch authorities of law, as had been adjudged and resolved 
 in ancient and former times, and were cited in the argu- 
 ment of Bonham's case ; and, therefore, the words of my 
 book are these : ^It appeareth in our looks, that in many 
 cases, the common law shall control acts of Parliament, 
 and sometimes shall adjudge them to be utterly void ; for 
 when an act of Parliament is against common right and 
 reason, or repugnant, or impossible to be performed, the 
 common law shall control this, and adjudge such act to be 
 void.' " And after a profound examination of the authori- 
 ties, he concludes : " Which cases being cited in the argu- 
 ment of this case, and I finding them truly vouched, I 
 reported them in this case, as my part was ; and had no 
 other meaning than, so far as those particular cases, there 
 cited, do extend unto. And, therefore, the beginning is, 
 ' It appeareth in our boohs, etc' And so it may be ex- 
 plained, as it was truly intended."^ 
 
 Coke was removed from the chief justiceship, Nov. 5, 
 1616, contrary, it is evident, to the personal inclinations 
 of James ; and Bacon, having now secured his object, the 
 matter of the Reports appears to have been no more heard 
 
 ' Bacon, vii. p. 370, Montague's ed. 1827. ' Ibid. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 127 
 
 of during Coke's disgrace. But tlie compunctious visit- 
 ings whicli have returned to stouter hearts than James's, 
 soon proved too much for even the influence which Bacon 
 had upon the king. Coke, though not again instated in 
 his place, was hefore long obviously restored to the king's 
 respect, if, indeed, he ever truly lost it; and the old busi- 
 ness is again set on foot. Coke, this time, took hold of 
 the matter with a determination to make an end of it. 
 He addressed a letter to the President of the Privy 
 Council,* who was near the king's person, and was known 
 to be high in his favor. 
 
 Coke to the Earl of Buckingham. 
 
 " Above a year past, in my late Lord Chancellor's time, 
 information was given to his Majesty, that I, having pub- 
 lished, in eleven works or books of reports, containing 
 above 600 cases, one with another, had written many things 
 against his Majesty's prerogative. And I, being by his 
 Majesty's gracious favor called thereunto, all the exceptions 
 that could be taken to so many cases in so many books, 
 fell to five, and the most of them, too, were by passages in 
 general words ; all which I offered to explain in such sort 
 as no shadow should remain against his Majesty's pre- 
 rogative, as in truth there did not ; which, whether it were 
 related to his Majesty, I know not. But thereupon the 
 matter has slept all this time ; and now the matter, after 
 this ever-blessed marriage,^ is revived, and two Judges are 
 called by my Lord Keeper to the former that were named. 
 My humble suit to your lordship is, that if his Majesty 
 shall not be satisfied vdth my former offer, viz., by advice 
 of the Judges to explain and pubUsh, as is aforesaid, those 
 
 ' There is no date to this letter. Stephens, according to Mr. Johnson, sup- 
 poses that it was written in October or November, 1617. Johnson's Life of 
 Coke, 1, p. 324. 
 
 • Of Coke's daughter with Sir John Villiers, Buckingham's brother. 
 
128 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 five points, so as no shadow may remain against his pre- 
 rogative ; that then all the Judges of England may be 
 called hereunto. 2. That they may certify also what cases 
 I havejpublished for his Majesty's prerogative and benefit, 
 for.the good of the Church, and quieting of men's inheri- 
 tances, and good of the commonwealth ; for which pur- 
 pose I have drawn a minute of a letter to the Judges, which 
 I assure myself your lordship will judge reasonable." This 
 intended letter from the King to the Judges was in the fol- 
 lowing sketch of a 
 
 GOMMISSION. 
 
 " Whereas, in the time of the late Lord Chancellor, in- 
 timation was given unto us, that divers cases were pub- 
 lished in Sir Edward Coke's Eeports, tending to the pre- 
 judice of our prerogative royal ; whereupon we, caring for 
 nothing more, as by our kingly ofl&ce we are bounden, than 
 the preservation of our prerogative royal, referred the same : 
 and thereupon, as we are informed, the said Sir Edward 
 Coke being called thereunto, the objections were reduced 
 to five only, and most of them consisting in general terms ; 
 all which Sir Edward offered, as we are informed, to ex- 
 plain and publish, so as no shadow might remain against 
 our prerogative. And whereas; of Me, two other Judges 
 are called to the others formerly named, now our plea- 
 sure and intention being to be informed of the whole 
 truth, and that right be done to all, do think it fit, that aU 
 the Judges of England, and Barons of the Exchequerj who 
 have principal care of our prerogative and benefit, do as- 
 semble together concerning the discussing of that which, 
 as is aforesaid, was formerly referred ; and also what cases 
 Sir Edward Cokfe hath published to the maintenance of 
 our prerogative and benefit, for the safety and increase of . 
 the revenues of the Church, and for the quieting of men's 
 inheritances, and the general good of the commonwealth: 
 in all which we require your advice and careful considera- 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPORTEES. 129 
 
 tions ; and that before you make any certificate to us, you 
 confer with the said Sir Edward, so as all things may be 
 the better cleared."' 
 
 Whether anything farther was ever done, I am not able 
 to say ; the disgrace of Bacon followed in 1620, and after 
 that, it is probable the whole matter ended. 
 
 It will be obvious, I think, to any careful reader that no 
 substantial charge was made against Coke's Reports, in 
 anything which precedes. In the original order of council, 
 the only matter^ specified with which his Majesty was not 
 well pleased, was Coke's styling himself "Lord Chief 
 Justice of England, whereas, he could challenge no more 
 than Chief Justice of the King's Bench ;" and the whole 
 matter, I take it, originated with Bacon's aspiring to be 
 Chancellor, and ended only when he had fallen, never to 
 hope again. 
 
 n. Parsons the Jesuit's Answer to the Fifth Reports.— 
 The Eeports were first printed at St. Omer's, and the 
 5th volume contains, at much length, in English, as Well 
 as Latin, the famous case of Cawdrey. This case, the 
 report of which embraces a discussion that efiectually 
 disposes of the Pope's supremacy in England, decided that 
 a Bishop might deprive of his living any parson who 
 preached against th^ Book of Common Prayer ; and Coke, 
 at the end of the case, breaks forth into a summary rather 
 warm for a reporter, but such, perhaps, as was not unna- 
 tural to a favorite pupil of Whitgift. The Eoman clergy 
 in England were naturally enough dissatisfied with a de- 
 cision that arrested, by arguments more convincing than 
 all the Book of Martyrs, one of their favorite themes of 
 discussion ; and the Popish dissatisfaction took the usual 
 course of ecclesiastical discontent in an abusive and angry 
 bo6k. Parsons's answer has received, I am aware, a pass- 
 ing expression of praise from a Protestant archdeacon ;' 
 
 ' Bacon, vii. p. 379, Montague's ed. 1827. 
 2 Nicholson, Eng. Hist. Library, 238; 2d ed. 1714. 
 9 
 
130 THE COMMON LAW REPOKTEES, 
 
 but, in Coke's estimation, it was so mucli in the nature of 
 a railing accusation, that he gives it scarcely any notice. 
 In the preface to his 6th Reports, published soon after, 
 he says that there is nothing at all in it pertinent to the 
 matter, or on which it was possible for him to join issue;* 
 and he accordingly dismisses it, with nothing but a homily 
 to the author against " that fiery and salamandrine spirit, 
 which became not one who usurped the sublime and 
 broad-spreading name of the Catholic Divine." Arch- 
 deacon Nicholson, it is probable, was not much more able 
 to judge than Father Parsons himself, of the matter really 
 in issue, which was the municipal law of the country ; and 
 we may well dispose of both divines with no further notice 
 than was given by Coke to the only one that he had an 
 opportunity to encounter. 
 
 m. "We may next consider the note supposed to he hy 
 Anderson, at the end of his report of Shelly's case.^ And 
 here it may be proper to observe, in the outset, that it is 
 a record made nineteen years at least, after the date of the 
 facts to which it refers.' How far Anderson, or any other 
 man in practice as extensive as his probably was at that 
 time — the year before his elevation to the Chief Justice- 
 ship of the Common Pleas, and while he was yet Queen's 
 Sergeant* — how far, I say, he could safely undertake to re- 
 cord, as a matter of certain feet, the minute negative 
 history of a case argued twenty years before, in a variety 
 of places, at divers times, and by half a dozen counsel, 
 would depend upon circumstances ; but certainly, the pre- 
 sumption in fevor of his accuracy is by no means violent. 
 
 Examining the matter of the note, the reader will ob- 
 serve that there are two things spoken of in it : 1. Argu- 
 
 " Pref. to the 6th Rep. ' And. 71. 
 
 * Shelly's case was decided 23 Eliz., i. e. 1581. The first part of Coke's 
 Reports, which contains this case, appeared in 1600, and the note states that 
 Coke had made the report in print. 
 
 ■•Moore, 116. 
 
THE COMMON-LAW EEPORTEES. 131 
 
 ments, by which I understand arguments of counsel ; and 
 2. Arguments by the Chancellor and other Judges, " of 
 which," says Anderson (as I translate him), " nothing was 
 spoken in the court nor there set forth.'" Wow, in regard to 
 the first of these matters, the arguments, I do not under- 
 stand that Coke professes to set forth exactly what was 
 said by each counsel, Iior could he well have undertaken 
 to do so. Shelly's case appears to have been particular, 
 not only from the amount involved, but also from the fact 
 of its having been a family dispute between gentlemen, 
 both of them considerably distinguished, and a good deal 
 embittered. It became generally known, and attracted' 
 particular interest. It was argued, says Moore,' soventfois 
 al barre, and Coke names six counsel, including himself, 
 on one side, and Anderson on the other, who spoke to the 
 various questions before the Queen's Bench, where the 
 case first arose, and was debated. That court was unable 
 to form any judgment. At last, by a special order of the 
 Queen, who appears to have thought that her subjects had 
 quarrelled long enough, and that the Judges of the E. B, 
 were as wise after the several arguments which they had 
 heard in vain, as they were likely to become after hearing 
 any more, the Chancellor summoned all the Judges of 
 England to his own house, where the case was again 
 argued, not hy Anderson, however, though, perhaps, by 
 Coke f and the Chancellor, there, at his own house (where, 
 as I have said, Anderson does not appear to have been), 
 gave his opinion openly before all the Justices, for the de- 
 fendant. Coke's client. The Judges, however, desired 
 fiirther time for advisement, and after arguing the question 
 again among themselves, and bestowing great considera- 
 tion upon the record and special verdict, gave judgment 
 
 ' And. 71. " Moore, 137. 
 
 ' The questions (says Coke, referring to what passed at the Chancellor's 
 house) were argued " by Fenner, Sergeant, on the plaintiff's part, and by 
 ' one' on the defendant's part," I suppose that by " one" he refers modestly to 
 himself. 
 
132 THE COMMON LAW EEPOBTERS; 
 
 in accordance with the opinion at first declared by the 
 Chancellor. Of arguments made at such different times, 
 in such various places, by so many persons, and before 
 different tribunals, a report could not well have the exact- 
 ness of a photograph. Nor ought it to surprise us that 
 Coke, who appears to have followed the case through all 
 its course, and as counsel of the successful side, must have 
 been thoroughly saturated with all its learning, should,— in 
 reporting what was so important, had been so earnestly 
 contested, and so laboriously considered, but was adjudged 
 at the last, without any detailed exposition of reasons from 
 the bench, as being probably already sufficiently under-, 
 stood by the counsel, and unnecessary, — should prove, I say, 
 somewhat errant in his narrative, occasionally presenting 
 processes as well as results ; and, in the effluence of his 
 learning, and the warmth of a mind full of matter, de- 
 part from the most direct path of narrative, to make 
 " notes" and "things to be observed ; "distinguishing them, 
 however, as he does, in a manner for the most part suffi- 
 ciently clear, from what was " argued" or " answered." 
 
 Whether Anderson, in his note, means to speak of the 
 arguments at the bar as being inventions, or whether he 
 meant to apply that idea only to the reasons said to have 
 been assigned by the Chief Justice for the judgment in 
 court, or whether, after all, he meant only to assert 
 that the reasons said by Coke to have been given were 
 not assigned in court, though they might have been at 
 the Chancellor's house, or elsewhere, are matters about 
 which the dialect and shortness of his note leaves room 
 for conjecture to speculate; but that "nothing" of what 
 Coke reports to have been said by counsel was said, I hold 
 to be impossible, unless we suppose that Coke and all the 
 counsel on both sides missed, in every one of their multi- 
 plied arguments, all the points which were the most ob- 
 viously pertinent to their case. 
 
 Then, as to the 2d matter — ^the agreements of the Chan- 
 cellor and other Judges, &;c., Anderson, as I have said, 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 133 
 
 seems not only to assert that Coke had attributed to the 
 court reasons which they never gave, but does assert in 
 the clearest way (in his report),' that no reasons were 
 published by the court at all. Without stopping to in- 
 quire whether there is any particular significance in the 
 word "published," it is enough to remark, that in addi- 
 tion to the report of Shelly's case, as given by Anderson 
 and Coke, we have a 3d report; one by Sir Francis Moore," 
 not printed when Anderson's note was made, though now 
 accessible to us ; and that on the point of difference be- 
 tween Coke and Anderson, Sir Francis is in conflict with 
 Anderson, and in harmony with Coke. After stating 
 that judgment was given by the C. J. for the defendant, 
 he asserts expressly, " et il declara le reason di ceo destre 
 principalment," &c. ; assigning the reasons just as Coke 
 himself does ; Coke's report of them, like Moore's, being 
 short, and both as short as it was possible to make a re- 
 port, if made at all. 
 
 In concluding this part of my observations, I would sug- 
 gest that Anderson, who had lost his case, appears to have 
 been dissatisfied with the decision against him, which pro- 
 bably he did not regard as well founded. It is remarkable, 
 at least, that in his report of the case, he gives somewhat 
 fully his own argument for the plaintiff, and then con- 
 cludes, with more, perhaps, of candor than control, " not- 
 withstanding which, judgment was given for the defen- 
 dant, . . . but the reason was not published by the 
 court."* I have already mentioned that he does not 
 appear to have been present at the Chancellor's housej' 
 where the ease was argued in the last resort, and I infer 
 from this fact, from his having held at that time, the office 
 of Queen's Sergeant, soon afterwards followed by higher 
 promotion — (circumstances from which we may infer many 
 professional engagements), — and, finally, from his men- 
 
 ' And. 70, where, after giving his own argument, he says : " Que nient obstant 
 jugement fuit done pur le dit Henry, SfC. mes le reason ne fuit publish per le Court,' ' 
 « Moore, 136. ' 
 
134 THE COMMON LAW EEPOETERS. 
 
 tioning, in his own report of the case, nothing circumstan- 
 tial whatever, that probably his connection with it was 
 not so intimate as that of one or both of the other counsel 
 on the same side, Fenner and Gaudy. If this is correct, 
 we may suppose that he was not likely to be thoroughly 
 acquainted with the minute history of the case. 
 
 I have assumed throughout, it will be observed, that the 
 note is really Anderson's. It has occurred to me that it 
 may be but a commentary by some one of the numerous 
 persons — no friends, most probably, of Coke — ^to whom 
 the MS. belonged, during the fifty-eight years of Eng- 
 land's vicissitude, which passed between 1605, when Chief 
 Justice Anderson died, and 1664, when his MS. was first 
 printed. We come next to 
 
 rV. Lord Hobart's statement, that a citation made be- 
 fore him from Coke, was no part of the Judgment of the 
 court, but an addition of his own, and that sudden and in- 
 ferposed .'* 
 
 By this, I do not understand Lord Hobart as doing any- 
 thing more than correcting a misapprehension of counsel, 
 as to the value of a citation from Coke, which had been 
 made at the bar. The counsel, I suppose, had cited cer- 
 tain language as the language of the court, on a point in 
 issue. Hobart corrects this mistake (which was one suf- 
 ficiently obvious), by remarking that the language cited 
 is no part of the resolution of the court, but an observation 
 of Lord Coke, thrown, in by the way, and not well con- 
 sidered. As much more significant than this observation 
 of Hobart, I pass to 
 
 V. Sider/ln'sreport of Finch's observation, "that there is 
 a report by the Lord Anderson, in his private reports, that 
 Lord Coke, then Attorney-General, had greatly abused 
 him and other of the Judges, in reporting such judgments 
 and resolutions in Shelly and Chudleigh's case, as they 
 never delivered."* 
 
 » Hob. 300. » 2 Sid. 99.. 
 
THE COMMON LAW BEPOETERS. 135 
 
 Now, in regard to this statement of Siderfin, I observe, 
 1. That, in one particular, it is inaccurate upon its face. 
 Anderson says that Coke had abused Mm and other of the 
 Judges, in giving such judgments, &c., in Shelly' s caae, as 
 they never delivered. Nothing can be clearer than that 
 Anderson i^ thus, made to speak of himself as being one 
 of the Judges who decided Shelly's case, which we know 
 certainly that he was not, having been at the time at the 
 bar, and not upon the bench at all. 2. When Finch, in 
 1658, argued the case where this observation is reported, 
 Anderson's reports were in MS. We have them now in 
 print, and no such censure of Coke, as is said to be there, 
 can be found. I am aware that Finch speaks of Ander- 
 son's private reports; and -that Sir Edward Sugden* 
 seems to intimate that those reports may be different 
 from what are now known as Anderson's Eeports. But 
 the French expression translated "private reports," — '^ses 
 private reports" — ^is perfectly satisfied, I think, by reports 
 like Anderson's Eeports then were; that is to say, re- 
 ports or notes, rather, taken for private use, without any 
 design to make them public, and yet, in MS. Private re- 
 ports are reports not public, not published. "TJnprab- 
 lished," would probably be a more true translation of the 
 word, which is given us in the Norman French.^ No 
 doubt the reports which Finch spoke of, were the 
 same reports, in manuscript, which we now have in print ; 
 and, I think, whoever will compare Siderfin's- report of 
 what Finch said was in Anderson's private reports, with 
 the note at page 71 of Anderson, and ah-eaidy quoted, will 
 think it not improbable that this "note"' i» the origin of 
 the whole matter. It is remarkable, at any rate, that- in 
 both censures it is mentioned that Coke, at the time of 
 
 ' Treat, on Powers, pp. 23 and 24, 6th ed. 
 
 ' See Lord Lovelace's case (W. Jones, 27i0),. where counsel cite Lord 
 Darcie's case, a " private report ;'' alsOj the Dean and Chapter of Westminster's 
 case (Carter, 15), where Bridgma-n, C. J., speaks contemptuously of private 
 reports, meaning, obviously, unpublished reports. 
 
136 THE COMMON LAW EEPORTEKS. 
 
 the so-called fabricated reports, was Attorney-General : 
 the nature of the charge is in both the same, and that it 
 has been enlarged by one-half, in the report, is no way 
 surprising. The matter, moreover, rests on Siderfin's 
 report of what Finch said — not that he saw, but that 
 there was in Anderson's private reports. But, 3d : sup- 
 pose that the suggestion already made is wrong, and that 
 in some Eeports of Anderson's, not yet published, there is, 
 or was such a statement, as Fin<jh records was to be seen 
 in this secret record, how does it essentially touch the 
 veracity of Coke? The report of Shelly's case I have 
 already considered. In the report of Chudleigh's, Coke 
 expressly says, that he did not hear the arguments of coun- 
 sel, and he notifies to his reader that in giving them, or 
 what in them was to be considered, he does so only to the 
 intent that the state of the question should be better un- 
 derstood, and the arguments and reasons of the Judges 
 better apprehended.* When he comes to the opinions of 
 the court, while he tells us that he did hear all the argu- 
 ments of the Judges, and Barons (except only that of 
 Justice Beaumond, of which, consequently, all that he 
 says, he says only from credible relation), yet again he 
 says, that his intent is not to report any of their argu- 
 ments' at large, and in the same form as they were de- 
 livered by them, but to make such a summary collection 
 of the effect and substance of them all, as the matter will 
 admit,'' and after giving the five Resolutions, he says: 
 "for all these points were adjudged in this case, as it may 
 appear by the perusal and consideration of the case ;"^ by 
 which I understand him to mean — ^not that all those points 
 were formally decided, but that they were all necessarily 
 involved in the decision, as results from a premise ; and 
 that the reader would see this if he would carefully " con- 
 sider" their connection. 
 I do not mean to pass a eulogy upon this style of re- 
 
 » 1 Rep. 121. » Id. 132. " Id. 140. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 137 
 
 porting ; but, after an exposition by himself of Ms mode of 
 rendering, and a notice so conscientious, so formal as his, 
 to every reader — that the report does not give each man's 
 argument, but only a summary collection of the effect and 
 substance of them all — it is impossible, I think, properly to 
 charge upon him invention, or "telling untruths." 
 
 VI. The misreport of Cf age's Case, was a matter sharply 
 put by Lord EUesmere ; and I am not aware that it 
 was ever explained by Coke. Appearances, it must be 
 allowed, were against Sir Edward ; for his report states 
 that the court allowed an amendment of a writ under cer- 
 tain circumstances; whereas the record of the case, given 
 in his own Entries, proves exactly the reverse, and that 
 the amendment was refused. Here then was a matter 
 apparently much to Coke's discredit. The report was 
 conceded to be inaccurate : it was asserted to be false. 
 But the matter is cleared and explained, I think, by a 
 contemporary report of Sir Francis Moore, now in print, 
 but not so when EUesmere's charge was made. This ac- 
 curate reporter informs us, in his report of Gage's case,^ 
 that Popham, Gawdy, and Clench (who, I presume, con- 
 stituted a majority of the Judges, and may have been all 
 that were present), held the writ amendable, but that, 
 afterwards, this was reversed, and it was adjudged not 
 amendable !' Now when we call to mind that Chief Jus- 
 tice Willes has said of Gage's case, that this reversal, 
 reported by Moore, can be better sustained on precedents 
 than on principles, and that if the point were to come as 
 " a new question" before him, he should be of the same 
 opinion as that reported by Lord Coke,^ I think that we 
 can see a way to explain the' difficulty without resorting 
 to Lord Eedesdale's severe condemnation. Coke, proba- 
 bly, heard of the first opinion of the court, which he re- 
 
 1 Moore, 571. 
 
 ' Popham, Gawdy, and Clench, temble qm fwU amendable; mes postea fuit 
 reverse it Udjudge nient amendable. 
 3 Willes, 569. 
 
138 THE COMMON LA"W EEPORTEES. 
 
 ported ; and this conforming, as we may suppose, witk 
 his own opinion of the law, he was not led to inquire, for 
 himself, whether the court had done so unusual a thing as 
 reverse an opinion expressed by themselves ; and he may 
 not have heard that they did so, from others. To me it is 
 incredible that he has made a wilful misreport; for, to say 
 nothing of the character and station of Lord Coke,, he 
 would not, if meaning to deceive, have himself fur- 
 nished, as he does in his Entries, — a work published by 
 himself, — ^the unanswerable proof of his fraud. For the 
 rest, an unintentional incompleteness in his reports has 
 perhaps been partially accounted for. 
 
 VH. Justice Gould's remark in referring to a parti- 
 cular doctrine set forth in the Reports, — .that " he always 
 thought it a singular doctrine of his own, and not any part 
 of the judgment of the court" — requires but little reply. 
 Not to go into a question whether Justice Gould was right' 
 or wrong, or whether he understood Coke's language 
 rightly, or misunderstood it, his own remark need be ap- 
 plied no otherwise than to Coke's manner of reporting. 
 I have already referred to that : it is often noted by him- 
 self, and ought to be universally known and admitted by 
 others. The distinction between what was the point in 
 judgment, and what Coke states as having led to it as a 
 premise or what results from it as an inference; what, 
 in other words, he puts by way of cause, what by way of 
 conclusion, and what by way of corollary, is matter which 
 has been constantly before the professional mind, and is 
 well known to be a subject for professional discrimination. 
 Even in our own country, where technical authority has 
 been a good deal broken down, and the single name of 
 Lord Coke would oftentimes outweigh a whole bench of 
 judges whom he reports, the subject has been specially 
 referred to, and in language of which I think that it is 
 only too strong;* while in England one editor of the Ee- 
 
 ' Mr. Justice Johnson, of the Supreme Court of the United States, referring 
 (a. D. 1824) to a case in Coke, says: " As an adjudication, the value of that 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPOETERS. 139 
 
 ports' undertakes to tell you, witli nearly absolute precision, 
 what in each, case belongs to the court, and what to the 
 reporter. 
 
 In conclusion, let it be remembered, that of all these 
 different remarks upon Coke, three only were made in his 
 lifetime ; that of them, but two, alone, are clearly cen- 
 sures, and that one only of them was ever publicly made ; 
 or so made, at all, as to allow any opportunity of answer. 
 "With what candor, patience, and untouched integrity 
 Coke answered this, the record of his time has fortunately 
 not left us without a witness. And for Anderson, if he 
 have been truly reported through his N^ote, and Finch, — 
 it detracts much from the value of his censures — ^very 
 much from the candor of the man — ^that he should record 
 such things in private reports, or in any reports where 
 smaller men could "vent, and vent them in high places" 
 only when both the author and subject of them had ceased 
 to be able to answer or reply. 
 
 I infer, then, upon the whole, that Lord Kedesdale did 
 not mean to be taken with absolute precision ; or, if he 
 did, that his censure is too broad. 
 
 Coke's Eeports are likely to remain much where their 
 author left them two centuries ago. They will still con- 
 tinue to be The Eeports ; and no higher eulogy need they 
 ever receive than that which they drew forth from Coke's 
 great enemy and rival, to whom we have so often alluded: 
 " Of this I say no more," writes Lord Bacon, "but that 
 to give every man his due, had it not been for Sir Edward 
 
 case should be limited to a single point The case does not call for 
 
 the decision of another point ; for it is upon a special verdict, and that the only 
 question submitted. Yet the Reporter, who seldom lets an opportunity escape 
 him that furnishes an apology for exemplifying his indefatigable research, 
 makes it authority for a score of positive decisions, and the introduction to a 
 mass of law upon questions totally distinct. But it should be noted of this 
 learned Judge, that his Reports, like the text of Littleton, are only to be consi- 
 dered as the occasion or excuse for displaying his acquirements in the law 
 learning of his day, and expressing his opinions upon juridical topics." (9 
 Wheaton, 718.) 
 ' Mr. Frazer. 
 
140 THE COMMON LAW EEPORTEES. 
 
 Coke's Eeports (which, thougli they may have errors, and 
 some peremptory and judicial resolutions more than are 
 warranted, yet they contain infinite good decisions and 
 rulings over of cases), the law, hy this time, had been 
 almost like a ship without ballast ; for that the cases of 
 modern experience are fled from those that are adjudged 
 and ruled in former time."' 
 
 (Edns. The editions of the Eeports have been quite 
 numerous ; too numerous, indeed, to detail with profit or 
 great accuracy. The best and last, which has superseded 
 all older ones, is in English ; the whole thirteen parts in 
 6 vols. 8v6. Lond. 1826. The first three parts and the 
 fourth part to p. 38, by J. H. Thomas, and the residue of 
 the work by J. F. Frazer. This edition presents to the 
 public several notes by the late Sergeant Hill, who was 
 distinguished for his knowledge of subjects connected 
 with the old law, and is otherwise more valuable than any 
 of the old editions.) 
 
 The extent to which Sir Edward Coke's Reports occu- 
 pied the studies of earlier lawyers, may be conjectured 
 from the various forms in which we find them. They 
 have been abridged; their "great andornative sentences" 
 have been assembled, and the cases themselves, translated 
 into poetry. Of the abridgments, that by Sir John Davis, 
 in French, and translated by Ireland, is the m.ost distin- 
 guished.^ It is of the first eleven books, and is completed 
 by Manly, and also by Mr. Dunlap, of the American bar. 
 Of these same eleven books, a person named Trotman 
 made another abridgment, which bears the date of 1640 ; 
 and Mr. Eichard Gary digested the pleadings of the first 
 book. These works profess to discard all extraneous dis- 
 cussion and learning, and to give you, in the language 
 of one of them, " the very substance and marrow of the 
 Reports." Their exact merits, never having seen any of 
 the volumes, I cannot minutely describe ; but on the sub- 
 
 > Bacon, v. p. 342, Montague's ed. 1827. 
 
 ^ Edns. : 1650 and 1657 ; but more correctly in 1666, 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPORTEES. 141 
 
 ject of Abridgments, generally, most readers will per- 
 haps recall the sentiment of Montaigne, " Que tout abrSgS 
 d'un hon livre est un sot abrSgS." "Everyman," saysBul- 
 wer, " has a right to be the judge of his own bequests to 
 posterity." "Works of this mutilated kind may be conve- 
 nient for hasty reference; but no accurate lawyer will 
 repose himself upon so barren an account of a decision. 
 
 The Fasciculus Florum, by Mr. Ashe, is more apo- 
 thegmatic than any of the preceding works. Its title is : 
 " Vh Briefe et AlpTidbeticall Collection de tous les memorables 
 et ornative sentences et texts de Latine, conteinne en les 
 severall livres del Reports Edwardi Gohe." It was published 
 originally in 1617, and translated into English in the fol- 
 lowing year. Sir Edward Coke must have sighed to see 
 in what a " booklet" is comprised all that was deemed 
 " memorable et ornative" in the labors of his pen. The 
 poet's inspiration, to which I have referred, appeared in 
 1742 ; but like Homer, Milton, and other immortal bards, 
 Mr. Worrall fell upon unfeeling days, and came near to be 
 forgotten. Of these later times, however, when so many 
 others of equal merit have usurped the poet's name,' the 
 work has been more highly estimated, and a late catalogue 
 of Stevens & Norton,' announces a reprint in the form of 
 a neat pocket volume, with a portrait. 
 
 [Eorn 1549 or 1551 ; called to the bar, 1577 ; elected 
 Eecorder of Coventry, 1585 ; of Norwich, 1587 ; a bencher 
 of the Inner Tem., 1590 ; Lecturer thereto, and Eecorder 
 of London, 1591 ; Solicitor-General and M.P., for the 
 County of Norfolk, 1592 ; Speaker of the House of Com- 
 mons, 1593; A. G., 1594; Knighted, 1603; C.J. C.P., 
 June 20, 1606 ; C. J. K B., Oct. 25, 1613 ; Lord High 
 Steward of Cambridge, 1614 ; removed from the K.B., 16 
 Nov., 1616; M.P. for Cornwall, 1620; for Coventry, 1623; 
 for Norfolk, and made Sheriff of Bucks, 1625 ; M.P. for 
 Coventry, 1628, being still Eecorder of that city ; died 
 
 ' Catalogue, 1840, p. 42. 
 
142 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 Sept. 3d, 1634. There are several biographies of Coke, 
 Woobych's, 8vo. 1826 ; Johnson's, more copious ; id. 1837, 
 2 v.] 
 
 GODBOLT. ALL THE COUETS OP BECOED. 
 
 17 Eiiz.— 14 Cab. I. (1576-1638.) 
 
 See post, " Goldshorough." Though called Judge God- 
 bolt's Reports, this person seems only to have been owner 
 of the MS. from which the work was printed. The editor 
 was "William Hughes, a respectable lawyer of his time, 
 and the editor and translator of Leonard's Eeports. 
 Many of the cases are in Leonard, Anderson, and other 
 reporters. (Edns. 1652, 4to.) 
 
 SAVILLE. C. P., EX. 
 
 22 Eiiz.— 36 Eliz. (1580-1594.) 
 
 This book seems to be pretty much in the condition of 
 Pope's "most women," and to have "no character at all." 
 It bears the name of a reputable editor, but I have not found 
 a word upon it, either of censure or of praise, Nor am I 
 able to present a much more extensive notice of the author 
 than of the volume. The Peerage Book mentions his 
 name as one of the ancestors of the present Earl of Mex- 
 borough, in the peerage of teland ; as he also is of Lord 
 Brooke, of Brooke and Warwick, and of the late Lord 
 Monson, in that of England. He is styled in Burke, " of 
 Bradley Hall, in the Couniy of Tork." Eichardson, the 
 editor of his reports, mentions that he was made a ser- 
 geant of law, Nov. 29, 1594,— the 36th of Queen Elizabeth, 
 and one of the barons of her exchequer by the same 
 Queen, in about four years afterwards \- — an office from 
 which he appears to have retired in the 4th year of th§ 
 succeeding monarch. None of his reports, if my dates 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPOETERS. 143 
 
 are correct, were taken after he had attained the dignity 
 of a sergeant. He died in 1606. (Edns. Fol. Fr. 1675, 
 1688.) 
 
 CROKE. E. B., 0. P. 
 
 24 Eliz.— 17 Cab. I. (1582-1641.) 
 
 " A work of credit and celebrity among the old re- 
 porters," and which has " sustained its character in every 
 succeeding age."' This opinion of Chancellor Kent, I 
 take to be correct ; yet " Croke's Law Reports" are spoken 
 of by Judge Pendleton,'' as a book in which may be found 
 " precedents for almost any opinion ;" and Keeling, J., is 
 reported by Keble to have said, that it had been better if 
 Croke's reports had never been printed.' In "Wootton v. 
 Hele,* the plaintiff's counsel, one of the Joneses, referring 
 to a case in Croke, intimated that it was an invention of 
 the reporter. " The roll of that case is not to be found," 
 said Jones, " and here is a man will make oath that he 
 hath searched four years before and after the time, when 
 the case is supposed to have been, and cannot find it." 
 Twisden, however, the Chief Justice, in giving his opinion, 
 remarked that though " that book is so expressed, that it 
 is not an ordinary authority ; it is not to be waved ; and 
 said that he was of the same opinion before the book was 
 
 cited It may be," he adds, " that the roll is not to be 
 
 found no more than the roll of Middleton v. Clesman, re- 
 ported Yel. 65 ; but certainly Croke and Yelverton, Jus- 
 tices, were men of that integrity that they would never 
 have reported such cases unless there had been such. 
 There are many losses, miscarriages, and mistakes of this 
 kind." 
 
 One of the old editions of Croke, having its date thus, 
 MDCL., is said to be very incorrect ; and it is possible, 
 
 ' 1 Kent's Com. 485 ; and see 3 Peere Williams, 452 ; and " The Law 
 Magazine" (Lond.), xxix. 352 ; also Bridgman's Leg. Bib. 87. 
 
 » 1 Washington's Virg. 64. " Vol. ii. 316. ■• 1 Mod. 294. 
 
144 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 that Keeling and Jones had that edition before them; 
 while the Virginia Justice may have spoken, after the 
 manner of an "Old Dominion," somewhat at his ease. 
 Eeilwey's Reports having been published by Sir John 
 Croke, — the father of our reporter, and at one time Speaker 
 of the House of Commons, Recorder of London, as after- 
 wards a Judge of the K. B. — and that book being some- 
 times cited as Crake's Reports,^ it is possible, also, that con- 
 fusion may have arisen in that way ; and that Sir George 
 Croke may have had not less cause than Byron to say, 
 when some poetry, not his wicked lordship's, was pub- 
 lished with his name, that he desired to be made respon- 
 sible for nobody's stupidity but his own. 
 
 The cases in Croke extend, it will be seen, over a term 
 of sixty years ; some, in the earlier part of the time, it is 
 probable, not being taken by him in person : and there is 
 no doubt that throughout the book Croke reports, not only 
 cases which were decided, but many which were cited 
 before him, and of which no other reports exist : and oc- 
 casionally cases which were shown to him. He always 
 does this, however, stating somewhere or other that he 
 does so ; and the discredit which has fallen on the reporter, 
 arises not from any carelessness of his, nor from any want 
 of ability in the various courts whose decisions he gives 
 us, but from the separated heading of his cases, and the 
 inability of common readers to read him aright^ . I appre- 
 hend that whenever Croke professes to report a case, and 
 reports it at all fully, his authority is of the best kind. 
 Many cases, particularly in the troublesome times which 
 vere coming upon England, during the latter part of his 
 judicial life, are reported with the fidelity of personal and 
 patriotic interest, and inspire entire confidence by the 
 lively particulars which stand out through their compact 
 and weighty style. 
 
 As a general thing, his cases are stated rather too shortly 
 to be very satisfactory: and the book labors moreover, 
 
 ' Pref. to Treby's edn. of Dyer. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 145 
 
 under the diBadvantage of being a mere translation from 
 an unpublislied and not very legible French original.* 
 
 Besides their ordinary value as Reports, these volumes 
 are useful for the records they contain of the promotions, 
 changes, deaths, ceremonies, &c., connected with the chief 
 judicial offices, in the interesting times of James I. and 
 Charles I. 
 
 George Croke, our reporter, was born about the year 
 1560 ; educated at Oxford, whence in due time he was 
 transferred to the Inner Temple, of which he was Double 
 Reader. On the 11th Feb. 1622 (22 Jac. I.), he was ap- 
 pointed a Judge of the Common Pleas ; where, having 
 remained about six years, he was translated, Sept. 11th, 
 1628, to the King's Bench ; being then sixty-eight years old. 
 A beautiful record of his private character, already in print, 
 will supply the place of a more particular sketch. It is 
 fit to illustrate Lord Coke's splendid appeal to his reader,^ 
 " Cast thine eyes upon the sages of the law that have 
 been before thee ; and never shalt thou find any that hath 
 excelled in the knowledge of these laws, but hath drawn 
 from that divine knowledge, gravity and integrity." Coke 
 pronounces this knowledge to be irreconcilable with a 
 loose and lawless life, and declares that he never saw any 
 man of excellent judgment in the Common Law of En- 
 gland, but was withal, being taught by such a master, 
 "honest, faithfiil, and virtuous." Returning to our re- 
 porter's life: " He was," says his biographer,' " of a strict 
 life to himself, yet in conversation fiill of sweet deport- 
 ment and afiable ; tender and compassionate, seeing none 
 in distress whom he was not ready to relieve : nor did I 
 ever behold him do anything more willingly, than when 
 he gave alms. He was every way liberal, and cared for 
 money no further than to illustrate his virtues. He was a 
 man of great modesty, and of a most plain and single 
 
 ' See ante, " Remarks," § 14 n. = Pref. to 2 Rep. 
 
 ' Preface to Croke's Reports. 
 
 10 
 
146 THE COMMON LATV REPORTERS. 
 
 heart; of an ancient freedom, and integrity of mind, 
 esteeming it more honest to offend than to flatter or hate. 
 He was remarkable for hospitality ; a great lover and much 
 beloved of his country, wherein he was a blessed peace- 
 maker ; and in those times of conflagration, often pouring 
 out the waters of his tears to quench those beginning 
 flames which others did ventilate. In religion, he was 
 devout towards God, reverent in the church, attentive at 
 sermons, and constant in family duties. Whilst he lived, 
 he was the example of the life of faith, love, and good 
 works, to so many as were acquainted with his equal and 
 even walkings in the ways of God through the several 
 turnings and occasions of his life ; and, though now dead, 
 still continues to do good, being the founder of a chapel, 
 which he caused to be dedicated and set apart for the ser- 
 vice and worship of God, and for the ease of the inhabi- 
 tants of Studeley (being an hamlet and member of Bechley, 
 in Buckinghamshire, and at least two or three miles dis- 
 tant from that parish church), as also, of an hospital for 
 poor people, both of which he endowed with a liberal 
 revenue." 
 
 Croke remained on the bench until he was above eighty 
 years old; and then, in answer to his petition that by 
 reason of his age, his dulness of hearing, and other in- 
 firmities, he might be allowed to "retire himself, and 
 expect God's good pleasure," Charles I. granted him, in 
 consideration of his long and faithful services, a writ of 
 ease, dispensing with his services and further attendance 
 at court, but continuing him in the ofllce of judge, with 
 its customary emoluments. 
 
 Admitting, as we truly must, the political errors of 
 Charles, and his want of those qualities which fit men to 
 rule in troubled times, it is yet interesting to note how 
 many evidences attest his possession, not less of the sensi- 
 bilities of a man of genius, than of a heart which had 
 been nursed " to more than kingly thought." Shakspeare, 
 it is well known, was Charles's closet author ; and in the 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPORTEES. 147 
 
 king's response to the petition of his faithful servant, who 
 can doubt that the record of "Wolsey's fate had left its 
 language and its better lesson deep impressed upon the 
 royal martyr's mind! "We shall never expect," says 
 Charles, in his answer to Croke's petition, "much less 
 require or exact from our loving subjects, performances 
 beyond what their health and years shall enable them ; so 
 we shall not dismiss them without an approbation of their 
 service, when we shall find that they shall have deserved 
 it, muah less expose them in their old age to neglect." 
 
 In the quaint language of his biographer, the venerable 
 Judge, having got his dismission, made a "holy retreat" 
 to his house in Oxfordshire, where he remained, sur- 
 rounded by afiectionate children, till a certiorari came from 
 the great Judge of heaven and earth, to remove him from 
 a human bench of law to a heavenly throne of glory/ 
 
 ' The humanity of kingly rule, the justice of Laud's and Strafford's day, 
 sometimes compares but badly, for our times, with those of free and happier 
 lands I The late Constitution of Pennsylvania, it is well known, secured to 
 all judicial officers appointed under it, a tenure during good i behavior ; and 
 under this fundamental guarantee of public faith, many men, resigning the sure 
 rewards of professional fame, had fashioned themselves, by years of toil, to 
 the discharge of judicial function ; and were now unfitted to resume the long- 
 abandoned habit of an early life. Commissioned " during good behavior," it 
 was impossible, by any process known to constihttions, that these persons 
 should be deprived of office, while yet unreproved of fault. But fraud and 
 malignity are ingenious in resource. Cormentions may disregard what Con- 
 stUulions have made sacred. As though constitutions of government were not 
 designed to protect men against tyranny in every form. As though it were 
 matter of import under what forms, or by what names yon injured men, or as 
 if any power on earth could render politically right, acts which, in their own 
 essence, must be wrong. But a convention, to be sure, was " the provided 
 machinery of peaceful revolution ;" and by this sophistic juggle, at once per- 
 fidious, cruel, and absurd, did the Pennsylvania Convention of 1837 deprive of 
 their ofiices the whole judiciary of an extensive State. The oratory which the 
 printed debates record, was worthy of the occasion : " But injustice," excleiims 
 one of the speakers, " will be done to judges by turning them out of office, we 
 are told. He may be a poor man, and may have a family dependent upon his 
 salary ; but is this a reason why he should hold an office against the consent of 
 the people, which was established by themselves for themselves? The office 
 is theirs, not his." Just as though that were not a mein's property, which the 
 
148 THE COMMON LAW REPOETERS. 
 
 Sir George Croke is still represented by a lineal de- 
 scendant, the present Earl of Verulam. 
 
 The paging in Croke is repeated in Eliz., from 457 to 
 473, and in James, from 617 to 620. 
 
 These reports are cited by the names of the sovereigns 
 in whose reigns the cases reported in the different volumes 
 were determined, as Cro. Miz., Oro. Jac., and Oro. Car. The 
 cause of this peculiar mode of citation was, that prior to 
 the appearance of these reports. Sir John Croke, to whom 
 I have already referred, the father of the pr^ent reporter, 
 and Speaker of the House of Commons in the reign of 
 Queen Elizabeth, as also afterwards one of the Judges of 
 the Court of Common Pleas, had edited Kielwey's Eeports, 
 which, in consequence, had already got into prior peaceable 
 possession of the name of Croke's Reports.* 
 
 The name of this reporter is now usually pronounced as 
 it is written, Croke. An incident of political history in his 
 time gave rise to a common piece of wit, which shows that 
 the contemporary pronunciation was different. He was 
 
 State had not only invited, but encouraged him to accept. As if those just 
 emoluments of office were not property, when, for the payment of them, the 
 faith of the commonwealth was plighted by its oONSTiinilOK ;* and when, on 
 the guaranteed certainty of payment, a whole description of men had formed 
 their habits of life, and perhaps led many persons to dependence upon them. 
 As if, too, the proper feelings of men, their well-earned reputation, their rank 
 in their own and in public regard, were not their property ; as truly property 
 as those grosser possessions which, to use Mr. Burke's language, one may 
 measure with a two foot rule, or count upon his ten fingers. " Our charities 
 and our poor-houses," continues this decent orator of the Convention," are all open 
 
 o judicial mendicants, as well as others." (Delates in the Pennsylvania Con- 
 vention of 1837, vol. iv. p. 339.) If such language be not the cant of a fierce 
 malignity, then did the Burke we have already quoted say well, that he had 
 " seen in the rank of statesmen, persons with the conceptions and characters of 
 pedlars." 
 
 ' Pref. to Treby's edn. of Dyer. 
 
 * "The Judges of the Supreme Court, and of the several Courts of Common Fleas, shall 
 toW their offices during good behavior." The Judges of the Supreme Court, and the 
 Presidents of the several Courts of Common Pleas, shall, " at stated times, receive for their 
 services an adequate compensation to be fixed. by lavr; which shall not be diminished 
 during their amUnuamx in office," (Constitution of 1790, art. v. § 2.) 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPOETEES. 149 
 
 resolutely opposed to the imposition of sMp-money, levied 
 by King Charles, and his decided stand about the matter, 
 both when his opinion was taken privately, and when he 
 heard the question on the bench, gave rise to a vulgar 
 saying, that though the king might raise money by hooTc, 
 he couldn't do it by Crook} (Edns. : There are several 
 impressions of Croke in 1657, 1658, 1661, all of which are 
 called the first edition, and are frequently without tables 
 of the principal matters. Then there is the incorrect 
 edition of MDCL., already noted. Another impression 
 was made in 1669, but is called the second edition. It 
 is well printed, in three volumes, but has no references. 
 The third edition was published in 1683, three vols, folio, 
 and contains a curious, stiff, and ill-engraved print, which 
 is inserted in each volume successively. The last and best 
 edition is Leach's, published in 1790, 1791, 1792, in four 
 vols., octavo. Mr. Leach corrected the text, presented the 
 different points of law with paragraphs, and added refe- 
 rences and notes, some of them from a MS. of Chief 
 Baron Parker. There is also an abridgment of these re- 
 ports, in three parts, 1685, by Hughes, one ©f those well- 
 known abridgers and "doers into English," who, with 
 "persons of quality," and." men of vnt and honor about 
 town," figured on so many title-pages in the 17th and 18th 
 centuries.) 
 
 GOULDSBOKOUGH. ALL THE COUETS OP 
 WESTMOTSTER. 
 
 28 Eliz.— 44 Eliz. (1586-1602.) 
 
 " Godbolt, Gouldsborough, and March, mean reporters, 
 but not to be rejected."^ (Edns.: 1st or 2d edition of 
 same, arm. 1653, 1682.) 
 
 ' See Pearce's History of the Inns of Court and Chancery, 244. 
 
 " North's Study of the Law, cited in Greenleafs Cases Overruled, 153. 
 
150 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 POPHAM. K. B., C. P., CH. 
 
 ■ 34 Bliz.— 3 Cab. I. (1592-1627.) 
 
 Hyde, Chief Justice of the King's Bench in the time of 
 Charles EL, in citing a case from Popham, said :* " Which 
 I vouch, because I heard it ; not for the authority of the 
 book, which is none." To the same effect as to part of 
 the book. Lord Holt,^ and also C. J. Bridgman.' In fact, 
 as Popham died in 1607, and as this volume comes to 
 1627, it is clear the reports are not all his. Popham's 
 Reports, properly so called, occupy only the first 123 pages\ 
 of the volume ; and the cases in that part are more re- 
 spected than those which follow,'' and which, of course, 
 were added by some one to his note-book during the fifty 
 years which passed between his death and the publication 
 of the volume. Mr. Hargrave mentions,* that among his 
 law MSS., there was a folio volume, supposed to have be- 
 longed to Sir Robert Hyde, C. J. of the K. B., abeady 
 mentioned, containing, among other things, reports in 
 law-French, of Popham, with some interlineations by Hyde, 
 as is supposed, and " of great use," it is mentioned, in 
 correcting "the mangled a;hd ill-translated edition of 
 Popham." 
 
 Our reporter, we are told, was of an ancient and honor- 
 able family, his ancestor having been Sir John Popham, 
 one of the warriors of Agincourt, and the companion of 
 the fourth and fifth Henrys in all their wars in France. 
 This person was Grovernor of Southampton, in England, 
 and of Touraine and Bayonne, in France, under Henry 
 v., and Treasurer of the Household to Henry VI. In 1450, 
 towards the close of his life, the Commons, in honor of his 
 bravery and services, elected him unanimously their 
 
 > 1 Keble, 676. 
 
 2 Lord Raym. 626 ; S. C.l Peere Williams, 17. » Carter, 15. 
 
 * The Court of C. P., in 1690, speak of a case at p. Ii20 of Popham, as re- 
 ported by Popham himself (3 Mod. 326). 
 ' 1 Jurisconsult Exercitations, 332. 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPOETERS. 151 
 
 speaker, but he begged to be excused from serving ; the 
 state of his healtli, age, and shattered constitution, occa- 
 sioned by long military service, and the wounds he had 
 received in the w^ars, incapacitating him from the perform- 
 ance of the duties of that station. Popham, the Eeporter, 
 who bore the ancestral name of John, was born in 1531, 
 at Wellington, "a place," says Lord Campbell,' "which 
 is distinguished as the cradle of the "Wellesleys, and which 
 the great ornament of his race and of his country has 
 rendered forever famous, by taking from .it his title of 
 Duke, rather than from the scene of any of his glorious vic- 
 tories." Popham's histoiy, which, in what follows, I extract 
 chiefly from Mr. Manning's "Lives of the Speakers of the 
 House of Commons,"^ appears to be a romance. " When 
 a boy," says Manning, "he was kidnapped by a tribe of 
 gipsies, and detained by them for a considerable time. 
 The wandering life he led at this early period, with con- 
 stant exposure to the air, are supposed to have improved 
 his health and constitution, which had previously been the 
 source of uneasiness to his family ; but in other respects 
 it led him into habits of irregularity which ripened with 
 his years. Long after he beoame a student at the Middle 
 Temple, his dissipated habits rendered it extremely doubt- 
 ful whether he would ever attain to any eminence in his 
 profession, and it was feared rather that his future exist- 
 ence would be wasted in adventurous exploits, for which 
 the vigor of his body, his daring spirit and inclinations, so 
 peculiarly suited him. It is stated that, to supply his ex- 
 travagance, love of gaming, and every dissipation, he re- 
 sorted to the road, and that in the society of equally daring 
 spirits, who were associated with him in crime, he com- 
 mitted frequent robberies on the highway at Shooter's 
 Hill, and other lonely places in the vicinity of London. 
 He is represented to have continued these pursuits after 
 he was admitted to the bar, and had become a husband. 
 
 ' Lives of the Chief Justices, vol. i. p. 209. ^ London, 1851, p. 245. 
 
152 THE COMMON LA"W EEPOETERS. 
 
 "We have Aubrey's authority for Ms having pursued this 
 course of life for some years, but we are so far inclined 
 to divest his conduct of unmitigated criminality, as to 
 believe that it might have been dictated by a love of ad- 
 venture." Such, however, is not Aubrey's idea. He gave 
 up these courses only in his 30th year, and at the en- 
 treaty of his wife, "to lead another life, and stick to the 
 study of the law." According to Aubrey, however, he did 
 this in a very graceful way, for " he spake to his wife to 
 provide a very good entertainment for his comrades, to take 
 his leave of them, and after that day fell extremely hard 
 to his study, and profited extremely." Aubrey tells us in 
 conclusion that he was a strong, stout man, and could en- 
 dure to sit at it day and night ; became eminent in his 
 calling, had good practice, and was called to be a sergeant 
 and a judge. Popham was Chief Justice of the K. B. 
 for fifteen years, " with the reputation of a consummate 
 lawyer, and an impartial, though severe judge." Sir 
 Walter Ealeigh was tried before him, and Guy Fawkes 
 and his accomplices received sentence at his hands. He 
 was educated at Oxford, whence he was transferred to the 
 Middle Temple. In 1579, June 26th, appointed Solicitor- 
 General; 1581, Attorney-General; and June 8th, 1592, 
 C. J. of the King's Bench, having been, previously to his 
 professional honors, Speaker of the House of Commons. 
 He died, as I have already said, in 1607. A magnificent 
 tomb in the church at "Wellington does honor to his 
 memory. 
 
 I have noted, further back,» that the editor of Benloe & 
 Dallison's Eeports was John Eowe, whose name is now 
 saved from oblivion principally as having belonged to the 
 man whose son wrote Jane Shore and the Fair Penitent. 
 Chief Justice Popham, biography records,^ was the grand- 
 father of another great dramatist, John Ford. I know not 
 what connection there is between grave lawyers and pro- 
 
 ' jlnie, p. 80. 
 
 ^ Preface to Ford's Dramatic Works, i. p. vii. j Murray, Lond. 1831. 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPOETERS. 153 
 
 fane stage-players, nor what reason was in that doctrine of 
 Pythagoras by which Malvolio concluded, " that the soul 
 of our granddam might haply inhabit a bird." But the 
 new conditions of genius in successive generations are 
 somewhat remarkable. Who would expect to find the 
 orderly and dry judicial wisdom of Popham suddenly 
 break forth into the wild, romantic, and melancholy genius 
 which conceived the "Broken Heart?" or who predict 
 that the painful Sergeant Eowe, whose highest aspiration 
 was to publish, in its severe integrity, the antiquated and 
 unintelligible jargon of Benloe and Dallison, should be 
 succeeded, in the next descent, by a poet whose pathos so 
 deeply touches our hearts, and whose diction is so ex- 
 quisitely pleasing to the ear ! (Edns. : 1666, and secondly 
 in 1682 ; this last edition, I believe, with some additional 
 cases.) 
 
 FOLEY. 
 
 43 Emz.— 3 Geo. II. (1601-1730.) 
 
 When a case temp. Holt, in Foley, was cited* in the 
 K B. 1758, Mr. Justice Foster remarked, that " Foley, 
 though a judicious man, must have been a very young 
 note-taker in Holt's time," and the case was denied. The 
 volume traverses nearly a century and a third ; and it is 
 obvious that the cases contained in it were not all collected 
 from personal attendance at court. The book is not one 
 of much value in this country, as it consists principally of 
 cases on the Poor Laws. (Edns. : 1739, 1743, 1751, 1758, 
 octavo.) 
 
 YELVEETOK K B. 
 
 45 Eliz.— 11 Jao. I. (1603-1613.) 
 
 Of these Eeports of Sir Henry Yelverton, it is scarcely 
 necessary to speak in detail. They are known to have 
 
 y 2 Kenyon,271. 
 
154 THE COMMON LAW REPOETEES. 
 
 been prepared by the great lawyer Mmself; and though 
 not particularly intended, that I am aware of, for the 
 press, nor very technically presented, they have always 
 been esteemed as among the best of the older books both 
 for value of decision and essential accuracy of report. 
 They have had, too, in America, an editor worthy of their 
 original authorship. In 1820, Theron Metcalf, Esq., of 
 Boston, now a Judge of the Supreme Court of Massachu- 
 setts, a gentleman whose repugnance to everything like 
 self-illustration has too much confined his fame to the 
 class best able to appreciate it, gave to the profession a 
 new edition of the work. I need not say to any lawyer — 
 nor to those persons who have the pleasure of knowing 
 Mr. Justice Metcalf — ^that it is an edition of merit; and 
 characterized, in a high degree, by discrimination, accu- 
 racy, and research.' Unlike some of the American edi- 
 tions of English Reporters, the original work is here 
 printed entire ; and no one who can buy this form of the 
 book will ever care to possess the English. 
 
 The Reporter, himself, was eminent in that assemblage 
 of lawyers which has given to the reigns of Elizabeth and 
 James of England, their title to be called "the Augustan 
 age of our old jurisprudence." Genius, education, and 
 public honor appear, indeed, to have been heir-looms in 
 his family, and it is recorded, that between the years 1546 
 and 1671, no less than fourteen of its number were ad- 
 mitted members of Gray's Inn. His father. Sir Christo- 
 pher Yelverton, was eminent as a lawyer, as a statesman, 
 and as a Judge. He was made Queen's Sergeant in 1589, 
 in the 31st of Elizabeth ; and in 1602, the 44th of the 
 same reign, one of the Judges of the Queen's Bench. He 
 was also at one time a representative in Parliament, where, 
 in 1597, he was elected Speaker of the House of Com- 
 mons.^ I take him to have been inclined to the liberal 
 
 ' See 1 Kent's Com. 485 ; 16 Mass. 165, 166. 
 
 ^ See Hume's History of England, v. p. 154, Oxford, 1836, where Sir Chris- 
 topher Yelverlon's sentiments and conduct are recorded on a deeply interesting 
 
THE COMMON LAW KEPOETERS. 155 
 
 side ; for "Walker speaks of him as not wholly " free from 
 the stain of the times."' 
 
 Of the personal history of Sir Henry Yelverton, the 
 Reporter, I have found fewer memorials than his genius, 
 attainments, and charms of personal character would lead 
 every one to wish were yet preserved. He was born, it is 
 said, at Islington, in 1566, He had for his domestic tutor 
 the well-known and venerable Bishop of Durham, Dr. 
 Morton, who, having been ejected from his see, impri- 
 soned, and finally sent forth to starve by the Puritan in- 
 vaders, who, in those days, had climbed into seats of the 
 Prophets, found a refuge for his age in the paternal home 
 of the Yelvertons of Northampton. The memory of this 
 good man is kept in perennial fragrance by the eulogies 
 of Isaac Walton; "one," writes "Walton in 1639, "that 
 God hath blessed with perfect intellect and a cheerful heart 
 at the age of ninety-four years, and is yet living ; one that 
 in his days of plenty had so large a heart as to use his 
 large revenue to the encouragement of learning and 
 virtue, and is now (be it spoken with sorrow) reduced to a 
 narrow state, which he embraces without repining, and 
 still shows the beauty of his mind by so liberal a hand, as 
 if this were an age in which to-morrow were to care for 
 itself." Yelverton seems to have borne all the warmth 
 of respectful affection which such a man might well in- 
 spire in the feelings of a generous pupil. It is well known 
 that our Reporter, in after-life, wrote the Preface to the 
 " ETziaxoTzoq AizoaxoXaoz" si defence of English Episcopacy, 
 by his learned and venerable tutor ; and he speaks of him 
 in terms which show how much this labor was a labor of 
 love. "He was," says Yelverton, "an ancient bishop, 
 and had all the qualifications fit for his order, either to 
 
 occasion; one which shows also the domestic influences amid which the 
 author of the Great Argument against Impositions bad the happiness to be 
 reared. 
 
 ' See Walton's Lives, New York, 1832, pp. 60-61, and note, quoting Walker's 
 Sufferings of the Clergy, p. 18. 
 
156 THE COMMON LAW REPOETEES. 
 
 adorn or govern a churcli, but above all he was eminent 
 for Ms invincible patience under so naany violent persecu- 
 tions, and almost necessities; always rejoicing in Ms 
 losses, and protesting that he thought himself richer with 
 nothing and a good conscience, than those who had de- 
 voured Ms goodly bishopric. He was forty-four years a 
 bishop, a thing so extraordinary, that but one exceeded 
 Mm in this island." Nurtured under such early training, 
 we may believe that our pupil was well-grounded for 
 higher studies. His collegiate education he received at 
 Oxford ; and was afterwards entered at Gray's Inn, where 
 Lord Bacon mentions that he lived with him. Being ad- 
 mitted a barrister, he was elected a member of the first 
 Parliament of James I., and soon after appointed Recorder 
 of E'orthampton. It is probable that his father's reputa- 
 tion, and his own talents secured to him, at an early date 
 of his professional life, a measure of public favor. I ob- 
 serve his name frequently in the books as counsel, before 
 it was entitled to the official additions of either Solicitor 
 or Attorney-General ; and of the cases which he reports, — 
 all of them prior to his first appointment to offices of the 
 crown — a large portion are those in which he was Mmself 
 counsel. The great " Argument against Impositions by 
 the Crown," which was generally attributed to Mm, must, 
 however, have greatly raised his professional fame. That 
 Argument takes from the era of 1688 the glory of having 
 first, or best, stated the true principles of English taxation. 
 More than this, it enunciates a political code on this sub- 
 ject which is of general and enduring value, and deserves 
 study in our own day and country, where the injustice of 
 Stuart kings is sometimes reproduced in assemblies of the 
 people, and in humbler councils to which they delegate 
 but limited franchise. 
 
 On the promotion of Sir Francis Bacon, in 1613, to the 
 Attorney-Generalship, Yelverton took Ms place as Solici- 
 tor-General ; and on Bacon's being appointed Lord Keeper, 
 he again succeeded the great philosopher by being made, 
 
THE COMMON LA"W REPORTERS. 157 
 
 in 1616, Attorney-General. It is said that when the Earl 
 of Somerset, who had been useful to him, in his early- 
 professional career, was tried for the murder of Overbury, 
 Yelverton refused to appear against him. Loyalty, it 
 seems certain, was a principle of his nature, and a beauti- 
 ful letter to Sir Francis Bacon, when troubles were gather- 
 ing first around him, attests the truthfulness and fidelity 
 of all his professions.' His friendship for Bacon, I infer, 
 and his manly independence, soon involved him in dis- 
 favor with Buckingham and the court. One proof of it 
 he is said to have received, in 1620, by a summons from 
 the Star Chamber. After having held the office of Attor- 
 ney-General for about four years, he was accused in that 
 court of having introduced some clauses into a charter, 
 then lately granted to the City of London, which enlarged 
 it beyond the warrant which he had received from the 
 king. The act seems to have been admitted by Yelver- 
 ton, who confessed its impropriety, and gave what was 
 deemed by some a sufficient excuse for it. iN'otwithstand- 
 ing this, an information was issued against him. When 
 the cause came before the Judges, he again tendered 
 concessions, and entreated that the king might be ac- 
 quainted with his contrition before sentence was given. 
 A majority appear to have thought that as nothing like 
 corruption had been shown, and as no inconvenience 
 had resulted from Yelverton's conduct, he had suffered 
 enough in the sensibility of a high-hearted man, and 
 the prayer was granted ; but Coke, against whom Yel- 
 verton had taken part both in public and private ^ quar- 
 rels, bore upon him with a rigor that leaves very cre- 
 dible all that is reported of his treatment to Ealeigh. 
 The case was remitted. Coke declaimed violently against 
 the prisoner, and moved a fine of £6000, deprivation 
 of office, and imprisonment at the king's pleasure. The 
 fine was reduced to £4000, but the rest of fhe sentence 
 
 ' Bacon's Works, vii. p. 364, Montague's ed. 1827. 
 
158 THE COMMON LA"W REPORTERS. 
 
 passed as moved. In Lord Bacon's Works,* we find the 
 "Notes" of the speech which he made as Chancellor 
 on this occasion. " Sorry for the person, being a gentle- 
 man that I lived with in Gray's Inn; served with him 
 when I was Attorney; joined with him in many services, 
 and one, that ever gave me more attributes in public than 
 I deserved; and, besides, a man of very good parts, which 
 with me is friendship at first sight ; much more, joined 
 with so ancient an acquaintance. But, as a Judge I hold 
 the ofience very great, and that without pressing mea- 
 sure," &c., &c. 
 
 In April following (1621), while yet under sentence of 
 the Star Chamber, he was accused by the Commons of 
 having drawn and supported monopolies, and of other mis- 
 conduct in office. The report of his triaP is not very full 
 nor intelligible. Most of the charges he denied ; but, as 
 I understand it, he does, to some extent, confess that he 
 had assented, in one instance, and perhaps in two, to what 
 was done by the royal favorite, lately his accuser. He 
 says, expressly, that nothing of which he was accused was 
 done by his own will ; on the contrary, that laboring to 
 serve the king, he had opposed the grant, and that " if 
 ever he had deserved well of his Majesty, it was in this." 
 "I cannot herein," he continues, "but bemoan my unhap- 
 piness, that laboring by all lawful means to advance the 
 honest profit of his Majesty, and in this (with the sight 
 almost of my own ruin) to preserve his Majesty's honor 
 and the quiet of the people, I am yet drawn in question, 
 as if I had equally dishonored his Majesty in both. When 
 Sir Gryles^ saw that I would not be moved to oflend his 
 Majesty in his direction, I received a message from Mr. 
 Emerson, sent to me by Sir Gyles, that I would run my- 
 
 ' Bacon's Works, vii. p. 446-9, Montague's ed. 1827. They bear date, Oc- 
 tober 24th, 1620. 
 
 » 2 Howell's State Trials, 1135-46. 
 
 ' Sir Giles Mompesson, who was a large speculator in monopolies ; and one 
 of the persons who had most interested himself in procuring grants of them. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 159 
 
 self upon tlie rocks ; and that I should not hold my place 
 long if I did thus withstand the Patent of Inns, or to this 
 effect. Soon after came Sir Gyles himself, and, like an 
 herald at arms, told me to this effect : he had this mes- 
 sage to tell me from my Lord of Buck, * that I should not 
 hold my place a month, if I did not conform myself in 
 better measure to the Patent of Inns ; for my lord had 
 obtained it, by his favor, and would maintain it by his 
 power.' How could I but startle at this message ? For I 
 saw here was a great assuming of power to himself, to 
 place and displace an officer. I saw myself cast upon two 
 main rocks, either treacherously to forsake the standing 
 his Majesty had set me in, or else to endanger myself by 
 a by-blow, and so hazard my fortune. I humbly beseech 
 your lordships to think nature will struggle when she sees 
 her place and means of living thus assaulted ; for now it 
 
 ^ was come to this : whether I would obey his Majesty, or 
 my lord, if Sir Gyles spake true ; yet I resolved, in this, 
 to be as stubborn as Mordecai ; not to stoop or pass those 
 gracious bounds his Majesty had prescribed me. Soon 
 after, I found the message in part made good ; for all the 
 profits almost of my place were^ directed from me, and 
 turned into an unusual channel, to one of my lord's wor- 
 thies, that I retained little more than the name of Attor- 
 ney. It became so fatal, and so penal, that it became 
 almost the loss of a suit to come to me ; my place was 
 but as the seat of winds and tempests My op- 
 posing my lord in this Patent of Inns, in the Patent of 
 
 siAlehouses, in the Irish Customs, in Sir Eobert Munton's 
 Deputation of his place in the Court of Wards — ^these 
 have been my overthrow ; and for these I suffer at this 
 day, in my estate and fortune, not meaning to say as I 
 take it, but as I know, for my humble opposition to his 
 lordship, above ^620,000. I suffer in my estate by my 
 lord of Buck's means; knowing well, that I suffer in 
 my restraint for my offence. My heart tells me I was 
 faithful to him ; I sought no riches but his grace." 
 
160 THE COMMON LAW EEPOETEES. 
 
 Buckinghain was yet in tlie zenith of his power ; and 
 the House was brought to declare that Yelverton, by this 
 eloquent and pathetic speech, so far from extenuating his 
 offence, had but aggravated it by reflections upon the 
 honor of Buckingham, and the king. He was now tried 
 for these two new offences, as well as for the misconduct 
 in office. On this last — ^the essential part of the case-^ 
 the report of the trial would indicate that no judgment or 
 sentence was given. On»the others, he was sentenced to 
 imprisonment, and a fine of 5000 marks to Buckingham, 
 and 10,000 to the king. 
 
 The Eeport of the case tells us : " It pleased the Lord 
 Marquis of Buck, freely to remit unto the said Sir H. 
 Yelverton the said 5000 marks ; for which the said Sir H. 
 Yelverton humbly thanked his lordship. The lords also 
 agreed to move his Majesty to mitigate Sir Henry's fine, 
 and his Royal Highness, the Prince, offered to undertake 
 that office."' This the king did, and Sir Henry was soon 
 after set at liberty. The king relinquished the fine. 
 After this he resumed his practice at the outer bar. 
 
 His displacement from office, which was the result of a 
 great fault, yet left him free from the degradation of 
 essential crime, and does not appear to have lost him 
 either the affection of his friends or the respect of himself. 
 It was a case where to be "weak" was to be "miserable," 
 but scarcely to be wicked ; and the same evidence which 
 disclosed his act excused it also, against his accusers, at 
 least, by showing that they were more concerned and 
 more responsible than he. Buckingham was generous 
 when his temper was not hardened by policy, or inflamed 
 by passion, and he lived long enough to offer to Yelverton 
 testimonies of his own and of the king's regard. He 
 visited Sir Henry, incognito, it is said, in the Tower ; a 
 reconciliation took place, and at his instance, Yelverton 
 was appointed, 1626, a Judge of the King's Bench. On 
 
 ' 2 Howell's State Trials, 1146. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTEES. 161 
 
 the 12th of May following this appointment, he was trans- 
 ferred to the Common Pleas, and but for the death of 
 Buckingham, soon after, it is supposed, would have been 
 elevated to the "Woolsack. This great lawyer died Jan. 
 24, 1630, in the 64th year of his age. 
 
 Few men of any day appear to have possessed more 
 endearing qualities of character, or more generally to have 
 conciliated affection, than the subject of our notice. He 
 possessed, in their most attractive form, those qualities 
 "which make life amiable and indolent," with that medi- 
 tative, moralizing, introspective turn of mind, which when 
 found in men who have been great in scenes of public 
 action, is so engaging. In Littleton's Keports,' the fol- 
 lowing entry attends the notice of his death. " II fuit 
 Jiomme de profond intelligence in the common law, and inge- 
 nious, and eloquent in expression; — and pur son vie, — de 
 grand integrity and piety, et son mort universally lewaiU." 
 ■ Those reformers of the law, who in the dearth of greater 
 evils, lay hold of the judicial wig, and powdered curls, 
 will be gratified to find that so conservative a lawyer as 
 Yelverton attacked, in 1626, some kindred ceremonials of 
 the profession. On being called to be Sergeant, and pre- 
 paratory to his being made a Judge, he endeavored to do 
 away with the procession from Sergeant's Inn to "West- 
 minster, and the party-colored robes which were then 
 obligatory. He cited the precedent of Sir Edward Coke, 
 in favor of whom these insignia had, for some reason, been 
 dispensed with; and he desired that so it might be done 
 to him. " But all the Justices conceived it was not a 
 precedent to be followed^ being part of the ceremony for 
 the creation of Sergeants which ought to be performed in 
 a solemn manner, nor could it be convenient to suffer any 
 more such examples." 
 
 The name and lineage of Sir Henry Yelverton is yet 
 perpetuated in the Peerage of England in the person of 
 
 ' Page 323. 
 11 
 
162 THE COMMON LAW KEPOETEES, 
 
 the youthful Marquis of Hastings, and also by the Coim- 
 tess de Grey Kuthyn, whose graceful mind and person 
 have won the homage due to woman's loveliness, in being 
 presented, most attractively, to readers of taste and 
 fashion, in the pages of one of Lady Blessington's 
 Books of Beauty. (1842.) (Edns.: 1661, in French, by 
 Wilde ; same, in 1674; 3d and 4th, in English 1735, 1792; 
 and Mr. Metcalf 's, already referred to, in 1820.) 
 
 HOBAET. K. B., &c. 
 
 1 Jao. I.— 1 Cae. I. (1603-1625.) 
 But containing, in addition, some eases, temp. Eliz. 
 
 These Eeports were first published several years after 
 Hobart's death, and by a careless editor ; but were subse- 
 quently revised and corrected by Lord Nottingham, who 
 added to the work an excellent index. They are said, 
 however, by Chancellor Kent, yet to be defective in 
 method and precision ; but are admitted to be a standard 
 work of their day.* The book is regarded as one of au- 
 thority by Chief Justice Tilghman,^ while Lord Kenyon, 
 who was indeed so thoroughly acquainted with the English 
 books as perfectly to enjoy them, speaks of it as an " ex- 
 cellent volume."^ The marginal annotations, excepting 
 a few referring to matters since Hobart's death,-" are re- 
 garded as the production of Sir Henry himself,' and of 
 course possess authority. 
 
 Henry Hobart was born in , and brought up to 
 
 the profession of law at Lincoln's Inn, where he was emi- 
 nent, and of which he was afterwards made one of the 
 <3rovernors. On the accession of James, in 1603, he was 
 knighted and made Sergeant of Law, having previously 
 distinguished himself in Parliament, and on 3d Nov. 
 
 ' 1 Com. 484. 2 6 Serg. and Kawie, 527. 
 
 ' 6 D. & E. 441. * Lord Raymond, 1161. 
 
 ' 1 Vesey, 305. 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPORTEES. 163 
 
 1606, Attorney in the Court of Wards. In 1607, on the 
 promotion of Coke to the Chief Justiceship of the Com- 
 mon Pleas, Hohart succeeded him as A. G-., and ISov. 26th, 
 1611, was made a baronet. The happiness of his career 
 as Attorney-General was the subject of Lord Bacon's ad- 
 miration in his eulogy of James, in 1615, before the as- 
 sembled Judges of England.' "As for the administration 
 
 of Justice, the King hath now reigned twelve 
 
 years in his white robe, without almotet any aspersion of 
 the crimson dye of blood. There sits my Lord Hobart, that 
 served Attorney seven years. I served with him. "We 
 were so happy as there passed not through our hands any 
 one arraignment for treason, and but one for any capital 
 offence ; which was that of the Lord Sanquhar ; the no- 
 blest piece of justice that ever came forth in any king's 
 times. As for penal laws .... it yields a revenue that 
 will scarce pay for the parchment of the king's records at 
 "Westminster." 
 
 On the 26th October, 1614, he again succeeded Coke ; 
 having been appointed C. J. of the C. P. on Coke's 
 translation to the K. B., and on the 2d April, 1618 (his 
 first patent having been revoked), another patent was 
 granted him to be C. J. of the C. P. and Chancellor of 
 the Prince of Wales. He retained the oflBlce of C. J. 
 until his death, which occurred December 25th, 1625, 
 "being a most learned, prudent and religious Judge," 
 says Coke; and " a great loss to thfe commonwealth," says 
 Spelman. 
 
 An elegant tribute to his character is found in the 
 preface to Jenkins's Centuries. " Lord Coke and Lord 
 Hobart," says Judge Jenkins, " have furnished surprising 
 light to professors of the law. They were two men of 
 great authority and dignity; men who, to the most 
 accurate eloquence, joined a superlative knowledge of 
 the laws ; being also Judges of consummate integrity." 
 "Hobart," he says, was "adorned with the brightest 
 
 ' Bacon's Works, xvi. p. clxvii. Montague's ed. 1827. 
 
164 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 endowments; tis eloquence was excellent; his family 
 was honorable, and his understanding piercing^ and the 
 sweetest affability was united in him with the most vene- 
 rable gravity." He prophesies that the monuments of 
 the great abilities and diligence of this "noble pair," 
 whom for many years he had "mark^, observed, and 
 revered," will remain as long as the " splendor, majesty, 
 and name of the kingdom of England shall endure." 
 
 To readers who like to follow personal history through 
 successive generations, it will prove entertaining to recall, 
 that among the immediate descendants of Hobart, was 
 the beautiful and engaging Mrs. Howard, better known — 
 or worse, unhappily, perhaps, for her — as the Countess of 
 Suffolk at the Court of George H. ; with whom the fas- 
 tidious "Walpole was enchanted : "so remarkably genteel, 
 and always dressing with taste and simplicity ;"' while her 
 " equal mixture of good humor, and sensible, soft melan- 
 choly,"^ won to purer admiration the poet Pope ; — o^ of 
 those delicious creatures, that sometimes grace the sphere 
 of fashion, with every fair defect that conciliates regard in 
 woman, and with propriety and manners that, somehow, 
 in this naughty world, places frailty nearly in the rank of 
 virtue, and sometimes far beyond its charms. The great 
 Judge is represented, at present, also, in the peerage, by 
 an immediate descendant, the Earl of Buckinghamshire. 
 
 (Edns. : Quarto, 1641 ; folio, in 1650, 16,71, 1678, 1683, 
 without any other alteration than a new title-page ; and 
 again in 1724, with references, by Chilton. The old edi- 
 tions have a stiff and worthless portrait. An edition by 
 Mr. J. M. Williams, one of the Justices of the Court of 
 Common Pl^as of Massachusetts, was printed in this country 
 in 1829, and is enriched with a biographical sketch and 
 valuable notes, some of them from the pen of the late 
 Professor Greenleaf, author of the Treatise on Evidence, 
 
 ' Reminisoenoes of the Courts of George I. and II. oh. vii, 
 • Lines " On a certain Lady at Court." 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPOKTERS. 165 
 
 who, at one time, contemplated editing this Eeporter, In 
 all that it does contain, this edition is unquestionably the 
 most to be valued. But the perfection of the volume is 
 impaired by the omission of some cases which the editor 
 deemed useless in this country. The cases omitted, it is 
 true, are not numerous, nor, commonly speaking, I pre- 
 sume, of general interest ; but it is impossible for any 
 man to say what cases his readers, in their various exi- 
 gencies, will not have occasion to consult. The editor of 
 Hobart believes " that every case is retained which would 
 be useful to the American lawyer;" just as, in another in- 
 stance, Mr. Martin, the translator of Latch, in omitting all 
 cases relating to " spiritual matters," thinks that he has 
 omitted nothing which can be wanted " on this side of the 
 Atlantic." Yet, if I may be pardoned for such an illustra- 
 tion, it so happens that in both reporters, the " useless 
 cases" include the very and almost the only ones to 
 which, in this tract, I have had occasion to refer.' It is im* 
 possible for any man, I think, to determine what English 
 cases are useless in America. The accident of a case may 
 be of no value, while its principle shall be of much ; and 
 it requires an exact understanding of the case, and a view 
 of all its scope and bearings, to say what principle may 
 not, in some form, be contained in it, lying in latency, 
 perhaps, but not the less existent. The case to which I 
 have already referred, as wanted by me, but as having been 
 left out by Mr. Justice Williams, as not useful to the Ame- 
 rican lawyer, was one of which tithes was the immediate 
 subject; and certainly, tithes are not known in America. 
 But the essence of it involves great questions of pleading ; 
 and the opinion of Lord Hobart asserts, and asserts with 
 a precision, a force and an eloquence which have not been 
 surpassed, some of those rules of pleading which are at the 
 foundation of our law, and are owned and enforced by every 
 
 ' Slade V. Drake, Hob. 295, quoted ante, p. 37, and Evans v. Ascongh, 
 Latch, 233, quoted yosi, p. 190. 
 
166 THE COMMON LAV REPORTERS. 
 
 enlightened court of our country. Is there not, too, some- 
 thing in the mere idea of a mutilated volume, that im- 
 pairs the satisfaction with which even other men than Dr. 
 Harwood or Mr. Frognall Dibdin would possess it ? For 
 myself, I always feel that the sentiment of Madame de 
 Stael is almost as applicable to a perfect possession of any 
 kind &,s to the possession of perfect knowledge : " Savoir 
 parfaitement — (I quote from memory) — ce que Von salt, donne 
 une certaine satisffLction d I'esprit semblahle au repos de la 
 conscience." Still, however, the edition is a truly valuable 
 one, and, as I have remarked, much better in all respects, 
 except that one which I have noted, than any which pre- 
 cedes it. Its excellence in all other points makes me 
 grieve the more for its want of entirety ; a defect which 
 an editor of duller capacity than Mr. Justice Williams 
 would probably have avoided.^ 
 
 Among Sergeant Maynard's MSS. in Lincoln's Inn, is a 
 copy of Hobart's Reports, which, it is said, " may be com- 
 
 ' It is an interesting fact, that American lawyers should have given to Eng- 
 land late and excellent editions of three of her early reporters. The symptom 
 is a hopeful one for American jurisprudence. It is a good sign when an age 
 republishes other works besides its own ; just as it is a good sign when a man 
 can enter into other persons' thoughts, feelings, and views, and is not always 
 bent upon putting forth and developing his own. Much of modern repugnance 
 to reading the old reporters arises, no doubt, from the huge volumes in which they 
 are incarcerated, from the hirsute aspect of a Gothic letter, and the other incom- 
 moditiesof an exploded mechanism. If these venerable authors were dressed 
 more in the fashion, and made to look like ourselves, we should feel less awe in 
 taking them by the hand, and in asking their advice. Indeed, if there were 
 more persons to perform the labors so acceptably discharged by the editors of 
 Telverton, and Latch, and Hobart, it is not easy to believe the profession would 
 groan, as it does, under the intolerable burden with which, by modern reporters, 
 we are grieved and wearied. We should not be made. to read, in hundreds of 
 new volumes, the re-decisions of questions perfectly settled by the generations 
 before us. By communing more closely with these spirits of the great de- 
 parted, we should form more modest estimate of our own times ; and, in the 
 conviction that the intelligence and labors of the dead are as sterling as those 
 of the living, should find restraint to that disregard of authority which, in some 
 of our States, has become the bane of their jurisprudence. 
 
THE COMMON LAV REPOETEES. 167 
 
 pared with advantage with the reports of that Judge 
 printed under an imprimatur dated in 1646."') 
 
 CASES OF PRACTICE. K B. 
 
 1 Jao. I.— 15 Geo. III. (1603-1775.) 
 
 This book, though classed among the Reports, hardly 
 deserves so honorable a place. The cases are merely 
 selected from other books, and are arranged methodically, 
 under different heads. (Edns. : Quarto, 1778.) 
 
 DAVIES. K B. AND EX. OF IRELAND. 
 
 2 Jao. L— 10 Jao. I. (1604-1612.) 
 
 Sir John Davies was one of those rarely found men to 
 whom Heaven gives genius. BCe was equally eminent as a 
 poet, a lawyer, and a statesman ; having commenced his 
 career withal, like most men who have ever proved good for 
 anything, as a rake, and scapegrace. Rewrites accordingly, 
 one poem on the Excellency of Dancing, and one on the 
 Immortality of the Soul ; publishes,' now, a Treatise on 
 the Insubordination of Ireland, and then, a volume of 
 Judicial decrees decided by himself; is expelled in his 
 youth from the Middle Temple for a fight, and afterwards 
 is made Chief Justice of the highest court in England. 
 Dr. Johnson deemed Davies of sufficient authority to de- 
 cide a question of literature, which Mr. Addison, alone, 
 was not;^ the poet Southey includes his pieces, with 
 praise, in the " Select "Works of the British Poets ;" and_ 
 Lord Stowell speaks of him, as " a man of various and 
 extraordinary talents ; a poet, a lawyer, and a statesman, 
 and highly distinguished in every one of these characters." 
 
 The laureat's pen has furnished me with a life, which I 
 
 ' General Report of the Coramissioners on Public Records, 1837, p. 380. 
 2 Plan of an English Dictionary, Works, ii. p. 19. Lond. 1806. 
 
168 THE COMMON LAW EEPORTEES. 
 
 will not touch except slightly to abridge it. " Davies," says 
 Mr. Southey, "is one of the worthies of Wiltshire. He 
 was born in 1570, at Chicksgrove, a hamlet in the Parish 
 of Tetbury, and was the third son of a country lawyer. In 
 the fifteenth year of his age, he was admitted commoner 
 of Queen's College, Oxfca-d; in the eighteenthj he re- 
 moved to the Middle Temple, when he incurred censure 
 for some early irregularities, and whence he was expelled, 
 after he had been called to the bar, for quarrelling with 
 Eichard Martin, and beating him in the hall. He was, 
 however, restored in 1601, by favor of the Lord Keeper 
 Ellesmere ; and took his seat in Parliament the same year, 
 as member for Corfe Castle. The dedication of his poem 
 on the Immortality of the Soul, bears date in the follow- 
 ing year. Such a poem obtained immediately, in those 
 days, the notice which it deserved j and when, on the 
 death of Elizabeth, the author accompanied Lord Hunsdon 
 into Scotland, James inquired ' if he was Nosce Teipsum ?' 
 embraced him, and promised him his favor. The merited 
 reproach of promoting unworthy favorites, has clung to the 
 memory of James the First ; but it ought to be remem- 
 bered also, that the most able and illustrious men of his 
 age were distinguished by his favor. In 1603, Davies was 
 sent to Ireland as Solicitor-General; made Attorney- 
 General, soon afterwards ; tind beiefg appointed one of the 
 Judges of Assize, at a time when a guard of six or seven 
 score foot, and fifty or sixty horse, was necessary for his 
 protection on the circuit, deserved the praise of the 
 government, as a faithfdl and well-deserving servant of 
 his Majesty. He was knighted in 1607. In 1612, he 
 published his very able ' Discovery of the True Causes, 
 why Ireland had never been entirely subdued.'' Soon 
 
 ' An extract from this work wiU show, I think, that neither the genius 
 nftr the language or England has advanced, essentially, since the days of 
 James I. 
 
 " During the time of my service in Ireland," says he in the work just referred 
 to, " I have visited all the provinces of that kingdom, in sundry journeys and 
 circuits: wherein I have observed the good temperature of the ayre; the fruit- 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS, 169 
 
 afterwards he was made king's sergeant; elected for the 
 County of Fermanagh ; and, after a warm contest between 
 the Protestant and Romish members, was chosen Speaker 
 of the first Irish House of Commons, formed by a general 
 representation," In 1612, Davies resigned the Attorney- 
 Generalship of Ireland, to become one of the King's 
 English Sergeants-at-law ; and in 1626, was appointed 
 Chief Justice of the King's Bench. But he reached this 
 summit of his ambition, only to illustrate the vanity of all 
 earthly aspirations and rewards. He died, very suddenly, 
 in sleep, on the 8th of December, 1626, between the date 
 of his appointment to the Chief Justiceship and the time 
 for his installation in office ; having just attained his 57th 
 year. 
 
 "He had published," says Southey, " a collected edition 
 of his poems in 1622. Ilfahum Tate, by Lord Dorset's 
 recommendation, republished them at the end of the cen- 
 tury, giving thus, better proof of his judgment in poetry, 
 than can be found in his own works. They were pub- 
 lished also by Thomas Davies, the bookseller, to whom 
 our early poets owe much, and were first included in a 
 
 fulnesse of the soyle ; the pleasant and cotnntiodious seats for habitation ; the 
 safe and large ports and havens, lying open for traffioke into all the west parts 
 of the world ; the long inlets of many navigable rivers, and so many great 
 lakes and fresh ponds within the land (as the like are not to be seen in any 
 part of Europe), the rich fishings, and wild fowle of all kinds ; and lastly, the 
 bodies and minds of the people, endued with extraordinarie abilities of nature. 
 The observation whereof hath bred in me some curiositie, to consider, what 
 were the true causes, why this kingdom, whereof our kings of England have 
 borne the title of Sovereign Lords for the space of four hundred and odde 
 years (a period of time, wherein divers great monarchies have risen from 
 barbarisme to civillitie, and fallen againe to ruine), was not, in all that space of 
 time, thoroughly subdued and reduced to obedience of the Crown of England, 
 although there hath been almost a oontinuall warre between the English 
 and the Irish ; and why the manners of the meere Irish are so little altered 
 since the days of King Henry the Second, as appeareth by the description made 
 by Giraldus Cambrensis (who lived and wrote in that time), albeit, there have 
 bin since that time, so many English colonies planted in Ireland, as that, if the 
 people were numbered at this day by the poll, such as are descended of En- 
 glish race would be found more in number than the ancient natives." 
 
170 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 general collection of our poets by Dr. Anderson. He 
 married Lady Eleanor Touchet, daughter of George Lord 
 Audley, Earl of Castlehaven. Sir Archibald Douglas was 
 her second husband, and she is said to have been an un- 
 comfortable wife to both ; this, however, was her misfor- 
 tune rather than her fault, the evidence of her craziness 
 being public and notorious. Sir John Davies had by this 
 unhappy marriage, an idiot son, and a daughter who mar- 
 ried Ferdinando Lord Hastings, afterwards Earl of Hun- 
 tingdon. It may be regretted that he did not leave 
 representatives, who would have thought it a duty and an 
 honor to publish all that could be collected of his writings ; 
 thus erecting the best and most enduring monument to 
 his memory. Davenant has evidently formed his style, 
 upon that of Sir John Davies." 
 
 Sir John Davies's encounter with Martin, though merely 
 adverted to in general terms by Mr. Southey, is famous in 
 literature ; and as well known, even to the Fancy, as any- 
 thing recorded in The Boxiana. Lord Stowell gives an 
 account of it. It occurred on the 9th of February, 1597, 
 in the hall of the Middle Temple, at the time of public 
 dinner : " and must be admitted," says Lord StoweU, "to 
 have been an act of extreme violence towards the indivi- 
 dual sufferer, as well as a most audacious breach of that 
 decorum which was due to the assembled society. He is 
 represented," continues the narrator, who is here trans- 
 lating the Temple Records, " as coming into the hall with 
 his hat on his head, and armed with a dagger ; and going 
 up to the Barristers' table, where Martin was sitting quietly 
 at dinner, he pulled out, from under his gown, a bastinado, 
 and struck him over the head repeatedly, with such vio- 
 lence, that the bastinado was shivered into many pieces. 
 Then retiring to the bottom of the hall, he drew one of 
 the swords belonging to his attendants, and flourished it 
 repeatedly over his head, turning his face towards Martin ; 
 and then hurrying down the water-steps of the Temple, 
 threw himself into a boat. What provocation," says the 
 
THE COMMON LATV REPORTERS. 171 
 
 narrator, " led to tMs outrage, nowliere appears by any 
 contemporary evidence. It is conjectured by Mr. George 
 Cbalmers, that it was owing to the prevalence of Martin's 
 colloquial wit over Sir John Davies, at their Barristers' 
 table, which he had not vivacity enough to encounter, nor 
 temper enough to bear, Martin is certainly recorded to 
 have been eminently gifted with talents of that kind ; s^ 
 much so, as to have highly recommended himself by them 
 to the favor of King James I., who, on account of such 
 merits, obtained for him the Eecordership of London. He 
 was likewise a poet and a lawyer, as well as Sir John ; and 
 was highly favored with the friendship and esteem of 
 Selden and Ben Jonson (who dedicated a play to him), 
 and other wits and literati of the age. And it is not un- 
 likely that a rivalry, when touched in so many points, 
 might produce an accidental irritation, leading to this dis- 
 graceful transaction. Martin afterwards sat in Parliament 
 with Davies, and was not undistinguished there. It is 
 mentioned by some of his contemporaries," adds Lord 
 Stowell, " that he died at an early period, from disorders 
 produced by his devotion to the pleasures of the table, 
 likely enough to be incident to a man of wit and humor, 
 and not the less so, it may be presumed, from his being 
 'Recorder of London.' " 
 
 Lord Stowell has brought to light the original proceed- 
 ings had in the Parliament of the Middle Temple, on the 
 '■'■insigne et incivile f acinus," for which Davies was expelled, 
 and for which he petitioned to be restored to his degree 
 of Barrister. It has all the formality of a judicial record, 
 and is a curious specimen of the manner of the times, and 
 of the characters of eminent individuals. The matter was 
 by no means one of a merely formal procedure. Davies 
 is made to apologize in the most penitential and humble 
 manner, immediate ante prandium, to the whole society; 
 protesting among many expressions of contrition, that he 
 is unfeignedly sorry for his offence, and that he has been 
 jtistly expelled and deservedly otherwise censured. After 
 
172 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 the public justice was sufficiently vindicated, the Record 
 goes on to say, that the "predictus Magister Johannes 
 Davies, eonvertit se adprefatum Magiatrwm Martyn ad tunc 
 ibi prcesentem, et injuriam illi factam confessus, talem et tan- 
 tarn esse ut ei non posset pro merito satisfacere, ah illo petit 
 veniam offensi et injurice predictce ; et ut vellet acceptare sub- 
 missionem suam prcedictam pro satisfactione ejusdem delicti; 
 sincerum amorem et affectum in omnibus bonis officio, erga 
 ilium in posterum promittens quod etiam prcedictus, Mr. Mar- 
 tyn acceptavit.'"'- 
 
 To return, however, from Davies's quarrels to his Re- 
 ports. The cases, the reporter of them tells us, were 
 selected "principally for the use and benefit of our prac- 
 tisers here in Ireland." When they were cited in an En- 
 glish court,^ one of the Judges (Jones), remarked: "Davies 
 reports ne sont canonical;" and another (Doderidge) : " Fv£- 
 rent f aits pour le meridian de Ireland seulement." However, 
 they appear to contain very good law, and where appli- 
 cable, I presume may be quoted. Lord Kenyon' relied a 
 good deal on Davies, and spoke of it as a well-known fact, 
 that though the cases were decided in Ireland, the volume 
 was cited as " authority in England." Few men of modern 
 times could better speak on such a subject than Lord 
 Kenyon. A very competent Judge,'* and one no way par- 
 tial to the Chief Justice, has admitted, " that he possessed 
 more juridical knowledge than any other intermediate 
 successor of the learned Hale." The opinion of Lord 
 Kenyon will no doubt prevail in this day; for since the 
 union, certainly no reports are more authoritative both in 
 England and here, than the Irish. Those of the Irish 
 Chancery have long been regarded as unsurpassed ; while 
 the common law reports are rising to the same point of 
 estimation. (Edns. : Dublin, 1615 ; 2d, Lond. 1628 ; 3d, 
 
 ' See Lord Stowell's letter, of Jan. 25, 1824, to the Earl of Aberdeen, among 
 the transactions of the Royal Society of Antiquaries, London. 
 ^ Latch, 238 ; S.C. Palmer, 462 ; and see 1 Dallas, 175. 
 ' 4 D. & E. 194. * Sir E. H. East, Pref. to P; C. 9. 
 
THE COMMON LA"W REPOETERS. 173 
 
 is 1674 all in Frencli, folio; 4tli, Dublin, 1762 in En- 
 glish, 8vo.) 
 
 LAKE. EX. 
 
 3 Jao. I.— 10 Jao. I. (1605-1612.) 
 
 I do not recall any expression of opinion as to these 
 reports ; nor does my own knowledge of them enable me 
 to speak with accuracy of their merits. I have noted, 
 however, that the great case of Impositions,' is pretty fully 
 reported, and indicates a reasonable conception of the case. 
 No very satisfactory account is given of the MS. from 
 which the volume is printed, and I presume that it is an 
 imposture. It is not, at any rate, very often cited. 
 
 Of the personal history of this reporter, but little is 
 known. Lord Campbell, who gives^ us a sketch of him 
 among the Keepers, regrets that his own researches had 
 not been attended with much success ; adding, that " all 
 I have discovered of him is to his honor." The title- 
 page records that he was Attorney-General to Prince 
 Charles ; and he is known to be the person mentioned by 
 Lord Clarendon as " Mr. Lane," who, in 1641, argued the 
 questions of law, in behalf of the unfortunate Earl of 
 Strafford. His defence of Strafford is preserved by the 
 noble historian, who adds, that it was urged " with sucn 
 confidence, as a man uses who believes himself;" but that 
 the House of Commons would make no reply to it, 
 declaring that it was " beneath their dignity to contend 
 with a private lawyer,"' 
 
 After Strafford's conviction, Lane remained in London, 
 quietly pursuing his profession and privately advising the 
 royalists, till the King, having ordered all the law courts 
 
 ' Lane, 22; See 2 Howell's State Trials, p. 371. 
 
 ' Lives of the Chancellors, ii. p. 608. 
 
 ' Hist, of the Rebellion, i. pp. 395, 397. Oxford, 1826. 
 
174 THE COMMON" LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 to be adjourned to Oxford, and the Parliament havingre- 
 quired them to continue sitting at "Westminster, Cavaliers 
 thought they could no longer publicly practise in the 
 metropolis, withoijt acknowledging the authority of the 
 usurpation. While some of them, like Bridgman and 
 Yaughan, took to conveyancing and chamber business, 
 Lane, with a more lofty spirit, resolved to follow the 
 person as well as the fortunes of his king. On his arrival 
 at Oxford, his loyalty was rewarded with the honor of 
 knighthood; and on the 26th January, 1643, with the 
 office of Chief Baron of the Exchequer. In 1645, August 
 30, he was made, at the same place, Lord Keeper of the 
 Great Seal of England, which had been carried by Littleton 
 to Oxford, and still remained in the possession of the royal 
 party. His honors were valuable chiefly as the marks of 
 his fidelity to his royal master; for his courts were without 
 suitors, counsel, or emoluments ; and, indeed, had little 
 more than an existence of form ; being held in one corner 
 of the philosophy rooms of the University. With Lord 
 Clarendon, he was one of the King's commissioners at 
 Uxbridge, where he faithfully maintained the royal rights. 
 He afterwards defended Oxford against Fairfax, and finally 
 negotiated the surrender, which he preferred rather than 
 deliver so consecrated and beautiful a place to the ruthless 
 rudeness of Puritan revenge. He struggled hard to insert 
 an article in the terms of capitulation, that he should have 
 leave to carry away with him the Great Seal, together with 
 the seals of the other courts of justice, and the swords of 
 state, which had been brought to Oxford; but to this, 
 Fairfax peremptorily objected, under the express orders of 
 tihe Parliament, by whom they were considered the em- 
 blems of sovereignty. The Great Seal was accordingly 
 surrendered, and soon afterwards broken by a Parliamen- 
 tary blacksmith, amidst the cheering of Roundheads ; 
 and the fragments divided equally between the Speakers 
 of the two Houses. , This is the last that we can hear of 
 
THE COMMON" LA"W REPOETEES. 175 
 
 this interesting man. "I should have been delighted," 
 says Lord Campbell,' from whom I get most of these par- 
 ticulars, " to relate that Charles's last Lord Keeper lived 
 in an honorable retirement during the rule of those whom 
 he considered rebels and usurpers, and survived to see the 
 restoration of the monarchy under the son of his sainted 
 master ; but I regret to say, that I can find no authentic 
 trace of him after the capitulation of Oxford. From the 
 language- of Lord Clarendon, it might be inferred that he 
 expired soon after that misfortune, while others represent 
 that he followed Prince Charles to the continent, and died 
 in exile." Undoubtedly, there is something very engaging 
 in the history of a man like Lane. Every generous mind, 
 in contemplating such characters, wherever found, will 
 acknowledge that " the capacity, thus to be loyal to de- 
 throned Truth, to feel this enthusiasm of reverence for 
 Right in captivity, belongs to those spirits only, which 
 nature has touched with her most ennobling influences ; 
 that the mental ability to be thus freshly and earnestly 
 interested in each new scene of a most discouraging strife, 
 to rise from defeat with the flushed energy of triumph, 
 shows a large measure of the divine power of genius, and 
 a spirit, the fountains of whose being are copiously re- 
 freshed from the eternal sources of strength and hope."^ 
 (Edns. : Fol. 1657.) 
 
 LET. K B., C. P., EX., AM) COURT OP WARDS. 
 
 6 Jac. I.— 5 Car. I. (1608-1629.) 
 
 The cases in Ley appear to have a more orderly, pro- 
 fessional, and report-like shape than those contained in 
 'Noj, and some other books published about this time. 
 Speaking of their cases, generally, the latter seem to be 
 mere scraps of cases, bald and unjointed memoranda of 
 
 ' Lives of the Chancellors, ii. p. 619. 
 
 * H. B. Wallace, Character of Webster, in Th? Knickerbocker, Nov. 1847 
 vol. XXX. p. 442. 
 
176 THE COMMON LATV REPORTERS. 
 
 the discourse of judges and counsel, and very little like 
 the report of a connected case. In Ley, on the other 
 hand, you have at least the appearance of a report, and 
 Bomething which betokens a measure of intelligence and 
 care : as, first, an orderly statement of the facts, then the 
 question which arose on them, and finally the adjudication 
 by the court. 
 
 "From page 1 to page 66," says Mr. Green, "the cases 
 are in the Court of Wards ; from page 66 to page 69, in 
 the Star Chamber ; and from page 69 to 83, in the King and 
 Queen's Bench. All of these last but o^ne," continues 
 Mr. Green, " I have found in the contemporary Eeport- 
 ers." The Court of Wards and Liveries, in which the 
 majority of the cases are, was abolished before the book 
 appeared. Whether it is on this account or from care- 
 lessness not apparent to a casual inspection, I am unable 
 to say, but the book is not often cited. 
 
 In a former edition of this tract I said, though on what 
 authority I do not now remember, that it is regarded as 
 supposititious. If that point was correctly stated, it is one 
 much to be regretted. For with the name of Ley, every 
 reader will recall that galaxy of noble hearts, 
 
 " The later Sidney, Marvel, Harrington, 
 Young Vane, and others who called Milton, friend," 
 
 and grieve that through the poet's sonnet only, the Bar 
 should know the name of 
 
 " that good Earl, once President 
 
 Of England's council and her treasury. 
 
 Who lived in both, unstained with gold or fee, 
 
 And left them both, more in himself content. 
 
 Till sad, the breaking of that Parliament 
 
 Broke him, as that dishonest victory, 
 
 At Chaeronea, fatal to liberty, 
 
 Killed with report that old man eloquent.'" 
 
 Like most persons who have arrived at high office in 
 England, Ley was regularly and liberally educated. His 
 
 ' Milton's Sonnet. 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPORTEES. 177 
 
 academical education, for which he was distinguished, 
 was at Brazen-nose, Oxford. He was transferred hence 
 in May, 1577, to Lincoln's Inn, upon one of the windows 
 ' of which venerable Seminary of the Courts his arms, if I 
 remember, may yet be seen emblazoned. He was made a 
 Sergeant, 1603 ; a Judge of the K. B. in Ireland, in 1604 ; 
 the King's Attorney in the Court of "Wards, being then a 
 Knight, in 1609 ; a Baronet in 1620 ; a Judge of the K. B. 
 in England, in 1621. About three years afterwards he 
 was made Lord Treasurer, and soon after elevated by 
 James I. to the Peerage as Baron Ley, of Ley, in the 
 County of Devon. Charles I. made him Earl of Marlbo- 
 rough, in 1625, and he was soon after appointed President 
 of the Council, from which office he was removed before 
 a great while, under pretence of his great age, to make 
 room for Sir Richard "Weston. He died at an advanced 
 age in his lodgings in Lincoln's Inn, on the 14th of March, 
 1628-9.' The Parliament, ■ to the breaking of which 
 Milton attributes his death, was dissolved four days pre- 
 viously. 
 
 I grieve to detract from the immortal interest of MiU 
 ton's Sonnet, by recording that Lord Clarendon speaks 
 but slightingly of the Earl of Marlborough ; and says, 
 that he was removed from the Treasurership not only from 
 his age, but disability, " which," says the noble historian, 
 " had been a better reason against his promotion so few 
 years before." 
 
 From the return of records in the University of Cam- 
 bridge, it would appear that all Ley's Reports have not yet 
 been printed. I find, at least, this entry: " Reports of cases 
 adjudged in the Court of "Wards, in the reigns of James I. 
 and Charles I. ; these are by Sir James Ley, lut contain 
 some not in his printed volume."^ , 
 
 Besides his Reports, Ley was the author of " A treatise 
 of "Wards and Liveries," "wherein," says the title, "is 
 
 ' Burke's Extinct and Dormant Peerages. 
 
 ^ General Keport of the Commissioners on Public Records, 1837, p. 349. 
 
 12 
 
178 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 set fortli the learning concerning "Wards and Liveries, col- 
 lected and well digested out of tlie Year Books, and otlier 
 authorities of the Law, for the benefit of all that are stu- 
 dious. Lond. 1642, 12mo." 
 
 Horace Walpole gives Ley a place in his Catalogue of 
 Koyal and Noble Authors. Having been Chief Justice, he 
 has a place, also, in Lord Campbell's Lives. (Edns. : fol. 
 1659.) 
 
 CALTHROP. KB. 
 
 7 Jao. I.— 16 Jac. I. (1609-1618.) 
 
 Sir H. Calthrop was Recorder of London ; and these 
 cases, reported by himself, are said by Sir J. Burrow,' to 
 be "prettily reported, and worth reading." They are 
 prepared, it is obvious, carefully, and in a lawyer-like 
 manner. Being confined, however, to cases concerning 
 the Customs and Liberties of London, their interest is 
 circumscribed, and they are not often quoted with us. 
 Annexed to the cases is an account or list of customs and 
 usages of the City of London. In Bannister's Bridgman, 
 I find, in some place not remembered, a reference by Mr. 
 Hargrave to " 3 Calthorpe Rep. 368, 865." It is, of course, 
 a MS. volume. It is not found, however, with the rest of 
 Mr. Hargrave's MSS. in the British Museum. (Edns. : 
 12mo. 1670.) 
 
 BULSTRODE. KB. 
 
 7 Jac. I.— 15 Cae. I. (1609-1639.) 
 
 Published by Bulstrode's son. In vol. ii. (edition of 
 1658, fee); there is a chasm in the paging from 99 to 109 ; 
 and in an edition of 1688, from 104 to 114 ; notwithstand- 
 ing which the book is perfect. (Edns. : fol. pt. 1, 1657, 
 pt. 2, 1658, pt. 3, 1659 ; 2d edition, 1688.) 
 
 ' 1 Burr. 249. 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPOETERS, 179 
 
 HUTTOF. C. P. 
 
 10 Jao. I.— 15 Cae. I. (1612-1639.) 
 
 Like Ley, Lane, Owen, Noy, and one or two otter 
 volumes of this date, no satisfactory account is given of 
 the MS. from wliJcli tMs work is printed. I observe, 
 however, that among the MSS. of Sergeant Maynard, in 
 Lincoln's Lin, there is one of " Keports by Sir E. Hutton, 
 Justice of the Common Pleas, of causes heard by himself, 
 and copied hy his own hand," which is said to contain 
 " many cases which are not printed in the Reports of this 
 Judge."* The printed volume I therefore suppose may 
 be a selection from his note-book. From the absence of 
 all remark about the book, it would seem to belong to the 
 class of literary productions which do not attain even no- 
 toriety enough to be abused. 
 
 Richard Hutton, of Gray's Inn, was made Sergeant in 
 Easter Term, 1603 (1 Jac. L), a Justice of the Common 
 Pleas, May 3d, 1618 (15 Jac. I.) He died at Sergeant's 
 Inn, Chancery Lane, in the end of April, 1639. Croke, 
 who sat beside him as associate, records of him that he 
 was "a grave, learned, pious, and prudent Judge ; and 
 of great courage and patience in all his proceedings." 
 (Edns. : fol. 1656 ; 2d edition, with additional references, 
 1682.) 
 
 BEJDGMAJSr, SIR JOHN. C. P. 
 
 11 Jao. I— 19 Jao. I. (1613-1621.) 
 
 " They are not often referred to, nor do we understand 
 that they are highly esteemed."^ "With Noy, Saville, 
 Lane, Ley, Hutton, Hetley, and Alleyn, the volume ap- 
 pears to belong to " that flying squadron of thin Reports," 
 
 ' General Report of the Commissioners on Public Records, 1837, p. 378. 
 * Bridgman's Leg. Bib. 34. 
 
180 THE COMMON LAW EEPORTBRS. 
 
 which Mr. Nelson* tells us came forth after the death 
 of Charles I. To what sort of thin dimensions this author 
 refers, I am unable positively to say. It is certain that 
 the whole of these Eeporters bound together would not 
 make a volume very thick, while I take it to be probable, 
 too, that there is not much more in them than there is of 
 them. On this account it is, I suppose, that with one or 
 two exceptions we find so little said about them. (Edns. : 
 1652; 2d, 1659.) 
 
 CASE OP THE DIJCHY OF COENWALL. 
 
 Whether the king's second son, the elder being dead, 
 be of right successor to the said Duchy in England. 
 (Edns. : Fol. 1613.) 
 
 EOLLE. KB. 
 
 12 Jac. 1.-^1 Cak. I. (1614-1625.) 
 
 Having previously been a member of the first three 
 Parliaments of Charles I., where he sided with the liberal 
 party, but always decently, and with moderation, EoUe 
 was made a Judge of the King's, or, as it was now called, 
 the Upper Bench, September, 1645, by a vote of both 
 Houses of Parliament, and afterwards, November, 1648, 
 Chief Justice of the same Court. He was born in 1589, 
 educated at Exeter College, Oxford, whence he was trans- 
 ferred to the Inner Temple. His professional studies in 
 this venerable seat of legal learning were unintermitting 
 and profound. His Abridgment, which shows not only 
 stupendous industry, but a fine head for analysis and dis- 
 tinction, was partly the work of this season of his life. 
 Judging from this book, he appears to have learned the law 
 
 ' Pref. to 5 Mod. viii. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPOI^TEES. 181 
 
 in that "old way," so felicitously described in a memoir of 
 the great American lawyer, Mr. Edward Tilgliman.' " There 
 are," says the writer of this memoir, "two very different 
 methods of acquiring a knowledge of the law of England, 
 and by each of them men have succeeded in public estimar 
 tion to an almost equal extent. One of them, which may 
 be called the old way, is a methodical study of the general 
 system of law, and of its grounds and reasons, beginning 
 with the fundamental law of estates and tenures, and pursu- 
 ing the derivative branches in logical succession, and the 
 collateral subjects in due order, by which the student ac- 
 quires a knowledge of principles that rule in all departments 
 of science, and learns to feel, as much as to know, what is 
 in harmony with the system, and what is not. The other is 
 to get an outline of the system by the aid of commentaries, 
 and to fill it up by desultory reading of treatises and re- 
 ports, according to the bent of the student, without much 
 shape or certainty in the knowledge so acquired, until it 
 is given by investigations in the course of practice. A 
 good deal of law may be put together by a facile or flexible 
 man in the second of these modes, and the public are 
 often satisfied with it ; but the profession itself knows the 
 first, by its fruits, to be the most effectual way of making 
 a great lawyer. The subject of our notice took the old 
 way, and acquired in it not only great learning, but the 
 most accurate legal judgment of any man of his day, at 
 the bar of which he was a member. .... Upon questions 
 which to most men are perplexing at first, and continue to 
 be so until they have worked their way to a conclusion by 
 elaborate reasoning, he seemed to possess an instinct, whiclx 
 seized the true result before he had taken time to prove it. 
 This was no doubt the fruit of severe and regular training, 
 by which his mind became so imbued with legal principles, 
 that they unconsciously governed his first impressions;" 
 Studying in the way here described, EoUe, therefore, had 
 
 ' The (Philadelphia) Legal Intelligencer, Feb. 8, 1850. 
 
182 THE COMMON LAW REPOKTEES. 
 
 become a fine lawyer before he was called to the bar, and 
 educated in tlie tborongb training we have mentioned, it is 
 not surprising that, when there, his arguments as counsel 
 should be described' as " plain, short, and perspicuous," 
 yet "significant and weighty." It was, however, at a later 
 day, as a great magistrate, that he was chiefly distinguished. 
 His character on the bench has received the highest 
 tribute of respect &om Sir Matthew Hale, who, in editing 
 his Abridgment, speaks of him^ in language which almost 
 embodies the character of a perfect Judge. " He was a 
 man," says Hale, " of very great natural abilities, of a ready 
 and clear understanding, strong memory, sound, deliberate, 
 and steady judgment, of a fixed attention of mind to all 
 business that came before him, of great freedom from 
 passions and perturbations, of great temperance and 
 moderation, of a strong and healthy constitution of body, 
 which rendered him fit for study and business, and inde- 
 fatigable in it." Sir Matthew likewise pays the highest 
 tribute to his learning and judicial experience. 
 
 After he was displaced from the bench, as he was, June 
 5, 1655,' by Cromwell, his opinions, subsequently given as 
 counsel at " Sergeant's Inn," were quoted with respect 
 during his life by the remaining Judges." Not long after 
 his resignation from the bench, "he retired," says Lord 
 Campbell,' "to a country house he had purchased at 
 Shapwieh, near Glastonbury, in Somersetshire ; and, after 
 languishing a year, expired there, in the 68th year of his 
 age. He was buried in a little parish church in the neigh- 
 borhood, and no monument was erected to his memory ; 
 but he continues to be remembered in his profession by 
 his labors and by his virtues." 
 
 His Reports, as well as his Abridgment (which is itself so 
 
 ' Wood's AthenEB, iii. p. 417. ^ p^ef. to RoUe's Abridgment. 
 
 s Styles, 452; Clavendon, vii. p. 144, Oxford, 1826. 
 
 * Styles, 470, where Ash, J., says : " and those of Sergeant's Inne in Fleet 
 Street, who have been Judges, amongst whom are Barclay, and Foster, and 
 KoU, who have been Judges, are of my opinion.'' 
 
 ^ Lives of the Chief Justices, i. p. 433. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 183 
 
 full of cases not elsewhere reported, as almost to rank with 
 the Eeports), are both of them genuine works, and have 
 always been deemed authoritative,' although a very accu- 
 rate Judge said to counsel, citing EoUe, that a good many 
 eases which are reported by him are reported in other 
 books, which do not always bear him out. The first 
 volume of the Reports was published some time before 
 the second, which is called, on its title, a " continuation" 
 of them, and therefore, sometimes cited as "Oon." Yet, 
 with both volumes, the printed reports embrace but a part 
 of his collection.^ 
 
 The old reporters often note the manner of the Judges. 
 Godbolt tells us, for example, that the " Lord Chancellor, 
 smiling, said,"= that a case might be doubted : and RoUe 
 questions the correctness of an opinion uttered by Coke, 
 since "Haught. semhle a disallower ceo, car il shake son capit.'"' 
 The case of White v. Brough,' in RoUe,' contains a dis- 
 cussion between the bar and the bench, which deserves a 
 place beside Stradling v. Stiles, reported by Mr. Pope. 
 The report cannot with good taste be copied ; but it is 
 worth reading, in the original, by any one fond of that 
 literature elegantly veiled in French catalogues as "cm- 
 rieux." A case is cited in it which may be commended to 
 Mr. Chitty, who may, perhaps, reconcile the matter of 
 pleading involved in it with the doctrines of Medical 
 
 ' 10 Clark and Finelly, 852, so speaks of the Abridgment. 
 
 2 See Bannister's Bridgman, 489 n. ; also, RoUe's Abridgment, vol. i. p. 204, 
 plaeit. 3, where it is said, " Contra, mes Rep. 10 Jac., B. enter Porter v. Blunt, 
 adjudge; id. plaeit. 4, contra, men Rep. 10 Jac., Chaplin and Somes, ad- 
 judge." See, also. Hill v. Hawkes, Rolle's Reports, vol. i. p. 45 (about middle 
 of the page), " Veies, mes Rep. Mich. 11 Ja., Carwithie and Holman." See, 
 also, Lovettv. Faulkner (id. p. 109). "Commepoies voir Sup.. Hill, 11 Jao.;" 
 also, Churchwardens, &o., v. Parishioners, &c. (id. p. 136, in mar.), " Sup. 1 1. 
 Ja. 60 b." These tenth and eleventh years of James, referred to in all these 
 citations, were before the printed volume begins, which is in Easter of the 
 twelfth year. So in vol. 2d, p. 394 (Warner v. Hargrave), we are told, " Vide 
 pluis de cest case in Term Hill. 2 Caroli." This is after the 2d volume ends, 
 which it does with the twenty-second of James I. 
 
 3 Lord Mountjoy's case, Godbolt, 18. * Hudson v. Barton, vol. i. p. 189. 
 ' Page 286. 
 
184 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 Jurisprudence. In an action for words, the case is, " Home 
 dit, Sir Th. Holt hath taken a cleaver and stricken his 
 cook upon the head, so that one side of the head fell upon 
 one shoulder, and the other upon the other shoulder, et 
 ne averr que le cookfuit mort; et pur ceofuit adjudge nemy 
 bon;" the cook's death, after this splitting of his head, 
 being matter of inference only. 
 
 Illustrators take a print of EoUe that is found in the 
 Abridgment, and insert it in his Reports. It is, however, 
 a hard, morose, and little-to-be-desired remembrancer of 
 this great lawyer of the usurpation, and would indicate 
 that the Judge's outward man must have possessed, in the ' 
 highest perfection, every quality of awkwardness, acerbity, 
 and ugliness, that could give completeness to the Puritan 
 grotesque. (Edns. : Fol. 1675-6.) 
 
 PALMER. K. B., C. P. 
 
 17 Jao. I.— 5 Cae. I. (1619-1629.) 
 
 Sir Geoffrey Palmer, of Carlton, in ^Northampton, was 
 the first Attorney-General after the Restoration. He had 
 been imprisoned, in 1655, by Oliver Cromwell, on suspi- 
 cion of having been concerned in a plot against him, and 
 in return for this, he made it a point to insult Oliver, on 
 every occasion which ofiered, by writing his name with a 
 little 0, — an indignity which derived its point from the 
 practice of the Protector, who, after he got himself com- 
 fortably fixed in power, used, in making his signature, to 
 write the OLIVER as large as possible, while the oromwea 
 came creeping after in so small and delicate a letter, as 
 that scarcely any one would have observed the loss if it had 
 had vanished altogether. The jest was too good to be lost, 
 and as soon as Charlie got his own again, he made Palmer 
 a Knight, Attorney-General, Chief Justice of Chester, and, 
 soon after, a baronet. He died in 1670, aged 72. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 185 
 
 Palmer's Keports, according to Chancellor Kent, are of 
 respectable authority,* though a somewhat different idea, 
 as to this last point, seems to be conveyed by C. J. 
 Parker; or, at all events, as to the earlier cases in the 
 volume.^ (Edns. : The volume has been but once printed, 
 though it bears the different dates of 1678, 1688, and 1721. 
 Some copies have a finely engi'aved portrait, by White.) 
 
 JOlvrES, SIE WM. K B., C. P., DOM. PEOC, 
 AifD EX. CH. 
 
 18 Jac. I.— 17 Cak. I. (1620-1641.) 
 
 Sir William Jones was born 1566, at Castlemarch, an 
 ancient seat of his family, in Caernarvon, in Wales. After 
 his primary education, he was sent to Oxford, where he 
 continued for five years, and was thence transferred to 
 Furnival's Inn, where he passed two years, preparatory to 
 his admission, in 1587, to the principal Society of Lincoln's 
 Inn. Entering, about this time, I suppose, upon the prac- 
 tice of his profession, he appears to have pursued it with- 
 out eventful vicissitude during a term of near thirty years ; 
 though not, I should infer, with much progress at first, as 
 he had nearly reached his 50th year before receiving a 
 Sergeant's degree. He was in Parliament during a part of 
 this time, where Lord Bacon describes him as an " oppo- 
 site" — an English, and a milder type, I suppose, of what 
 in Scotland was known as a "malignant." With the 
 degree of Sergeant, and as requisite to the higher dis- 
 tinction that followed, he was appointed, in 1617, Chief 
 Justice of the K. B. in Ireland. Bacon's speech to him, 
 as Chancellor, yet preserved,' on delivering to him his 
 commission, shows that great expectations were formed, 
 not only of his abilities as a lawyer, but of his vigor, 
 
 • 1 Com. 487. 2 1 Stra. 71. 
 
 3 Bacon, vii. p. 263, Montagne's ed. 1827. 
 
186 THE COMMON LAW EEPORTEES, 
 
 comprehension, and prudence, as a counsellor of state. 
 There seems to have been a very good feeling between 
 the parties, as after Jones went to Ireland, they corre- 
 sponded by letter with each other.' He remained in his 
 Irish preferment but three years, having left it to return to 
 England, where he was at once appointed, 1620, a Judge 
 of the C. P. His return home would appear not to have 
 been caused by dissatisfaction with his administration in 
 Ireland, as he was twice appointed, in the ensuing three 
 years, upon commissions to improve the state of that 
 country, and was again sent there to assist in giving them 
 practical execution. After his last return, he was trans- 
 ferred, Oct. 18, 1624, to the K. B., where he continued for 
 the residue of his life. He died December 9th, 1640, in 
 the 74th year of his age ; not having added, says his 
 biographer,'' during two-and-twenty years that he sat upon 
 the seat of judicature, ^200 a year to his paternal estate, 
 and " expressly forbidding any monument to be erected 
 for him, lies buried, by his own appointment, under the 
 Chappel at Lincoln's Inne." 
 
 Sir "William Jones's Reports comprise cases throughout 
 the whole of his judicial tenure in England, whether in 
 the Common Pleas or the King's Bench, the former 
 occupying about a ninth part of the volume, and the 
 latter the principal portion of the residue. In one 
 part of the book? are the reporter's " Notes taken at a 
 justice seat for the forest of Windsor." They contain 
 quaint and entertaining memorials of suits about their 
 " deeres" and their " dogges," in the days of Charles I., 
 between Lord Lovelace, Sir Charles Howard, and many 
 young gentlemen, foresters and verderers of that beautiful 
 domain, who fleeted their time carelessly as they did in 
 the golden world. An American lawyer might almost 
 fancy, as he reads these forest suits, unlike to aught in a 
 
 ' Bacon, xii. p. 352, Montague's ed. 1827. 
 
 2 Preface to W. Jones, whence most of ray particulars are taken. 
 
 " Pp. 260-298, and see p. 347. 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPORTERS. 187 
 
 land where " the talk is of cotton," that he was enter- 
 taining the time with some historic fiction from the 
 novelist's page ; or that Walter Savage Landor, perhaps, 
 having immortalized "Imaginary Conversations," was 
 giving to the world new treasures of his genius, in " Ima- 
 ginary Lawsuits." On a former page' I have copied, not 
 without compunction, the abuse which others have re- 
 corded of Attorney-General Ifoy : let me here make atone- 
 ment, and by inserting one of these curious "forrest cases," 
 do honor to a touch of humanity which, I presume, he 
 would not have been unwilling to record of himself. 
 Every one who loves the melancholy Jacques, in those 
 " sullen fits," when, full of matter, 
 
 " most inveotively he pieroeth through 
 
 The body of the country, city, court, 
 Yea, and of this our Ufe, swearing that we 
 Are mere usurpers, tyrants, and what's worse, 
 To fright the animals^ and to kill them up, 
 In their assigned and native dwelling-place," 
 
 will thank me, I am sure, for transcribing out of Jones, 
 
 Sib Sampson Dakbell's Case. 
 
 Sir Sampson Darrell was fined £5 for erecting a windmill in his own 
 ground, within the forrest, and Mr. Attorney^ said, it ought not to be done, be- 
 cause it frighted the deer, and also drew company to the disquiet of the game. 
 
 I 
 
 In addition to Jones's own Eeports, we find at p. 96, one 
 which he records that he received from Chief Justice Crew, 
 It is of the memorable case between Lord Willoughby of 
 Eresby, and De Vere, Earl of Oxford, concerning the title 
 to that great and venerable earldom. The Judges were 
 divided in opinion, and the opening part of the Chief 
 Justice's argument before the House of Lords, although 
 some of his dicta have been denied in later times,' will not, 
 
 ' Jlnte, p. 109. 2 Noy. 
 
 ' Sir H. Nioolas's Report of the Earldom of Devon, London, 1832, p. 174, 
 181, 183, 193; and Appendix, clxi., olxvii., olxviii., clxix., clxx. 
 
188 THE COMMON LA"W REPORTERS. 
 
 I venture in transcribing it to believe, be read without 
 emotion by any man- wbo has admired the genius of 
 Shakspeare, of Bacon, and of "Walter Scott. " My Lords," 
 he opens, " this great and weighty cause, incomparable 
 to any other tl^at hath happened in any time, requires 
 great deliberation, and solid and mature judgment to de- 
 termine it ; and therefore I wish all the Judges of I^g- 
 land had heard it (being a case fit for all), to the end we 
 altogether might have given our humble advice to your 
 Lordships herein. Here is represented unto your Lord- 
 ships Oertamen Honoris, and, as I may well say, Ulustris 
 Honoris, Illustrious Honor. I heard a great peer of this 
 realm, and a learned, say, when he lived, there was no 
 king in Christendom had such a subject as Oxford. He 
 came in with the Conqueror, Earl of Gwynes; shortly 
 after the Conquest, made Great Chamberlain of England, 
 above five hundred years ago, by Henry the First, the 
 Conqueror's son, brother to Rufus; by Maud, the Em- 
 press, Earl of Oxford ; confirmed and approved by Henry 
 fitz Empress, Henry the Second, Alberico Comite, so Earl 
 before. This great honor, this high and noble dignity, 
 hath continued ever since in the remarkable surname of 
 De Vere, by so many ages, descents, and generations, as 
 no other kingdom can produce such a peer in one and the 
 selfsame name and title. I find in all this length of time 
 but two attainders of this noble family, and those in stormy 
 and tempestuous times, when the government was unset- 
 tled and the kingdom in competition. 
 
 " I have labored to make a covenant with myself, that 
 affection may not press upon judgment; for I suppose 
 there is no man that hath any apprehension of gentry or 
 nobleness, but his affection stands to the continuance of 
 so noble a name and house, and would take hold of a 
 twig or twine-thread to uphold it. And yet time hath his 
 revolution ; there must be a period and an end of all tem- 
 poral things, finis rerum, an end of names and dignities, 
 and whatsoever is terrene ; and why not of De Vere ? For 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 189 
 
 where is Bohun ? where's Mowbray ? where's Mortimer ? 
 &c. I^ay, which is more and most of all, where is Plan- 
 tagenet ? They are intombed in the urnes and sepulchres 
 of mortality. And yet let the name and dignity of De 
 Vere stand so long as it pleaseth God." 
 
 This volume is sometimes cited as first Jones, sometimes 
 as "IV. Jones, to distinguish it from second or T. Jones. 
 Clarke, the bookseller, mentions in his Catalogue, that in 
 Easter Term, 30 "W. & M., it was declared by the whole 
 court, that this book was "very judiciously written." And 
 it is said in another place,' that when a case in Jones was 
 questioned as anonymous, Lawrence, J., observed, that 
 Jones was not a reporter to mistake the law of the case, 
 though he might not have heard the name. The Book is 
 one of undoubted genuineness, having been printed from 
 the author's MSS., which came to the hands of his daugh- 
 ters, the executors of his will : and this lady supervision 
 of the press may possibly account for a remark of Lord 
 Ifottingham's,^ that there is " no book of law so ill cor- 
 rected or so ill printed." 
 
 A few copies of "W". Jones contain an exquisite portrait, 
 by Sherwin, but these are not common. (Edns. : Er. 
 fol., 1675.) 
 
 WINCH. C. P. 
 
 19 Jac. I.— 1 Cak. I. (1621-1625.) 
 
 Principally touching declarations. The cases in this 
 volume, according to Lord Kenyon,' " are in general well 
 reported." They are much better stated, and have much 
 more the shape of reports, than is the case in some other 
 volumes printed about this time. It is said, however, 
 by Mr. Kowe, in the preface to Benloe and Dallison's 
 Reports, that the volume is improperly attributed to "Winch. 
 It is obvious in the reports themselves, that Winch did not 
 
 > Am. Jur. xii. p. 39. '^ S. C. C. 34. » 6 D. & E. 441. 
 
190 THE COMMON LAW EEPOETEES. 
 
 report them all, since his own death is recorded in the 
 progress of the decisions, an event which took place, it ap- 
 pears, on the 4th day of February, 22 Jac. I. "in the 
 morning, as he was making readie to go to the hall." And 
 of those cases decided in his lifetime, the same thing is 
 manifest from casual expressions in the book ; as at p. 10, 
 where the reporter says : "I saw Hobert show presidents 
 to Winch, and he said to "Winch," &c. The curious and 
 indefatigable Mr. TJmfreville, who, in. his peculiar depart- 
 ment, was scarcely less remarkable than Champollion in 
 his, gives us the name of the real author ; pronouncing 
 with great confidence, that though published as Judge 
 Winch's, these reports are in fact Mr. AUestree's. The 
 book is a translation from a French original, never pub- 
 lished. (Edns. : Fol. Eng. 1657.) 
 
 LATCH. KB. 
 
 1. Cae. I.— 4 Cab. I. (1625-1628.) 
 
 In the preface to Palmer's Reports it is more than inti- 
 mated that Latch, forming rather large ideas of what is 
 implied by the liberty of transcript, had stolen one hun- 
 dred and twenty of the cases from Palmer's note-book, 
 which Palmer had unsuspectingly lent him ; and claimed 
 them as his own. There is no evidence, however, that 
 Palmer ever meant to publish them. They were brought 
 out by a posthumous editor, Edward Walpole. In the 
 preface to Palmer, it is said somewhat snarlingly, that the 
 cases in Latch are reported " corruptly enough." 
 
 The book, though called Latch's Reports, is confessedly 
 but a copy made by Latch from some other book ;» and 
 not having been published during Latch's life, " nor cor- 
 rected by the parental hand, the want of the finishing 
 touch," says Mr. Francis Xavier Martin, "is in many parts 
 
 ' Cert, of approval, by the Judges; and see arite, "Remarks," § 10 n. 
 
THE COMMON LAW BEPOETEES. 191 
 
 glaringly conspicuous." The work is ranked by Mr. Ban- 
 nister, an editor of Sir Orlando Bridgman, as among the 
 "least accurate" of all the Eeporters.' 
 
 Latch's cases, like those in Noy, and many of the old 
 note-takers, as distinguished from the Keporters, are of 
 very different sorts. Sometimes, though not often, there 
 is a full and pretty sensible case ; then a good many cases 
 in which you have nothing but some abstract point of 
 law in two or three to half a dozen lines, without either 
 statement of case, argument, or judgment ; being gene- 
 rally what Jones or Crew, or some other Judge says, and 
 looking much as if the Eeporter had come into court 
 during the delivery of an opinion, heard, while sitting 
 there, some point of law which struck him, made an in- 
 formal memorandum of it, and then put on his hat, and 
 gone away again. Then there are Reports, like Evans v. 
 Ascough,^ where " le case est come jeo ay aye ;" being 
 cases derived from hearsay, and necessarily of uncertain 
 value. 
 
 This work was published oi-iginally in French, the only 
 form in which, even at this day, it is known in England. 
 And it is a curious fact that while Latch, an Englishman, 
 should have written his Reports in French, M. Martin, a 
 Frenchman, should have translated them into English. 
 Francis Xavier Martin, afterwards a distinguished Jurist 
 of Louisiana, published in 1793, a translation of this Re- 
 porter. Martin was originally a printer ; and the book, 
 which is now scarce, was issued " From The Translator's 
 Press," at Ifewbern, If. C. After stating that he was well 
 aware of the reputation and comparative worthlessness of 
 this Reporter, and that he had not assumed to correct the 
 glaring imperfections of posthumous and unperfected 
 work, M. Martin says : " I translated rather servilely. 
 Elegance of style, even in my native language, is without 
 
 ; ' Prefaae-lo Sir 0. Bridgman's Judgments, ix, * Latch, 31. 
 
192 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 my reach : an attempt to it in another would have been 
 madness ; it was not within my ambition. I omitted the 
 cases relating to spiritual matters; these are seldom 
 wanted on this side the Atlantic. The only alteration I 
 permitted myself in the body of the work was, to sepa- 
 rate, into distinct paragraphs, the statement of the causes, 
 the arguments, and the decisions ; and to substitute the 
 use of the first to that of the third person. At the end of 
 most cases are references which were not in the old edi- 
 tions ; I took them from a manuscript of the late Judge 
 Dewey, of this State, a gentleman of much reading and 
 studiousness, and their ordinary concomitants, learning 
 and accuracy. After the name of every case I placed that 
 of the term at which it came before the court ; in the old 
 edition it was to be sought for in the table. With this I 
 took more liberty than with the rest of the work. I ar- 
 ranged the names of the cases in a manner more strictly 
 alphabetical ; and I introduced those of the parties, both 
 in the common and in the inversed order, and substituted 
 an index entirely new, to the former." 
 
 In all the English editions of Latch which I have 
 examined it would appear as if the book had originally 
 ended with p. 224 ; for the word Einis, carefully crossed 
 out with the pen, terminates that page ; and there is no 
 catch-word or cue to a new page. The signatures and 
 paging run on notwithstanding for fifty-one additional 
 pages, at the close of which you find the end ; "La Fin" 
 being used, however, instead of the Latin announcement 
 as before. (Edns. : Fr. fol. 1662, and Eng. by Martin, 
 8vo. 1793.) 
 
 LITTLETON. C. P., EX. 
 
 2 Car. I.— 8 Cab. I. (1626-1632.) 
 
 These are chiefly Reports of applications for prohibi- 
 tions ; a class of cases little interesting in America. It is 
 
THE COMMON" LAW REPORTERS. 193 
 
 said in tlie preface of the volume, tliat care had been taken 
 to leave out all cases reported in contemporary Eeporters. 
 A portion of the cases are found, however, in exactly the 
 same form in Hetley's Keports. It has been supposed 
 that the book was not composed by Sir Edward Littleton.* 
 The publication was posthumous, and from a MS. found 
 among the papers of his brother, a Baron of the Exche- 
 quer. Loi-d Campbell, correctly, I believe, styles the 
 work " not very valuable ;"^ although. Sir Francis li^orth, 
 in " allowing" its being printed, says that he had found it 
 to be made with great judgment and truth.' One of the 
 cases'* would present but a bad idea of the manners at 
 Oxford, in 1625. We find, at least, the Principal of St. 
 Mary's Hall libelling one of the Masters of Art, and a 
 Commoner of the same Hall, "'pur ceo que il appel luy 
 Red ISTose, Mamsey I^Tose, Copper-nose Knave, Rascal, 
 and Base Fellow et autres words non dissonant." An- 
 other case,* speaks as ill of the behavior of communi- 
 cants in those days of Archbishop Laud. The Reve- 
 rend Mr. Burnet sues one Symons in the High Commis- 
 sion Court, "pur ces que appelluy fool en leglise et dit a lui 
 Sirrah, ! Sirrah!" and because, moreover, he, Burnet, be- 
 ing vicar there, Symons, at Whitsuntide, after the Com- 
 munion was ended, took the cup and drank all the wine 
 that was left; and that when Mr. Burnet took the cup 
 from him " Symons violently reprise ces Jiors de ses mains 
 arriere in facie lEcclesioe devant que les parishioners fueront 
 tous dehors ^leglise." It is curious, and perhaps worth 
 noting, that the Court decided that all the wine that was 
 left after the communion belonged to the parson. The 
 same declaration will be found, I believe, in the rubric to 
 the Book of Common Prayer, printed in the time of 
 
 ' Bridgman's Leg. Bib. 204 ; Marvin's do. tit. Littleton. 
 
 ^ Lives of the Chancellors, ii. p. 606. 
 3 See ante, " Remarks," § 30 n. 
 * Ralph Bradvrell's Case, Littleton, 9. 
 ' Barnett v. Symons, id. 154. 
 18 
 
194 THE COMMON LAW" REPORTERS. 
 
 Charles II. It shows the doctrine of that day, though at 
 present a special and more reverent provision is made for 
 the case. 
 
 Persons who are curious will take care, in selecting a 
 copy of Littleton, to look for two fine prints found in 
 choice copies ; the one, a portrait, by White, opposite the 
 title, and sometimes on India paper ; the other, the arms 
 of Littleton, handsomely displayed, and immediately pre- 
 ceding the cases. This latter print is taken from an 
 original on- the south window of the Inner Temple Hall. 
 
 I gather the following dates from Mr. Parker's edition 
 of Walpole's ^Kohle Authors ; to which book, and more 
 particularly to Lord Campbell's Lives, I refer the reader 
 who has occasion to know more of the career — somewhat 
 an adventurous one — of this Reporter. 
 
 Edward Littleton was a descendant of the gi-eat author 
 of the Tenures, and was born in the year 15S9. He was 
 put to Oxford, 1606, and removed to the Inner Temple, 
 1609, where he made such rapid progress in the law that 
 the City of London chose him for their Recorder. In 
 1626, he was returned to Parliament ; in 1635, appointed 
 Solicitor-General, and soon after knighted. Speaking of 
 his career at the bar, Clarendon tells us, that he had 
 "taken great pains in the hardest and most knotty part 
 of the law as well as that which was more customary, and 
 was not only very ready and expert in the books, but ex- 
 ceedingly versed in records, so that he was looked upon 
 as the best antiquary of the profession ; and upon the 
 mere strength of his own abilities had early raised him- 
 self into the first rank of the practice in the Common 
 Law Courts ;" as he did very rapidly afterwards in all the 
 other courts. In 1640, he was raised to the Chief Justice- 
 ship of the Common Pleas, an office which was " indeed," 
 continues the noble historian, " the sphere in which he 
 moved most gracefully, and with most advantage, being a 
 master of all that learning and knowledge which that 
 place required, and an excellent Judge, of great gravity. 
 
THE COMMON LA"W REPORTERS. 195 
 
 and above all suspicion of corruption." " Being a man of 
 grave and comely presence," says Clarendon, in a sen- 
 tence which we might almost think Kochefoucauld was 
 translating in one of his best known maxims,' "his other 
 parts were overvalued;" and he was induced in the fol- 
 lowing year, by the importunity of the King, and certain 
 leaders of the royal party, to accept the Seal as Lord 
 Keeper, which was delivered to him on the 19th Jan. 1641, 
 with an elevation soon after to the Peerage, as Baron Lit- 
 tleton, of Mounslow. " From this time," continues Cla- 
 rendon, " he seemed to be out of his element, and in some 
 perplexity and irresolution in the Chancery itself, though 
 he had great experience in the practices and proceedings 
 of that Court ; and made not that despatch that was ex- 
 pected at the Council Table ; and in the Parliament he 
 did not preserve any dignity, and appeared so totally dis- 
 pirited that few men showed any respect to him, but they 
 who most opposed the King, who did exceedingly apply 
 themselves to him, and were with equal kindness received 
 by him." , 
 
 He died at Oxford, August 27, 1645, during the siege of 
 that place, being at this time Colonel of a regiment of 
 infantry, in which all the judges, lawyers, and officers 
 belonging to the several Courts of Justice were enlisted. 
 His regiment attended him to his grave, which is in the 
 Collegiate Church of Christ's Church, Oxford, — ^the ca- 
 thedral of this place — in which a fine monument, I 
 remember, to his memory, attracted my attention in visits 
 ing that seat of learning, piety, and literature. His 
 epitaph, with the truth, perhaps, for which that class of 
 compositions is distinguished, celebrates his "fortitude 
 and unsuspected faith to his Sovereign." Lord Camp- 
 bell's Life of him would present a different view of his 
 character. " If he is saved," says the Lord Chief Justice,^ 
 
 ' Maxime 265. La gravitS est un myst^re du corps, invent^ pour cacher 
 les defauts de I'esprit. 
 
 ^ Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers, ii. p. 605. 
 
196 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 " from being placed witli the treacherous, the perfidious, 
 and the infamous, it is only by supposing him to be the 
 most irresolute, nerveless, andpusillanimous of mankind." 
 (Edns. : Fol. 1683.) 
 
 HETLEY. C. P. 
 
 3 Car. I.— 8 Cae. I. (1627-1632.) 
 
 It is a well-known historical fact, that in the reign of 
 James I., Lord Bacon endeavored to procure the revival 
 of the ancient office of Reporter, which had been dropped 
 by Henry VHI. The title-page of Hetley informs us that 
 the author was appointed " by the King and Judges for 
 one of the Reporters of the law." This volume appears 
 to be the only fruit of Bacon's wise design.' If, however, 
 we are to judge by the cases in it, the advantages which 
 were anticipated from the revival of the office seem to 
 have failed ; for whether Hetley (or, as has been some- 
 times thought. Lord Keeper Littleton) was the auth6r, 
 
 ' I have never been able to trace the history of this revival of the regular 
 reporters. It is certain that Bacon, while Attorney-General, urged upon James 
 I., in " A Proposal for Amending the Lavi^s of England," the appointment of 
 " some grave and sound lawyers, with some honorable stipend, to be reporters 
 for the time to come." And in Eymer's Faedera (vol. xvii. p. 27), may be 
 found " Ordinatio qvu2 constituantur hs Reporters de Lege." It is directed to Sir 
 Francis Bacon, and to Sir Julius Caesar.. After stating the king's anxiety to pre- 
 serve the ancient law and to prevent innovations, it has been thought good, it 
 tells us, to renew the ancient custom, to appoint some grave and learned lawyers 
 as reporters, &o. In a letter to Buckingham, of October 18, 1617 (Bacon xii. p. 
 33, Montague's ed. 1827), Bacon says : " I send also two bills for letters patent 
 to the two reporters ; and for the persons I send also four names, with my com- 
 mendations of those two for which I will answer upon my knowledge. The 
 names must be filled in the blanks, and so they are to be returned." A note to 
 the " Proposal for Amending," &o., obviously made long after the Proposal 
 itself, and when Bacon was in retirement, adds : " This constitution of reporters 
 I obtained of the king after I was Chancellor, and there are two appointed, with 
 £100 a year stipend." (Bacon v. p. 340, Montague's ed. 1827.) Is there any 
 further account of this appointment? The present volume, it will be ob- 
 served, contains cases from the 3d to the 8th of Charles I., which was some 
 time after the date at which Bacon wrote. 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPORTEES. 197 
 
 tlie reports themselves are said by Mr, Douglas* to be 
 " far from bearing any marks of peculiar skillj informa- 
 tion, or authenticity." (Edns. : Fol., 1657.) 
 
 CLAYTOE". ASSIZES. 
 
 7 Cab. I.— 3 Cab. II. (1681-1651.) 
 
 "Reports and Pleas of Assizes at York, held before 
 several Judges in that Circuit, with some Precedents use- 
 ful for Pleaders at the Assizes, never Englished before." 
 (Edns. : 12mo. 1651, and more neatly, Dublin, 1741. In 
 the Irish edition, an errata list, prefixed to the English, is 
 omitted ; but without any correction, except in a single 
 instance, of the errors which the list was given to indicate.) 
 
 MARCH'S NEW CASES. K B., C. P. 
 
 15 Cab. I.— 19 Cab. I. (1639-1643.) 
 
 Chief Justice Parker^ calls March " a very indifferent 
 reporter." Sergeant Hill, who is stated by Lord Eldon to 
 have been " a most learned lawyer,"^ doubts the justice of 
 this censure. Roger North divides the difference, and 
 says, very safely, that he is "a mean reporter, but not to 
 be rejected." The work is styled '■'■Hew Cases," to distin- 
 guish it from another compilation of March, mentioned 
 further back ; though that is sometimes called New Cases 
 also.^ (Edns. : 1648, and 2d, small 4to. 1675.) 
 
 STAR CHAMBER CASES. 
 
 " Showing what cases properly belong to the cognizance 
 of that court; collected, for the most part, out of Mr. 
 
 ' Pref. to Dougl. Rep. ix. MO Mod. 138. 
 
 'Life, by Twiss, i. p. 38, Phil. 1844; and to the same effect. Life of 
 Romilly,p. 13; 3d ed. 
 * See anU, p. 92. 
 
198 THE COMMON LAW REPOETEES. 
 
 Compton, Ms booke, entitled 'The Jurisdiction of Courts.' " 
 This volume, which is a mere pamphlet of 55 pp., is a 
 treatise upon the jurisdiction of the Court of Star Cham- 
 ber, rather than formal reports in court. (Edns. : 
 Small 4to. 1641.) 
 
 When Mr. Justice Shallow, grieved by the " disparage- 
 ments" ofFalstaff, threatened to "make a Star Chamber 
 matter of it," vowing that " if he were twenty Sir John 
 Falstafis,he should not abuse Eobert Shallow, Esquu'e," — 
 who writes himself " Armigero," — ^beseems to have ap- 
 prehended, with judicial exactness, the extraordinary juris- 
 diction of this tribunal, as presented in the volume before 
 us ; slanderous words against a king's Justice being one 
 of the oflFences specially punished by the Star Chamber, in 
 exercise of a peculiar as distinguished from an ordinary 
 jurisdiction.* And the charity of Sir Hugh, the parson, 
 was much better than his law, when he supposed that the 
 council desired " to hear the fear of Got, and not to hear 
 a riot;" unlawful assemblies, routs, n'o^g, forgeries, per- 
 juries, cozoanages, and libellings, being declared in these 
 reports to be the matters which properly belong to the 
 jurisdiction of the Star Chamber. 
 
 As this volume is quite scarce, I annex one or two cases 
 to illustrate its reports : 
 
 " The jury of London, which acquitted Sir Nicholas 
 Throgmorton, Knight, circa prima Mar. Regin. of high 
 treason because that the matter was thought to be proved 
 insufficiently against him, were called in the Star Cham- 
 ber in October, 1544, and eight of them were fined there 
 at great sums ; every one of them at five hundred pounds 
 at the least, and awarded also back again to prison, there 
 to remain until further order were taken for their punish- 
 ment, and the other four were released of their imprison- 
 ment, because they submitted themselves, and acknow- 
 
 " See Star Chamber Cases, 33, where a man was punished for this very 
 oifenoe. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 199 
 
 ledged that tlaey had offended, not considering the truth 
 of the matter. TJt patet per HoUingshead, fo. 1759." 
 
 "Eleven of a jury, which did acquit one Hoyd, of 
 felony, before Sir Eoger Manwood, Chief Baron, in his 
 circuit in Somersetshire, against apparent evidence : they 
 were fined in Star Chamber, and did wear papers in West- 
 minster Hall, circa 22 Eliz., the which myself saw." 
 
 "Divers were set on pillory in Cheapside, in London, 
 circa 36 H. YIII., for cutting out the tongues of cer- 
 tain living beasts, and for barking of certain fruit trees, 
 and burning of a farm maliciously, of one Greshams." 
 
 " A Knight of the County of Northumberland was fined 
 in a great sum in the Star Chamber, because he permitted 
 a seditious book called Martin Marprelate, to be printed 
 in his house. 32 Eliz." 
 
 " One spoke of my Lord Dyer, Chief Justice of the Com- 
 mon Pleas, that he was a corrupt Judge, for which he was 
 convicted in this court, and adjudged to stand upon the 
 pillory. Yide Statut. de Scandal. Magnatum, in the 
 which the Judges of the law are mentioned. And surely 
 this man was a very grave, reverend, and upright Judge, 
 by the general report of all men, and by this report greatly 
 abused." 
 
 SPECLiL LAW CASES. 
 
 17 Oak. I.— 24 Cae. I. (1641-1648.) 
 
 " Concerning the persons and estates of all men whatso- 
 ever." This book — ^the title of which operates, certainly, 
 by way of enlargement — ^I do not remember to have seen. 
 Can it be the same cited by Godolphin,' as " Law Cases 
 Collected, edit. 1641, perused per Hutton 1" 
 
 ' Orphan's Legacy, 114, 4th edition. 
 
200 THE COMMON LAW EEPOETEKS. 
 
 STYLE. U. B. 
 
 21 Cae. I.— 8 Cak. II. (1645-1056.) 
 
 These reports are genuine ; and (what rarely happened 
 to reports in their day) were published by the author him- 
 self. They are valuable, as being the only records of the 
 decisions of RoUe and Sir John Glyn, the able Chief Jus- 
 tices of Oliver Cromwell. The reporter, from his own 
 account, would seem to have been careful about what he 
 put into his book* as decided. In one place, after men- 
 tioning that Chief Justice Glyn " argued long, much to 
 the same eflect as formerly," apologizes for not giving his 
 argument, by saying that, " having taken cold," he could 
 not " distinctly hear him." He does not, however, make 
 any excuse in the case of W"eld v. Eumney,^ where he 
 reports an argument as made by Twisden, at the Bar, in 
 1650, which Twisden himself, when on the bench, about 
 twenty years afterwards,' said, was " not one word of it 
 true." 
 
 It is recorded of the saints of the Kepublic, that in 
 reciting the Lord's Prayer, they would never say " Thy 
 kingdom come," but always, " Thy commonwealth come."'' 
 From a similar spirit, probably, though with better sense, 
 the K. B. was styled during the time of Style's and 
 Aleyn's Eeports, the Upper, or Public Bench. (Edns. : 
 fol. 1658.) /pu^Ce^ Lc^ ft^t.^ ^i^ 7^ /^'^^^?c y/lJ 
 
 ALETN". U.B. 
 
 22 Cab. I.— 1 Cae. II. (1646-1619.) 
 
 These Reports (says Mr. Marvin)' consist of loose notes 
 of cases taken during the last years of Charles I., when 
 
 > Style, 470. 2 ij.^ sig. 3 x Mod. 296. 
 
 * Hume, viii. p. 151 n. ' Leg. Bib. tit. Aleyn. 
 
THE COMMON LATV EEPOETEKS. 201 
 
 judicial proceedings were greatly interrupted by the trou- 
 bles of the time. During the whole term embraced by 
 them, EoUe and Bacon were the only Judges of the K. B., 
 and during part of the time the former sat alone. 'No 
 satisfactory account is given of the MS. from which the 
 volume is printed. The publication was posthumous, and 
 most likely an imposture. In Dare v. Chase,* when the 
 book was cited, Mr. Justice Dolben took occasion to say, 
 that " the publisher had much wronged the author ; for 
 that he (Dolben) had the original manuscript, and had 
 compared them, and found it to be mistaken in several 
 cases, even as to the very resolutions of the court." I 
 insert the volume, however, in my series, as I have done 
 other worthless Eeports, that I may not disappoint even 
 such lawyers as are curious in books rather than in their 
 contents, and rank with collectors and virtuosos only. 
 
 HARDEES. EX. 
 
 6 Cab. II.— 21 Cae. II. (1654-1669.) 
 
 " This volume," says Mr. Green, " contains some of the 
 most learnedly argued of the old Reports." The author 
 was Sergeant at Law to King Charles 11., and Recorder 
 of the City of Canterbury.^ I infer from the fact of 
 his name being frequently spelled in the books without 
 the second r, that this Reporter's name was pronounced as a 
 French one, and as if a word of one syllable ;^ in this 
 respect, unlike some names similarly written, such for 
 example as Chartres, which most readers will remember 
 Pope makes to rhyme with " martyrs." There is a chasm 
 in the paging from 232 to 301.^ (Edns. : fol. 1693, and 
 
 ' 2 Show. 164; and see Pref. to Eden's Hep. 
 
 2 Hardres, 390. 
 
 3 2 Keble, 575; 3 Id. 262, 765; Freeman's C. L. Rep. 143, 151, 152, 172, &o. 
 * The reader has doubtless noted the fact, that chasms, mispaging, and other 
 
 irregularities, frequently occur in works printed about this time ; as, for ex- 
 
202 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 Dublin, 1792, 8vo., with a good many notes in tlie margin, 
 and references almost innumerable.) 
 
 SIDEEFIF. K B., C, P., EX. 
 
 9 Cab. II.— 23 Cab. II. (1657-1670.) 
 
 Being cited, Dolben, Justice, said : It is a book " fit to be 
 burned ; being taken by bim wben a student, and unwor- 
 thily done by them that printed it."' Opinions to the 
 same flattering effect are found in 2d Ventris, 243, and in 
 Comberback, 377. In the last-cited place, the following 
 dialogue is reported : 
 
 Solt, 0. J. "It was resolved in the case of Butler and 
 
 ample, in Hardres, PoUexfen, Croke, Benloe (Old and New), Owen, Bulstrode, 
 and probably in other Reporters ; notwithstanding which, that the volumes are 
 regarded as perfect. The cause of this circumstance I have not seen explained. 
 Undoubtedly the English press was in a very corrupt state during much of the 
 seventeenth century, and, in fact, until its freedom was established, a few years 
 after the Revolution (see ante, " Remarks," § 7). It is possible that the works 
 in which these imperfections occur were clandestinely printed by the Curlls of 
 the day ; and that to insure despatch the copy was distributed among different 
 compositors ; but happening to prove fatter or more Uan (as printers say), than 
 had been reckoned, the matter, as put in metal, overran or fell short of the 
 paging which had been made. The same tiling, indeed, might have occurred 
 from the same cause in an honest office. (See Lutwyche, 1668, Obs. 3.) Men 
 who stand at the case know the difficulty, not to say the impossibility, of cast- 
 ing off copy so as to come out at the page. If the MS. is interlined or irregular, 
 the difficulty is extreme; and even with uniform copy, a hair space in the body 
 of the type will produce, in a series of pages, an entire miscalculation. I have 
 seen the same sort of type, made about the same time, having four different 
 bodies, according to their foundries ; and yet the improvement in this matter 
 has been immense of modern times. 
 
 The same thing thus noted in the Reporters, occurs in other old works. Thus 
 in the folio Shakspeare of 1623, in which Timon of Athens was first printed, 
 we find pp. 81 and 82 repeated. The play ends with p. 98, while the next 
 play begins with p. 109. Towards the end of Timon, the matter is obviously 
 extended as much as possible, single lines being sometimes divided into two, 
 a fact from which Mr. Collier (Works of Shakspeare, vol. vi. p. 504, Lond. 
 1842) infers, as I had previously done in regard to the Reporters, that there 
 had been a miscalculation of copy. 
 
 > 1 Show. 252. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTEES. 203 
 
 Hodges, in this court, that no damages should be intended 
 to be given for that which is void." 
 
 Carthue. " I can gather no such matter from that case 
 as 'tis in Sid. 319." , 
 
 Holt. "Ay: many good cases are spoiled in Siderfin ; 
 neither reported with that truth nor with that spirit which 
 the case required. The case of Opy and Thomassius is 
 much abused; scarce intelligible there." 
 
 Mr. Burke, indeed, in his fine " E-eport from a Com- 
 mittee appointed to inspect the Lords' Journals,"' spoke 
 of Siderfin as " a Reporter of much authority." He was 
 showing the great enlargement which modern times made 
 in the principles and rules of evidence. "Lord Muns- 
 field," he says, when Keble and Siderfin were cited before 
 him, on the point of releasing a witness, did not " contro- 
 vert" either authority, though "he treated both of them 
 with equal contempt;" his words being, said Mr. Burke, 
 " We do not now sit here to take our rules of evidence 
 from Siderfin and Keble." 
 
 The second part of Siderfin, is so called because it was 
 printed after the first. In point of time the eases in the 
 second part, precede those in the first. (Edns. : 1683-4-9 ; 
 and 2d, 1714, by Robert Dobyns, of Lincoln's Inn, with 
 references by Edward Chilton and Robert Skinner ; the 
 former known as an editor of Hobart.) 
 
 THE RESTORATION. 
 
 BRIDGMASr, SIR ORLANDO. C. P. 
 
 12 Cab. 11.-19 Cak. II. (1660-1667.) 
 
 Sir Orlando Bridgman was among the most eminent 
 common lawyers of the period near the Restoration ; and 
 
 ' Works, vol. vii. p. 59a, Boston, 1839. 
 
204 THE COMMON LA"W EEPOETERS. 
 
 though like Lane and Vaughan, and unlike Hale, "so 
 severe a moraler" as to have declined practising, under 
 any Judges of the Usurpation's appointment,* or to act 
 otherwise than as a conveyancer and chamber counsel, 
 " was even in his retirement," says Lord Holt,^ much 
 devoted to his profession, and "had an account brought 
 to him of all that passed in the courts." As the law in 
 his time was in what may be called a transition state — a 
 state of passage from the old to the modern system — and 
 as the decisions of that epoch happen to be handed down 
 to us by Latch, Carter, Keble, Siderfin, and other inaccu- 
 rate Reporters, it is much to be regretted that all the 
 MSS. of the Chief Justice are not printed. The present 
 volume — of his own decisions as Chief Justice of the 
 Common Pleas, in which office he is conceded to have 
 been very eminent — embraces, it will be seen, a term of 
 but seven years. It is printed from the MSS. of Mr. Har- 
 grave, and first appeared in 1823, under the auspices of 
 Mr. Bannister ; from whose name it is usually cited as 
 " Bannister's Bridgman." I^o other recommendation will 
 be needed of the volume, than to know that Mr. Hargrave 
 thought that the cases had been prepared for publication 
 by Bridgman himself, and contemplated publishing the 
 volume. Sir Matthew Hale,^ and Lord Holt,^ both refer 
 to Bridgman's MSS. as of superior authority ; and Mr. 
 Fonblanque,' who had seen the cases in this volume be- 
 fore publication, speaks of them as far exceeding Carter's 
 in copiousness, depth, and correctness. Lord Campbell, 
 likewise, remarks,^ that they undoubtedly show " a very 
 learned, acute, and painstaking Judge." 
 
 Few judicial characters have received more homage 
 from contemporaries, than Sir Orlando Bridgman. Lord 
 
 ' Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers, iii. p. 274. 
 
 ' Pigot on Recoveries, 197. 
 
 ' Pleas of the Crown, 303. * Pigot on Recoveries, 197. 
 
 ' Treat, on Equity, ii. p. 173, u. 
 
 ^ Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers, iii. p. 276. 
 
THE COMMON LATV REPORTEES. 205 
 
 Clarendon styles Mm "very eminent in the knowledge of 
 the law." Lord Nottingham thought that he should not 
 be mentioned but " with reverence and with veneration for 
 his learning and integrity;" Lord Ellenborough, in modern 
 times, pronounces him " a most eminent Judge, distin- 
 guished by the profundity of his learning, and the extent of 
 his industry." And one of his Reporters assigns to him 
 this highest compliment which a member of the profes- 
 sion could receive : "he always argued like a lawyer and 
 a gentleman."^ "We must add, however, that Burnet, 
 Eoger IN'orth, and other general historians who eulogize 
 his character as Chief Justice, record that, like Lord Lit- 
 tleton, he was greater as a common lawyer than in Chan- 
 cery; where he held the Great Seal as Lord Keeper for a 
 few years. Not many of his decisions as Lord Keeper 
 have reached us ; and these are but scantily reported. 
 Lord Campbell, referring to the remarks of Burnet and 
 North, observes of these few, that, so far as we can judge, 
 the points which they decide seem to have been properly 
 ruled.2 (Edns. : 8vo. 1823.) 
 
 RAYMOND, SIR T. K. B., C. P., EX. 
 
 12 Cak. II.— 36 Cak. II. (1660-1684.) 
 Extending, with an interruption, to 1653. 
 
 Sir Thomas Raymond was made a Sergeant of Law, Oct. 
 26, 1677 ; a Baron of the Exchequer, May 5, 1679 ; a Judge 
 of the Common Pleas, Feb. 7, 1680 ; and of the King's 
 Bench,-29thof April, following. He died in 1683. This 
 reporter was the father of Lord Raymond, eminent like- 
 wise as a reporter. (Edns. : 1st, fol. 1696 ; 2d, fol. 1743 ; 
 3d, 8vo. Dublin, 1793; 4th, 8vo. Lond. 1803.) 
 
 ' Pref. to Carter's Reports. 
 
 ^ Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors, iii. p. 280. 
 
206 THE COMMON LAW KEPORTERS. 
 
 LEVmZ. K B., C. p. 
 
 12 Oak. II.— 9 Wm. III. (1660-1697.) 
 
 Lord Hardwicke is reported to have said, that though 
 Levinz was "a good lawyer, he was sometimes a very 
 careless reporter;"' but the book, notwithstanding this 
 censure, is frequently cited, and in Chancellor Kent's 
 notice of judicial reports^ is spoken of as "of authority." 
 See also, 5th Burrow^ 2731, and 3d Durnford & East, 17, 
 where both Lord Mansfield and Lord Kenyon speak of 
 Levinz as a better reporter than Keble ; which, indeed, is 
 not to say a great deal. It appears, by a record of Mr. 
 Hargrave, that among his collection, is a MS. contempo- 
 raneous with Levinz, and much more copious. Should 
 Levinz ever be re-edited, no doubt he will be presented in 
 a much improved form. 
 
 In addition to Levinz's Reports, there is a book (in folio, 
 1702), called Levinz's Entries ; many of them having refer- 
 ence to cases in the Reports. They thus serve occasionally 
 to illustrate a case reported, and the curious prefer to 
 make this volume a part of the series : though a good 
 many of the entries are transferred to the Reports, or at 
 all events, to the 2d and 3d editions of them. The book 
 is in Latin. 
 
 Levinz was Treasurer of Gray's Inn in 1679, and suc- 
 ceeded Sir "W". Jones as A. G., during the same year. 
 " There is a gentleness in his opinions as A. G.," says Mr. 
 G. Chalmers,' "which does him high honor during an 
 age of little scrupulosity." He was made Sergeant, 29th 
 Nov., 1681 ; and afterwards one of the Judges of the 
 Common Pleas. An inscription upon a monument, to his 
 grandson, in the north aisle of Westminster Abbey, 
 records, to the honor of this reporter, that he was dis- 
 
 ■ 2 Vesey, 595. 2 1 Corn. 486. 
 
 ' Opinions of Eminent Lawyers, vol. i. p. xxiii. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 207 
 
 placed in the reign of James 11., for opposing the dis- 
 pensing power ; and that he was of counsel for the seven 
 bishops. (Edns.: Of the Eeports, fol. Fr. 1702; 2d, 2 
 vols., fol. 1722, Fr. and Eng. ; the translation by Salkeld. 
 This edition ought to contain a print, by White, which is, 
 in point of engraving, above mediocrity. It is also found 
 sometimes in the Entries. 3d, 1793-7, 3 vols, small 8vo. 
 in English alone. The translation of the cases in this 
 edition, is a reprint from Sergeant Salkeld's of 1772 ; that 
 of the pleadings, which Salkeld gives in Latin only (as he 
 found them in the Entries), is by Mr. Vickers, an Enghsh 
 barrister, under whose supervision the 3d volume of this 
 3d edition was published. The 8vo. edition is neat and 
 convenient, and good enough, I suppose, for ordinary 
 references. I prefer, however, the old folio of Sergeant 
 Salkeld ; in which you have the reporter's original lan- 
 guage con-columned with a translation, which may 
 serve to explain, but not to displace it. You can thus 
 see what the translator has been doing : whether, as is the 
 case with most of the old "doers into English," he has 
 turned his master's sense into nonsense ; or whether, fall- 
 ing into the sin of more intelligent translators, he has 
 committed as grave a crime by turning nonsense into 
 sense. There is a satisfaction in knowing that j'ou read an 
 original, no matter how imperfect, which you lose when 
 forced to rely upon even the most faithful interpreter.) 
 
 KEBLE. KB. 
 
 13 Cak. 11.^31 Cab. II. (1601-1679.) 
 
 Keble, like Siderfin, has had the happiness to unite all 
 opinions. Willes, C. J., somewhere speaks of him as a 
 " reporter who seldom enlightens anything." Mr. Justice 
 Park burned his copy, thinking it not worth while to 
 lumber his library with trash. Mr. Justice Ashhurst 
 thought that the bad character of the author was quite 
 
208 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 sustained by the intrinsic evidence of one of its reports.* 
 Lord Mansfield^ called him "a bad reporter;" and the 
 Baron of Gredington, who, it is known, overruled most 
 of his great predecessor's other judgments, dissented not 
 in this.'' 
 
 However, though so bad a reporter, Keble is styled by 
 Burnet, J.,^ " a tolerable historian of the law ;" and by 
 Lord Hardwicke, " though very far from being accurate, 
 a pretty good register."* It may be added, also, that his 
 reports help, often, to explain difficulties in contemporary 
 reports of better credit in general. Besides the Eeporter 
 Joseph Keble, there was another person, Richard Keble, 
 who, with Whiteloek and Lisle, was one of the commis- 
 sioners of the Great Seal. (Edns. : Li regard to a work 
 equally distinguished for its size and its worthlessness, it 
 may be conjectured that a single edition records the his- 
 tory of its issues. It bears the date of 1685, and when 
 
 » 4 D. and E. 646. = 1 Doug. 305. 
 
 3 D. and E. 17; 4 Id. 649; Ridgeway's Cases, 100 n.; Bingham, 664. It 
 is possible, however, that even Keble has a worse fame than he deserves. In 
 the same case that Lord Mansfield discredited him generally, he admitted that 
 particular inquiries confirmed the report ; and in another, when put aside by 
 Sergeant Glynn, at the bar, as of no authority, the Earl adverted to the coinci- 
 dence of his report with one of the same case by Freeman ; and the court 
 gave judgment according to the precedent cited. The censures of Lord Kenyon 
 and Sir William Ashhurst, are still more open to the censurer. " In the case 
 cited from 4 D. and E. 046, and 649," writes Mr. Heterick, of the Virginia Bar, 
 to me, " Lord Kenyon and Judge Ashhurst discredited Keble, among other 
 grounds, because, in the case quoted at the bar from him, he referred to another 
 case, Norden's case, as having been decided at the preceding term ; while 
 neither he himself nor Levinz, report the case among the decisions of that 
 term. It would appear, however, that though Keble and Jones do not report 
 the case as of the term to which Keble, in the case discredited, assigned it, yet 
 Thomas Jones, p. 88, does ; and that Keble and Levinz also report it under 
 the name of Norden v. Levit, as of the term but one before." (3 Keble, 778 ; 
 2 Levinz, 189.) The case is also reported by Freeman, 442. Lord Kenyon 
 and Judge Ashhurst disliked the case quoted at the bar, from Keble, and dis- 
 credited it through the reporter ; but it was afiirmed in the House of Lords, 
 6 Mod. 94. 
 
 * 3 Wils. 330. 5 Ridgeway's Cases, 100 ; Fortescue, 162. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 209 
 
 ' complete, is in three ponderous folios, sometimes distri- 
 buted into four.') 
 
 FIRST, OR J. KELYI^G. K. B. (PLAC. COR.) 
 
 14 Car. H.— 22 Cak. II. (1662-1669.) 
 
 It is said by Sir Michael Foster,^ that these Reports were 
 published by. Lord Holt. The volume is cited as First or 
 J. Eelyng, and must not be confounded with Second or "W. 
 Kelyng, mentioned further on. (Edns. : Fol. 1708, and 
 again, the title-page alone being changed, 1739, 8vo. 
 Dublin, 1789, with references and notes by Browne.) 
 
 CARTER. C. P. 
 
 16 Cak. II.— 28 Cae. II. (1664-1676.) 
 With some cases in the time of C. J. Vaughan. 
 
 This is but an inaccurate volume. When it was cited 
 
 ' On this last point, the size and number of the volumes, a matter which is 
 connected with the tables to the work, the purchaser of Keble should be upon 
 his guard. Each volume ought to have two tables, viz. ; a Table of Cases, and 
 a Table of Matters ; the first at the beginning, and the other at the end of the 
 book. The last, that is the Table of Matters, is, however, sometimes wanting. 
 This is owing to the fact, that in consequence of the minuteness with which 
 the tables were prepared, they were not ready for the press as early as the 
 Reports. Indeed, these latter had to be printed before the tables could be 
 made, so that the tables were printed afterwards by themselves, in a fourth and 
 separate form. The zeal with which a new publication is sought, took forth 
 some copies of the Reports before the Table of Cases was printed ; and in such 
 cases, unless the owners of the imperfect sets afterwards added a fourth 
 volume to their preceding three, the series, of course, was incomplete. Such 
 copies of the book as were not bound until afterwards, and when the Tables of 
 Matters were ready to be bound with them, usually have these three tables 
 under the same cover with the volumes of the Reports to which they respec- 
 tively belong ; and in these cases, the work is complete, though but in three 
 volumes. But somewhere or other, the Tables of Matters ought to be found, 
 either in the volumes which contain the Reports, or in a fourth volume by 
 themselves. 
 
 2 Reports, &c , 204. 
 
 14 
 
210 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 before Lord Holt, he is reported to have said, that " he did 
 not know that Carter, nor would allow that report for any 
 authority;'" and though Lord Mansfield once relied^ on a 
 report of Carter's,* as to what C. J. Bridgman had said, 
 yet, by reference, since, to Bridgman's own MSS., there 
 appears to be nothing said by the 0. J., of the sort at- 
 tributed to him by Carter.'' Some copies of Carter are 
 illustrated with an exquisite print of Bridgman, by Fai- 
 thorne, the same which is found in Dugdale's Origines, and 
 which, on account of the agreeableness and digniiy of the 
 face, and the goodness of the engraving, is one of the best, 
 I think, of these old illustrative portraits. A brilliant 
 impression of this print is really worth having, and even 
 worth taking some pains to have. 
 
 Carter was the author of the Lex Custumaria, and some 
 other worthless books, now seldom heard of. (Edns. 166 &t) , 
 
 VAUGHAN. C. P. 
 
 17 Cak. II.— 26 Cae. II. (1665-1674.) 
 
 Like most of the reports about this epoch, Vaughan's 
 come to us d'outre tomhe. The cases are said to be of 
 very unequal merit; some, which are supposed to have 
 been written out by the Chief Justice himself, being 
 "good and methodical discourses," and giving "a true 
 picture of his mind;" others, "taken from loose notes, 
 tvhich he intended to have perfected, if he had lived," and 
 being quite inaccurate. So, at least, says the Chief Justice 
 Treby,' whose authority, great on any point, would, in 
 connection with language of Lord Hardwicke, in another 
 place,^ be conclusive on this, were it not for an expression 
 
 ' Comberbach, 442. ^iVf. Black, 166 ; S. C. 1 Eden, 230. 
 
 ' Geary v. Bearoroft. * 2 Fonblanque's Eq. 170, ii. 
 
 ^ 12 Amer. Jurist 61, quoting C. J. Treby, as reported in the great case of 
 Courtney v. Bower, C. B. 1699, of which Mr. Hargrave had a very full note. 
 " 2 Vesey, 281. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPOETERS. 211 
 
 of significancy witli which Mr. Hargrave transfers to his 
 copy of Vaughan, from which I derive it, the censure left 
 on record by the eminent Chief Justice. " Lord Chief 
 Justice Treby," is the language, perhaps only casual, of 
 the learned bibliographer, "thus expresses himself, in con- 
 sequence of having to answer an objection from the case of 
 Sheppard v. Gosnold."* I may add that there is nothing in 
 the preface to Vaughan which indicates in what light the 
 reporter himself regarded his MSS. His son, by whom 
 they were published, states that he deferred publishing 
 them for some time, " having no particular direction from 
 the author to that purpose." 
 
 Sir John Vaughan was born Sept. 14, 1603, at Trow- 
 scoed, in the County of Cardigan, the ancient seat of his 
 family. He received an uncommonly regular and liberal 
 education at Christ Church, Oxford, not only from tutors, 
 but more particularly from the care of an uncle, then a 
 a fellow of All Soul's, Oxford,^ who, being a person of 
 good learning and prudence, "omitted" nothing," we are 
 told, "that might cherish the hopes he entertained of his 
 nephew, and improve him in all kinds of learning with 
 which the University doth season youth." Such care has 
 promise of its rewards, and, in 1621, Vaughan was ad- 
 mitted with honor to the Inner Temple. After being 
 called in due time to the bar, he practised chiefly in the 
 Star Chamber, where he became eminent. He was sent 
 M.P. for Cardigan in the Parliament of 1640, whence he 
 had the honor to be excluded in the following year, for 
 being a Cavalier, and siding, " as the law taught him," 
 with his king. Throughout the Eebellion, indeed, he is 
 said " to have thought more of what befitted a very lofty 
 honor, than of what may have been necessary for the 
 times," and, like Bridgman and Lane, recalls to us, by his 
 unyielding resistance to the demands of faction, the noble 
 character of Cato, of whom Cicero tells us that, with the 
 
 ' Vaughan, 159. ^ Preface to Vaughan. 
 
212 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 purest intentions, and consummate integrity, he some- 
 times injured the pubUc interests by his unswerving ad- 
 herence to abstract principle, and by giving his opinions 
 more as if he were living in the republic of Plato, than 
 among the rabble of Eome.' Still we must ever honor 
 them ! Vaughan retired entirely from practice, declaring it 
 unlawful to recognize any judicial authority not derived 
 from " a lawful prince," He thus lived, for twenty years, 
 a sequestered life upon his estates, pursuing his pro- 
 fessional studies, and maintaining, so far as the tumults of 
 
 • "Nam Catonem nostram non tu amas plus quam ego. Sed tamen ille, 
 Optimo animo utens, et suramEl fide, nooet interdum Reipubliese. Dicit enim 
 tanquam in Platonis TroKirmt, non tanquam in Romuli fieee sententiam." (Epist. 
 ad Atticum, Lib. IL Epist. I.) This sentiment is expressed with perhaps a 
 dangerous eloquence, in another of the [great orator's productions : " Neque 
 enim inconstantis puto sententiam tanquara aliquod navigium atque oursum 
 ex reipublicoe tempestate moderari. Ego vero haeo didioi, haso vidi, hsec soripta 
 legi : hseo de sapientissimis et clarissimis viris, et in hac republica et in aliis 
 civitatibus monumenta nobis litersB prodiderunt: non semper easdem sen- 
 tentias ab iisdem, sed quascunque Reipubliese status, inclinatio temporum, ratio 
 concordiee postularet, esse defendendas. Quod ego et faoio, Laterensis, et semper 
 faciam ; libertatemque quam in me requiris, quam ego neque demisi unquam 
 neque demittam non in pertinaoia sed in quadam moderatione positam putabo." 
 (Oratio pro Cn. Plancio, xxxix.) 
 
 As illustrated in the character of the great statesman of America, our own 
 Webster, and as, perhaps, it may have been by the Roman statesman, this senti- 
 ment is that of the highest honor and wisdom, but is a dangerous one for 
 political integrity less than Webster's to apply. " With elements of reason, 
 definite, absolute, and emphatic, with principles settled, strenuous, deep, and 
 unchangeable as his being, the wisdom of Webster," said one best able to com- 
 prehend it, " is yet exquisitely practical. With subtlest sagacity it apprehends 
 every change in the circumstances in which it is to act, and can accommodate 
 its action without loss of vigor or alteration of its general purpose. Its theories 
 always ' lean and hearken' to the actual. By a sympathy of the mind almost 
 transcendent in its delicacy, its speculations are attracted into a parallelism 
 with the logic of life and nature. . . This practicalness and readiness are in- 
 stinctive, not voluntary and designed. They are united with the most decided 
 preference for certain opinions, and the most earnest averseness for others. 
 Nothing could be less like the system of waitmg for events. Webster has 
 never, in view of a change which he saw to be inevitable, held himself in 
 reserve and uncommitted." (H. B. Wallace, Character of Webster, The 
 Knickerbocker, vol. xxx. p. 442.) 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPOETEKS. 213 
 
 the times would allow, that ancient, native, genuine cha- 
 racter — ^which Mr. Burke thought fit to be honored in an 
 epitaph — of "a country gentleman." With the Restora- 
 tion, he was again sent, in 1661, to Parliament, for his 
 native shire, when his honesty was better rewarded than 
 honesty commonly was by Charles 11. He was made, 
 May 20, 1668, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, an 
 office which he held for the residue of his life. It ex- 
 tended, unfortunately, but to the 10th December, 1674. 
 
 As some ofiset to the nobility, of the Bedfords, im- 
 mortalized by Burke, and that of the Graftons, made not 
 less memorable by Thurlow, it is refreshing to observe, 
 that the British Peerage has in its ranks the representa- 
 tives of honest men, as well as of mistresses and of minions, 
 of Villiers, and of Russell. The present Earl of Lisburne 
 brings- his descent immediately from Sir John Vaughan, 
 the Chief Justice, our reporter. (Edns. : 1st, 1677, by his 
 son ; 2d, in 1706, with a fine print, by White, but unfor- 
 tunately, in most cases, found upon paper a good deal y 
 
 stainedK P^ ^n^^^^S^^J'*';^./^^^"^^^ 
 SAUKDERS. KB. 
 
 18 Car. II.— 25 Cak. II. (1666-1673.) ^ 
 
 " The most valuable and accurate reports of their age :" 
 and this is the character which has been repeatedly given 
 of them in modern times.^ To the same effect speaks Mr. 
 Justice Yates.^ Another Judge styles it, " that excellent 
 book."^ And Chief Justice Willes, having quoted 
 Saunders, thought it unnecessary to " mention any other 
 authority after him."^ But the highest tribute which this 
 book and the science of pleading, as taught by it, has re- 
 ceived or can receive, has come to it from America. 
 Daniel Wbbstee, it is said, once translated the Reports 
 
 ' 1 Kent's Com. 485. 2 3 Bur. 1730. 
 
 3 Lord Eldon, 2 B. & P. 23. " Willes, 479. 
 
214 THE COMMON LAW REPORTEES. 
 
 of Saunders into English.^ The book which trained 
 Webster's mind to its " prodigious powers of legal logic," 
 or in which Ms intellect found a dialectic harmony, may 
 well receive the homage of the world. 
 
 Saunders gives us the records at length ; and states in 
 a concise and clear manner, the objections and arguments 
 of counsel, and opinions of the Judges. As the reporter 
 himself was well versed in special pleading, and was 
 counsel in most of the cases he reports, the points dis- 
 cussed are given with clearness, and with that truth to 
 which a special pleader, — whose habits sharpen the mind 
 to a quick perception of legal distinction, and discipline it 
 in a close adherence to logic, — naturally and readily at- 
 tains. ' 
 
 The work has, since ^ebster copied it, been brought 
 into special prominence by the notes of Sergeant Wil- 
 liams. They were written, the editor declares, as well 
 with a view of inciting the student to a diligent perusal 
 of the pleadings, and giving him a knowledge not only of 
 the excellence or defects of those before him, but of the 
 grounds and reasons upon which the rules of special plead- 
 ing and practice were founded, and the variations which 
 modern times had adopted from older forms ; as of afford- 
 ing to the more experienced, a useful book upon the cir- 
 cuits, where many cannot be refen-ed to. With these in- 
 tentions, Williams digested into them the doctrines and 
 authorities relating to most kinds of( practice and special 
 pleading, and many of their general laws. Indeed, 
 several of the notes are complete, though concise, treatises 
 
 ' " It was a year or two since, that he spoke of having found the Reports of 
 Saunders, when he was a student, accessible only in their original Latin, and 
 without the notes with which Sergeant Williams has since enriched them ; and 
 he remarked: 'I sat down and made a translation of them into English, and 
 I have it yet, and it was in that way that I made myself familiarly and accu- 
 rately acquainted with the language of pleading.' " (Remarks of Reuben A. 
 Chapman, Esquire, before the Court of Common Pleas, of Hampden County, 
 Mass., Oct. 25, 1852, on the occasion of Mr. Webster's deatli, quoted in the 
 New York Daily Times of October 27, 1852, from the Springfield Republican.) 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPOETEES. 215 
 
 * 
 upon their respective subjects. They possess the highest 
 authority, and more than place the annotator on a level 
 with the author. Tindal, C. J., somewhere speaks of 
 them as being " now esteemed a text-book of our law." 
 " A sounder lawyer or more accurate special pleader," says 
 Baron Vaughan, in speaking of "Williams, "has rarely 
 done honor to his profession."' A note of his brother 
 "Williams had stated the law so "very accurately," that 
 Lord Alvanley, C. J., " could not lay it down in better 
 terms."^ The " great ability" with which a note of the 
 same Sergeant had collected " all the cases" on a difficult 
 point, prevented Lord Kenyon from going through them 
 again, or doing more than "refer generally" to his labors.' 
 The judgment of the King's Bench in 1802, with Ellen- 
 borough, Grose, Lawrence, and Le Blanc, was thought by 
 Justice Lawrence,'' to derive support from a note of "Wil- 
 liams, collecting cases to the point with "great learning 
 and ability." 
 
 This praise of modest excellence has not been confined 
 to men of one country, or one style of thought. Mr. 
 "William Eawle, the elder, of Philadelphia, a lawyer of 
 the Federal School of "Washington, declared, in 1806,* that 
 " a body of notes so luminous, correct, and comprehen- 
 sive, had not perhaps appeared since Chief Justice Coke's 
 Commentary on Littleton." Mr. Thomas Cooper, of 
 Northumberland, a Jacobin exile from England to Penn- 
 sylvania, knew* " no reporter so well edited, or any law 
 book that has called forth more decided approbation from 
 the persons best qualified to judge of its merits ;" while 
 the prince of Tory lords — the pauciloquently praising 
 Eldon — who, as Attorney-General, had threatened Cooper 
 with indictment,' went so far as to cite Mr. "Williams's 
 
 ' 1 Cromp. & Jerv. 9. 
 
 2 3 B. & P. 178. 3 1 East, 428, and see Id. 95, .,. " 3 East, 5. 
 
 » Letter of January 14th, 1806, to Mr. P. Byrne, publisher, Advertisement 
 Sheet, in the end of East's Pleas of the Crown, vol. ii. Philadelphia, 1806. 
 6 Letter of March 20th, 1806, to Mr. P. Byrne, publisher. lb. 
 ' Encyolopsedia Americana, vol. xiv. tit. Cooper (Thomas), M.D. & LL.D. 
 
216 THE COMMON LAW EEPORTEES. 
 
 • 
 notes in the House of Peers, and to add : " Though one 
 who had held no judicial situation could not regularly be 
 mentioned as an authority, yet he might say, that to any 
 one in a judicial situation, it would be sufficiently flatter- 
 ing to have it said of him, that he was as good a common 
 lawyer as Mr. Sergeant Williams ; for no man ever lived 
 to whom the character of a great common lawyer more 
 properly applied."' 
 
 Notwithstanding these reiterated eulogies, the reader 
 who often consults these notes, will probably think with 
 Chancellor Kent, that with all the praise justly due to the 
 edition, it is liable to the objection of making one of the 
 old reporters the vehicle of voluminous dissertation ; and 
 that it had been better if Sergeant "Williams had given his 
 labors to the profession in a separate and more systema- 
 tized form.^ In regard to the cases of the original report- 
 ers, it may be observed, that they, too, are rendered less 
 interesting by so numerous diversions ; that the mind 
 becomes " refrigerated " by these frequent interruptions, 
 and the thoughts injuriously withdrawn from the princi- 
 pal subject before them. (Edns. : These Eeports were first 
 published with the records, in Latin, and the arguments 
 in French, folio, 2 vols, 1686 ; a second, and superior ed. 
 in 1722, English, 8vo. Sergeant Williams's edition ap- 
 peared first in 1799, and has been more than once repub- 
 lished, both in England and the United States. In 1829, 
 it was itself edited by his son and Mr. Patterson, afterwards 
 one of the Justices B. E., and, in 1845, by Mr. E. Williams 
 alone. In this last edition, the son has added a good deal 
 in bulk to the paterbal labors; his object having been to 
 make the notes keep pace with the movements of reform 
 which have marked the legislature and courts since the 
 accession of William IV. I am happy to observe, how- 
 ever, that he has not attempted the dangerous process of 
 
 > 3 Dow, 15. 
 
 2 1 Com. 486 ; such a work we now have in the beautiful treatise of Ser- 
 geant Stephens. 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPORTEES. 217 
 
 • 
 
 expunging from tlie work any of that learning which he 
 might have deemed cumbrous, or whose value, from the 
 innovations of reform, was not so clearly discernible.) 
 
 JONES, SIE THOMAS. K. B., C. P. 
 
 19 Cae. II.— 1 Jao. II. (1667-1685.) 
 
 This book, which is in French, is usually cited as 2d 
 Jones, and occasionally, in the old books, as " Ch. Justice 
 Jones," to distinguish it from "William Jones's Eeports, 
 sometimes cited as 1st Jones. It is a work, I believe, of 
 very reputable authority.' I have seen, in the British 
 Museum, a MS. translation of it, by Mr. Hargrave, quite 
 elaborate (pp. 524), with syllabuses, references, &c. By a 
 note of Mr. Hargrave, on one of the fly-leaves, it appeared 
 that Mr. CuUen contemplated a new edition of the Ee- 
 porter, and that this MS. had been lent to him in further- 
 ance of his design — a design, however, which was never 
 accomplished. 
 
 Of the author's personal history, I have no knowledge 
 beyond what is given us by the following little scene, in 
 the Proceedings in Parliament, A. D. 1689, upon the 
 case of Jay and Topham.^ Jay, it appears, had brought a 
 suit in the K. B. against Topham, Sergeant of the House 
 of Commons, for certain acts done by order of the House. 
 Topham pleaded the privilege of Parliament, which, on 
 demurrer, the court overruled. Sir Prancis Pemberton, 
 who was Chief Justice, and Jones, one of the puisnes, 
 were accordingly cited before the House. 
 
 (SiK Thomas Jones BEoroHi in.) 
 
 Mr. Speaker. "Sir Thomas Jones, the occasion the 
 House has sent for you is this : they have been acquainted, 
 that in the time of King Charles H., in the 34th year 
 of his reign, there was an action brought by one Jay, 
 
 » 8 Leigh, 562. ^ jg Howell's State Trials, 822. 
 
218 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 against Mr. Topham, that then was, and now is, Sergeant 
 of the House of Commons ; to which he pleaded, that what 
 he did was by order of the House, and this he pleaded to 
 the jurisdiction of the Court of King's Bench, at that time. 
 They desire to know if you gave the judgment, and upon 
 what reason ?" 
 
 Sir Thomas Jones. " 'Tis so long ago, I do not remem- 
 ber it ; it is above seven years ago ; and I had not notice 
 at all of the cause I was commanded to attend you upon. 
 Whether I did give any such judgment or no, it will 
 appear by the record itself." 
 
 Mr. Speaker. ""We have examined the officers, and 
 they give us an account that Sir Francis Pemberton was 
 Chief Justice, and you another Judge then." 
 
 Sir Thomas Jones. "I was a Judge of the Court at that 
 time, but I cannot certainly say we did give judgment to 
 overrule the plea. I hope, if we did, it was according to 
 law." 
 
 Mr. Speaker. " Well, sir, you may withdraw if you 
 please." 
 
 (Sir Thomas Johes withdkaws.) 
 
 . The case goes on, however, finally, to inform us, thg 
 House decided that the Court had broken the privilege 
 of the House, and that the Chief Justice and Jones were 
 accordingly " taken into custody and lay there till there 
 came a prorogation." (Edns. : Tol. Fr. 1695 ; 2d, fol. 
 Fr. & Eng. 1729.) 
 
 VENTRIS, PART I. K B. 
 
 20 Car. II.— 36 Cab. II. (1668-1684.) 
 
 YENTEIS, PAET H. C. P., CH. 
 
 21 Car. 11.-3 Wm. III. (1669-1691.) 
 
 (Edns.: Fol. 1696; 2d, 1701; 3d, with references, by 
 Sergeant Richardson, 1716; and 4th, with additional 
 references, in 1726.) 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPOETEES. 219 
 
 POLLEXFEN". K. B., C. P., EX., AND CH. 
 
 21 Car. II. — 1 Jao. II. (1669-1685.) with some cases antbmok to 21 
 
 Pollexfen was a lawyer of extensive practice, and seems 
 to have been engaged in most of the important cases in 
 the latter part of the reign of Charles II., and in that of 
 James II. In 1688, he was elected to Parliament, for 
 Exeter, and, on the- success of the Whigs, in that year, 
 appointed Attorney-General ; an ofl&ce from which he was 
 soon after promoted to the Chief Justiceship of the Com- 
 mon Pleas. The impressions of these Keports are very in- 
 correct ; and chasms are found in the pages, viz., 173 to 
 176 ; 181 to 184 ; 649 and 652 are mispaged, and 189 is 
 repeated. The circumstance is less important than it 
 would be, did the reporter always record the judgments of 
 the court, as well as his own arguments. 
 
 The learned author, whom we so often quote, calls the 
 book " a respectable authority ;" though he remarks, that 
 " a considerable part of the discussions and decisions which 
 it records, ceases to excite much attention, or to be veiy 
 applicable to the new and varied course of human affairs."' 
 (Edns. : 1702 ; the year is sometimes printed in Arabic, 
 and sometimes in Eoman numerals ; and it is not always 
 the same.) 
 
 MODERN. K. B., C. P., EX., AKD CH, 
 
 21 Cak. II.— 4 Geo. II. (1669-1732.) '^'■ 
 
 Any reference made within the last thirty years to 
 Modern Reports, is probably meant to be made to the 
 book technically cited as Leach's Modern, a work in 12 
 uniform 8vo. volumes, labelled Modern Reports, which 
 
 1 1 Kent's Com. 487. 
 
 J/d/ 
 
220 THE COMMON LA"W EEPORTERS. 
 
 was published in London, in 1793-96 ; or to a work of 
 similar size and division, published at Dublin, in 1794; 
 concerning both of which, more is said hereafter. And 
 as Modern Reports — ^which might be conjectured from a 
 name so susceptible of contraction or enlargement — ^has 
 somewhat of a history, I proceed at once to rescue it, so 
 far as I can, from the oblivion to which its want of general 
 interest has naturally, and, as some might think, not un- 
 worthily consigned it. 
 
 Modern Reports, as originally known, were confined to 
 four folio volumes or parts — as volumes in old times appear 
 to have been usually called ; answering, in essential divi- 
 sions and contents, to the first four of Leach's, and the 
 Dublin Modern ; the fourth volume bearing on its title, 
 the limitary designation of the Fourth and Last Part. 
 Of these four parts the Ist appeared in 1682 ; the 2d, in 
 1698 ; the 3d, in 1700 ; the 4th, in 1703. In 1711, under 
 the auspices of the well-known W. N.,* came forth another 
 " last" volume, a folio, 5th Modern ; in a note to the pre- 
 face of which, it was stated that the former volume, 
 entitled the " Last," had been so styled by mistake. Here, 
 however. Modern Reports, as formerly known, finally 
 determined. In 1713, appeared in folio again, a volume 
 entitled Modern Cases (not Reports), being essentially the 
 volume now making 6th Modern Reports. In 1716, 
 another, very thin volume. Modern Cases, by Thomas 
 Farresly ; which is now reproduced (by Mr. Leach, with- 
 great additions), in 7th Modern Reports. In 1730, another 
 book, containing two distinct parts, in fact, though always 
 bound in one volume. Modern Cases in Law and Equity, 
 which were separated into distinct volumes, by Leach and 
 the Dublin publishers, and make accordingly in their 8vo. 
 form (in Leach's, with additions to the 9th), 8th and 9th 
 Modern Reports. Here ceased, everything bearing, as an 
 original title, the designation of Modern. In 1736, was 
 
 ' Of whom see hereafter. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 221 
 
 published, The Cases temp. Macclesfield ; now reappearing 
 as the 10th of Modern Eeports. In 1737, Reports in the 
 time of Queen Anne ; now made 11th Modern (by Mr. 
 Leach, in a form hereinafter stated) ; and finally, in 1738, 
 Cases in the King's Bench, in the time of King "William 
 in. ; now closing Modern Eeports, as its 12th and con- 
 cluding volume. 
 
 Thus, the reader will perceive that, as originally pub- 
 lished, there was no more than five volumes of Modern 
 Eeports ; and " This,',' says Mr. Green, "led to a mode of 
 citation, formerly very diflerent from that now customary. 
 Comyns, in his Digest, cites 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th, 6th, Mod., 
 but 6th Mod., he cites as Mod. Cases ; 8th Mod. qs 2d 
 Mod. Cases, and 9th Mod., he cites as Eq. Cases ; while I 
 do not remember that he ever cites 7th, 10th, 11th, or 
 12th Mod. at all. Other writers, about the same time, 
 cite 6th Modern, by the name of Mod. Cases ; , 7th 
 Modern, by the name of Earresly; 10th Modem, by 
 the name of Lucas or Macclesfield ; 11th Modern, by the 
 name of Eeports temp. Queen Anne ; and 12th Mod., by 
 the name of Cases in B. E., with the addition sometimes 
 of temp. Wm. III." 
 
 Let us now trace, so far as we can, the history of the 
 extension of old Modern ; and state also, the editions 
 of it as a series. Of the separate volumes, whether singly 
 published or as parts of any old series. I have stated the 
 editions further on, in noticing the volumes singly. 
 
 I. As to the Extension. — ^AU the twelve volumes in folio, 
 already mentioned having, appeared consecutively ; having 
 had, I presume, a good deal of resemblance in the respect 
 of size, type, binding, and mechanical exterior, and being 
 moreover, all truly included within the designation of 
 Modern Eeports, as loosely used, carried within their 
 original appearance, the germ of that nomenclatural 
 development which has since been unfolded. Accord- 
 ingly, as early as 1724, 1 find Modern Eeports advertised' 
 
 ' Catalogue at the end of Hobart's Reports, 5th ed. 1724. 
 
222 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 as in six volumes, coming down to the 8d year of Queen 
 Anne ; with, complete tables to the whole. Whether or 
 not the profession did not like this extension of name, I 
 do not discover; but in a subsequent advertisement, of 
 1732,' the tooks appear again, but in the old and re- 
 duced dimension; being announced as in five volumes, 
 and as coming down but to the 12th of King "William HI. 
 This, however, would appear to have been an unsuccessful 
 attempt to control the vulgar by the technical citation ; 
 for, in 1741," they are again advertised as in six volumes, 
 and as coming down to the former stopping-place- of 3d 
 of Queen Anne. In 1757, the name was extended to 
 seven volumes by Danby Pickering, Esq., who republished 
 in a series, the five volumes of old Modern, the Modem 
 Cases, and Farresly. Soon after this, — perhaps before — 
 the whole of the twelve volumes had come to be occa- 
 sionally cited in common parlance as Modern ; but this 
 did not take an acknowledged form, till 1794. In that 
 year, the whole twelve volumes were reprinted at Dublin, 
 in an octavo size, for the first time; with a uniform title 
 to each volume, in the following words : " Modern Reports 
 or Select Cases, adjudged in the Courts of King's Bench, 
 Chancery, Common Pleas, and Exchequer, since the Eesto- 
 ration of his Majesty King Charles 11., to the end of the 
 reign of King William HI. In twelve volumes. The fifth 
 edition." "With that felicity for which Ireland is im- 
 mortal, this edition — under the title which brings, it no 
 lower than William HE. — ^is made to contain the " Cases 
 tempore Queen Anne ;"■ — a blunder, which, if not accounted 
 for by the nature of Bulls, may be discovered from the 
 mode in which the volumes of old Modern happened 
 first to be published. The last volume of the series, which 
 comes but to the reign of William, appeared originally 
 (1738) after all the rest; including that one of the time 
 
 ' Catalogue at the end of Shaw's Justice, 2d ed. 1732. 
 
 2 Catalogue at the end of Lilly's Conveyancer, dated Nov. 9, 1741. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 223 
 
 of Queen Anne ; and the Irish printers, naturally suppos- 
 ing that no cases were later than they possibly could be, 
 looked but to the last of the series for the latest of its cases. 
 
 Finally, between 1793 and 1796, at London, came forth 
 Leach's Modern, in twelve volumes, 8vo., which, with the 
 exception of the 11th volume, is now the standard edition 
 of the Modern Reports. With the Dublin edition it is 
 also called the Fifth.' The character of this publication 
 is treated more at large below, in speaking of 
 
 n. Editions of Modern, in a series. — The various vo- 
 lumes of Modern appeared originally at different times, 
 as stated in noticing them singly; and appear to have 
 been reprinted as the market called for them. The first 
 time I find anything like a uniform edition of themj is 
 in the catalogue of 1741, already quoted, where Modern 
 Reports in six vols, are advertised as being the 4th edi- 
 tion. I take it, that this fact of the edition cannot be 
 correctly stated. Of several of the volumes, three editions 
 had ,undoubtedly been printed prior to this time, at irre- 
 gular intervals ; and this, so called, fourth edition, con- 
 sisted, I assume, of nothing more than a new and uniform 
 title-page, prefixed to the first six volumes in place of their 
 former and individual title. The designation of a Fourth 
 Edition was probably adopted, because, — if any uniform 
 edition was to be afilrmed for the whole six volumes — it 
 was just as true to say that the edition was the fourth, as 
 to say that it was the first, second, or third. The various 
 volumes, owing to the irregular way in which they had 
 appeared originally, could not be reduced to any common 
 editional term. 
 
 However this may be, in 1757, sixteen years after this 
 so-called fourth edition, there was published an edition 
 undoubtedly new, and again styled but the fourth. It is 
 the edition of which I have already spoken as by Danby 
 
 ' Prior to the Dnion, the EngUah and Irish booksellers do not appear to have 
 paid much courtesy to each other. An illustration of the want of it may be 
 seen in the present instance, and also in the publication of Comyns's Reports. 
 
224 THE COMMON" LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 Pickering ; revised and corrected,- it is said, " with many 
 thousands of new," — and it may be added, for the most 
 part, very impertinent " references." 
 
 In 1769, appeared a fresh edition of the books now em- 
 braced by 8th, 9th, 10th, and 12th Modern ; the second 
 of each, unless perhaps it was the third of vol. 10th. 
 
 In 1794, came out at Dublin, in a small octavo, what 
 next appeared, and is called the fifth edition. I have 
 already mentioned it, in tracing the extension of Modem,-a8 
 being the first form in which the title of Modern Reports 
 was given in a regular and systematic way to the whole 
 twelve volumes now so known ; and in which all names 
 of authors, and all distinctions between the volumes, ex- 
 cept as parts of a series, were merged and lost. There is 
 no general preface or advertisement to the edition, but I 
 gather that it is printed from the folios of 1757, 1769, and 
 1781, with the addition of new references (printed from 
 those casually made, I presume, by gentlemen of the bar 
 who were in the practice of making MS. entries in their 
 copies), and no other differences whatever. The refer- 
 ences seem to come down to 3d Durnford and East. Be- 
 tween the years 1793 and 1796, appeared, at London, 
 Leach's Modern, in twelve volumes octavo. This is now 
 the standard edition of these Reports, and had the advan- 
 tage, which I presume this Irish one wanted, of a profes- 
 sional editor. Mr. Leach was a reputable English barris- 
 ter, the editor of Shower and Croke. To the Modern 
 Reports, however, his services were much more conside- 
 rable than to either of the Reporters last named. He 
 corrected the abstracts; so defective, in some cases, 
 as to require entirely new ones. He gave at the com- 
 mencement of each term, the names of th« Judges, Solici- 
 tors, and Attorneys-General ; modernized the references ; 
 changing them from the old titles of Modern Cases in Law 
 and Equity, Cases temp. Mac, Cases temp. Queen Anne, 
 and Cases temp. "Will. HI., into the more convenient 
 references to his own series, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 225 
 
 Modern. He added many notes and references to the 
 same cases elsewhere. To the 7th, 9th, and 11th volumes 
 he made large supplementary additions of reports, giving 
 in all three hundred and eighty-one MS. cases, of which he 
 states that one hundred and thirty-seven had never before 
 appeared in print. He separated into better and chrono- 
 logical divisions some of the reports in old Modern, which 
 were continuously narrated in one case through all their 
 history. To the first seven volumes, and to the 11th he 
 added new Indexes, and in 'the other volumes corrected 
 the old. The volumes of Leach's Modern, as those of the 
 Dublin edition, answer in division to the volumes of the 
 folio series ; though as I have already said, and as it will 
 be seen in the remarks upon the separate volumes, further 
 on, great additions have been made in Leach's Modem to 
 the best editions of certain volumes of the old series. It 
 is much to be regretted that Mr. Leach's 11th Modern 
 (Reports temp. Queen Anne) with great additions and 
 improvements, in some respects, is much inferior in 
 others, which I have stated below, to the folio of 1781, 
 reprinted in the Dublin 8vo. of 1794. 
 
 In giving, further on, notices, more extended than I 
 have seen elsewhere, of the Modern Reports, I have fre- 
 quently cited the name of the gentleman to whom the 
 present edition of this tract is inscribed, and the privilege 
 of whose acquaintance, I rate as among the agreeable in- 
 cidents of its publication. Very few men in America — 
 no man at all in England — is so accurately acquainted 
 with the bibliography of the Reports. In the interchange of 
 a correspondence, not yet, indeed, as protracted as Alex- 
 ander Knox's with Bishop Jebb, but very frequent, not- 
 withstanding, and for several years, I have seldom had 
 occasion to receive his criticisms without finding them to 
 be just. Of the value of those upon several volumes of 
 Modern, — differing in some respects from opinions com- 
 monly received, — my own knowledge of the works does 
 not enable me to give a judgment. X shall be surprised, 
 
 15 
 
226 THE COMMON LAW EEPOETEES. 
 
 to^vever, if in cases where Mr. Green differs from the 
 sentiments expressed by others, his will not be found well 
 considered. An extract from a private letter, written in 
 1845, and not designed, of course, for the printer's use — 
 will tell in language whose unaffected interest I could 
 not improve, that my correspondent is not within the 
 class elsewhere complained of, " that talk of the truth, 
 which have never sounded the depths from whence it 
 springeth."* " My father," says Mr. Green, in transmit- 
 ting some remarks upon Modern, " was a Judge of the 
 Virginia Court of Appeals, when I studied law. At that 
 time the State had no library, though she has now two 
 very good ones ; and he was obliged to keep most of his 
 books in the capital for his own use there. His family, 
 which was very numerous (while his circumstances were 
 not opulent), resided in Culpeper County, where I now 
 live ; and here I studied law for three years and a half 
 with such of his books as I could get. Among them are 
 three odd volumes of Modem, the 1st, 2d, and 12th, and 
 I read them through; and the copies are now in the pos- 
 session of Mr. Humphries, of Madison, with many of the 
 margins filled and almost all of them to some extent fur- 
 nished with my annotations ; for from the beginning I 
 studied with my pen always by me, and wrote my notes 
 in the margin of the printed books instead of using a 
 commonplace. And to this day I am indignant to hear 
 2d and 12th Modern abused or depreciated. I feel a 
 gratitude to the unknown authors of them, and consider 
 that my success in life, which has been considerable, is 
 owing in a great measure to them. My libraiy now con- 
 tains full 4000 volumes ; more than half of them are law 
 books, and most of them are the best editions that are 
 extant ; but to this day I am fond 'of examining the better 
 volumes of Modern." The 3d, 4th, 6th, and 7th Modern 
 are but so so ; 8th and 11th Modern are execrable ; but 
 
 ' See ante. Remarks, § 20. 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPOETEES. 227 
 
 1st, 2d, 6tli, 9tli, 10th, and 12th Modern deserve a place 
 in the better class of the old Eeporters ; especially 2d, 
 6th, and 12th. 
 
 (1) Vol. I. K. B., C. P. 21 Cab. II.— 80 Car. II. (1669-1678.) 
 
 Colquit's Reports. 
 
 Containing also all the case of Fry v. Porter, in Chancery. 
 
 The authorship of this volume is not clearly discovered. 
 Bridgman states that the author is said to be Anthony 
 Colquit, by whose name it is sometimes cited. Mr. Jared 
 Sparks, to whom our country is so greatly indebted for 
 that excellent edition of General "Washington's writings, 
 the fidelity, good judgment, and general merits of which, 
 recent assaults upon it have left so permanently established, 
 quoting Thoresby's History of Leeds,* attributes the author- 
 ship to Joseph "Washington, a collateral ancestor of the 
 General ;^ while Mr. K"elson,' the editor of 5th Modern, 
 
 ' Page 97. 
 
 ' Sparks's Life of General Washington, App. pp. 500-1 . '• Joseph Washing- 
 ton, an eminent lawyer of Grays Inn, Thoresby says, is to be remembered 
 among the authors. He wrote the first volume of Modern Reports; Observations 
 upon the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of the Kings of England, published in 1689 ; 
 Abridgment of the Statutes to 1687, published in 1689; a translation of part of 
 Lucian's Dialogues, and other works. He was buried in the Benchers' vault of 
 the Inner Temple." To this, Mr. Sparks adds, by way of note : " Toland says 
 that he was the translator of Milton's Defensio pro Populo AngUco, in reply to 
 , Salmasius's Life of Milton, p. 84. The translator's name is not prefixed to the 
 first edition, but the publisher states, in an advertisement, that the person vifho 
 took the pains to translate it, did it partly for his own private entertainment 
 and partly to gratify one or two of his friends, without any design of making it 
 public. This edition was printed in the year 1692, and it is probable that 
 Joseph Washington had died not long before that time. The translation is the 
 same that is usually printed with Milton's prose works. The interest he^took 
 in this performance indicates the tenor of his political sentiments, as well as 
 the fact mentioned by Hunter, that he was an intimate friend of the celebrated 
 Lord Somers." 
 
 In 1st Inst. Hargrave and Butler's edn. 134, a, n. 1 & 2, the reader will find 
 a reference to Mr. Washington's Observations on Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction. 
 Washington edited one edition of Keilvvey. See ante, p. 83. 
 
 ' See post, tit. 5th Modern. 
 
228 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 seems to claim for himself all the merit which the puhli- 
 cation confers. Mr. Green speaks of the book as a per- 
 formance by no means discreditable to the author. (Edns. : 
 1st, 1682 ; 2d, 1700, with references never before printed : 
 this is the edition used by Mr. Viner ; 3d, 1733 ; and 4th, 
 1757.) 
 
 (2) Vol. II. C. P. (peincipailt) 26 Cab. II.— 35 Cab. II. (1674-1683.) 
 
 In Lord Raymond's Eeports,p. 537, we find the following 
 paragraph : Mr. Carthew cited a case in 2d Mod. 97, to the 
 contrary, to which Holt, C. J., in ir^, said, that no books 
 ought to be cited at the bar, but those which were licensed 
 by the Judges. In commenting upon this paragraph, Mr. 
 Green says, as follows : " 2d Modern, notwithstanding the 
 censure implied in this extract, is a good book ; among the 
 best of the old reporters. In the King v. EUames,' a fa- 
 mous case, it appears by several of the reports, that it was 
 a governing authority, and, in one of them,'' I find the fol- 
 lowing testimony of a very accurate lawyer and Judge in 
 favor of it, and against Lord Holt. ' Lee, Justice (after- 
 wards Chief Justice), said that he was a little in doubt on 
 the distinction taken by Holt, 0. J., in Salkeld, 50 ; but 
 said, that will not hold, as appears by several authorities : 
 2d Mod. 167, is expressly otherwise.' Blackstone, in his 
 Commentaries, makes frequent references to the volume, 
 and it is often cited, and always vrith approbation, in the 
 early volumes of Burrow. Since the commencement of 
 Term Eeports, such an infinite multitude of cases have 
 been reported, that it is not now the fashion to cite many 
 cases as far back even as Burrow. Yet, sometimes, 2d 
 Mod. is cited with decisive efiect even in these days.^ 
 
 ' 2 Strange, 976 ; 2 Bamardiston, K. B. 402, 440, 445; Cunningham, 39; 7 
 Leach's Mod. 220 ; Annally's Haidwicke, 42 ; Ridgeway's dd 82, and cited 
 from MS. in BuUer's N. P. 325. 
 
 ' Ridgeway's Hardwicke, 90. 
 
 3 11 Johns. 106; 1 Barn. & Aid. 711 ; 4 Adolph. & Ellis, 913. 
 
THE COMMON -LAW REPOETERS. 229 
 
 " As to Lord Ohief Justice Holt's anger, when Mr. Car- 
 thew cited this book, it will be found upon examination, 
 that the barrister, rather than the book, was the subject of 
 his feeling, however it may have expressed itself in words. 
 The facts were these : judgment had been given in the 
 Common Pleas, which, on a writ of error, Mr. Carthew 
 sought to reverse on two grounds. Both of them were 
 pronounced untenable on the first day, without hearing 
 counsel on the other side, and- without any citation of au- 
 thority by the Chief Justice, who thought it ' a very plain 
 case.' 'But at another day, because Mr. Carthew was so 
 positive in the matter,' he went into a discussion of the 
 authorities which he (Holt) had collected: and when, 
 after all this, Mr. Carthew persisted in citing an authority 
 said to be against him, he flew into a passion ; of which 
 even he was not incapable, as you may discover from his 
 turn of expression in those few cases where the puisnS 
 Judges of his court differed with and overruled him. In 
 point of fact, the authority cited was not against him. On 
 the contrary, the decision then pronounced by him was in 
 affirmance of the decision in 2d Modern ; and the only 
 thing in the case cited, on which Mr. Carthew could rely, 
 was a passing dictum, which, upon that ground, without 
 any disparagement to the reporter, and with scarcely any 
 to the source itself of the dictum, might have been treated 
 as no authority at all. It is remarkable, moreover, that 
 Holt's observation about the want of a licenser (not about 
 the character of this particular book), was so little noticed 
 at the time, that of four different reporters ' of the case, 
 (among whom was Mr. Carthew himself), only one of them. 
 Lord Raymond, has mentioned it, and he apparently got 
 it at second hand, 'ex relatione, Mri. Jacob.' Nor is it 
 wonderful that his Lordship's wrath at 2d Modern should 
 make so little impression on those who were in the habit 
 of hearing Holt deliver his judgments ; for though it was 
 then only a year or so (Hil. 1699) since the book was pub- 
 
 ' Carthew, 505; 12 Mod. 321 ; 1 Salk. 43; Cases temp. Holt, 52. 
 
230 THE COMMON LAW EEPOKTERS. 
 
 lished, yet they had, in the mean time, twice,' at least, 
 heard him cite that book with approbation. This the 
 printed Reports show. How many times more he may 
 have done it, I cannot tell. 
 
 " It is proper to add," continues my correspondent, "that 
 in one case^ the book has been disparaged by one Judge 
 of the Virginia Court of Appeals, yet in the same case 
 the authority of it seems to be upheld by another."' 
 
 The authorship of 2d Modern I have not been able 
 to discover. In speaking of the 1st volume, I men- 
 tioned the fact that Mr. Sparks, on the authority of 
 Thoresby, attributes it to Joseph Washington, Esquire, 
 who is stated to have been a friend of Lord Somers, and 
 the tenor of whose political opinions, it is mentioned, may 
 be inferred from his having translated into English Mil- 
 ton's Defensio Populi. Mr.Green, who directed my atten- 
 tion to Mr. Sparks's note, adverts also to the circumstance 
 — a striking one certainly — ^that 2d Modern is prepared by 
 some one who signs himself J. W.,* and who appears from 
 a fine, bold and dignified epistle to Lord Somers, to have 
 been an advocate of constitutional liberty, and on terms of 
 more than mere personal acquaintance with Lord Somers 
 himself. And Mr. Green suggests, as Joseph Washington 
 is said to have written some volume of Modern, and as the 
 1st has been attributed more commonly to Mr. Colquit, 
 that it is probably the 2d volume, and not the first, which 
 belongs to the ancestor of our great American General. 
 The matter rests a good deal upon the date of Mr. Washing- 
 ton's death, which I cannot ascertain precisely, but which, 
 from several other dates connected with his name, I fear 
 was before 1693.* Mr. Munro, in his recent curious and 
 
 ■ 1 Lord Raym. 83 ; 12 Mod. 246. 
 
 2 8 Leigh, 562. » Id. 557. 
 
 * The letters are transposed in Mr. Leach's Modern ; I suppose, by accident. 
 
 ° I. Because Toland says that he translated the Defensio ; a work which 
 appeared in 1692, and the preface to which speaks of the translator as being 
 then dead. II. Because several dates connected with Washington are prior to 
 1693, but none, which I find, are after it: as 1st, the allowance to the 3d edi- 
 tion of Keilwey, which he edited, is dated 1687, and the imprint, 1688 j 2d, 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 231 
 
 instructive Acta Cancellaria has brouglit to light some 
 curious facts about a collateral ancestor of General "Wash- 
 ington's, whom he shows to have been a Registrar in Chan- 
 cery.^ The American Bar will thank any other English- 
 man, or American either, who shall prove to them that a 
 
 his " Observations on the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction,'' appeared in 1689 ; and 
 3d, his Abridgment of the Statutes came forth in the same year. The fact that 
 Washington is stated by Thoresby to have been of Gray's Inn, and to be buried 
 in the Benchers' vault of the Inner Temple, need not militate with the date of 
 the epistle, which is from the Middle Temple ; for in a bookseller's advertise- 
 ment, mentioned ante, Mr. Washington is expressly stated to be of the Middle 
 Temple ; and it is known that these changes from one Temple to the other 
 have been frequently made. 
 
 'Page 68. 
 
 ^ Since Mr. Munro's discovery, Mr. W. C. Maoready, of the British Theatre, 
 has published an account of a visit which he made to a church in Wiltshire, 
 England ; where he found a monument erected to this person. The American 
 reader will, perhaps, thank me for here perpetuating the record in connection 
 with the law. (See The Model American Courier, Oct. 7, 1842.) 
 
 To the Memory of 
 
 Sr. LAWRENCE WASHINGTON, Kt. 
 
 Lately Chiefe Register of the Chancery, 
 
 Of known piety, of charitye exemplarye, 
 
 A lovinge Husband, a tender Father, a bountiful Master, 
 
 A constemt reliever of the Poore, 
 
 and 
 
 to those of this parish 
 
 A perpetuall Benefactour, whom it pleased God 
 
 To take unto his peace from the fury 
 
 of the insuing warrs, 
 
 Oxon May XlVto 
 
 Here interred XXIVto Ano. Dmi. 1643, 
 
 .^tat. suEE, 64. 
 
 Where allso Lyeth 
 
 Dame ANN, his wife, who deceased 
 
 Junii Xlllto and was buryed 
 
 XVIto. Ano. Dmi. 1645. 
 
 Hie patrios cineres curavit Alius urna 
 Condere, qui tumulo nunc jacet ille plus. 
 
 The pious son his parent here inter'd, 
 
 Who hath his share in Urne for them prepar'd. 
 
232 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 volume of good English reports, as I believe 2d Modern 
 may now be admitted to be, was written by another an- 
 cestor of this great and pure man, of whom every inci- 
 dent deserves to be dear to his countrymen.' (Edns.: 
 1st, 1698, the edition used by Mr. Viner : "this edition 
 is said to be carefully collected by a learned hand;" op- 
 posite to which words Judge Pendleton has written, 
 "Unknown ;" 2d, 1 ; 3d, 1725; 4th, ? 1757.) 
 
 (3) Vol. III. K. B., C. P., Ex. AND Ch. 34 Cae. II.— 3 W. and M. 
 (1682-1691.) 
 
 Of " 3d Modem," Mr. Green says " It is but so so." 
 (Edns. : 1st, 1700, the edition used by Mr. Viner ; it is 
 said to be " carefully collected by a learned hand," against 
 which words the late Judge Pendleton of Virginia writes, 
 " Unknown." 2d, ? ; 3d, 1725 ; 4th, 1757.) 
 
 (5) Vol. IV. K. B., C. P., Ex. and Ch. 3 W. and M.— 8 W. and M. 
 (1691-1696.) 
 
 In Slater v. May,^ a report was cited from 4th Modern ; 
 but upon search of the roll, it was discovered that the 
 statement of the case omitted a material circumstance. 
 Whereupon the Chief Justice, Holt, is reported to have 
 said: "See the inconveniences of these scambling re- 
 ports ! They will make us appear to posterity for a parcel 
 of blockheads." The indifferent character which must be 
 inferred from this remark is more positively asserted by 
 Mr. Green. In the first edition of Modern, this is called 
 
 4th and last part. (Edns. : 1st, 1703 ; 2d, ? 1722, the 
 
 edition used by Mr. Viner ; 8d, ?) 
 
 ' While on the subject of Joseph Washington, I will mention, for the benefit 
 of any inquirer who may succeed me, that the Epistle and Dedication, though 
 inscribed to Soraers as " Lord High Chancellor of England," is dated June 22d, 
 1693 — five years before he was Chancellor at all. It is obvious that its present 
 form cannot be exactly that in which it was originally prepared. The title, at 
 least, must have been changed, 
 
 2 2 Lord Eaym. 1071. 
 
THE COMMON LAW KEPORTERS. 233 
 
 (6) Voi. V. K. B., C. P., Ex. AND Ch. 5 W. and M.— 12 W. and M. 
 (1693-1700.) 
 
 "But SO 80," says Mr. Green of this volume. On the 
 title-page of the first edition, this, the 5th and last part of 
 the old Modern, is said to be collected by the same hand 
 as the former parts. A long preface by "W. Nelson, of 
 whom I speak further hereafter, precedes the volume, and 
 concludes much as if Nelson himself were the author of 
 it, and if the statement on the title be correct, of all the 
 preceding volumes, "I shall only add," says he, "that 
 let the volumes of Law Books be what they will, the suf- 
 ficiency of every author must appear from his works, and 
 not from his picture before the title-page, or from any 
 other artificial embellishment there, which was never 
 attempted by the publisher of these Eeports, who was in- 
 duced to commit them to the printer, being assured long 
 since, by a most learned Judge, that this way of reporting 
 is the most perspicuous course of teaching the law. It is 
 a satisfaction to him who is in obscurity to see some of 
 his labors accepted by the public, who would likewise be 
 very well pleased to see those who censure them attempt 
 something of this nature themselves ; and therefore he 
 will conclude this Preface to his last Meport as my Lord 
 Coke did that of his first: 'Cum tua non edas, his utere, 
 et annue, lector, cai-pere vel noli nostra, vel ede tua.' " 
 
 How this comports with the supposed authorship of 1st 
 and 2d Mod., I must confess that I do not see ; and in- 
 deed many plausible objections, founded on other grounds, 
 might be given to the idea of the first five volumes of 
 Modern having come from one and the same hand. I 
 think it not improbable, however, that though not the 
 reporter of any of these five volumes, except, perhaps, of 
 the 5th, Nelson, who, like Giles Jacob, was a sort of dealer 
 in professional literature, and farmed out the wits of other 
 men at a profit, may have had an editorial supervision over 
 
234 THE COMMON LAW REPOKTEES. 
 
 all the volumes of Modern, giving to some more and to 
 some less of his own labor and stupidity. (Edns. : 1st, 
 1711, pp. 464 ; , 1729, used by Mr. Viner; , 1757.) 
 
 (9) Vol. VI. Q. B., C. P., Ex. & Ch. 2 An.ne— 4 Anne. (1703-1705.) 
 
 Modern Cases. 
 
 Lord Ilardwicke, on one occasion, styled this a book 
 " not of the greatest authority or correctness,"* and on 
 another "a book of no great repute ;"^ but, referring to 
 cases in it, regarded them, on both occasions, as well re- 
 ported, and of binding authority. Mr. Justice Burnside 
 does the same.' Mr. Green speaks of the book as among 
 the better volumes of the old reporters. A similar opinion 
 may perhaps be conveyed in a case in 'Wilson.'' "6th 
 Modern," says the Court, "has reported this case very 
 fully; and he is the best reporter who reports fully." 
 
 (7) Vol. VII. Q. B., C. P., Ex. & Ch. 1 Anne (1702 and 1703), and 
 IN Leach's Modekn, K. B., C. P. & Ch. 6 Geo. IL— 19 Geo. IL 
 (1733-1746.) 
 
 Fabreslt. 
 
 This volume, in the old form, is entitled Modern Cases 
 by Thomas Farresly, and is often cited in old books, under 
 the name of Farresly's Eeports, or Modern Cases per 
 Farresly, to distinguish it from Modem Cases, the volume 
 last mentioned. It possesses, I believe, no great authority, 
 although rather more than some other of the volumes of 
 old Modern. (Edns. : 1st, 1716, used by Mr. Viner ; 2d, 
 
 1725 ; 3d, ?) In Mr. Leach's edition of 7th Mod., the 
 
 old volume of that title, or Farresly, comes but to page 
 
 ' Cases temp. Hardw. per Lee, 334, and see 2 Penna. State, 81. 
 ' 1 Ves. 1 1, where the reference is inaccurately to 7 Mod. ; Ridgeway's Cases, 
 126, S. C. Cunningham, 123. 
 » 2 Penna. State,' 81. * Ross v. Walker, 2 Wils. 265. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 235 
 
 160. The residue of the book, three hundred and forty-six 
 pages, is from a MS. first printed at large by Mr. Leach ; 
 though most of the cases at law in it were printed a short 
 time before or after in Ireland, in the book called Ridge- 
 way's Hardwicke, as may be seen further on, under that 
 title. The addition contains one hundred and fifty-five 
 cases, part of them, says Mr. Leach,' taken by a Mr. 
 Wright, the residue by Luke Benne, Esquire, an eminent 
 barrister at law of the time. 
 
 These seven parts were those which I have already men- 
 tioned as having been revised and corrected by Danby 
 Pickering, and published in 1757, as a fourth edition. 
 
 (11) Vols. VIII. & IX. K. B., Ch. 8 Geo. I.— 28 Geo. II. (1722-1755.) 
 
 MoDEKN Cases at Law and Equity. 
 
 These two volumes of Leach's, and the Dublin Modern, 
 contain the Modern Cases in Law and Equity, of -'the folio 
 size. That book, though always found in one volume, 
 contains two distinct works, viz. : 
 
 I. Cases in the King's Bench, from the 8th to the 13th 
 Geo. L (1723-27.) 
 
 II. Chancery Cases during nearly the same term ; with 
 a few cases of Appeal and some Chancery cases in the 
 time of Lord Hardwicke. 
 
 The 1st part is sometimes cited as 2d Modern Cases, 
 and the 2d as Equity Cases. 
 
 In consequence of both parts of the book being bound 
 together, no distinction appears to have been made, in the 
 numerous criticisms upon Modern Cases at Law and 
 Equity, between the two parts, or, in other words, be- 
 tween the 1st part of the book and the 2d. Cases, whether 
 on the Law side or the Equity side of the book, have been 
 cited as from " Modern Cases at Law and Equity," and 
 
 ' Pref. to 1 Leach's Mod. 
 
236 THE COMMON LAW REPOETEES, 
 
 the book has been thus spoken of by its title generally. 
 I believe, however, that although neither part is of the 
 highest authority, the 2d part (or 9th Modern), is much the 
 better of the two. "They cannot be by the same hand," 
 says Mr. Green ; " the cases at law are infamously re- 
 ported, while, with certain exceptions,' those in Equity 
 are respectably done." And though Mr. Justice Wilmot^ 
 is reported to have said, in speaking of a case cited from 
 Modern Cases in Law and Equity, that it is " totally mis- 
 taken, as indeed are nine cases out of ten in that book;" 
 and Sir James Burrow, in like manner, speaks of the book 
 by its title, as " a miserably bad book ;"^ yet I note that 
 in both instances the citation which provoked the remark 
 was from the 1st part, or 8th Modern, and not from the 
 2d. Chief Justice Gibson'' spoke more nicely ; and, divid- 
 ing the parts, confines to the 1st the remark, that it is " a 
 book which can claim nothing beyond the intrinsic evi- 
 dence of reason and good sense, apparent in the cases it 
 contains." Observations of similar import, though of less 
 courtly expression, may be found in other places ; as in 
 3d Burrow, 1326, in mar., where it is said that "the Court 
 treated the book with the contempt that it deserved ;" 2d, 
 id. 1062, where counsel, arguendo, call it "no authority;" 
 and 3d, Manning' and Eyland, 405, where Justice Bayley 
 damns it as " notoriously inaccurate ;" the remarks, in all 
 of the cases, being confined to 8th Modern. Its bad cha- 
 racter had got to America, also, at an earlier date than that 
 of the censure by Chief Justice Gibson. I find Mr. Chew, 
 Attorney-General, and afterwards Chief Justice of Pennsyl- 
 vania, speaking disrespectfully of it as early as 1768.* But 
 even of the 8th Modern, in its old forms, there is a vast 
 difference between the 1st edition,' of 1730, and a 2d, of 
 
 ' See 2 Jarman on Wills. 178, ii. 
 
 27 D. & E. 239. ' 1 Bur. 386, in mar. 
 
 * 1 Hall's Journal of Jurisprudence, Phil. 1821, p. 226. 
 ^ In reply to a citation by Mr. Galloway, of King v. Oakley, p. 67 ; MS. 
 Reports in the Law Association's Library, at Philadelphia. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 237 
 
 1769, whicli is said to be corrected by " an eminent hand." 
 "In some instances," says Mr. Green, "entire reports 
 were omitted in the 2d edition, and new ones of the same 
 case substituted; in others, almost numberless, where the 
 whole report was not displaced, yet parts were omitted 
 and additions made to supply the deficiency." How far 
 an allowance is to be made for this fact, in estimating the 
 value of criticisms upon the volume, I am not able to say. 
 Sir James Burrow, on the occasion where he states the 
 court treated the book with the contempt it deserved, 
 says, particularly, "I mean the old edition of that book;" 
 in another case,' in citing the book, he refers to the " cor- 
 rected edition ;" and in some place, which I cannot recall, 
 in his Settlement Cases, he declares that a particular case, 
 which was scarcely intelligible in the 1st edition, was 
 much improved in the 2d. Mr. Attorney-General Chew's 
 censure of the book was undoubtedly applied to the 1st 
 edition, for the 2d had not yet been printed. Any of the 
 others might have been applied to either ; and, applying 
 equally to both, were probably made without a knowledge 
 of any difference between the two, and therefore without 
 any critical knowledge on the subject. 
 
 Of 9th Modern, except so far as it may be meant to be 
 condemned in the general censures of " Modern Cases in 
 Law and Equity," the principal imputations on its charac- 
 ter are made by Sir Thomas Plumer," who styles it a book 
 of very questionable authority, the inaccuracy of which, he 
 says, was never more shown than in a case cited from it 
 before him ; and in another case, by counsel, in argument,^ 
 supported by the court. The counsel call it a book of 
 " little authority," "worse," adds Littledale, J., "than the 
 10th." . 
 
 Mr. Leach's edition of 9th Modern contains ninety 
 
 ' 3 Bur. 1580. 
 * 2 Jac. & Wal. 171. 
 
 '10 Adol. & EI. 73. I observe, however, that in that same passage, those 
 connsel make a blunder inquoting a certain remark of Lord Eldon. 
 
238 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 cases in Chancery, from the 10th to the 28th of George II., 
 not found in any other edition, fifty-two of them particu- 
 larized by Mr. Leach, never' before printed. These new 
 cases begin at page 209, and run to the end of the volume, 
 at page 492. Fifty-two of the number come fi-om the 
 MSS. of Mr. Slate, of the Inner Temple, and the residue, 
 thirteen, from Charles Butler. In neither of the instances 
 in which 9th Modern was condemned, did the case cited 
 come from this portion of the volume. Old 9th Modern, 
 i. e. the 2d part of the Modern Cases at Law and Equity, 
 comes to but page 208 of Mr. Leach's edition; and to 
 that part of the volume, I presume, the disparaging re- 
 marks were meant to be applied ; if, indeed, the persons 
 who made them, were aware of the distinction between 
 Mr. Leach's and the old edition. In point of time, the 
 old 9th Modern comes no later than to 19 Geo. I. (Edns. : 
 1st, 1730 ; 2d, greatly improved, 1769.) 
 
 (10) Vol. X. K. B., C. P., Ex. and Ch. 8 Anne— 7 Geo. I. (1709-1721.) 
 
 Lucas's Eepokts,'' or Cases temp. Macclesfield, 
 OB Macclesfield's Eeports.* 
 
 On the first appearance of this book in print, no name 
 was connected with it ; but it was soon afterwards univer- 
 sally ascribed to Eobert Lucas, Esq., who, as Mr. Ileterick, 
 of the Virginia Bar, has discovered, left the field of ambi- 
 tion, where the laborers are many and the harvest not 
 worth carrying away, for the better enterprise, where the 
 harvest is great and the laborers but iew^. He quit the 
 pi^ofession and vexations of the law, took holy orders, and 
 retired to a living somewhere in the County of York, in 
 the interval between taking Ms notes and the publication 
 of them.* I should be happy, for the memory, it is 
 
 ' Pref. to 1st Leach's Mod. 
 
 2 1 Rep. 106, b, ed. of 1738 ; 3 Bur. 1580. 
 
 3 17 Howell's State Trials, 1224. 
 
 ■• Was this R. Lucas the author of the " Enquiry after Happiness," 2 v. 8vq. 
 1717'! a work much esteemed and frequently reprinted. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPOHTEBS. 239 
 
 / 
 
 probable, of a conscientious curate, to speak in higher 
 terms than I can of this volume of Modern. It does not 
 possess much authority ;^ though in , the great case of 
 Mostyn v. Fabrigas,^ Lord Mansfield cited a case from it. 
 (Edns. : 1st, 1736, the edition used by Mr. Viner; 2d, 
 1741 ; 3d, 1769.) 
 
 (8) Vol. XI. K. B. 1 Anhk— 9 Amne. (1702-1710.) and (in Leach's 
 Modem) 4 Geo. I.— 5 Geo. II. (1718-1732.) 
 
 Eefokts, Q. a.,' ok Cases temp. Queen Anne. 
 
 With a few cases in the C. F. 
 
 The volume is said by "Wilson, the Eeporter^^ to be a 
 book of "no authority;" and the same criticism was sub- 
 sequently made by counsel in argument.* Both remarks 
 having been made prior to the year 1781, must have 
 referred to the 1st edition of the volume, and not to the 
 2d. And although Mr. Green speaks of the book " as 
 execrable," without reference to editions, a distinction 
 may perhaps deserve to be made between the two. (The 
 Edns. are 1st, 1737, the edition used by Mr. Viner ; 2d, 
 1769 ; 3d, 1781, to which are added " notes and references, 
 and some select cases, arguments, and pleadings, by 
 Thomas Lutwyche, Esq." These additions were of great 
 importance ; but they were not made by Mr. Lutwyche, 
 who was dead long before. They consist of, 
 
 1. A supplement at the end of the volume, and extend- 
 ing from p. 277 to p. 396, which contains a number of 
 cases in the reign of Queen Anne, very accurately re- 
 ported. One of them is cited by Mr. Hargrave, in his 
 celebrated argument upon executory devises, in the ease of 
 Thellusson v. "Woodford.^ 
 
 ' 1 Bur. 153; 1 Dong. 61 ; 10 Adol. & El. 73. Mr. Green, however, while 
 speaking of the volume as inferior to some other volume, thinks that it is by no 
 means as bad as the 8th or 11th, and is better than the 3d, 4th, 5th, or 7th. 
 
 2 Cowp. 178. » 1 Rep. 106, b, ed. of 1738. 
 
 "• 1 Wils, 165, in marg. ' 1 Cowp. 16. 
 
 ' 4 Ves. Jr. 253 ; 2 Hargrave's Juridical Arguments, 37-8. 
 
240 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 2. Improved Eeports of Cases, in tlie body of the old 
 book. Thus, in the report of Brunker v. Cook,' there is 
 introduced an argument of Mr. Raymond, which extends 
 through two pages ; in that of Turton v. Prior," the repli- 
 cation of the plaintiff, extending through two pages and 
 a half; in that of Bishop v. Eagle," the declaration, filling 
 one page, and at the end of that case another complete 
 report of it, which extends through seven pages ; in that 
 of Young V. Slaughterford,^ the bill of appeal, extending 
 through three pages and a half; in that of Reg. v. Tooley 
 and als.,* the argument of Mr. Lutwyche himself for the 
 prisoners, which fills twelve pages ; in that' of Leveridge 
 V. Hoskins, the declaration, of nearly one page ; and in 
 that of St. Saviour's, Southwark, v. Cripplegate,° the 
 order, a page and a half. 
 
 I have to note that in Mr. Leach's edition, — the latest 
 and in most volumes the best, — these improvements, which 
 are in the older edition of 1781, of 11th Mod., are not 
 found. Some question of copyright probably interfered. 
 The possessor of Leach's Modern should, therefore, also 
 have the old folio of 1781. They are found in the Dublin 
 8vo., probably because the Irish, in those days, at least, 
 paid little regard to literary property. Mr. Leach's edi- 
 tion of 11th Modern contains, however, one hundred and 
 thirty-six cases, in the reigns of Geo. I. and Geo. II., not 
 found in any other edition. They begin at page 207, and 
 run to the end of the volume, at 416. Of these new cases 
 Mr. Leach asserts that seventy-eight, which he specifies,' 
 are not reported in any other work.) 
 
 (4) Vol. XII. K.B. 2 Wm. III.— 1 Annb. (1690-1702.) Cases temp, 
 William III. 
 
 Sir Francis BuUer once remarked to Mr. Rooke, in 
 arguing, that this book is not " of any authority ;" and 
 
 > Page 121. * Page 167. » Page 186. * Page 217. » Page 242. 
 ' Page 267. ' Pref. to 1st Leach's Mod. ' 1 Doug. 83. 
 
THE COMMON LA"W REPOBTEES. 241 
 
 Mr. Peake, in his Law of Evidence, makes a similar obser- 
 vation.* And tliougli Chief Justice Marshall, in Bank of 
 the United States v. Deveaux,' felt authorized by a case in 
 this book, to adjudge a point of some difficulty, his 
 judgment, with which he himself is said to have after- 
 wards expressed his dissatisfaction, has been since over- 
 ruled.' Mr. Green, to whom I so often refer, criticising 
 this volume, with fuller knowledge than most persons 
 of what has been said against it, yet speaks of it in terms 
 of reasonable respect.* (Edns. : 1st, 1738, the edition 
 used by Mr. Viner ; 2d, 1769, called so on the title-page, 
 but really the old edition with a new face. 
 
 I must remark, that the volumes, as printed and bound, 
 do not follow one another in chronological order; some of 
 them iterate the same years, and some years are wanting. 
 The Arabic numeral prefixed, indicates the arrangement 
 in order of time.) 
 
 FEEEMAN". KB., C. P. 
 
 22 Cab. II.— 2 Anne. (1670-1704.) 
 
 With a few cases of an earlier date. 
 
 Freeman's note-book having been stolen by a servant, 
 and published without the privity of the author's family, 
 these Reports were formerly regarded as without much au- 
 thority. They were so characterized by Sir John Mitford, 
 Solicitor-General, and Mr. Campbell,' arguing ; and in the 
 same way, in another case,° by Sergeant Glynn. In the 
 latter case, however, Lord Mansfield said, that some of the 
 cases in Freeman were very well reported ; and the Court of 
 K. B. gave judgment in conformity with the precedent to 
 which the Sergeant objected. And of the former case it is 
 
 • Page 41, 2d ed. = 5 Cranch, 91. ' 2 Howard, 497. 
 
 ' And see 4 D. & E. 244-5 ; 3 Barn. & Adolph. 699. 
 s 3 Ves. Jr. 285. ^ Cowp. 15. 
 
 16 
 
242 THE COMMON LATV REPORTERS. 
 
 to be observed, that about a year afterwards, Sir John Mit- 
 ford, yet Solicitor-G-eneral, expressed a favorable opinion of 
 them ; and that Lord Loughborough confirmed him, by 
 remarking that they vrere generally good.^ In Monk v. 
 Monk," Lord Manners, adverting to the reputation of 
 Freeman's notes, decided a point which was before him, 
 in conformity with a case there reported ; and in our own 
 country, Mr. Justice Carr, of Virginia, does the same in a 
 case,' where he has occasion to contrast this reporter very 
 favorably with 2d Modern. The probability is, that under 
 the circumstances in which the volume first appeared, 
 some of the cases may be incorrectly or crudely presented ; 
 but it has been observed, that those cases in Freeman, of 
 which there are contemporary reports, mostly coincide 
 with such reports ; and this concurrence, according to 
 Lord Mansfield,^ may be taken as demonstration of truth, 
 even if the reporter were " the worst that ever reported." 
 [If he did not copy ?— H. B. W.'] 
 
 For some remarks about Freeman's Cases, see post, 
 Chancery Reporters, tit. Cases in Chancery. 
 
 In addition to the common law cases. Freeman's notes 
 contained a considerable number of Chancery Reports. 
 These were formerly bound up in the same volume with 
 the common law cases, but the two sorts have of late been 
 separated. The common law cases were republished in 
 1826, vsdth notes and references, by Mr. Smirke, and the 
 Chancery cases, in 1823, by Hovenden. The former is 
 still cited as 1st Freeman, the latter as 2d, as when the 
 cases were in one volume. These editions, it is scarcely 
 necessary to add, are greatly preferable to the old edition 
 of 1742, in folio, and have quite superseded it. 
 
 Among Freeman's Reports is one of a case* where a 
 will was found a long time after a testator's death, admin- 
 istration having been granted iii the meantime, and where 
 mesne acts and sales by the administrator were held void. 
 
 ' 3 Ves. Jr. 580, u. " 1 Ball & Beat. 307. » 8 Leigh, 562. 
 
 * Cowp. 16. ' Abraham v. Conyngham, vol. i. p. 445. 
 
THE COMMON LAW KEPORTERS. 243 
 
 Freeman notes the hardness of the case, "after a will hath 
 been so long concealed, to avoid all acts done by an ad- 
 ministrator," and reports that the court thought it might 
 be fit for Parliament to consider of,, though it was impos- 
 sible for the Judges to alter it. It is a somewhat singular 
 incident, brought to my notice by Mr. Green, that the 
 same thing happened about Freeman's own will. In the 
 suit of Edwards v. Freeman,' — a suit by the daughter of a 
 first marriage against the wife and children of a second — 
 it appears that it was taken for granted all round, that the 
 Chancellor had died intestate : it is expressly so stated by 
 the reporter : and the case, which involved a question of 
 distribution, was argued and decreed accordingly. iNot- 
 Tsdthstanding this, about fifteen years after his death 
 (administration having been granted in the meantime to 
 the widow, defendant, in the case, and, on her death, ad- 
 ministration de bonis non to the daughter, plaintiff"), his 
 will was found in a copy of the Theodosian Code, and was 
 proved and established accordingly.^ 
 
 Freeman was Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and died in 
 that country, Nov. 20th, 1710. 
 
 SHOWER. KB. 
 
 30 Cae. II.— 7 Wm. III. (1678-1695.) 
 
 Leach's edition, in two vols. 8vo., is much preferred to 
 the old edition in folio ; but, from a note left by the learned 
 Mr. TJmfreville, it would appear as if the genuine Eeports 
 of Sir Bartholomew Shower had never yet been printed. 
 Speaking of a MS. in the Lansdowne collection, — ^the 
 same, perhaps, to which we have a reference in 5th Mo- 
 dem' — Mr. Umfreville says : " This MS. greatly controls 
 the printed Showers, and contains many good cases not 
 
 • 2 Peere Williams, 435. 
 
 ' 1 Lee's Ecclesiastical Reports, 97, 98, and 172. 
 
 ' Page 29, edition preceding Mr. Leach's. 
 
244 THE COMMON LAW EEPOETEKS. 
 
 printed, and seems to be his regulated collection of cases, 
 prepared, as I conceive, by himself, and methodized from 
 his note-book, with a view to the press. But his papers, 
 after his death, falling into the hands of a bookseller, he 
 causd lucri, at different times, printed his general collec- 
 tion, without due consideration had of these selected cases, 
 which were the only cases, I conceive. Sir Bartholomew 
 ever intended for the press." 
 
 Lord Hardwicke,' referring to a case in 2d Shower, spoke 
 of the book as of no authority. Lord Holt, and more re- 
 recently. Lord Abinger, speaks to the same effect.^ Wood- 
 ruff, J., of the Court of Common Pleas of New York, more 
 lately still, speaks of the posthumous character of the 
 book, and apparent want of authority of some of the mat- 
 ters set down as the reporter's notes.' 
 
 In 1687, the author was made Recorder of London, but 
 on the restoration of the city charter, in 1688, was obliged 
 to resign his place in favor of Sir George Treby. He 
 died in 1701. 
 
 Li order of time, the 2d volume of Shower precedes the 
 1st. (Edns. : Fol. 1708-20 j Leach's, 1794.) 
 
 SKnmEE. KB, 
 
 33 Cab. II.— 10 Wm. III. (1681-1698.) 
 
 Of Skinner, Mr. Green says : " It is quite a good book. 
 It is seldom quoted ; the reason of which, I take to be, 
 that almost all its cases are reported in books which ap- 
 peared before it, and which so got the start of it in the 
 abridgments, and other manuals of reference." (Edns. : 
 Fol. Eng. 1728.) 
 
 LHTWYCHE. C. P. 
 
 34 Car. II.— 8 Anne. (1682-1704.) 
 
 Sir Edward Lutwyche was a Judge of the Common 
 
 ' 1 Vesey, Sr., 525. " 11th Mod. 196 ; 3 Meeson & Welsby, 253. 
 
 » 1 E. Delafield Smith, 517. 
 
THE COMMOK LAV EEPORTERS. 245 
 
 Pleas, in the reign of James IE. He afterwards practised 
 till the reign of Queen Anne, as a Sergeant, and was 
 counsel in most of the cases he reported. His reports 
 were originally published by himself in French ; and in 
 this form are valuable and accurate. Mr. Lawes, in hifl 
 Treatise upon Pleading,' remarks that the author's " great 
 knowledge of pleading, must be discovered on the reading 
 of his Reports and Entries ;" and says,, " it is a subject of 
 wonder, that no one capable of the task, has yet found 
 time and opportunity to edit them as they deserve;" 
 though, referring to the 8vo. edition of 1718, he observes 
 that much has been done in translating the Reports into 
 English. The work was edited in 1718, by "William Nel- 
 son, with a ridiculous and abusive running commentary 
 on each case, which made Mr. Viner" call the book " a re- 
 proach and dishonor to the profession, and rather adapted 
 to Billingsgate than Westminster Hall. What notion," 
 asks the venerable compiler, " will any foreigner entertain 
 of our law, to see a volume thereof stuffed with such un- 
 gentlemanlike language, and to meet with such ridiculous 
 and scoundrel titles as law quihlles, &c. ; to see skeleton 
 treatises on some particular head, very imperfectly done, 
 with the help of a number of idle precedents, swelled up 
 into a thick volume." Though Nelson called his book 
 Lutwyche's Reports and Entries, it is, in fact, but an 
 abridgment of the former without any insertion of the 
 latter; and its value as a substitute for Lutwyche, is almost 
 destroyed by want of some reference to the paging of the 
 original work. (Edns. : Fol, Fr. and Lat., 2 vols. 1704, 
 with a tolerably good print, by White. Nelson's edition 
 in 1718, fol. ; and another edition the same year, in 2 vols. 
 8vo. in English.) 
 
 COMBERBACH. KB. 
 
 1 Jao. II.— 11 Wm. IIL (1685-1699.) 
 A posthumous note-book, published by the author's 
 
 • Page 24-5. ^ Pref. to vol. xviii. of Abridgment, fol. ed. 
 
246 THE COMMON LA"W EEPORTEES. 
 
 son, and therefore, perhaps, more pardonahle for its worth- 
 lessness. Lord Mansfield thought that the Eeporter had 
 not sense enough to understand even the arguments he 
 was reporting.* Thurlow styled the book a had authority." 
 BuUer thought that it had been forbidden to be cited,' and 
 it has never had reputation either in England or with us.^ 
 Still it is occasionally useful, to compare with contempo- 
 rary reports of S. C. ; and " a few of the cases," says Mr. 
 Green, "are really better reported than in any other book." 
 (Edns.: Fol. 1724.) 
 
 CAETHEW. KB. 
 
 2 Jac. II.— 13 Wm. in. (1686-1701.) 
 
 Woodeson, in his law lectures, calls Carthew, " a re- 
 porter of no great merit;"' and Lord Thurlow is reported 
 td have said that he was "bad authority."^ But Lord 
 Kenyon said, by the way and parenthetically, " that Car- 
 thew, in general, was a good reporter:"^ Chief Justice 
 Willes, also, in an argument where he was combating a 
 case from Carthew, says: "I own that Carthew is, in 
 general, a very good and very faithful reporter."' " Our 
 respectable American Eeporter," the late Mr. Henry Whea- 
 ton,' calls him, as of course, a reporter of " acknowledged 
 accuracy." (Edns. : Fol. 1st, 1728 ; and 2d, with some 
 marginal references, 1743.) , i, r -n ^^ 
 
 ' 1 Bur. 36. ' Worrall. 3 ij. 
 
 ' 1 Dallas, 28 (though cited as an authority on p. 29); 1 Bur. 214; 4 East, 
 540 ; 6 Bligh N. R. 369; 4 D. & E. 412. In this last place, indeed, Lord Ken- 
 yon thought it as likely that Burrow had misapprehended Lord Mansfield, as 
 that Comberbaoh had misreported Lord Holt ; but see the remarks of Baron 
 Vaughan, in the case cited from 6 Bligh, 369. 
 
 5 Vol. i. p. 495. s Worrall ; Bridgman's Leg. Bib. 52, 78. 
 
 ' 2 D. & E. 776. 8 Willes, 182. 
 
 ' Wheaton's Selwyn's Nisi Prius, vol. ii. 29, Phil. 1831. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 247 
 
 CASES TEMP. HOLT. K. B. CHIEFLY ; ALSO 
 C. P. AND EX. CH. 
 
 1 Wm. hi.— la Anne. (1688-1711.) 
 
 Giles Jacob — immortalized by Pope as " blunderbuss of 
 law," and who wrote tbe Law Dictionary, and a vast 
 number of otter books, — is reputed to be tbe collector or 
 at least the publisher of these cases.* The preface states, 
 that the design of the volume is to present all the cases 
 determined by Lord Holt. It adds, that the greater 
 number of them are abridged from other books of reports, 
 where they are found in greater detail; and that the re- 
 maining ones — not a few of which were taken by Mr. 
 Farresly — are printed at large, from MSS. which were 
 now procured at considerable expense. Farresly was the 
 author of 7th Modern, a book of but indifferent authority. 
 The merits of the present work, I believe, are in a conca- 
 tenation accordingly.^ (Edns. : 'Fol. 1738. My copy is 
 printed with an elegance worthy of Buhner or Bodoni.) 
 
 SALEELD. K. B., C. P., CH. AND EX. 
 
 1 Wm. III.— 11 Anhb. (1689-1712.) 
 
 The first two volumes of Salkeld were published under 
 the supervision of Lord Hardwicke, and their general 
 accuracy, I believe, has not been questioned, except in a 
 single instance f though many of the cases are reported 
 too shortly to be very clear. The third, it is supposed, 
 was not designed for publication. It is a posthumous 
 work, consisting principally of detached notes collected 
 from other reports, and has never been considered as of 
 
 ' The Life of Holt, by a gentleman of the Inner Temple, Lond. 1764, Pref. 
 (at the end of the book.) 
 
 2 1 Wils. 15, per Lee, C. J. ; and 1 Ken. 178, by Mansfield, C. J. 
 
 ' 5 Taunt, 190 ; where the Court speaks of a case in that book that had been 
 often cited, " though the book, in general, was of no authority." 
 
248 THE COMMON LAW EEPORTERS. 
 
 any authority.* (Edns. : Salkeld has passed through six 
 editions. The first three were printed in 1717, 1721, 1731, 
 in two parts folio ; the fourth in 1742-43 ; the fifth, by 
 Sergeant "Wilson, in 1773, in three parts folio ; and ike 
 sixth, in 1795, by Mr. Evans, the translator of Pothier, in 
 3 vols. 8vo., which was republished in Philadelphia in 
 1822.) 
 
 SHOWEE. DOM. PROC. 
 
 6 Wm. III.— 11 Wm. III. (1694-1699.) 
 
 Not to be confounded with Shower's Reports, which are 
 in the K. B. The cases in the House of Lords are con- 
 sidered to be well rendered. The work was thought, 
 however, to be an infringement upon the privileges of 
 the House, and the publisher was called to its bar for 
 editing it." 
 
 In a recent case,' counsel quoted " Printed Cases in the 
 House of Lords, vol. 1, p. 175," referring for the volume, 
 as if it were scarce, to Lincoln's Inn Library. I am not 
 acquainted with the book under that title. (Edns. : Pol. 
 1698, and also 1740.) 
 
 LORD RAYMOND. K. B., C. P. 
 
 6 Wm. III.— 7 Geo. II. (1694-1734.) 
 
 The beginning of the 1st vol. having been taken when 
 the Reporter was quite young, and merely as short hints 
 for private use, was said by Lord Mansfield not to be very 
 accurate.* More lately. Baron G-urney thought that the 
 Reporter had left out two important words in the case 
 
 * 7 Mod. 269 ; Andrews, 228 ; Ambler, 12 ; 2 Ken. 214 ; 2 East, 8 ; 8 Mass. 
 258, n. 
 
 * Bridgman's Leg. Bib. 303 ; and more particularly Campbell's Lives of the 
 Lord Chancellors and Keepers, iv. p. 136. PVJ': 
 
 * Blundell v. Gladstone; /Mac Naughten and Gorden, 692, quoted in 12th 
 English Law and Equity "fieports, 89. 
 
 * IBur. 36: 3 D. & E. 261. 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPOETEESt 249 
 
 referred to by Mansfield; and three other Judges, Taunton, 
 Parke, and Vaughan, agreeing with him in approving 
 Lord Mansfield's general notions, a judgment below in 
 accordance with them, was affirmed by an equally divided 
 court of Exchequer Chamber, against the opinions of 
 Denman, C. J., Bayley, Vaughan, and Bolland. This 
 judgment was afterwards affirmed in the House of Lords. 
 Chief Justice Denman, in reviewing the opinions in Ray- 
 mond, from which Mansfield inferred error, asks, " Is it 
 really possible to suppose that Lord Raymond was too 
 young to understand what he heard ? If not, his youth is 
 immaterial in this argument. And, are we then to dis- 
 card as inaccurate and incorrect, all that he reported in 
 the first half of his first volume, during the five years pre- 
 ceding ? I cannot refrain from saying, that we can rely 
 upon none of our Reports, if we admit a doubt that Lord 
 Raymond has recorded Lord Holt's genuine doctrine, and 
 that he understood it fully;" Lord Denman adds, that 
 " Lord Mansfield's censure of these two cases, is rendered 
 the more remarkable by his laboring, and with success, to 
 demonstrate their perfect consistency with the judgment 
 he was at that time pronouncing." And Baron Bolland, 
 referring to the opinions of Holt, which Raymond reports, 
 declares, that they " appeared to bear the stamp of accu- 
 racy;" that the positions are plain and simple, and such 
 as Lord Raymond could not fail to comprehend ; and that 
 as Lord Raymond, after twenty-six years' of practice from 
 that time, presided as Chief Justice for nine years more, 
 he had ample time to correct his MS., if it had been liable 
 to the imputation of inaccuracy, by which Lord Mansfield 
 attacked and destroyed its authority.^ 
 
 ISTone of the Judges anywhere note a fact to which, 
 with some others, my attention is directed by Mr. Hete- 
 rick, of the Virginia Bar. "Lord Raymond," says this 
 gentleman, " appears to have had a great number of notes 
 
 2 Crompton and Meeson, 40-124; 4 Clark and Finnelly, 761. 
 
250 THE COMMON LA"W REPORTERS. 
 
 of cases given him by other gentlemen of the bar, which 
 are printed in his collection ; they are especially numerous 
 in the first volume." He acknowledges cases taken by Mr. 
 Place, Mr. Nott, Mr. Mather, Mr. Daly, Mr. Salkeld, Mr. 
 Jacob (a number), Mr. Shelley, Mr. Northey, Mr. Lut- 
 wyche, Mr. Cheshyre, Mr. Thornhill, Mr. Peere Williams, 
 Mr. Baron Bury, and Mr. Pengelly; so that, in fact, a 
 large proportion of the cases in the first volume are not of 
 his taking. The word Doy, occurs at the end of Olderoon 
 V. Pickering, p. 96. What it means, I know not, unless 
 it be the name of some person who contributed that case. 
 When Orby v. Hales, page 3, was cited. Lord Kenyon 
 observed,* "that this was a note of Mr. Place, whose au- 
 thority was equal to that of Lord Raymond ; that he was 
 reputed to be the author of Watson's Clergyman's Law, 
 and was considered as a lawyer of great eminence." Mr. 
 Justice Grose observed :" " It is said to be a note taken by 
 Mr. Place, whose notes, in general, are very accurate." 
 
 The 3d vol. contains the pleadings at large, published 
 by Wilson ; and these, serving as they do, to measure, 
 illustrate, and control the Reports, afford a commentary 
 from which the reader may often derive more accurate 
 ideas than from the text itself. 
 
 Lord Raymond — ^the son of Sir Thomas Raymondj one 
 of the Justices of the K. B., and a reporter already men- 
 tioned — ^was born l!672, called to the bar in 1694, and ap- 
 pointed Solicitor-General in May, 1710 ; Attorney-General 
 in October, 1714 ; a Judge of the K. B. in Jan., 1723; and 
 Chief Justice, Feb. 28, 1724. On the Earl of Maccles- 
 field's recession, he was appointed, Jan. 7, 1724, with Sir 
 Joseph Jekyl and Sir Geoffry Gilbert, a commissioner of 
 the Great Seal, and Jan. 21, 1730-31, raised to the peer- 
 age. He died March 19, 1733, in the 61st year of his age. 
 With the death of his son, in 1753 — ^himself a man of 
 showy parts — ^the peerage became extinct. He is included 
 
 » 8 D. & E. 430, n. « Page 432. 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPOETERS. 251 
 
 by Horace Walpole, wlio appears to have been on terms 
 of intimacy with Ha son,' among the Eoyal and Noble 
 Authors, though no mention is made of anything that he 
 wrote except his Eeports. (Edns. : 1st, 1743 ; 2d, 1765 ; 
 3d, by Sergeant Wilson, 1775 ; and 4th, in 1790, by Bay- 
 ley (afterwards a Judge of the K. B.), in 3 vols. 8vo., and 
 much superior to the prior editions.^ It has also been 
 more recently edited by Gale. The first three editions are 
 in folio.) ♦ 
 
 FORTESCUE. K. B., C. P., EX. AKD CH. 
 
 7 Wm. III.— 11 Geo. II. (1695-1738.) 
 
 Sir John Fortescue, at different times a Baron of the 
 Exchequer, and Judge of the Common Pleas and King's 
 Bench, was the author of these reports. He derived con- 
 siderable estates in Ireland from his maternal grandfather, 
 Henry Aland,' and hence is called sometimes. Justice For- 
 tescue,^ sometimes Justice Fortescue Aland,' and some- 
 times, I believe, though I cannot now say where. Justice 
 Aland. His paternal ancestry was illustrious ; and vari- 
 ous evidences would indicate that he was rather more 
 willing to take the estates of his Irish ancestor than the 
 name. In all the places at least where I find him writing 
 his own name, I find it John Fortescue A.,° Justice For- 
 tescue A.,' Fortescue A. f and in these reports, thoiigh 
 the preface is signed J. F. A., the title sets them forth as 
 by John, Lord Fortescue. He appears to have been a 
 man of elegant and gentlemanlike tastes and pursuits, 
 with as much and not more forcible parts than became a 
 
 ' Letter to Horace Mann, May 26, 1742. = 4 ciark & Finnelly, 776. 
 
 * See the case of Mr. Justice Fortescue Aland v. Aland Mason, Lord Ray- 
 mond, 1433. 
 
 ■• Lord Raymond, 1435 ; 8 Mod. 8 ; Strange, 688, 802. 
 
 5 Lord Raymond, 1433 ; Fortescue, 438. 
 
 ^ Allowance to Raymond ; West's Cases Temp. Hardwioke, 507. 
 
 ' Fortescue, 41, 67, 92, 94, 96, &c. s Fortescue, 437. 
 
'} 
 
 252 THE COMMON LAW EEPORTERS. 
 
 lord author ; and to have had a pardonable " apprehen- 
 sion of gentry and nobleness," especially of that of the 
 Fortescues. The beautiful edition of Fortescue de Laudi- 
 bus which appeared in 1T41, prefaced with an elaborate 
 treatise which may not improperly be called De Laudibus 
 Fortescue, was issued, it is probable, under his super- 
 vision. The whole family of Fortescue — their names, 
 alliances, titles, estates, and recovered honors, are illus 
 trated with a zeal«and accuracy worthy of a king at arms. 
 Both in this book, and in the Reports, the main work is 
 prefaced by the same diploma from the University of Ox- 
 ford to John, Lord Fortescue, the subject of our notice, to 
 neither of which works does it seem to be in the least 
 relative. 
 
 Fortescue was born March, 1670 ; appointed Solicitor- 
 General in October, 1716 ; and on the 24th Jan. 1716-17, 
 a Baron of the Exchequer. He was transferred, May 15, 
 1718, from the Exchequer to the Court of King's Bench, 
 and his commission as a Judge of this Court having ex- 
 pired, he was appointed in 1728 to the Common Pleas, on 
 the bench of which court he remained until June, 1746. 
 Resigning his office at this time, he was advanced con- 
 temporaneously to the Peerage of Ireland by the title of 
 Baron Fortescue, of Credan ; an honor which he did not 
 live to enjoy long, as he died at the close of the same 
 year.^ 
 
 Besides these Reports and the book De Laudibus, Sir 
 John Fortescue A., published another work of his illus- 
 trious ancestor Sir John, the Chief Justice. The English 
 title of the book, which had never been published before, 
 is " The Difference between an Absolute and Limited Mo- 
 narchy." It is preceded by some remarks, and a preface; 
 the latter of which seems to have been inappropriately 
 transferred to the Reports very nearly as it stood in the 
 other book. 
 
 • See a particular history of t^is Rep^rt^r in The New. Gen.^iog. Diet, 
 London, 1798, vol. i. p. 173. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 253 
 
 In consequence of the Reports, and Ms Irisli peerage, 
 Horace Walpole gives Fortescue a place among the Royal 
 and Noble Authors. 
 
 Eortescue's Reports are obviously prepared with more 
 than usual pains ; particularly some in the first part of the 
 book. Justice Fortescue A., however, generally strikes 
 you as the prominent person in the judicial cast ; his 
 opinions having apparently been written out with more 
 care than those of his brethren. The"' work is distin- 
 guished by elaborateness, and more, perhaps, by the soli- 
 citudes of taste, than by any power of thought. It was 
 published about eighteen months after Lord Fortescue's 
 death, but no doubt had been previously prepared by him. 
 
 There was another Justice Fortescue, generally distin- 
 guished as Justice William Fortescue. He was a man of 
 more weight and abilities than John, and was for some 
 time a Judge of the Common Pleas, and afterwards Mas- 
 ter of the Rolls. It is this Fortescue, not John, as stated 
 in some of the Biographical Dictionaries, who is so often 
 mentioned by Pope, with whom, as well as with Gay, and 
 with Horace "Walpole, he was on terms of great intimacy. 
 Pope inscribes his 2d Satire to him, and refers to him in 
 those lines : 
 
 " Tim'rous by nature, of the rich in awe, 
 I come to counsel learned in the law." 
 
 Judge "William Fortescue is supposed to have assisted 
 Pope in the burlesque report of Stradlingv. Stiles;^ for 
 which reason, of course, he is entitled to a place among 
 the Reporters. He was made Master of the Rolls in 1741, 
 and so continued till his death, in 1749. 
 
 COMTIfS. K B., C. P., EX., CH. AKD DELEG, 
 
 7 Wm. III.— 14 Geo. II. (1695-1741.) 
 
 These Reports of Chief Baron Comyns were posthu- 
 mously published ; but appear to have been twice edited 
 
 * Cooper's Reports temp. Lord Cottenham, Appendix, S90-1. 
 
254 THE COMMON LAW EEPORTERS. 
 
 with some care. (Edns. : The 1st, in folio, 1744, with a 
 portrait, by Vertue ; the 2d, Dublin, 1791, with references, 
 by MacITally ; the 3d (or 2d En^ish), by Rose, in 2 vols. 
 8vo. 1792. All these editions are in English, though 
 Comyns wrote the greater part of his Keports in French.) 
 
 COLLES. DOM. PEOC. 
 
 9 Wm. hi.— 13 Annb. (1697-1714.) 
 
 This is a supplement to Brown's Cases in Parliament ; 
 and according to Bridgman, " appears to be very accurately 
 taken."* (Edns. : 1789, Svo. Dublin.) 
 
 # 
 
 BEOWN". DOM. PROG. 
 
 1 Anhk— 41 Geo. III. (1702-1801.) 
 
 Brown's Cases in Parliament, properly so-called, do not 
 come down to the present century by many years; the 
 author having died before his work was completed. The 
 work was continued by Mr. Tomlins. (Edns. : Pol. 7 vols, 
 1779 ; coming down no farther, of course, than the year 
 last named. 2d edition, by Tomlins, 8 vols. Svo. 1803.) 
 
 PRACTICAL REGISTER OF THE COMMON 
 PLEAS. 
 
 3 Anne— 15 Geo. II. (1704-1742.) 
 
 This work must be distinguished from the Practical 
 Register in Chancery. The title of the present work, I 
 believe, is " Practical Register of the Common Pleas, con- 
 taining Select Cases in Points of Practice in that Court, 
 in the reigns of Queen Anne, Geo. I. and Geo. IE.," and 
 it is usually cited as Richardson's P. R. C. P. 
 
 > Leg. Bib. 77. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPOETEES. 255 
 
 Books of Practice are hardly considered in the nature 
 of strict authority, though they are occasionally cited 
 where no more dignified reports can be found.* Their 
 value depends, of course, greatly upon their measure of 
 correctness in relation ; but when known to possess accu- 
 racy in this particular, deserve considerable respect. "The 
 great authority with me," says C. J. Bridgman,* " is con- 
 stant practice, if I am well informed." Indeed, an atten- 
 tive observer of the questions which arise in all our courts 
 upon motion or rule day, and who notes how lynx-like 
 the professional eye becomes to discover anything wrong 
 in the mechanics of Justice, will be satisfied, that no irre- 
 gularity in that department can become chronic. Eoche- 
 foucauld observes, with that wisdom wherein Satan made 
 him wise above his fellows, " On peut Hre plus fin qu'un 
 autre, maia non pas plus fin que tous les autres:" a senti- 
 ~ ment which his brother devil, Talleyrand, stole or repro- 
 duced when he said : "II y a quelqu'un qui a plus d' esprit 
 que personne : c'est tout le monde ;"" and which Madame de 
 Stael presented with all her sprightliness, without perhaps 
 remembering either, in her declaration, " Le public est un 
 homme d'esprit quoiqu'il se compose de tant d'Stres stupides."* 
 The big broad eye of the profession seldom either slum- 
 bers or sleeps. Practice is law solidified into fact. It is 
 even more than that custom, which is the common law 
 itself; for it is settled, and is allowed to be settled, not by 
 the silent acquiescence of the common world, but only 
 after the storm of interests, and the confiict of intellect. 
 It is monumental evidence ; presenting those outward and 
 visible signs which the founders of creeds have left as the 
 best memorials of their life and doctrines ; the course of 
 external observance, performed in undisputed recognition 
 of fact, and testifying to it with a clearness and fixity 
 which makes evidence of the highest order.' 
 
 > 2 Atk. 22 ; Mitford's Pleading, 7, n. 2 Carter, 15. 
 
 ' The Quarterly Review, vol. Ixxxiv. p. 77. 
 
 * Reflexions sur le Suicide, a Londres, 1813, p. 17. 
 
 ' 10 Clark and Fin. 685. 
 
256 THE COMMON LAW EEPORTEES. 
 
 I infer, from tlie mode in wMcli this book is cited in a 
 modern English reporter, that it is one of some rarity.^ 
 
 COOKE. C. P. 
 
 5 Anne— 20 Geo. II. (1706-1747.) 
 
 These decisions are upon points of practice, and are cited 
 not unfrequently in the Reports of Sir "William Blackstone, 
 and in Wilson. Sergeant Jephson, in citing, elsewhere, a 
 case reported in this volume, says: "See the case at 
 length ; for it seems well reported by that very able chief 
 prothonotaiyoftheC. B.''^" (Edns.: 1742, 1T47.) 
 
 EOBEETSOIf'S APPEAL CASES. 
 
 (1707-1727.) 
 
 SESSIONS CASES. KB. 
 
 9 Anne— 21 Geo. II. (1710-1748.) 
 
 (Edns. : 1st, 1750-4; 2d, 1760, 2 vols. 8vo.) 
 GILBEET, CASES m LA"W AOT) EQUITY. 
 
 12 Anne— 1 Geo. I. (1713-1715.) 
 
 The title of this book is : " Cases in Law and Equity, 
 argued, determined, and adjudged in the King's Bench and 
 Ohancery, in the 12th and 13th years of Queen Anne, dur- 
 ing the time of Lord Chief Justice Parker ; with two trea- 
 tises, the one on the action of debt, the other on the Con- 
 stitution of England." 
 
 I have set forth the title of this work, in order to dis- 
 
 ' 4 Meeson & Webby, 408. « S Wils. 184. 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPORTEES. 257 
 
 tinguish it from another Gilbert's Eeports, more exclu- 
 sively in Chancery, and mentioned hereafter, in proper 
 place, among the Chancery reporters. The present work 
 does not, I believe, contain a single case in Chancery ; in 
 which respect, if I am correct, its title is false, 
 
 Mr. Viner* said that out of the many books ascribed to 
 Gilbert, he could not find that one had been published by 
 the consent of any person entitled to give it. The pre- 
 sent volume, I presume, forms no exception to his ex- 
 perience. 
 
 " There are one or two cases," says Mr. Lofft,^ " so well 
 reported as not to be unworthy of him ; but in general 
 they are loose notes very badly edited." (Edns. : 1st, 8vo. 
 1760 ; 2d, " revised and corrected, with many additional 
 notes and references," 8vo. Dublin, 1792.) 
 
 CASES OF SETTLEMENT. 
 (Edns. : 1729, 1732, 1742.) 
 
 BTOTBURY. EX. 
 
 12 Anne— 15 Geo. II. (1713--1742.) 
 
 Lord Mansfield, in a case where he differed from a nisi 
 prius decision reported in these cases, characterized them 
 as very loose notes, never designed by Mr. Bunbury for 
 publication.' And Sir Thomas Plumer, having this re- 
 mark perhaps in his mind, postponed his final decision in 
 a cause before him to look into a case quoted from Bun- 
 bury, observing of the volume, that it is " certainly of no 
 great authority."* 
 
 ' Viner's Abridg. Pref. 
 ' Lofft's Gilbert on Evidence, Pref. 
 " 5 Bur. 2658, and see 5 Wend. 578. 
 
 *2 Madd. 140, or Am. Ed. of 1829,419; and see 5 Wend. 578, and 1 
 Roper on Husband and Wife, 449. 
 
 17 
 
258 THE COMMON LAW EEPOETEES. 
 
 It is true that the book was published posthumously:; 
 but it was edited by Sergeant Wilson, who was Bunbury's 
 son-in-law, and whose capacity for the editorial duty can- 
 not be doubted. It is possible, as Mr. Bunbury enjoyed 
 the rank of Postman of the Court of Exchequer, and was 
 engaged at that bar exclusively for at least thirty years, that 
 too high expectations were had of his notes. They are 
 short, and therefore must often be unsatisfactory.; but as 
 Sergeant Wilson tells us that the printed volume contains 
 such cases only, as the author took in court with his own 
 hand, and are settled and corrected by himself from his 
 notes, it is possible that Lord Mansfield's expression ought 
 not to be taken too extensively ; and that he meaAt no- 
 thing further than that the cases being stated but shortly, 
 were not the most satisfactory sort to be quoted as ;gre- 
 cedents. (Edns. : Fol. 1755 ; and 2d, revised and cor- 
 rected with the addition of many references, Dublin, 
 1T93, 8vo.) 
 
 STRAl!j-GE. K. B., C. P., CH., AXD EX. 
 
 2 Geo. I.— 22 Geo. II. (1716-1749.) 
 
 Chief Justice Willes, who would be likely to know, 
 spesaks of Strange as " a faithful reporter,"^ and this idea 
 is confirmed by Chancellor Kent.^ But Sir Michael Fos- 
 ter, referring to one case in particular, " cannot help say- 
 ing, that the circumstances omitted in the report are too 
 material, and enter too far into the true merits of the 
 case, to have been dropped by a gentleman of Sir John 
 Strange's abilities and known candor, if he had not been 
 
 •2 Wils. 38. 
 
 ^ 1 Com. 488, and see the remark of Spencer, J., 6 Johns. 399. Lord Hard- 
 wioke, referring to an argument of his own, while a young man at the bar, 
 mentions that Strange borrowed his papers to transcribe ; so tliat whatever 
 faults the argument contained were not the reporter's, but his own. (Lord 
 Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers, v. p. 16.) 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 259 
 
 over-studious of brevity."^ A new edition of Strange's 
 Eeports was published by Mr. Nolan, in 1795 ; wbo says, 
 tbat it has been his " first object to clear up those few 
 passages in which the author, from his conciseness, is 
 liable to the imputation of obscurity, and to mark those 
 still fewer places, in which he seems to have fallen into 
 errors." Yet even of Strange, thus revised, Sir Anthony 
 Hart is made to say, that it is not " a book we can place 
 much confidence in."^ Sir Anthony Hart is a respectable 
 authority, but the modern equity lawyers so much distin- 
 guish cases by filling up, by touches, shading, and minia- 
 ture finish, that perhaps the Vice-Chancellor would be 
 thought fastidious by a common lawyer ; who would look 
 for nothing beyond a good outline sketch, or a well-finished 
 study. 
 
 There is a volume in existence called Select Cases on 
 Evidence ; or sometimes " 8vo. Strange." It is now but 
 rarely to be seen. A stop was put to the sale of the work 
 oh account of its interference with Strange's Reports, from 
 which many cases in it are taken. 
 
 Sir John Strange was a fellow-student with Philip 
 Yorke, afterwards Lord Hardwicke, with whom he ap- 
 pears to have maintained through life a delightful inter- 
 course. He was made Solicitor-General in 1736, on the 
 promotion of Sir Dudley Eyder ; Recorder of London, in 
 1739 ; and Master of the Rolls, Jan. 1750 : he died in 
 May, 1754. The Duke of Newcastle, in a letter to Lord 
 Hardwicke, referring to his death, speaks of him as a 
 person whom he " honored and loved extremely, for his 
 many excellent public qualities, and most amiable private 
 ones." " I scarce know any man," he continues, "with 
 whom I had so little acquaintance, that I should more 
 regret."' 
 
 In Strange's Reports there are several of Lord Hard- 
 wicke's arguments at the bar, and some of his opinions, 
 
 ' Reports, &o.,294. = 1 Simons, 432. 
 
 ' Harris's Life of Hardwicke, vol. iii. p. 11. 
 
260 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 during the short time in which he was Chief Justice of 
 the King's Bench. We have Lord Hardwicke's authority, 
 that in one case he gave Strange a note of his argument, 
 and it is probahle, from the intimacy which prevailed be- 
 tween Sir John and Lord Hardwicke, that the Chief Jus- 
 tice may himself have occasionally corrected some of the 
 reports of his judgments.^ (Edns. : 1st, by the reporter's 
 son, in 1755, 2 vols, fol., with a very fine engraving, 
 which, when found upon undamaged paper, quite recon- 
 ciles you to retaining the folio edition ; 2d, with addi- 
 tional references, in 1782, 2 vols. 8vo. ; and 3d, the edition 
 of Nolan, already alluded to, 2 vols. 8vo. 1795. There is 
 also a less correct edition of Strange, in 2 vols. 8vo. 1782, 
 but of an inferior size, and double paging.) 
 
 LILLY. CASES OF ASSIZE. 
 
 The author of this book was John Lilly, author of the 
 Practical Conveyancer. There is no evidence that he 
 designed it for the press. It was published after his death, 
 by William Nelson, a sort of Ned Purdon of the law, 
 whose labors, I believe, are about as much esteemed as 
 those of booksellers' hacks in general.^ There are but 
 seven cases in the whole book, which appears to have 
 been published principally to let the editor discharge him- 
 self of the burthen of a long, rambling, and nonsensical 
 preface, which occupies a fifth part of the volume. The 
 book is now very scarce, probably only because it was 
 always very worthless. (Edns. : Fol. 1719.) 
 
 ■ Harris's Life of Hardwicke, vol. i. p. 351. 
 
 ' Nelson is known as the author of a small volume of Chancery Reports, The 
 Rights of the Clergy, The Office and Authority of a Justice, The Lex Testa- 
 mentaria and Lex Manerioram, The prefaces to Lilly, 5 Modem, the Cases 
 temp. Finch, and Cunningham (which last resembles that to 5 Mod.) | by an 
 Abridgment of the Law, in two folios, and, I believe, by a small anonymous 
 work, cited as The Old Law of Evidence ; a book more creditable to him, says 
 Mr. Green, than his other performances. 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPOETEBS. 261 
 
 BARNAEDISTOK KB. 
 
 12 Geo. I.— 8 Geo. II. (1726-1735.) 
 
 Not to be confounded with Barnardiston's Chancery 
 Cases. Barnardiston was a careless dog, and his Reports, 
 as well of Chancery Cases as in the K. B., were, for a long 
 time, but little esteemed.' The former book Lord Mans- 
 field absolutely forbade to be cited ; " for it would only 
 be misleading students to put them upon reading it." He 
 said it was marvellous, however, to those who knew 
 the Sergeant and his manner of taking notes, that he 
 should so often stumble upon what was right ; but yet, 
 that there was not one case in his book which was so 
 throughout.^ Douglas, likewise, calls the K. B. Reports 
 of still less authority than 10 Modern f and Lord Kenyon 
 spoke of the author as " a bad reporter."* Quite recently, 
 in the Court of Common Pleas of E^ew York, "Woodruff, 
 J., criticised this book with some want of respect.^ 
 
 In regard to the Chancery Cases, when Mr. Preston 
 cited a case from them, Lord Lyndhurst exclaimed, " Bar- 
 nardiston, Mr. Preston ! I fear that is a book of no great 
 authority ; I recollect, in my younger days, it was said of 
 Barnardiston, that he was accustomed to slumber over 
 his note-book, and the wags in the rear took the oppor- 
 tunity of scribbling nonsense in it." And Judge Mason, 
 of New York, admitting that a case cited from them 
 " fully bears out the position contended for," refused to 
 follow it, because the case was "not only unsupported by 
 any other English authority, but is also in opposition to 
 the principles of the English decisions. "° 
 
 But there are opinions in favor of all the volumes. On 
 
 ' 1 Doug. 333, n. 2 2 Bur. 1142, in marg. ' 2 Doug. 689, n. 
 
 * 1 East 642, n. ; and see 8 D. & E. 48. 
 
 » Delafield Smith, 519. 
 
 6 2 Sanford's Superior Court, New York, 677-8. 
 
262 THE COMMON LAW EEPORTERS. 
 
 the occasion just mentioned, where Judge Mason refused 
 to follow the Chancery Reporter, he in part observed 
 what was true,* that Chancellor Bland, of Maryland, 
 with Lord Mansfield's censure of the book full be- 
 fore his eyes, thought that Barnardiston's Report seemed 
 "to be according to the reason of the thing;" that the 
 Chancellor was much inclined to believe that the very 
 case objected to had been mainly instrumental in estab- 
 lishing the rule of the Maryland Chancery ; and that how- 
 ever the case might be looked on in England, it would 
 have to be " admitted as right throughout" in Maryland. 
 So, when Lord Lyndhurst reproved Mr. Preston, Mr. Pres- 
 ton is reported to have replied : " There are some cases, 
 my lord, in Barnardiston, which, in my experience (and 
 having had frequent occasion to compare that reporter's 
 cases with the same cases elsewhere), I have found to be 
 the only sensible and intelligent reports ; and I trust I 
 shall show your lordship that it may be said of Barnardis- 
 ton, 'mow omnibus dormio.'"^ On another occasion,^ Lord 
 Eldon said, " I am old enough to remember Lord Mans- 
 field, who practised under Lord Hardwicke, by whom all 
 these cases were decided, state his opinion of these Re- 
 ports (Chancery Cases), for he knew the man. I take the 
 liberty of saying, that in that book there are reports of 
 very great authority," On a 3d, Lord Manners remarked: 
 " Although Barnardiston is not considered a very correct 
 reporter, yet some of his cases are very accurately re- 
 
 ' 3 Bland's Chancery, 162. 
 
 ^ Qu. Anglwe, " I've got one eye open ?" 
 
 " 1 Bligh, N. R. 538. I have noted in another part of the tract (ante, " Re- 
 marks," § 19, n.), a somewhat more dramatic report of Lord Eldon's remarks, 
 given in 1 Dow. N . S. 11, where the Earl is made to say, " Lord Mansfield, then 
 Mr. Murray, argued that case (a case which Lord Eldon had quoted), before 
 Lord Hardwicke, and Mr. Barnardiston was at the bar at the same time, al- 
 though afterwards, when Mr, Murray had become Lord Mansfield, when Mr. 
 
 Barnardiston's Reports were cited, his lordship used to say: 'Barnard 
 
 what you call him.' Li that book, however, my lords, thei;e are some re- 
 ports of great value." 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPOETERS. 263 
 
 ported."* On a 4th, Sir W. Grant, when Solicitor-General, 
 observed," "that though those Reports are not approved of, 
 they are generally, in substance, pretty correctly stated ;" 
 and that two MS. notes of the case which he cited, agreed 
 in substance with the report of Barnardiston. Mr. Wil- 
 son, in quoting a case from the same work, said that he 
 had compared the case with the Register's book, and 
 found it " very accurate.'" In a yet additional case, Sir 
 R. P. Arden, M. R., influenced by the bad reputation of 
 the author, had looked into the Register's book, where he 
 found that the case was reported essentially in the same 
 way as by Barnardiston.* Chief Baron Alexander praised 
 him highly.* And in regard to the Common Law Reports, 
 it is to be noted, that in one of the cases, where Lord 
 Kenyon adverted to the unauthoritative character of the 
 volume, he yet remarked that Barnardiston's report 
 agreed with one by Strange,* and decided accordingly. 
 And to go yet further, to the well-head of the condemna- 
 tion, it is worth recording that, when the volume was first 
 assailed, and Mr. Dunning, being forbidden to cite it, was 
 obliged to have recourse to a MS. note, no difference is 
 stated to have been shown or suggested between that note 
 and the case as found in the printed Reports.' 
 
 The opinion of Lord Mansfield, as of his idolists. Sir 
 James Burrow and Mr. Douglas, may therefore be con- 
 sidered, like a good many of his Lordship's other opinions, 
 as now overruled. (Edns. : The K. B. Reports are in 2 
 vols. fol. 1744.) 
 
 FITZGIBBOIfS. K. B., C. P., EX., AKD CH. 
 
 1 Geo. II.— 6 Geo. II. (1728-1733.) 
 
 Lord Hardwicke, referring to this book, adds : " which 
 I do not care to rely on, as it is of no authority, though 
 
 > 2 Ball & B. 386. " 4 Ves. jr. 488, n. ' 4 D. & E. 57, n. 
 
 *2Bro.C. C. 36. ^ Qresly'sEq.Ev. 301,n. « 8 D. & E. 48. 
 
 ' 2 Bur. 1142 ; see ante, " Remarks," § 27. 
 
264 THE COMMON LAW EEPOETEES. 
 
 this and some other cases are well reported ; this particu- 
 larly finely, for I have a MS. note of it."' The volume 
 was also called by Andrews, the reporter,^ " a book of 
 small authority ;" though it is worth obse^ing that the 
 personal recollection by Sir John Strange, of the case 
 quoted, confirmed the report in Eitzgibbons : and that the 
 court decided the case in accordance with it. Chief Baron 
 Parker, too, though he said, that "the cases in this book 
 are very incorrectly reported,"^ yet spoke of two cases 
 which he was citing as authentic and as having been 
 communicated by Mr. D'Anvers to the publisher, to make 
 the book sell better. And Mr. Green, while speaking of 
 " the general ill repute of the book," remarks upon the 
 testimony or favor of a particular report.' 
 
 Both the credit and the discredit which has attached to 
 the book, is explained by the following note made by 
 Sir James Burrow,' in his copy of Fitzgibbons. " This 
 book," Sir James records, "was published the very 
 next Term after it ends, viz., Michaelmas Term, 5 Geo. 
 n., and was then produced in court, when it was treated 
 with the utmost contempt, both by the Bench and Bar. 
 The author of it was an Irish student, who was called to 
 the Bar in either Trinity or Michaelmas Term, 5 Geo. IT., 
 and the current report was, that the scheme of publishing 
 this book was to satisfy Walthoe, the bookseller, either 
 for chamber-rent, or money advanced towards the charges 
 of the author's call to the bar. Lord Raymond spoke of 
 it at the sittings a few days after with a good deal of re- 
 sentment, and threatened that he would take care to see 
 "Walthoe punished for the publication of it. But nothing 
 
 * 1 Kenyon, 71; and see 1 Ves. 10; 3 Atk. 610 ; also id. 806. 
 
 ' Andrews, 75; though no such case as Andrews reports to have been cited 
 (The King v. Mann) is found in Fitzgibbons. It should probably be King v. 
 Morrice, which is reported at p. 198. 
 
 ' West's Ca. temp. Hardwickei 509. 
 
 * Wythe, Ed. 1852, Appendix, p. 369, n. 30. 
 
 * Dublin University Magazine for Dec. 1847 : vol. 30, p. 671 and n. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 265 
 
 came of it. Mr. Fitzgibbon went to Ireland immediately 
 on being called. I tMnk Lord Eaymond called this per- 
 formance a libel upon the Bar and the Bench, and said 
 that it had made the Judges, and particularly himself, to 
 talk nonsense by wholesale. But I hare examined all the 
 King's Bench Cases in it veiy carefully, and have com- 
 pared them with my own notes, and find him to have 
 made the Judges talk almost verbatim what I took down 
 myself from their own mouths. There are, indeed, errors 
 in it, but upon the whole, the cases seem to be clearly 
 stated, the arguments of different counsel at different 
 times clearly, forcibly, and yet briefly represented, and the 
 sense of the court truly delivered. In ahort, there does 
 not appear to one any want of accuracy, perspicuity, or 
 judgment. However, after all, nothing can excuse such 
 a hasty unlicensed publication of the performances of a 
 private note-taker, without authority or reyisal." 
 
 Fitzgibbon, though but little known either in England 
 or America, except by his Eeports, was a man, I believe, of 
 some accomplishment and mark. He was educated in 
 one of the French Universities ; where, in that day, he did 
 not unlearn some excessive devotion to the Eoman Catho- 
 lic religion, with which he had been imbued by Irish 
 parents at home. On his return to Ireland from England, 
 where as a student he had resided for five years and pub- 
 lished his Reports, he applied, in 1733, for a call to the Irish 
 Bar. His admission was violently opposed by a Protes- 
 tant faction of King's Inn, who having, probably, no 
 better ground to oppose him, contended that the publi- 
 cation of his Eeports was " a direct contempt against the 
 Judges of England," and one which desei-ved punishment 
 from their brethren in Ireland. The opposition to him 
 was not successful. He was admitted to the bar, where 
 he afterwards took a dignified and successful position.' 
 
 His name is better known, however, to history, through 
 
 ' Duhig's History of The King's Inn, p. 283. 
 
266 THE COMMON LA"W EEPOETERS. 
 
 that of his descendants. His son was Jolin Fitzgibbon, 
 the first Earl of Clare ; tbe trusted friend and supporter 
 of William Pitt, through all the crises of the great pre- 
 mier's administration ; and for several years distinguished 
 for the learning, ability, and power with which he dis- 
 charged his official duties in times of popular fiiry and 
 commotion as Lord Chancellor of Ireland ; " the wise and 
 indomitable counsellor," says one of his biographers with 
 eloquence and truth, worthy to be graven in an epitaph ; 
 " who, almost alone, advanced to mieet the enemies of the 
 Constitution in the gate ; and amid weakness, defection, 
 and obloquy the most dispiriting, by his vigor and firm- 
 ness maintained the cause of British rule, and preserved 
 his country from the horrors of anarchy and revolution." 
 The name of the Eeporter's grandson, the second Lord 
 Clare, will be vividly remembered by the readers of 
 Byron ; his " earliest and dearest friend," "the only (male) 
 human being," as he records, for whom he ever felt " any- 
 thing that deserves the name of friendship." During 
 Byron's sojourn at Pisa, Lord Clare crossed the Alps from 
 Geneva to see him. " As I have always loved him," writes 
 Byron, " since I was thirteen, at Harrow, better than any 
 male thing in the world, I need hardly say what a melan- 
 choly pleasure it was to see him for a day only ; for he 
 was obliged to resume his journey immediately." The 
 delights of the interview, and the feelings which over- 
 powered the gifted poet at their separation, have been 
 recorded by the Contessa Guiccioli, in that beautiful lan- 
 guage which it would be profanation to translate. "La 
 venuta pure di Lord Glare fu per lui un epoca di grandefeli- 
 citd. JEJgli amava sommamente Lord Glare; egli era cosi 
 felice inquel hreve tempo che passopresso di lui a Livorno, e il 
 giorno in cui si separaronofu un giorno di grande tris tezza 
 per Lord Byron. ^lo ho il pressentimento che non lo vedrd 
 piu', dicevaegli; e i suoi ocehi si riempirano di laerime: e 
 in questo stato I'ho veduto per varii settimanie doppo la 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 267 
 
 partenza di Lord Clare, ogni qual volta il diseorso cadeva 
 sopra di codesto il suo amico."'- 
 
 I. observe that the name of the reporter as given on the 
 title-page is Fitzgibhons. The true name I believe is 
 Fitzgibbon. He died in 1780. 
 
 This book is cited by Lord Hardvdcke as Holt's Cases.' 
 (Edns. : Fol. 1732.) 
 
 LEACH. K B. (CEOWI^ SIDE.) 
 
 3 Geo. IL— 55 Geo. III. (1730-1815.) 
 
 (There are editions in 1789, 1792, 1800, and perhaps 
 in other years ; the best and most complete is in 2 vols. 
 Svo. 1815.) 
 
 SECOND, OR W. KELYNGE. 
 
 4 Geo. II.— 9 Geo. II. (1731-173.) 
 
 Tbus cited to distinguish it from Kelyng's Crown Cases, 
 which is cited as Ist, or J. Kelyng. The volume contains 
 a few reports of Equity Cases. The tables of the names of 
 cases are awkwardly distributed throughout the body 
 of the volume. "As this book," says Mr. Green, "is 
 nowhere mentioned in Viner, I think it not improbable 
 that it is the book alluded to by him in the following pas- 
 sage.' ' Among those unlicensed books there is one so 
 very trifling, and consequently so high an affront, the ini- 
 tial letters whereof are so disrespectfully prefixed to it, 
 especially in the Eepertorium Juridicum, that he (Mr. 
 Viner) has left it to perish for the benefit of the public' " 
 Judge Pendleton, of the Virginia Court of Appeals, has 
 
 ■ Moore's Life of Lord Byron, vol. v. pp. 340, 362 ; vol. vi. p. 8 ; Murray, Lon^ 
 don, 1832. 
 2 3 Atk. 806. 
 ' Pref. to vol. 19 of Abridgment, folio ed. 
 
268 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 written in his copy "Hardw.," to denote the great name 
 mentioned, and "W. Kelynge is sometimes cited as 
 " Hardw."' " If it be tlie book referred to by Mr. Viner," 
 continues my learned friend, " I have a better opinion of 
 it tban be, certainly it is not one of the best ; but it is as 
 good as some that Mr. Viner has abridged, such as Com- 
 berbach and 8th Modern." (Edns. : The first in 1740, 
 without the author's name. Jn the 2d, fol. 1764, there 
 was added, according to the title-page, about 70 additional 
 cases.) 
 
 BARNES. CASES OF PRACTICE. 
 
 5 Geo. II.— 34 Geo. II. (1732-1760.) 
 
 Sir Erancis BuUer, in a case where he subverted a deci- 
 sion as reported in this book, spoke of Barnes as a writer 
 " who has indeed, in general, reported the practice of the 
 court with accuracy ;" but whose assertion in the particular 
 case "is unsupported by authority, and contradicted by 
 reason."' Mr. Justice Heath, on another occasion,^ went 
 farther, and said that the case cited from Barnes had been 
 overruled ; and that, indeed, " many cases reported in 
 that volume are not law." The "ia6ore"-ous Chief Jus- 
 tice Abbott, whose copy of Barnes I remember to have 
 seen in the library of Christ Church, Oxford, with the 
 marks of careful reading, in a third instance, even in- 
 dulged in something like a flight of wit. Mr. Manning 
 had moved for a rule absolute in the first instance, vouch- 
 ing a case from Barnes as authority : the Chief Justice, 
 without much ceremony, refused the rule, saying : " You 
 may find rules absolute in Barnes for anything."^ 
 
 In our own country, we find Mr. Williams, of the ITew 
 York Bar, styling Barnes "an authority of little weight;" 
 and remarking, that " his cases are so contradictory that 
 
 ' See post, Equity Reporters, tit. W. Kelynge. 
 
 s 1 B. & P. 333. » 3 B. & P. 245. * 1 Chitty's Rep. 233. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 269 
 
 they destroy each other." Chancellor Kent does not ap- 
 pear to have entirely responded to so general a censure ; 
 but the question before the court being one of practice, 
 he simply says, neither affirming nor denying the position 
 of Mr. Williams, that the cases cited from Barnes, are 
 good as historical evidence to prove the point of practice 
 in issue.* And on a question as to the character of the 
 Eeporter, it is worth noting, that Chief Justice Willes, 
 where he differed in opinion from Barnes's work, always 
 said " that the Court and not Barnes was mistaken."^ Our 
 late lamented Pennsylvania Chief Justice, Gibson, who, I 
 know, in his earlier life, gave more attention to biblio- 
 graphy than is usual with men of his commanding force 
 of mind, says in one place,' " Barnes is good authority, I 
 believe, for points of practice, though for little beside ;" 
 a criticism, which, as he happened afterwards to observe 
 that the book contains nothing but cases of practice, 
 he once remarked to me, "was not very discriminating."* 
 (Edns. : 1754, 2 vols. 8vo. ; reprinted with a Supplement 
 in 1766 ; again in 4to. 1772 ; and in 1790, in 8vo. The 
 earlier editions are, of course, less complete than the 
 last. The paging of the 4to. and 8vo. editions of Barnes 
 does not agree. An edition purporting to be the 2d, " re- 
 vised and corrected," appeared in Ireland, in 1788.) 
 
 RIDGEWAY'S HAEDWICKE. K B., CH. 
 
 7 Geo. II.— 11 Geo. II. (1733-1737.) 
 This volume, under the title of Cases during the Time of 
 
 ' 2 Johns. Ch. 69. " Richardson's Prao. Reg. 5th ed. 88, ii. ' 1 Watts, 490. 
 
 * This most amiable and engaging person, whose fine understanding and 
 various accomplishments of mind, were equalled only by his magnanimity 
 and goodness of nature, himself pointed out this fact, on my once mentioning 
 to him that I had noted, in the course of my reading, his observation on Barnes, 
 and was glad to find any criticism of his on the English Reporters. " It was 
 one of my blunders," he said pleasantly : " I suppose that I had heard thus, 
 and so I said it." Few persons, I suspect, in so long, laborious, and difiicult a 
 judicial term as his — a constant and severe service of forty years — could have 
 made so few as were made by him. 
 
270 THE COMMON" LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 Lord Hardwicke, was printed in 1794, irom a manuscript 
 of some reputation, though the author of it is not known. 
 In addition to the common law cases reported in it, the 
 book contains ahout an equal number of cases in Chancery, 
 decided between the years 1744 and 1746. See Chancery 
 Eeporters, post, same title. 
 
 The friend to whom this tract is inscribed, thus writes 
 to me in regard to the Cases at Law, which are reported 
 in this book. " I am satisfied, that all the cases at law in 
 Kidgeway's Hardwicke, are printed from the same MS., 
 or a copy of it, from which Mr. Leach has printed the 
 cases during the same term of time, in his additions to 7th 
 Modern.^ Thus, you will observe, 1st, that aU the cases 
 in the former are given in the latter, except three f the 
 first two of which, Mr. Leach may have left out as not 
 worth reporting, and the last because it is so well reported 
 in other books. 2d. All the cases in 7th Mod., during the 
 term of time traversed by Eidgeway, are in the latter ; 
 except the few mentioned in the note at the bottom of 
 this page,^ and which Eidgeway may have left out, for 
 reasons similar to those just mentioned with regard to 
 Leach. 3d. The cases follow one another, in both books, 
 in exactly the same sequence; and 4th, the Eeports of 
 S. C, in both books, are so literally alike, that it is impos- 
 sible they could have been reported by diflferent hands ; the 
 differences being merely verbal, and not near so great as 
 the differences which Mr. Leach has felt himself authorized 
 to make in books already printed, which he undertook to 
 edit."*" 
 
 ■ From page 169 to page 230. 
 
 2 The King v. Rainsford, Ridgeway, 59 ; Low's Ex'rs v. Brown, id. 81 ; and 
 Middleton v. Crofts, id. 109. 
 
 3 The King v. Taylor, 7 Mod. 169 ; Moy v. Osborne, id. 191 ; Webb v. 
 D wight, ib.; Cook v. Vivian, id. 203; Tryon v. Carter, id. 231 ; Hallet v. Law- 
 ton, id. 238. 
 
 * Thus, the 2d case in Ridgeway (Mayor of London v. Tench, p. 2), which 
 presents as great a variation from 7th Mod. as any one reported by the two, 
 differs from it only in stating seriatim the objections made by counsel, and then 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPORTERS. 271 
 
 Ridgeway's Hardwicke was printed at Dublin. Some 
 copies of it bear the London imprint, but tbe title-page 
 alone, I believe, was changed. 
 
 CinmiNGHAM. KB. 
 
 7 Geo. II.— 9 Geo. II. (1734-1736.) 
 
 Several of tbe cases in this volume are reprinted almost 
 verbatim in the work which follows, as they also are, with 
 more or less variation, in Eidgeway, and the part of 7th 
 Modern which contains cases in the King's Bench. " It 
 is obvious," says Mr. Green, who informs me of this fact, 
 " that all four books come from some copy of the same 
 MS." A note in the preface to the book announces that a 
 second part is in press, and would be published imme- 
 diately. I am not aware, however, that any such part 
 ever appeared. (Edns. : 1766 ; and 2d, 1770.) 
 
 ANNALY'S HARDWICKE. K. B. 
 
 7 Geo. II.— 11 Geo. II. (1733-1737.) 
 This book, under the name of Cases in the Time of Lord 
 
 giving the opinion of the court upon the whole of them, at the end of the case; 
 while in 7th Mod., at page 173, the court is made to answer each objection as 
 made, and before the counsel proceed to make another. Now, after reading 
 these two reports, in Ridgeway and 7th Modern, turn to the 1st, 2d, 4th, and 
 particularly the 7th case in Leach's edition of 8th Mod., and compare the re- 
 port of these cases, as there given, with the reports as found in the two former 
 editions of the same book, and you will see that Mr. Leach has made greater 
 alterations, and sometimes on the same point, with books in print. So again at 
 pages 21 and 4 of Mr. Leach's edition of the same book, 8th Modern, we have 
 Lord Coningsby's case as two separate cases (No. 10 and No. 30), while in the 
 two former editions, the whole is reported as one. In the old editions, after 
 giving us the first part of the case, in nearly the same words as Mr. Leach 
 gives us his case No. 10, the report proceeds thus : " There was another cause 
 in the Exchequer, in Trinity Term following, between the same persons, only 
 in that cause, the noble Lord was defendant, and by a rule of court, made on 
 a Thursday in the said term, it was ordered," &c. ; in Mr. Leach's edition, this 
 latter part is made a new case, detached, and put in another part of the book. 
 
272 THE COMMON LAW EEPOETEES. 
 
 Hardwicke, was mentioned, in 1766, by Dr. Calvert in tlie 
 Duchess of Kingston's Case,* as " a book lately published, 
 which," said he, " I am told is good authority, and the 
 cases well and correctly taken." In the same case,^ the 
 Attorney-Greneral, Thurlow, spoke of it by the name of 
 " Lord Annaly ;"' and it is frequently mentioned in the 
 course of the argument with respect. It has received 
 commendation from one of Lord Hardwicke's biographers 
 as presenting a very sufficient evidence of the extent of 
 this great man's learning, and of the acuteness of his in- 
 tellect ; though it is remarked that the arrangement and 
 style is bad.* 
 
 The authorship of a book, which is so much more 
 creditable than many for which authorship has been 
 claimed, has been a matter of some inquiry, but rests, I 
 believe, quite unknown. Mr. Vernon, the editor of An- 
 drews, states, in 1791, that he had examined the subject, 
 but admits that he had not been able to discover by whom 
 the cases were taken or compiled. He could only ascer- 
 tain that Mr. Harward, barrister at law, and one of the 
 persons to whom the authorship has been ascribed, gave 
 the MS., about the year 1768, to Mrs. Elizabeth Lynch, 
 bookseller, in Dublin, and that Lord Annaly, to whom 
 Mr. Harward had given a copy of the MS., had given 
 the same lady an index which he had prepared for his 
 own use; but neither of those persons was the author, 
 nor otherwise concerned in the publication than as just 
 mentioned. In addition to the name given at the head 
 of this section, the work is known as Kep. temp. Hard. ; 
 Ca. temp. Hard, by Lee ;' or Lee's Ca. temp. Hard.® 
 
 ' 20 Howell's State Trials, 424. » Id. 454. 
 
 ' John Gore, Esq., Barrister at Law, became C. J. of K. B. Ireland, and was 
 made a peer of that kingdom, 1766, as Baron Annaly. He was chosen Speaker 
 of the House of Lords, and died in 1783, when the peerage became extinct 
 (Burke). 
 
 * London Law Magazine, quoted in the American Jurist for April, 1841, vol. 
 XXV. p. 17. 
 
 5 Wilkinson on Replevin, 114. » Id. 5. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 273 
 
 In this -work, as in the two preceding, we have a record 
 of the Chief Justiceship, at common law, of the Earl of 
 Hardwicke, afterwards so eminent as Chancellor. It has 
 passed into common remark, that minds even of the 
 highest order have not always manifested themselves with 
 equal distinction in all departments of the same science, 
 and it would be interesting to know what illustration of 
 the sentiment is derived from the career of a man so 
 splendid as Lord Hardwicke. Lord Campbell* observes, 
 that " he did not make his name very distinguished by 
 any considerable improvements in the system which he 
 here administered; and subsequently exhibited greater 
 powers when he had to expatiate in a new field." Op- 
 posed to this opinion is a sentiment said to have been ex- 
 pressed by Lord Thurlow, that he thought the Earl of 
 Hardwicke more able as Chief Justice than as Chancel- 
 lor :^ but I am not aware that Lord Thurlow, in any one 
 of the manifold times in which he had occasion to consider 
 Lord Hardwicke's equity decisions, anywhere recorded 
 such a judgment. 
 
 The volume contains some cases by Lord Lee, and two 
 equity cases by Lord Hardwicke. 
 
 It must be distinguished from another book called Cases 
 temp. Hardwicke, and published in 1828, by Mr. West, 
 from Lord Hardwicke's MSS., and which contains chan- 
 cery Cases from 1736 to 1739. (Edns. : Dublin, 8vo. 1769 : 
 Lond. fol. 1770 : Lond. Svo. 1815, by Thomas Lee.) 
 
 WILLBS. C. P., EX. CH., DOM. PEOC. 
 
 8 Geo. II.— 33 Geo. II. (1737-1760.) 
 
 These Reports, though posthumous, are admitted to be 
 highly authoritative. They appear to have been prepared 
 by the Chief Justice himself, and were carefully revised 
 
 ' Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers, v. p. 33. * lb. n. 
 
 18 
 
274 THE COMMON LAW EEPORTEKS. 
 
 by Mr. Durnford, their reputable editor. Willes and 
 Wilson are probably the most authoritative Eeports of 
 the reign of Geo. 11.* 
 
 While a student at All Saints, Oxford, the author, in 
 1714, published a pamphlet called " The Present Consti- 
 tution and the Protestant Succession Vindicated," for 
 which labor of loyalty and letters, he was sent, in 1718, 
 into Scotland, to assist in carrying on prosecutions against 
 the "rebels." He was made Attorney-General in Dec. 
 1733, succeeding Sir Philip Torke, then made 0. J. of the 
 K B., and in Jan. 1737, 0. J. of the C. P. He died in 
 1761. (Edns. : Pol. 1799 ; also in 8vo. 1800 ; and in the 
 same form, in this country, 1802.) 
 
 ANDREWS. KB. 
 
 11 Geo. II 13 Geo. II. (1738-1740.) 
 
 Many of the cases contained in these Reports are also 
 reported by Strange, and in Cases temp. Hardwicke. 
 Andrews, however, says Mr. Marvin," has usually given a 
 fdller and more satisfactory report than is found in other 
 books embracing the same term, and his volume is affirmed 
 to be " accurate, judicious, and satisfactory." Mr. Rayner, 
 likewise, in his Readings on the Statutes, speaks of it " as 
 very much esteemed by the profession in general."^ 
 (Edns. : Fol. 1754 ; 2d, by Mr. G. W. Vernon, much im- 
 proved, and with some additional cases, in an Appendix, 
 Dublin, 1792.) 
 
 FOSTER. K B. (PLAC. COR.) 
 
 16 Geo. II.— 1 Geo. III. (1743-1761.) 
 " As Mansfield wise, and as old Foster just J" 
 
 Is a compliment of Churchill ; rather ambiguous, and 
 
 • 1 Kent's Com. 488. * J^gg^ Bibliography, tit. Andrews. » Page 96. 
 
THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 275 
 
 illustrating the pregnancy of language, as much as the full 
 birth of grace. The integrity and fearlessness of Foster 
 were certainly invulperable ; and Thurlow, referring to 
 his j\fdicial conduct in a trial where one of the royal 
 princesses was convicted, spoke of him as that " one Eng- 
 lish Judge whom nothing can tempt or frighten, — ready 
 and able to hold up the laws of his country as a great 
 shield of the rights of the people."* He was a man of 
 fair ability — of great knowledge in criminal law — a little 
 obstinate, and sometimes, possibly, more subtle than sa- 
 gacious; "just," perhaps, rather than "wise." 
 
 The first edition of his Eeports was printed at Oxford, 
 with a beauty and correctness which drew forth Lord 
 Hardwicke's admiration.^ Besides the Eeports, there is 
 added in the volume some discourses on certain branches 
 of Crown Law. A pirated reprint of the book came out 
 soon after in Ireland ; and at a later date. Poster's nephew, 
 Michael Dodson, twice re-edited it, in the last instance 
 with an Appendix, containing some matters, which, by the 
 advice of Lord Mansfield and Lord Hardwicke,' Foster 
 had himself suppressed. _ Among them was a dissenting 
 opinion in Midwinter v. Sims. In an afiectionate and cha- 
 racteristic letter to Foster, Lord Mansfield had spoken of 
 it in terms which illustrate its value, and, to some extent, 
 the author's character also. " I very much wish," says the 
 Earl, " that you would not enter your protest with pos- 
 terity against the unanimous opinion of the other Judges, 
 &c. If the determination was contrary to former autho- 
 rities, there is no hurt in it ... . The authorities which 
 you cite prove strongly your position ; but they seem to 
 be founded in subtle nicety and very literal interpretation, 
 not upon the large principles which you lay down, — ^the 
 doing justice to the public and adapting the punishment 
 
 to the degree of guilt The construction of the 
 
 majority is agreeable to justice ; and therefore suppose it 
 
 ' Dodson's Life of Foster, 88. « Id. 47. " Id. 32 and 43. 
 
276 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 wrong upon artificial reasonings of law, I tMnk it better 
 to leave the matter where it is. It is not dignus vindiee 
 nodus." 
 
 Michael Foster was born in Wiltshire, December 16, 
 1689 ; matriculated at Oxford, May 7th, 1705 ; and ad- 
 mitted to the Middle Temple, May 23, 1707. He was 
 more distinguished by judgment than by eloquence, and 
 had not much success in London as an advocate.. He 
 afterwards removed to Bristol, of which city, in August, 
 1735, he was chosen Kecorder. He appears to have been 
 a low churchman in religion, and, in 1735, having previ- 
 ously taken some part against the more orthodox side, he 
 published an attack of Bishop Gibson's Codex. The field 
 was one, it is probable, in which he was not a match for 
 the Bishop of London. On the 22d of April, 1745, at the 
 recommendation of Lord Hardwicke, he was appointed to 
 a Judgeship of the King's Bench, having been previously 
 knighted. He died in office on the 7th November, 1763. 
 
 (Edns. : Ist, folio, 1764, and Dublin, piratically, ; 2d, 
 
 by Dodson, 8vo. in 1776 ; 3d, 8vo. with an Appendix, by 
 the same person, 1796.) 
 
 PAEKER. EX. 
 
 16 Geo. II.— 7 Geo. III. (1743-1767.) 
 
 The cases embraced within the term just indicated, 
 were prepared by Sir Thomas Parker himself. But besides 
 these, the volume contains, in an Appendix, some cases 
 from 1678 to 1718. These, Sir Thomas says, were care- 
 fully transcribed from authentic MSS. The book is one 
 of very good authority. (Edns. : Fol. 1776 ; 8vo. 1791.) 
 
 WHiSOF. K. B. ANDC. P. 
 
 Pakt I. K. B. 16 Geo. II.— 27 Geo. II. (1743-1754.) 
 Pabts II. AND III. C. P. 26 Geo. II.— 15 Geo. III. (1753-1775.) 
 
 These Reports embrace the time when C. J. "Wilmot 
 
THE COMMON LAW EEPOETERS. 277 
 
 was on the bench ; and being " very accurate repositories" 
 of the decisions they report,' are of course highly interest- 
 ing and authoritative. Some of "Wilmot's decisions (from 
 1757-70) are found in a 4to. volume, called Wilmot's 
 Notes, pubhshed in 1802, and which contains decisions 
 and opinions in the House of Lords, K, B., C. P., and 
 Exchequer Chamber. (Edns. : There have been three 
 editions of Wilson's Reports; 1770 and 1775 (in each 
 case three parts being bound in 2 vols, folio) ; the third, 
 and best, in 3 vols. 8vo. 1779 ; a 4th, Dublin, 1792.) 
 
 BLACKSTONE. K. B., C. P., AOT) CH. 
 
 20 Geo. II.— 20 Geo, III. (1746-1780.) 
 
 Although these Eeports were ordered by Sir William 
 Blackstone's last will to be published, it has been generally 
 thought that they were notes pour servir, rather than the 
 completed Reports, which, had the elegant commentator's 
 life been spared, would have been given to the profession. 
 It is certain that while there has been no question as to 
 the genuineness of the Reports, they have not been held 
 in that estimation which the name of Sir W. Blackstone 
 had a right to confer. 
 
 " The Eeports of Sir Wm. Blackstone," says Mr. Justice 
 Lewis,^ " though the production of an able Judge, are not 
 of the highest authority. They are posthumous works, 
 edited by his executor, who does not appear to have been 
 a lawyer, and who has given them to the world without 
 their having undergone the last revision intended by the 
 author." Indeed, the bad reputation of Blackstone's Re- 
 ports seems to have got even into France ; for in speaking 
 of them, Dnpin' remarks : " iSes reports ne Jouissent paa de 
 la mime estime que ses autres ouvrages, et passent pour Stre 
 tres-inexaets." Lord Mansfield, in fact, said that they were 
 
 ' 1 Kent's Com. 488. ' 1 Johns. Ca. 45. » Profession d'Avooat, ii. p. 375. 
 
278 THE COMMON LAW REPORTERS. 
 
 " not very accurate :"' and such, for many years, was the 
 idolatry paid to everything which fell from the Earl's lips, 
 that this dictum was enough to give them disrepute for at 
 least a generation afterwards. Of late, however, these 
 Eeports have been well re-edited, and appear to have been 
 more esteemed. The matter is less important, as most of 
 the cases in the K. B. are reported in Burrow, and most 
 of those in the C. P. by Wilson, two of the best of all 
 the English reporters. (Edns. : Fol. 2 vols. 1780 ; 8vo. 
 2 vols. 1781. The improved edition of Sir "William Black- 
 stone's Eeports, just now referred to, is one by Mr. Elsley, 
 and was published in 1828, 2 vols. 8vo.) 
 
 SAYER. 
 
 25 Geo. II.— 80 Geo. II. (1751-1756.) 
 
 "But an inaccurate reporter, "a (Edns.: Eol. 1775; 8vo. 
 Dublin, 1790.) 
 
 KEI^OK 
 
 26 Geo. II.— 1 Geo. III. (1753-1760.) 
 
 These reports, though posthumous, are from the genuine 
 MSS. of Lord Kenyon ; and having been printed by the 
 consent of his successor in the title, were probably sup- 
 posed to detract nothing from the first Lord's reputation. 
 But there is no evidence that the Chief Justice himself ever 
 designed them for the press. The only account I find of 
 the work is by Mr. Townsend, the Eecorder of Maccles- 
 field.^ Speaking of Lord Kenyon's early professional life 
 and of his intercourse with Mr. Dunning, he says that 
 Kenyon's diligence often supplied Dunning with " cases 
 for which he might otherwise have searched in vain, and 
 furnished him, when immersed in business, with sound 
 
 ' 1 Doug. 93, n. " 1 Sug. on Vend. 80. 
 
 ' Lives of Twelve Judges, vol. i. p. 38. 
 
THE CHANCERY REPORTEES. 279 
 
 opinions." Mr. Dunning "in turn supplied memoranda 
 of tlie arguments he liad urged in banc, and tlie admirable 
 judgments of Lord Mansfield. These our young lawyer 
 carefijlly noted in his commonplace book, and contrived 
 to amass a large collection of MSS., which were in general 
 more full and complete than the Eeports of Strange and 
 Salkeld, and even Burrows, and to which he often referred 
 with satisfaction in his decisions on the bench." How- 
 ever made, the authority of Kenyon's MSS., even during 
 his lifetime, was very considerable in "Westminster Hall : 
 In Doe V. Fonnerau,' after a case had been argued twice 
 and decided, the Court of K. ^,, on the authority of a 
 MS. of his, ordered it to be again argued, and reversed 
 the former decision. In 9th Simons, 447, there is a re- 
 ference to 3d Kenyon ; but I have never seen more than 
 two volumes of this work. (Edns. : 1819-25.) 
 
 WILMOT'S l^OTES. 
 
 31 Geo. IL— 10 Gbo. III. (1757-1770.) 
 (Edns. : 4to. 1802. With a portrait, by Heath.) 
 
 For the Coramon Law Reporters after the reign of George 11., whether 
 American or English, see post, after the Chancery Reporters." 
 
 THE CHANCEEY REPOETERS. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to remind the professional reader, 
 that a considerable number of Chancery decisions are 
 found among the volumes generally classed with the Com- 
 mon Law Reports. Thus, the Modern Reports, Ventris, 
 Salkeld, Fortescue, Comyns, Fitzgibbons, Strange, Kelyng, 
 
 ' 2 Doug. 487. 
 
280 THE CHANCERY REPOBTEES. 
 
 Eidgeway, Blackstone, Kenyon; and other Reporters prior 
 to the reign of George HE., all occasionally record cases in 
 Equity ; just as, on the other hand, Peere "Williams and 
 other Chancery reporters sometimes preserve a note of 
 decisions at Law. Cases in the Exchequer, also, were 
 formerly thrown in with the reports of decisions in the 
 other courts. , 
 
 PEOCEEDINGS m CHANCERY. 
 
 BlOHAKD II.— EliZ. (13— TO 16—.) 
 
 The title of this work is : 
 
 " Calendars of the Proceedings in Chancery in the Reign 
 of Queen Elizabeth, to which are prefixed Examples of 
 earlier Proceedings in that Court, namely, from the Reign 
 of Richard 11. to that of Queen Elizabeth, inclusive, from 
 originals in the Tower. Printed by command of His 
 Majesty King George IV"., in pursuance of an Address of 
 the House of Commons," &c., &e. 
 
 I have already alluded in several places,^ as I also do 
 very specially in an Appendix, to the unpublished reports 
 which yet exist in different collections in England, and to 
 the valuable services of the Record Commission, in arrang- 
 ing and in partially publishing them. In a juridical point 
 of view, the most valuable of all these labors are those 
 which have been directed towards illustrating the origin 
 of equitable jurisprudence. There are before me three 
 large folios, printed in 1827, and bearing the title already 
 given. These volumes do not, of course, present a tran- 
 script of the multitudinous documents brought to light by 
 the Commission. They are in this, as in other cases, 
 rather an index for reference to the originals.^ You have, 
 
 • See ante, " Remarks," § 34, IT iv. ; also, pp. 51, 77, &o. 
 
 ^ The Chancery Calendars of England, as printed, do not extend beyond the 
 three folios mentioned ; though two or three large volumes are given to the 
 Irish Chancery. The commissioners thought that the superior interest of other 
 
THE CHANCERY REPOETEES. 281 
 
 however, in nearly all cases, I believe, tlie names of the 
 parties, the purpose of the bill, and a description of the 
 property. - The form of the equity pleadings in those early 
 days, as v^ell as in Elizabeth's, is presented to you by ex- 
 amples of bills and petitions, at large, in each reign. 
 
 " Some of the petitions," says Mr. Adams, in describing 
 these Calendars,' " appear to have been merely presented 
 to the Chancellor, as the official framer of ordinary writs, 
 to obtain a suitable one for the plaintiff's case ; others, 
 especially during the reigns of Edward IV,, Henry VI., and 
 Henry VIH., are for a writ in the nature of a habeas corpus 
 to have the complainant released from an illegal imprison- 
 ment; but in the majority of instances they appeal to the 
 prerogative jurisdiction of the Chancellor, and pray, not 
 that the wrong complained of may be remedied at law, 
 but that the Chancellor will examine the parties, and give 
 appropriate redress. In many cases a special ground is 
 alleged for calling on the Chancellor to exercise a jurisdic- 
 tion, which would naturally fall within the province of the 
 common law courts. One of the grounds so alleged, and 
 which strongly marks the character of the age, is the dif- 
 ficulty of obtaining justice by reason of the wealth and 
 
 and more ancient records, did not justify the expenditure of additional money 
 on this part of the subject. Some idea of the vast extent of it may be formed 
 from tliis fact, asserted by them : that to present a mere calendar of the docu- 
 ments enrolled in the Chancery rolls alone, from the beginning of the reign of 
 Richard II. to the close of the reign of King Edward IV. (little more than 
 two hundred years), would cost upward of twenty thousand pounds sterling. 
 Yet those rolls are but a small part of the whole contents of the Record Office 
 at the Tower, and are in a very low ratio indeed, to the body of the national 
 records. (Gen. Rep. of the Cora, to the King, 1837, p. xvii.) To have but 
 raked these immensely voluminous records from " the caves and womby vault- 
 ages'' where they had lain in the repose of centuries, must have been an 
 Augean work : and we may be well contented, even though they be only 
 methodized and arranged, made clean, repaired and bound, and put into such 
 form as to be accessible in any shape, to the public. 
 
 I may here mention, that the Record Commission was allowed to expire in 
 1837 ; and that a Government Department was appointed in its stead, under 
 the title of The Public Record Office. 
 
 ' Doctrine of Equity, xxxi. 
 
282 THE CHANCERY BEPORTEES, 
 
 power of the wrong-doer. Thus in one case, it is said 
 that the plaintiff cannot have any remedy at law in con- 
 sequence of the defendant heing surrounded by many men 
 of his maintenance. In another, that the defendant is 
 strong and abounding in riches, and a great maintainer 
 of quarrels, and the complainant is poor, and hath not the 
 means to sue for remedy at the common law. In a third, 
 the relief is prayed, 'because your petitioners John and 
 Catherine are so poor, and the said John so ill, that they 
 cannot pursue the common law.' Of this sort of jurisdic- 
 tion there are many instances, but in one case, towards the 
 end of Henry the Eighth's reign, the prayer is, that the 
 petitioner, who had been restrained by injunction from 
 proceeding at law, 'may be relieved from the prohibi- 
 tion, because he is a poor man, and unable to sue in the 
 King's Court of Chancery.'* The most frequent of these 
 equities, especially in the latter years of Henry VI., and in 
 the subsequent reigns, is for enforcing conveyances by 
 feoffees in trust ; but many other ordinary equities occur. 
 Thus, for example, we find a bill seeking to set aside a 
 conveyance which the defendant had obtained by intoxi- 
 cating the plaintiff;^ a bill by a tithe-owner to obtain pay- 
 ment for his tithes f a bill stating that the plaintiff had 
 recovered her land at law, but that the. defendant con- 
 tinued vexatiously to harass her, and seeking to have him 
 restrained ;* a bill by an executor, stating that the defen- 
 dant had by a trick obtained from him a general release, 
 when he was ignorant of a debt due from the defendant 
 to his testator, and intended the release to apply to other 
 matters, and praying an injunction against setting it up at 
 law as a discharge of that debt;' a bill against an executor 
 
 ' Goddard v. Ingepenne, 1 Chan. Cal. viii. ; Thomas v. Wyse, lb. xiv. ; Bell 
 V. Savage, lb. xiv. ; Royal v. Garter, lb. exxx. 
 ^ Stonehouse v. Stanshaw, 1 Oh. Cal. xxix. 
 " Arkenden v. Starkey, lb. xxxv. 
 * Freeman v. Pontrell, lb. xlii. 
 ' Cobbethorn v. Williams, lb. 11. 
 
THE CHANCERY REPORTERS, 283 
 
 for payment of his testator's debt ;* a bill to perpetuate 
 testimony f a bill for discovery of title deeds ;^ and a bill 
 for specific performance of a contract.* It must not, 
 however, be supposed, that in all the petitions to the 
 Chancellor contained in these records the principles of 
 modern equity were rigorously observed ; or even that it 
 was the uniform practice to set out any special ground for 
 interference. In many instances the doctrines of equity 
 may be traced; but there are many others, where the 
 complaints made are merely of violent assaults, or of other 
 wrongs which might apparently have been redressed at 
 law. And we sometimes find the jurisdiction resisted on 
 that ground. Thus, for example, in one of the cases 
 already referred to, the bill, after mentioning the sub- 
 traction of the plaintijBf s tithes, complains a;lso that the 
 defendant had violently driven away his sheep, and the 
 defendant, after answering the former charge, says with 
 reference to the latter, ' that the same is determined at 
 the common law ; wherefore he understands not, that the 
 King's Court of his Chancery in this case will have know- 
 ledge ; nevertheless, for declaration of the matter to you, 
 my Lord Chancellor, the defendant saith, that he never 
 took nor drove away any sheep of the said complainant.' 
 And in a subsequent case we find the defendant alleging 
 that some of the matter contained in the bill is, ' matter 
 triable at the common law, by action of trespass or false 
 imprisonment, the which matter ought not, by the King's 
 law of this land, to be determined in this Court :' and 
 that other matters in the bill alleged are, in like manner, 
 determinable at the common law, by assize of novel dis- 
 seisin, and by writ of dower : ' nevertheless,' he goes on 
 to say, 'for the truth and plainness of the matter, he 
 denies having done the acts complained of.' "* 
 
 ' Vavasour v. Chadwick, 1 Ch. Cal. xoiii. 
 
 2 Earl of Oxford v. Tyrrell, lb. cxx. 
 
 "Baker v. Parson, 2 Chan. Cal. 1. 
 
 * Tyngelden v. Warham, lb. liv. 
 
 " Arkenden v. Starkey, 1 Ch. Cal. xxxv. ; Harry v. Lyngeyn, lb. xlix. 
 
284 THE CHANCERY EEPORTEES. 
 
 It would appear from ttese volumes, that it lias been in 
 the law as income other sciences, and that while our age 
 has thought that with it was horn all knowledge, we have, 
 in truth, been left in the rear by times which we regard 
 as buried in superstition and darkness. The whole struc- 
 ture of equity has been supposed by many writers to be 
 founded on uses of lands, and to have had but imperfect 
 foundation prior to the time of Elizabeth. These records 
 show, that far from such restricted action, the Chancellors 
 were giving regular and constant relief in regard to all 
 sorts and kinds of equitable subjects, and many not equit- 
 able, perhaps, at all, centuries before Elizabeth was born ; 
 in the times of Eichard 11., of the 5th and 6th Henrys, 
 and Edward IV. " When we advert to the various ob- 
 jects of these bills," says Mr. Binney,* "we may imagine 
 ourselves to be reading a Chancery calendar of the present 
 day ; in which parties, in some cases with no definite or 
 particular interest, legal or equitable, ask for the supply of 
 new trustees, for the redress of abuses, for a decree to en- 
 force a charge upon land, or to change the investment of 
 a charity — in behalf of the poor, of scho6ls, of churches, 
 of hospitals ; . . . . injunction bills, bills of revivor, cross 
 bills ; the full action of equity in all respects." In truth, 
 though Judge Story and probably oth^r writers from 
 whom he copied, have spoken of Lord iNTottingham and 
 his successors as having brought Equity into a science 
 by enlarging its bounds and increasing its scope of action, 
 any one who studies these records will see that the ser- 
 vices of the great Father of Equity and of those who 
 immediately succeeded him, consisted much less in such 
 action than in settling the boundaries, of the system, 
 defining its powers, restraining its extravagancies, and by 
 bringing the whole into proper relations, having made it 
 the intelligent companion instead of the arbitrary mis- 
 tress of the Common Law. The value of these Pro- 
 ceedings in Chancery, in disclosing the foundations of 
 
 ' Argument in Vidal v. The City of Philadelphia, p. 104. 
 
THE CHANCERY REPORTERS. 285 
 
 equitable jurisprudence, has been frequently noted by tbe 
 profession ;» and the work was particularly relied on, in 
 1844, by the Supreme Court of the United States, in the 
 great case of Vidal v. The City of PMladelphia,^ where, 
 in a case of doubt if not of difficulty, it was cited with 
 conclusive effect on the argument, by one of the defen- 
 dant's counsel. I have already remarked how much less 
 correct the early Chancery reporters are, than even those 
 at Common Law.' It is on account of this incorrectness 
 of the ordinary reporters, that these Proceedings in Chan- 
 cery are especially valuable. Giving to us, as they do, 
 the pleadings (at large, in many cases, and the power, in 
 others, to refer to them), we have the best sort of reports, 
 for " the forms of the law, are the indices and conservato- 
 ries of its principles."'' 
 
 ACTA CAN'CELLARI^. 
 
 36 Hen. VIII.— 1 Cae. I. (1545-1625.) , 
 
 1 have already remarked, that no specites of report can 
 be so authoritative a memorial of what was done in court, 
 as the record itself: this is monumental evidence, and 
 depends, not upon the faithfulness of memory or of con- 
 ception, but merely on the accuracy of transcript. It is 
 on this account that I here insert among the Chancery 
 reporters, this recently published volume by Cecil Monro, 
 Esquire, one of the Eegistrars of the Court of Chancery. 
 The volume, of about 800 pages, contains two parts. 1st. 
 Extracts from the Master's Eeports, and certificates during 
 the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James I. 2d. 
 Extracts from the Eegistrar's books, from 1545 to the end 
 of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It is a work more 
 
 ' Queen v. Milliss, 10 CJark & Finnelly, 659; Seaton's Equity Forms, v.; 
 Adams's Doctrine of Equity, xxx. 
 
 2 2 Howard's S. C. Rep. 196. » JMe, " Remarks," § 18. 
 < Gibson, C. J. 1 Whart. 71. 
 
286 THE CHAKCERY REPORTERS. 
 
 curious, perhaps, than now practically useful; though, 
 undoubtedly, the extracts are judiciously made, and the 
 annotations upon them give proof at once of capacity 
 and learning. It serves to illustrate some of the Eeports 
 in the Choice Cases, Tothill and Carey ; and the 2d part, 
 especially, to give precision and completeness to the early 
 history of Chancery jjmsdiction and practice. The work 
 is interesting, also, inrespect of more general history. In 
 Part I. pp. 131 and 149, — ^the editor remarks — ^will be 
 found some papers connected vrith the family of Richard 
 Hooker, author of the immortal " Laws of Ecclesiastical 
 Polity ;" four documents (p. 176) relating to a Chancery 
 suit, in which Sir Walter Ealeigh was involved during his 
 imprisonment in the Tower, and which contain some 
 curious circumstances connected with that extraordinary 
 man. Two papers (p. 221) attest the existence of a "Wil- 
 liam Shakspeare, not the poet, but certainly a connection 
 and contemporary, an indifferent character from his youth 
 up, and who may have been the real actor in some of the 
 excesses now popularly attributed to his great namesake ; 
 and at page 68, an omission in the pedigree of General 
 Washington, as given by Baker, in his History of North- 
 amptonshire, and copied by some American biographers 
 in their Life of Washington, has been corrected. A col- 
 lateral ancestor of the President, it appears, was a Regis- 
 trar of the Court of Chancery.' In Part H. are numerous 
 contempt orders, which seem to point at a very disturbed 
 state of society. 
 
 Mr. Monro, whom I had the pleasure to see in London, 
 in 1850, told me that he had the materials ready for con- 
 tinuing this book down to the time of the Restoration. A 
 want of patronage has probably prevented the publication 
 of them ; a matter to be regretted, and not creditable 
 either to the Bar or Government of England. 
 
 ' See ante, p. 231. 
 
THE CHANCERY KEPOETEES. 287 
 
 CAET. 
 
 5 Makt— 2 Jao. 1. (1557-1604.) 
 
 Caiy was rather tlie editor than author of this little 
 book ; which is stated to be out of the labors of Mr. "Wil- 
 liam Lambert. Two editions, one printed in 1650, the 
 other in 1665, are both alike, except in the paging, which is 
 different. A 3d edition was printed in 1820. The last 
 two — the only ones which I have seen — are in 16to. " In 
 Gary," says Mr. C. P. Cooper, " are numerous and some- 
 times interesting decisions of Lord EUesmere ;" and Mr. 
 Cooper dates the regular series of Chancery Reports, as 
 commencing with Cary and Tothill.' As a matter of 
 curiosity, rather than of practical interest, I annex a sketch 
 of the author from Mr. Monro's Acta Cancellarise.^ 
 
 Sir George Carew was author of Cary's Reports, which 
 he collected out of the labors of Master WiUiam Lambert 
 (Lambard), himself also a Master. It may be observed, 
 en passant, that the cases in Cary's Reports are, very 
 often, mere verbal transcripts from the Registrar's books. 
 The Reporter had been secretary to Lord Chancellor 
 Hatton, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth. In 1597, 
 being then a Master in Chancery, he was sent ambassador 
 to Poland. In the next reign he was one of the Commis- 
 sioners for treating with the Scotch about a union be- 
 tween the kingdoms ; after which he held the post of 
 Ambassador to France, from A.D. 1605, to A.D. 1609. 
 On his return from France he was appointed Master of 
 the Court of Wards ; and he appears to have died early 
 in 1613. Whilst abroad he formed a friendship with the 
 historian De Thou, and was much regretted by him. Sir 
 George Carew was a nephew of Sir Matthew Carew, and 
 brother to Richard Carew, author of the Survey of Corn- 
 wall.' Dr. Kennett, says that Sir George dwelt in Carew 
 
 ' Cooper's Reports temp. Lord Cottenham, xovii. ^ Page 29. 
 
 * See Dr. Birch's " View of Negotiations between England, France, and Brns- 
 gels," Introd, p. xvi. 
 
288 THE CHANCEKT REPOKTEES. 
 
 House, Tuthill Street, in "Westminster, and dying 
 there, was buried in the middle chancel of the parish 
 Church of St. Margaret.^ Dr. Birctf speaks in the highest 
 terms of a work of Sir George Carew, entitled " A Kela- 
 tion of the State of France," as "a model upon which 
 ambassadors may form and digest their notions and repre- 
 sentations." 
 
 CHOICE CASES IN CHAtfCEET. 
 
 5 Maet— 4 Jao. I. (1557-1606.) 
 
 These cases form the last 75 pages of a little volume 
 called " The Practice of the High Court of Chancery, 
 with the Nature of the several Offices belonging to that 
 Court, and the Eeports of many Cases wherein relief hath 
 been there had, and where denied." It seems to be a 
 very good little book so far as it goes, though in that part 
 wMch treats of the Practice of the Court, it is now anti- 
 quated ; and in the part which gives Reports, is very quaint 
 and short, though quite clear and intelligent. Like Lam- 
 bard, Tothill, and a few similar works, this volume is one 
 which those great cases that occur from time to time 
 and stimulate inquiry into the very foundations of legal 
 science, will occasionally call forth ; and it ought, there- 
 fore, to be in every public law-library. But, like the 
 books already just named, and a good many others which 
 I speak of among the Reporters, it is of very little practical 
 value in ordinary Chancery practice. 
 
 As the volume is quite rare, so rare, indeed, that except 
 the copies in Temple Library, and the Library of Lincoln's 
 Inn, I have never seen more than one copy of it anywhere, 
 I extract a few of these choice cases. 
 
 They can be, as I have said, of no practical use, but there 
 is a picturesqueness and dramatic interest about them — 
 
 > See Lansd. MSS. No. 983, fol. 199, 203. 
 
 ' Introd, xvi. and Life of Prince Henry, p. 104. 
 
THE CHANCERY EEPORTEBS. 289 
 
 especially as seen by the half lights in which, sitting so 
 far off, we, here and at this time of day, necessarily view 
 them, that makes them quite entertaining ; and indeed 
 as an exhibition of Elizabethan habits, manners, and 
 pecuharities, quite instructive. 
 
 1. "The sheriff upon an attachment returned Cepi 
 corpus et languidus in prisona. Whereupon a duces 
 tecum was awarded ; and thereupon the sheriff returned 
 adhuc languidus. Forasmuch as "Walter Williams made 
 an oath that defendant neither at the time of the return 
 nor now is so sick but that he goeth abroad, therefore the 
 sheriff is amerced five pounds for his false return. Ar- 
 nold, plaintiff; Koberts, defendant. Anno 19 and 20 
 Eliz. 
 
 2. "John Rogers made oath he left a note of the 
 defendant's appearance at Master Blake's house in Ey- 
 nam, Hampshire, where the defendant most abiding is ; 
 and hath hanged the writ on the door for a certain space ; 
 and after carried the writ to Agness Hide's house, and 
 hanged it upon the door, she then being within the said 
 house ; who hath not appeared. Therefore several attach- 
 ments. Hide, plaintiff; Martin and Agnes, defendants. 
 Anno 20 Eliz. 
 
 3. " Mantel, one of the defendants, maketh oath that 
 his wife hath a young child sucking upon her, without 
 whom he cannot directly answer. And that the other de- 
 fendant is an infant under the age of 21 years. There- 
 fore they are respited for answer until Trinity Term next. 
 Dale, plaintiff; Mantel uxor, ejus and Dale, defendants. 
 Anno 21 Eliz. 
 
 4. " The defendant, by order of court, was to make a 
 perfect answer upon oath, if he were of safe memory ; if 
 he were not, without oath. The defendant made answer 
 without oath by his prochain amie, and moved by Master 
 Egerton, that he was not in sufficient case to make an an- 
 swer upon oath. Therefore ordered that Master Waldron, 
 one of the Masters of this Court, shall go to him to see if he 
 
 19 
 
290 THE CHANCEEY REPORTERS. 
 
 be in sufficient state to make answer upon oath or no ; 
 andto certifytlie court. Osley, plaintiff; Morgan, defendant. 
 Anno 21 Eliz. 
 
 5. " The defendant demurred upon the plaintiff's bill, 
 for that she supposed she was a feme covert, and her hus- 
 band living in Barbary. But foij that it was informed on 
 the plaintiff's behalf that the defendant's husband was 
 burnt in a ship in Barbary two years since, and she, un- 
 derstanding thereof, hath since dealt as a feme sole, there- 
 fore ordered the defendant shall answer. And if it shall 
 hereafter appear by good proof to the court, that the hus- 
 band is in life, then it is ordered by assent all proceedings 
 shall be void. Wright and uxor., plaintiffs; Margaret 
 Ealph, defendant. Anno 21 Eliz. 
 
 6. "The defendant being both senseless and dumb, 
 ordered that no attachment shall go out against him. But 
 after, upon information that he is come to his senses, a 
 commission is awarded to some discreet commissioners to 
 take his answer. Altham, plaintiff; Smith, defendant. 
 Anno 21, 22 Eliz. 
 
 7.' "The plaintiff, after the defendants' answer put in, 
 was excommunicate, notwithstanding the plaintiff re- 
 plied, and served the defendants to rejoin ; who by way of 
 rejoinder pleaded the excommunication, and showed a 
 certificate thereof. And yet the plaintiff proceeded and 
 took out a commission to examine witnesses. And or- 
 dered that all proceedings by replication and commission 
 since the excommunication is void, and shall be sup- 
 pressed, and no further proceedings until the plaintiff 
 bring and show forth letters of absolution. Hobbes, 
 plaintiff; Hobbes and Churchhill, defendants. Anno 22 
 Eliz. 
 
 8. "The defendant knoweth no such Thomas as is 
 named for the plaintiff, nor the town where he is named to 
 be dwelling, and the same defendant and his two brethren 
 were likewise served at the suit of one Thomas Vaughan, 
 whereas none of them knew any such man, but suppose 
 
THE CHANCEET REPORTERS. 291 
 
 the process was procured against them for vexation, by 
 Mathew ap Eichard, and Charles ap Eichard, who are now 
 in town. Therefore ordered that the Warden of the Fleet 
 shall warn the parties to be in court to-morrow morning 
 to answer the premises, and then further order. Thomas 
 Vaughan, plaintiff; William, defendant. Anno 22 Eliz. 
 (The case then continues.) Ap Eichard served a subpoenS 
 in the plaintiff's name where there is no such party ; 
 therefore an attachment against ap Eichard. Jones, 
 plaintiff. Anno, 22 Eliz. 
 
 9. " The defendants moved by Master "Warberton to 
 have the cause dismissed into the County Palatine of 
 Chester; where the defendants dwell, and the matter 
 riseth. But because the plaintiff is one of the Yeomen 
 of the Guard, and to be necessary here attending, there- 
 fore retained. Kent and uxor., plaintiff; Hadock and 
 Young, defendants. Anno, 24 Eliz. 
 
 10. "The suit was on the behalf of the Parishioners, as 
 well rich as 'poor, for and concerning the yearly alms or 
 distribution supposed to be due by the Parson of the said 
 Parish, of a rye-loaf, and a red herring to every parishioner 
 on Saint Andrew's eve. But that it appears by a record 
 in the Exchequer, setting down the value of the said par- 
 sonage, that there is 13s. 4c?. yearly to be distributed in 
 victuals at the same time to the poor of that Parish, but 
 not to the gentlemen and men of ability ; and for that the 
 defendant offered to give yearly 26s. %d. in lieu of the said 
 13«. 4d[. to the poor of the said parish, who stand in need 
 thereof. Therefore day is given to the plaintiffs to show 
 cause why they should not accept thereof, or be dismissed. 
 And after assent 40s. a year was decreed yearly to the 
 poor. Elmer and Smith, Church "Wardens of Northwould, 
 in the County of IN'orfolk, plaintiffs ; Scot, Parson, of iiie 
 same town, defendant. Anno, 24 Eliz. 
 
 11. " The plaintiff put in a replication of two skins of 
 parchment of frivolous matter, and not fit to be rejoined 
 unto, of purpose to put the Defendant to unnecessary 
 
292 THE CHANCERY REPORTERS. 
 
 charges, and therefore Master Godfrey being of counsel 
 with the defendants, desired his client might not ^e com- 
 pelled to put in a rejoinder, but that they may go to com- 
 mission with the same, and ordered accordingly. Harrison, 
 plaintiff; Lane and uxor., defendants. Anno, 24 Eliz. 
 
 12. "The defendant showed a certificate under the, seal 
 of the University of Oxford, whereby it appeareth that he 
 is a cook of Corpus Christi College, and ought not by the 
 privilege of the said university, to answer any cause out 
 of the same university for any matter or cause, except it 
 be for felony, mayhem, or franck-tenement ; therefore 
 ordered that the defendant showing the privilege by way 
 of demurrer upon his oath, be dismissed. But afterwards, 
 upon information that the bill was for franck-tenement, 
 the matter is returned ; but after, because it was under 
 40s. per annum, it was dismissed. John Tate, plaintiff; 
 Daniel AUeter, alias Christian, defendant. Anno, 25 Eliz. 
 
 13. "John Gruest maketh oath, that he served a subpoena 
 on the defendant, and two of his men or tenants, and the 
 defendant did beat him with a staff, and struck out two 
 of his teeth, and hurt him in the face in divers places. 
 Therefore, an attachment is awarded against the defen- 
 dant. Giles, plaintiff; Lackington, defendant. Anno, 
 26 Eliz." 
 
 Many cases in the Choice Cases are found in a form 
 nearly identical in Cary ; both taken, it is probable, from 
 the same source of Master Lambard's MSS. (Edns. : 
 24mo. 1672.) 
 
 TOTHILL. 
 
 1 Emz.— 22 Car. I. (1559-1646.) 
 
 In arguing the case of King v. Baldwin,* Mr. Aaron 
 Burr relied upon this work ; but Chancellor Kent spoke 
 of the report as " so very imperfect, and so destitute of 
 
 ■ 2 Johns. Ch. 556. 
 
THE CHANCERY EEPOETERS. 293 
 
 fects and circumstances, as to be altogether unfit to serve 
 as a guide, and unworthy to be cited as an authority." 
 And after showing that Tothill had misunderstood two 
 cases cited in his Eeport, remarks : " This explanation of 
 two cases is sufficient to show what little reliance is to be 
 placed upon the loose notes of Tothill, which were col- 
 lected and alphabetically arranged by him, in the shape 
 of an index, and published after his death." "Indeed," 
 says Mr. Green, " any one who examines the book will 
 see that the author never intended it for more than an 
 index. It is less elaborate and less accurate than the 
 MSS. Tab. so often referred to by Viner as Lord Har- 
 court's,* and I have observed that while Mr. Hargrave and 
 Mr. Fonblanque often refer to Tothill, to illustrate the 
 history of the law, they seldom do so to establish any 
 controverted position, especially a position of a nice 
 character." 
 
 (Edns. : 1649 and 1671 ; both the same, though they 
 appear to vary, from the table being placed at the end of 
 the former, and at the beginning of the latter. A new 
 edition was published in 1820, by Sir R. 0. Holborne, a 
 bencher of Lincoln's Inn. All the editions are in 12mo. ; 
 or the last, perhaps, in 16s.) 
 
 DICKENS. 
 2 Eliz.— 38 Geo. III. (1559-1798.) 
 
 Mr. Dickens was for some time Register of the Court 
 of Chancery, and, according to Lord Eedesdale, a very 
 attentive and diligent register. These Reports, however, 
 were prepared after his death, by Mr. "Wyatt, from 
 Dickens's notes; "and these," says Lord Redesdale, "being 
 rather loose, were not considered as of very high authority. 
 
 ' Now published in the Index to Brown's Cases in Parliament, vol. viii. 
 Lend. 1803 ; 2d ed. 
 
294 THE CHANCERY REPORTERS. 
 
 He was constantly applied to, to know if he had anything 
 on such and such subjects, in his notes ; but if he had, 
 the Eegister's books were always referred to."' On the 
 other hand. Lord Cottenham, while he admitted' that 
 " much, no doubt might be said against the accuracy of 
 many of the reports in Dickens," observed, also, "that 
 there are many of them in which he himself interfered, 
 and made suggestions to the court:" and adds, "I have 
 always considered these cases of higher authority than 
 the rest, because you have there an opportunity of seeing 
 what was suggested by a very experienced officer, and 
 what the court did in consequence." And there are a 
 few cases, where the reporter gives copies of written 
 judgments filed by the Chancellors, as of Lord Thurlow's 
 in Scott V. Tyler.' These cases, of course, are valuable. 
 (Edns.: 1803.) 
 
 EEPOETS m CHA^CEET. 
 
 13 Jao. I.— 11 Ahne (1615-1712.) 
 
 In 1736, was published a folio volume in three parts 
 (each with new paging), of the work now known as Chan- 
 cery Reports. The title, which, to prevent confusion with 
 Chancery Cases, it maybe well to quote, is thus: " Eeports 
 of Cases, taken and adjudged in the Court of Chancery, 
 in the reign of King Charles I., Charles II., James II., 
 "William HE., and Queen Anne." It is styled, the third 
 edition. 
 
 This book is in a line of succession from certain prece- 
 dent works, now merged in it ; one of which, I suspect, 
 Lord Campbell mentions, without perhaps being aware of 
 the fact that he was referring, substantially, to the 2d 
 volume of the Chancery Eeports. Let me, therefore, sub- 
 
 • 1 Soh. & Lef. 240 ; and see 3 Mylne and Craig, 419-21. 
 
 2 3 Phillips, 840. 
 
 ^ 2 Dickens, 713 ; and see 7 Yes. jr. 159, u. c. 
 
THE CHANCEET REPORTERS. 295 
 
 ject to correction of error, state what, after consultation 
 with Mr. Green, I suppose to be the history of the editions 
 of the Chancery Reports. The 1st vol. of the first edition 
 appeared in 1693, as " Reports of Cases taken and ad- 
 judged in the Court of Chancery, in the reign of King 
 Charles I., to the 20th year of K. Charles IT.; being 
 special cases, &c." The 2d volume of that edition was 
 printed in 1694 or 95, under the title of Reports of Cases 
 taken and adjudged in the Court of Chancery, from the 
 20th year of Charles 11. to the 1st of "William and Mary ; 
 — a title given by Lord Campbell, as belonging to a sepa- 
 rate work.' In 1715, there appeared a 2d edition of these 
 two parts. The 3d part had not yet been printed at all. 
 To the beginning of part 1st of this new edition, the Earl 
 of Oxford's case was prefixed as a separate tract ; and to 
 the end of part 2d, that of the Duke of Albemarle (Bath 
 and Montague), was added : the Duke of Norfolk's case 
 was inserted at pp. 230-243, in the 2d volume of this 
 2d edn. In 1716, was first published in 8vo., the 3d part 
 of the Chancery Reports ; the only time, I believe, that 
 this part was printed till 1736, when it appeared in the 
 folio already mentioned, and where, along with the two 
 preceding parts, it is called the 3rd edition. This folio 
 edition, the only representative now acknowledged of the 
 "Chancery Reports," contains a title to the 1st volume, 
 which embraces the contents of the two subsequent ones. 
 The different parts of this book possess unequal merit. 
 The first two — ^which appear to be mere extracts from the 
 Register's books, and such as might have been made by 
 some person who had never been in court at aU, — are 
 characterized by Chancellor Kent "as loose and meagre, 
 without much weight or authority ;" while of the 3d, he 
 says " that some cases in it, decided by Lord Cowper, are 
 uncommonly well reported."^ Mr. Green remarks, "that 
 vol. 3d of Chan. Rep. may be distinguished by two divi- 
 sions : I. From page 1 to page 98. H. From page 99 to 
 
 > See post, tit. •' Cases Taken and Adjudged." ^ 1 Com. 492. 
 
296 THE CHANCEET REPOETEES. 
 
 page 224. Most of the cases in the former division are 
 reported to the same effect, and often in the same words, 
 in 2d Freeman, 1 Chancery Cases, or ifrelson ;" and these 
 Mr. Green suggests, may have come from the papers of 
 Sir Anthony Keck." All three parts were published 
 anonymously, and I have never seen any suggestion as to 
 the authorship of any one of them ; except as to the first 
 hundred pages of part the 3d. 
 
 NELSOK 
 
 ■ 1 Cab. I.— 5 Wm. III. (1625-1693.) 
 
 The book commonly known as Cases temp. Finch, 
 having been edited by Nelson, is sometimes called Nelson's 
 Reports, or more particularly " Nelson's Folio Reports in 
 Can."^ The title of the present work, which is scarce, it 
 maybe well to give in full: "Reports of Special Cases 
 Argued and Decreed in the Court of Chancery, in the 
 Reigns of King Charles I., King Charles 11., and King 
 William HE., none of them ever before printed." 
 
 Most of them are said by Nelson to have been tran^ 
 scribed from the fair MS. of a late Attorney-General, and 
 as is supposed, to have been collected by him for his own 
 use. Some of the later cases, according to the same 
 authority, were added by one who formerly attended the 
 court. This book is sometimes cited as Nelson's %vo. 
 Rep. in Oan.^ See ante, p. 260. Common Law Reporters, 
 tit. Lilly. Cases of Assize. (Edns. : Crown 8vo. 1717.) 
 
 CASES IN CHANCERY. 
 
 12 Cak. II.— 3 Jao. II. (1660-1688.) 
 
 "Cases Argued and Decreed in the High Court of 
 Chancery." "With this is usually bound, " Select Cases in 
 the High Court of Chancery, solemnly argued and decreed 
 by the late Lord Chancellor, with the assistance of the 
 Judges." Lond. 1730. This last volume contains the 
 
 ' See pott, tit. " Cases in Chancery." * Mosley, 2d ed. passim. 
 
THE CHANCERY EEPOETEES. 297 
 
 cases of the Duke of Norfolk, and of the Earls of Bath 
 and Montagu, and comes down as far as 9th Wm. lH. 
 
 The former of these works, to wit, the Cases in Chan- 
 cery, is notoriously a hook of doubtful authority.* It is 
 usually distinguished from the " Reports of Cases," &c., 
 mentioned last hut one, by being cited as 1st, 2d, or 3d 
 Chan. Oas. : the other book is cited as 1st, 2d, or 3d Chan. 
 Bep. The last-named book has been generally considered 
 as much the better book ; but a competent judge, Chan- 
 cellor Kent, says that they are, both of them, in their 
 general character, loose, meagre, and inaccurate, and not 
 of much weight or authority; although the Chancellor 
 remarks, that the reports of some cases decided by Lord 
 Chancellor Cowper, in the third or last volume of the Ee- 
 ports in Chancery, and the cases of the Duke of Norfolk, 
 and the Earls of Bath and Montagu, in the Select Cases, 
 are distinguished exceptions to this complaint ; and that 
 those cases are fully and very interestingly reported.^ This 
 last book is usually quoted Short, S. C. C. : it is/also quoted 
 as 3 Chan. Cas.' 
 
 The ordinary reader, it is probable, will find as much 
 about the Chancery Cases as he will care to know, in the 
 notice which precedes. He whose occasions lead him to 
 seek a minute history of the volumes, will be gratified by 
 the article in the note appended, for which, as for much 
 in the text of this article, I am indebted to the researches 
 of Mr. Green.'' It is a curious record on the subject of 
 
 > 10 Ves. Jr. 582 ; 2 Ball & Beat. 183 ; 1 H. Black. 332 ; 6 Dow. 9, and 1 C. 
 P. Cooper's Chancery Cases, 518. 
 
 2 1 Com. 492. 
 
 ' 2 Chan. Eep. 433 of 8vo. paging in 2d edn., or 199 of the folio, in 3d. 
 
 * The work now known as Cases in Chancery, is in three Parts. The 1st 
 appeared in 1697, as " Cases Argued and Decreed in the High Court of 
 Chancery," a title which did not indicate any purpose of continuation. It 
 embraced oases in a regular series, from the Eestoration, to January, 1678-9, 
 or Hil. Term, 30 and 31 Car. II. The next volume, as appears from the dedi- 
 cation, came out some time between May, 1700, and March, 1701-2. It seems 
 to have been designed as a continuation of the former part, since it is entitled 
 "The Second Part of Cases Argued and Decreed in the High Court of Chan- 
 cery, continued from the 30th year of King Charles II. to the 4th year of King 
 
298 THE CHANCEET REPORTERS. 
 
 %the editions, the composition and the authorship of the 
 different parts of the Oases in Chancery; — ^points about 
 which " perplexity has had to be disentangled, and con- 
 fusion to be regulated," and where nothing but obscurity 
 has attended those who have hitherto either aspired to 
 teach or endeavored to learn. (Edns. : There was a 2d 
 edition of 1 Chan. Cas. in 1707, and a 3d in 1730, to 
 which, in 1735, there was given a new title-page, the 
 motive to doing which probably was, that in 1733 there 
 was a 2d edition of Chan. Cas. An American edition of 
 the whole three parts appeared in a neat 8vo. at Ifew 
 York, in 1828, which seems to be printed from the 2d 
 edition of the 1st and 3d parts, and the 1st edition of the 
 2d part. It is greatly to be regretted that all the notes in 
 the English edition — some of them very good — do not 
 appear in this volume, of so much more acceptable a form 
 than the old folio'.)* * 
 
 James II." This brings us to page 193 of the book. The next page begins 
 with " Cases Omitted in the former part of Cases in Chancery," and under this 
 title we have, in the rest of the volume, a regular series of cases from Pasoh. 
 Term, 26 Car. II., 1674, to Hil. Term, 30 and 31 Car. II., the same Term, as 
 we have seen, where the 1st part of the Cases in Chancery ends, and the 2d 
 begins. In this manner, if in no other, there is a sort of natural connection 
 between the 1st and 2d parts. But there is no natural connection between 
 either of them and the 3d part, or, as it is sometimes quoted, the " Select Cases 
 in Chancery." That part was made up in the following manner : it contains 
 but three cases — the 1st originally published in 1685, under the title of" Argu- 
 ment of the Lord Chancellor Nottingham, upon which he made the decree, in 
 the cause between the Hon. Charles Howard, Esq., and Henry, Duke of 
 Norfolk."* The 2d, in 1693, or 1693-4, as " Arguments of the Lord Keeper, 
 the two of the Chief Justices, and Mr. Baron Powell, when they gave judgment 
 for the Earl of Bath."* The 3d case, which is a short one, was not decided 
 when the other two were first published ; and I do not know whether it 
 originally appeared by itself or along with a republication of the former oases. 
 These three cases were afterwards published together, under the title above 
 given, of " Select Cases," &o., and in this form are generally bound, and cited 
 as the 3d part of the Cases in Chancery. 
 
 ' See a note in the English edition to Rennesey v. Parrot, 1 Chan. Cas. 60, 
 said by Lord Alvanley (3 Ves. jr. 14) to be by the "reporter" {sed gii.) and 
 approved by the M. R., but not to be found in the Amerioem edition, though it 
 is in contradiction of the principal case, a case styled by Lord Alvanley " very 
 inaccurate." 
 
 » Worr. Bibl. Leg. p. 16, ed. of 1763 ; p. 16, ed. of 1782 ; p. 17, ed. of 1788. b lb. 
 
THE OHANCEEY EEPOKTEES. 299 
 
 My remarks in the text and note together, give the pub- 
 lic history of the volumes. Their private history or his- 
 tory of their authorship is less certain, the books theija- 
 eelves disclosing nothing more satisfactory than this : that 
 the editor of the 2d part did not himself know who the 
 reporter was, though he had been informed that he was a 
 Chancery practitioner of the first rank.' The reporter 
 speaks of himself in at least two cases as having argued 
 or been of counsel in them.^ Sir John Trevor, M. R., is 
 reported' to have said that Sergeant Maynard was the col- 
 lector of the volume. But this cannot be true of the 
 whole of it. Maynard cannot have had anything to do 
 with the last two cases in the 3d part, both having been 
 decided some years after he was dead, at the age of 89 ; 
 and it is not likely that he reported at such length the 
 other case, which is the 1st. These three cases, it is likely, 
 come each from a different and unknown hand, though 
 certainly from a good one. Mr. Maddock, also, in two 
 places,^ refers to cases in the latter portion of the 2d 
 volume,' that is the " Cases Omitted" and mentions that 
 Maynard is the supposed reporter. But whether Mr. 
 Maddock meant to apply this tradition to these " Cases 
 Omitted," alone, or to them along with other parts of the 
 work, does not appear. Lord Thurlow,° citing a decision 
 of Lord Nottingham in the former portion of the 2d 
 volume,' speaks of Nelson as the reporter. But it is not 
 probable that " the majestic sense of Thurlow" ever occu- 
 pied itself much with the curiosities of law : and I pre- 
 sume that the Chancellor had in his mind Nelson's con- 
 nection with another volume of Lord Nottingham's de- 
 cisions, the Cases temp. Finch, of which it is known 
 
 ' See the dedication to Sir Nathan Wright. 
 
 * Strode v. Strode, 2 Chan. Cas. 196, where he speaks of the plaintiff's coun- 
 sel, "myself and others;" and Balch v. Tucker, Id. 40, where he says: "I 
 offered it to the court." " The court said we came too late." 
 
 3 Clarke. 
 
 ' 1 Chan. Prac. 389; 2d. Id. 416. 6 ^^gea 212, 214. 
 
 ° 1 Brown's Cases in Chancery, 118. 'Page 64. 
 
300 THE CHANCERY REPOETEES. 
 
 that Nelson was the editor. Nelson, it is clear, could not 
 have reported all the cases in these volumes.' Chief 
 Baron Gtilbert," citing a case from the 1st part of Chan. 
 Cas.,' would seem to speak of Sir Anthony Keck as the 
 author, and Mr. Hargrave* is said to have assumed or as- 
 serted the same authorship for at least some portion of 
 the work. Lord Alvanley,' citing a case from the first 
 part,° very candidly says that he does not know who the 
 reporter is ; and Sir Edward Sugden, who would be likely 
 to know who he was if anybody did, seems to be in the 
 same state of ignorance.^ For myself, I have come pretty 
 much to Lord Alvanley's fruitful conclusion. I cannot 
 discover to whom the book, in its present shape, is to be 
 attributed. I presume that it is a composite production, 
 put together probably by some one of those "learned" or 
 " eminent persons," a kind of manuscript brokers ; who 
 in the last century used to enjoy a demi-professional char 
 racter between the bar and the booksellers. There is 
 some evidence, I think, to show that Sir Anthony Keck, 
 who with Maynard was one of the Lords Commissioners of 
 the Great Seal under "William and Mary, and whose name 
 may be seen as counsel of Mr. Howard in the great case 
 of the Duke of Norfolk," though according to Lord Camp- 
 
 ' Neither could Nelson have been the editor of all the parts. The editor of 
 the 2d part signs himself J. W. (the same initials, by the way, that are to be 
 found to the dedication of 2d Modern. See ante, p. 230.) 
 
 ^ Gilbert's Reports, 234; Dillon's Ex'rs v. Russell, where he says Wan and 
 Lake's Case, 1 Chan. J?cp. (this should be 1 Chan. Cos.) 50 " is reported by Sir 
 Anthony Keck, as follows." Then follows a report in the same words as that 
 case appears in 1 Chan. Cas. 50, and 3 Chan. Rep. 15. 
 
 » Page 50. 
 
 * Marvin's Leg. Bibl. 183, tit. Chancery Cases; also, Welsby's Lives of Emi- 
 nent Judges, 74. 
 
 6 3 Ves. Jr. 14. « Page 60. 
 
 ' Vendors and Purch. 9th ed. 562, where the author cites a case from 2 
 Chan. Cas. 19, and then quotes very respectfully some n6tes to it by the Re- 
 porter, as impugning with ability the decision in the case ; but does not make 
 any suggestion as to who the Reporter was. See also Fonblanque's Equity, 
 290, n. ; Laussat's edn. 
 
 » S. C. C. 38, 39, 40. 
 
THE CHANCEET REPORTEKS. 301 
 
 bell' otherwise a "wholly uninteresting character," had 
 a hand or at least a finger in the 1st part of the Chancery 
 Cases. He could not, however, have been the author of 
 the whole book, since, in,the 3d part (the Select Cases, &c.) 
 several references are made, in a manner which prove that 
 he could not have been the reporter, to his illness and 
 absence during the discussion of that case and of what 
 was done while he was away. My conclusion in regard 
 to his connection with the 1st part is founded on what is 
 reported by Gilbert and Hargrave, taken in connection 
 with evidence presented to me by Mr, Green, who thinks 
 that Keck may have been the author of 1st Chancery 
 Cases or of 3d Chancery Reports, though not of the other 
 volume of this latter work. Mr. Green's remarks are as 
 follow : " In Freeman's Chancery Eeports the cases down 
 to page 124 extend in a regular series of time from Pasch. 
 Term 1676 to the same Term 1692. Then the cases from 
 p. 185 onwards, extend in a like series from Mich. Term 
 1692 : all these have the appearance of a uniform style, 
 as if taken by Freeman himself. But interposited, in the 
 middle of the volume, from page 125 to page 185, are 
 found a number of cases without regard to any order of 
 time, and which, for the most part, bear internal evidence 
 of not having been taken by the same hand as the others. 
 Of these cases, thus interjected, many are also reported in 
 1st Chancery Cases or in 3d Chancery Eeports, with only 
 such alterations as would be made in copying or abridg- 
 ing. ilTow when it is remembered that tradition has given 
 to Sir Anthony Keck, the authorship of a portion at least 
 of the Chancery Cases, and when it appears as it accident- 
 ally does by the case of Edwards v. Freeman,^ that Sir 
 
 ' Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers, iv. p. 3. " Keck and Raw- 
 linson are wholly uninteresting characters, and there could be no amusement 
 or instruction in recording the dates of their birth, or their going to the Univer- 
 sity, of their being called to the bar and of their death, which would compre- 
 hend the whole of their known history, beyond their accidental appointment 
 to their present office." 
 
 2 2 Peere Williams, 436. 
 
302 THE CHAKCEET REPORTEES. 
 
 Anthony was the father-in-law of Freeman^ the coincidence 
 is striking ; and leads us to the belief that those reports 
 in the Chancery Cases came from the same MSB. as those 
 in Freeman, which from the affinity of the parties, were 
 doubtless those of Sir Anthony Keck himself." 
 
 FEEEMAN". 
 
 12 Car. II.— 5 Anne (1660-1706.) 
 
 See ante, p. 241, Common Law Keporters, tit. Freeman. 
 (Edns. : In a separate form 8vo. 1823.) 
 
 CASES TAKEN" ABTD ADJUDGED. 
 
 20 Cab. II.— 1 W. and M. (1668-1688.) 
 
 Of this book, I had not heard until reading Lord Camp- 
 bell's Livg's of the Chancellors.* It is there spoken of as 
 reporting in a bad and most unsatisfactory manner, a 
 number of cases by Lord l^ottingham, and is described as 
 "an anonymous Svo. volume, dated 1694, and entitled 
 ' Reports of Cases, taken and adjudged in the Court of 
 Chancery, from the 20th year of Charles II. to the 1st of 
 "William and Mary.' " I sent to London, in 1845, for the 
 book, and received for answer that it was " very scarce 
 and had not been met with for some years." Mr. Green 
 supposes that it contains the same cases now found be- 
 tween pp. 1 and 191 of 2d Chan. Rep. folio edn. of 1736 : 
 and was in fact the form in which the 1st edition of 2d 
 Chan. Rep. appeared.^ I have no doubt that he is right! 
 All the contents of the volume, after that page, appear to 
 have been added in the 2d edition ; and if you will treat 
 what follows page 191, as no part of the book, the con- 
 tents of the volume will exactly answer to Lord Camp- 
 
 ' Vol. iii. p. 416. « See ante, p. 294, tit. " Reports in Chancery." 
 
THE CHANCEET REPORTERS. 303 
 
 bell's title of the Cases Taken and Adjudged.* Mr. "Welsby 
 mentions the same work referred to by Lord Campbell, 
 and without having heard of it, has suggested Mr. Green's 
 conjecture. He states that it is, in fact, a continuation of 
 a similar work published the year before ; though he does 
 not say, what I suppose to be the case, that this prior work 
 is the 1st part of " Chan. Rep." 
 
 EEPORTS TEMP. PINCH. 
 
 25 Cae. II.— 33 Cab. II. (1673-1681.) 
 
 " For what Lord Nottingham did and said, in the Court 
 of Chancery, we have chiefly to trust to a folio, published 
 in 172.5, entitled 'Reports temp. Finch;' being a selec- 
 tion of cases decided by him from 1673 to 1680, in which 
 the Reporter himself was counsel f but they are miserably 
 executed ; containing a defective narrative of facts, hardly 
 any statement of the points made by counsel or the au- 
 thorities relied on, and without the reasons of the Judge, 
 giving only an abstract of the decree with the introductcwy 
 words : the Court ordered, or, the Court directed, or, the 
 Court allowed." 
 
 This extract from Lord Campbell's notice of Lord Not- 
 tingham, contained in the " Lives of the Lord Chancellors 
 
 ' " It is true," says Mr. Green, " that there was a Michaelmas Term, 4 Jac. 
 II. ; and the latest case in the volume (rejecting what follows p. 191), is said to 
 be ' 3 Jao. II. f. 148, 599 ;' but then it is to be observed that the cases, almost 
 without exception, are taken from the Reg. Lib., to which the figures last quoted 
 refer ; and that tlie year which gives date to the Register's book (Seaton's 
 Forms of Decrees in Equity), begins in Michaelmas Term ; so that all cases 
 from Mich. 3 Jac. II., until the Michaelmas following, appear there under date 
 of 3 Jac. II." 
 
 * Lives of Eminent Judges, 74. 
 
 '"I apprehend that the reporter was counsel in none of them. The proba- 
 bility, I take it, is that Nelson made them up out of the Register's books, which 
 he misunderstood and mangled." — W. Gkeen. 
 
304 THE CHANCERY EEPOETEES. 
 
 and Keepers,"^ is supported by the higliest authorities, all 
 of whom speak of the hook disparagingly.^ It is some- 
 times called Finch's Reports, "and therein," said Mr. 
 Fazakerly,' "is too much honored;" and sometimes 
 Nelson's Reports, and therein, perhaps, is quite enough 
 dishonored. More particularly, it is cited as Nelson's 
 Folio Rep. in Can.,^ to distinguish it from Nelson's Re- 
 ports, properly so called, which is sometimes cited as Nel- 
 son's 8w. Rep. in Can.,* mentioned ante, p. 296. (Edns. : 
 Fol. 1725.) 
 
 It is grievous to think that such are the records which 
 profess to transmit to us the decrees of Lord Nottingham. 
 A few only of his decisions come to us in any form to do 
 justice to his great understanding. These may be read in 
 the Appendix to the 2d and 3d volumes of Mr. Swanston's 
 Chancery Reports. It would ^ appear, also, that Lord 
 Bldon, at one time, had possession of Lord Nottingham's 
 MS. notes, which, in an important case, gave a report, no 
 doubt true, and wholly different from the one in Cases 
 temp. Finch ; and which made the case, as given in that 
 book, " no authority at all" for the point which was cited 
 aad which it appeared to support.^ 
 
 The Reports temp. Finch has been notedfor a peculiarity, 
 viz., that in all cases where the rule laid down or relied on 
 by the Judge, differs from the corresponding rule of the 
 civil law, the difference is noted in the margin. 
 
 I have already adverted" to a ludicrous blunder of Mr. 
 Justice, the Honorable St. George Tucker, of the Supreme 
 Court of Appeals of Virginia, who sets aside Lord Hard- 
 wicke's censure of this book, and supposes that Lord 
 Nottingham was actually the author. "This book has 
 
 • Page 416. 
 
 = 10 Ves. Jr. 582 ; 1 Wills. 162 ; 1 Atk. 369-70 ; 3 Id. 334 1 West temp. Hard. 
 501 ; and see 4 Dow, 85. 
 s 1 Atk. 369-70. * Mosely, 2d ed. passim. « 4 Dow, 87. 
 
 • Ante, " Remarks," § 14, n. ; 1 Henning & Munford, 293. 
 
THE CHANCERY REPORTERS. 305 
 
 indeed," he says, "teen dishonored as one of no authority. 
 Whether for want of the imprimatur of the Lord Chan- 
 cellor and Judges, formerly prefixed to books of reports, 
 I cannot tell. But the name of Sir Seneage Finch, the 
 author, who is mentioned by Judge Blackstone, as a person 
 of the greatest abilities and most uncorrupted integrity, 
 endued with a pervading genius, which enabled him to 
 discover and pursue the true spirit of justice, may weigh 
 against the opinion even of Lord Hardwicke, especially 
 where this book is cited and relied on by other Judges.^' 
 
 A GENERAL ABRIDGMENT OP CASES VS 
 EQUITY. 
 
 It may here be proper to speak of this work, which, 
 though in the nature of a digest, is yet often cited. The 
 1st volume, of which I believe Mr. Pooley was the author,' 
 is regarded as very good authority,'' and was so admitted 
 to be by opposing counsel, in Blount v. Burrow.' Indeed, 
 Lord Kenyon thought it so useful a repertory of Equity 
 jurisprudence, that he recommended it as an elementary 
 work, to a young man who had applied to him for advice 
 as to a course of professional reading." The cases, it is 
 obvious, are reported by a good lawyer, who understood 
 perfectly well the decisions which he was reporting ; and 
 the volume often renders clear and sensible, cases which 
 in "Vernon are unintelligible or very improbable. 
 
 The 2d volume (the author of which is not known), 
 stands less well. It was spoken of disrespectfully, by Sir 
 R. P. Arden, M. R., who says that it is not considered as 
 " of very high authority;"' and by Lord Roslyn, who re- 
 
 ' 21 Viner's Abridg. 490, fol. ed. tit. Trial A. h. § 10, n. ; and 5 do. 408, tit. 
 Condition, B. § 19, n. ; also 1 do. Pref. iv. and 3 Ves. Jr. 285. Notwithstand. 
 ing this, however, Mr. Viner, in one place, would seem to speak of Mr. Robins 
 as the author. See 12 Viner, p. 24, pi. 32, in margin. 
 
 « 4 Ves. Jr. 566 ; 5 D. & E. 61 ; Beame's Equity costs, 160 ; 1 Viner's Abridg. 
 Pref. ; 21 do. 490, fol. ed. tit. Trial A. h. § 10, n. 
 
 » I Ves. Jr. 547. 
 
 * Townsend's Lives of Twelve Judges, vol. 1, p. 122. ' 2 Ves. Jr. 578. 
 
 20 
 
306 THE CHANCERY EEPOKTEES. 
 
 marks that most of the cases in it are " very inaccurate,"* 
 and in the same way, in two different places, by Sir 
 Thomas Plumer, who calls it " a hook of no great au- 
 thority."^ Lord Manners,^ too, treats it with unmannerly 
 regard, as does likewise Lord Eldon,^ who styles it a book 
 "of.no very high character; not so high in character as 
 the 1st volume." But Lord Eldon thought that a case 
 whi^h he cited, reported there, was entitled to credit ; the 
 more, he adds, however, because " I have found authority 
 to consider that report to be a very correct report, in the 
 library and in the mind, which are both equally large 
 store-houses of equity learning : I mean the library and 
 mind of Lord Eedesdale." Lord Redesdale had looked 
 through his books, printed and MS., and confirmed the 
 report.* So in 2 Brown's Chancery Cases, p. 45, the 
 Master of the Rolls, Sir L. Kenyon, was willing to give 
 the book this small measure of the accomplice's credibility. 
 He spoke of it, as not a book of the first authority, yet 
 relied on a case reported there; other authorities support- 
 ing it. (Edns. : Dublin, 3 vols. 8vo. 1792.) In the same 
 connection with the Equity Cases Abridged, may be men- 
 tioned an alphabetical digest, which bears the name of, 
 
 THE PRACTICAL REGISTER m CHAffCERY. 
 
 Of the original edition of this book, since improved by 
 an intelligent editor. Lord Hardwieke remarked, "that 
 though not authority, it was better collected than most 
 books of the kind."® Lord Thurlow speaks of it as " a 
 good book, which seldom mentions anything, even 
 slightly, without authority ;" and though his Lordship, in 
 making this remark, said very positively, that it was mis- 
 
 ' 3 Ves. Jr. 186. 
 
 ' 2 Jac. & Wal. 428, and 2 Madd. 140, or Am. ed. of 1829, 414. 
 
 s 2 Ball & Beat. 28. « 1 BUgh, N. R. 538. 
 
 ' S. C. under another name, 1 Dow N. S. 
 
 « 2 Atk. 22. 
 
THE CHANCEET EEPOETERS. 307 
 
 taken iu one of its statements, and made an order con- 
 trary thereto; it is yet remarkable, that lie afterwards 
 admitted he " was wrong in holding so," and overruled 
 himself: and that the law, as stated by the Practical 
 Register, — and for which, according to Lord Thurlow, 
 when he overruled it, there was not a single authority in 
 all the books — ^has since become firmly established." Mr. 
 Mitford cites it with respect, remarking, however, that any 
 book of practice is to be cited only in the absence of 
 other authority.^ Mr. Daniel speaks of it as " of consider- 
 able authority ;"^ and Bridgman, who, though incapable, 
 perhaps, of judging for himself, was yet quite able to col- 
 lect and report the opinions of others, calls it, as edited by 
 Mr. Wyatt in 1800, " a niost excellent and useful work."^ 
 (Edns. : 8 vo. 1714 ; Wyatt's, 1800, with the addition of all 
 the, then, modern cases, and an index.) 
 
 VEKN'ON. 
 
 33 Cab. II.— 6 Geo. I. (1681-1720.) 
 
 Mr. Vernon was one of the most eminent lawyers of 
 his day ; and such was the weight of his opinion as coun- 
 sel, that Lord Talbot, referring to a case decided by the 
 Earl of Macclesfield, mentions it as a circumstance of 
 weight that Mr. Vernon had always grumbled at the de- 
 termination of that case, and never forgave it to Lord 
 Macclesfield.* Eor an incident in the professional life of 
 Mr. Vernon, showing how completely the venerable Re- 
 porter had devoted himself, as the clergy consecrate, or 
 do not consecrate, themselves to Heaven, — " soul, body 
 and spirit with all their faculties and powers," — ^to his mis- 
 tress of the Chancery Law, I am indebted to a private 
 letter of Lord Cobham. His lordship is writing to Mr. 
 
 ' 2 Brown's Cases in Chancery, by Perkins, Boston, 1844, p. 146 ; 3 Id. 489. 
 
 ^ Treat, on Plead. 7, n. 
 
 ' Practice of Chancery 1, p. 104. * Leg. Bib. 263. 
 
 * Cases temp. Talbot, 64. 
 
308 THE CHANCERY EEPORTEBS. 
 
 Pope, the poet, thanking him with an elegant modesty 
 which proves his title to poetic eulogy, for those immor- 
 tal stanzas which commend his name and virtues to en- 
 during honor. The poet, it appears, had given in the first 
 edition of his essay, some instances of " the ruling pas- 
 sion," which were distasteful to Lord Cobham's chastity 
 of feeling. He suggests that these might be replaced by 
 others not indelicate ; and in illustration of the " good, 
 old-gentlemanly vice," adduces " Counsellor Vernon, re- 
 tiring to enjoy himself with five thousand a year, which 
 he had got, and returning to the Chancery to get a little 
 more when he could not speak so loud as to be heard."* 
 
 It appears from the case of Atcherly v. Vernon,^ that 
 the MSS. of Mr. Vernon's Reports, found in his study after 
 his death, were the subject of a suit in Chancery, between 
 his widow, his residuary legatee, and the heir-at-law. 
 The widow claimed them as included in the bequest " of 
 household goods and furniture !" the trustees of the re- 
 siduary estate regarded them as embraced by the expres- 
 sion, " the residue of my personal estate ;" while the heir 
 contended, that " as guardian of the reputation of his an- 
 cestor," the MSS. belonged to him ; in the same way as 
 would a right of action for the defacing of his ancestor's 
 tomb. "The printing, or not printing, of these papers," 
 says the counsel for the heir, " may as much afiect the 
 reputation of Mr. Vernon as any monument or tomb. 
 Possibly they are not fit to be printed ; possibly they were 
 never intended to be printed." " Suppose a man of learn- 
 ing should have the misfortune to die in debt, can the 
 creditors come into this court and pray a discovery of all 
 his papers, that they may be printed for the payment of 
 his debts? And if the creditors cannot do this, a fortiori, 
 not the trustees in the present case. If a minister of state 
 should die, he may have a great number of papers that 
 may be very curious, may print and sell well ; yet surely 
 
 ' Pope's Works, v. p. 281, Rosooe's ed. 1S27. = 10 Mod. 530. 
 
THE CHANCERY KEPOETEES. 309 
 
 these will not be considered as personal estate and go to ' 
 the executor." Lord Macclesfield finding the decision 
 difficult, and the parties probably, thinking that it was 
 doubtful, the dispute was settled in the best of all possible 
 ways, by the Chancellor's keeping the MSS. himself.* 
 Under his direction, with that of Lord King, it was that 
 in 1726-8 they were first published. The editors were 
 Mr. Melmoth, and Mr. Peere "Williams, who are supposed 
 to be the authors of some of the marginal notes." 
 
 As it appeared in the sequel, the heir had a good deal 
 of weight in his arguments ; for the MSS. were not very 
 " fit to be printed," and probably were " never intended to 
 be printed." Certainly, as at first published, the volumes 
 were quite deficient in accuracy.^ But in 1806-7, at the 
 suggestion of Lord Eldon, Mr. Eaithby favored the pro- 
 fession with a new and " very valuable"'' edition, enriched 
 with learned notes and accurate extracts from the Register's 
 Books, a source of correct information often resorted to 
 with effect in regard to reports of our days, but particularly 
 valuable in reforming the early cases, as the decrees were 
 formerly much more minute in their directions than of 
 modern; times.' A new edition of Eaithby's Vernon ap- 
 
 ' " The court," says theE.eporter, " decided nothing in this affair, because all 
 consented to have them printed under the direction of the court, without 
 making any profit of them." 
 
 2 3 J. B. Moore, 702. 
 
 » 1 Atk. 556 ; 2 Ves. 610 ; 3 Ves. Jr. 14; Clarke ; 8 D. and E. 266 ; 1 H. Black, 
 326 ; Parson's Select Equity Cases, 385 j 1 Crompton, Meeson and Koscoe, 538. 
 
 * 16 Ves. Jr. 24. 
 
 ° " The decrees of the present day," says Mr. Seaton (Forms of Decrees in 
 Equity, viii.), " are, generally speaking, far less explicit and much less in detail 
 than were the decrees some time before, and even so late as the period of Lord 
 Hardwicke. ' I copied,' says Chief Baron Alexander, ' when I was a young 
 man in the profession, a set of decrees made in the time of Fortesoue, when 
 he was Master of the Rolls, and many of my Lord Hardwicke's time, and in 
 
 them were full directions There are in that collection many decrees 
 
 in which they pursue the thing throughout, so as almost to render any applica- 
 tion to the court for farther directions unnecessary ; whereas, certainly, the 
 
 modern decrees are quite of a different stamp.' Sir Thomas Sewall 
 
 gave very particular directions in the old form. I think, after him, it ceased at 
 
310 THE CHANCERY REPORTERS. 
 
 peared also in 1828. The volumes have therefore much 
 more value now than when first published ; but still, in 
 them, we should vainly look for a monument worthy of the 
 great men whose decisions they record, Lord Nottingham, 
 Lord Somers, and Lord Cowper. They are often extremely 
 meagre and incorrect. 
 
 Lord Campbell, in one of his recent works, quite plea- 
 santly, though with some want, perhaps, of the charity, 
 that unable to "believe," would yet "hope" all things, — 
 tells us that Mr. Vernon spitefully suppresses Lord Har- 
 eourt's best decisions, and gives doubtful ones.' But if 
 it be true, as I believe it is, that the book called Vernon's 
 Reports was never designed for publication, was meant 
 for the author's own use alone, and never printed till 
 after his death, the malice of Mr. Vernon gratified itself 
 in a very innocent way. And the charge is clearly ground- 
 less, so far as Vernon is concerned, if there be any weight 
 in the suggestion, which while conftiting, Lord Campbell 
 mentions, as given by others, that Lord Chancellor Jef- 
 fries, and not Vernon, was the author of what is known 
 as Vernon's Reports.* 
 
 Raithby's edition of Vernon has been reprinted in the 
 United States. 
 
 PRECEDENTS IN" CHANCERY. 
 
 1 Wm. III.— 9 Geo. I. (1689-1723.) 
 
 These notes, as far as the year 1708, are generally sup- 
 posed to have been taken by " that great man," Mr. Pooley, 
 
 the rolls." For an instance of the minuteness of these directions, see Price v. 
 Fastnedge, Blunt's Ambler, 686. 
 
 ' Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers, iv. p. 458, n. 
 
 ' Hardwicke's Tribes of Wales, 110, n., quoted in Campbell's Lives of the 
 Chancellors, iii. p. 583, ii. I take this to be mere pleasantry of Lord Camp- 
 bell's, not only from the fact stated by him, that Vernon's Reports come down 
 to 1718, when Jeffries had been in his grave 30 years, but also from the fact 
 that this circumstance, which would have been conclusive against the heir's 
 tight, is never referred to in the lawsuit about the MSS. 
 
THE CHANCERY REPORTERS. 311 
 
 the person commonly reputed to be the author of the 1st 
 volume of the Equity Oases Abridged,' The work was 
 clandestinely printed; and Lord Brougham once cast 
 some imputation upon if But his lordship's reproach 
 was unfounded : the work as a whole is one of very good 
 authority f though a particular case, as Lord Roslyn said 
 was the fact with that of Harkness v. Bayley,'' may be 
 " totally misreported." 
 
 The booksellers sometimes call this book Finch's Prece- 
 dents ; a person by the name of Pinch having edited an 
 edition of it. (Edns. : The impressions of this work are 
 dated in 1733, 1747, and 1750, and are in folio ; but in 
 1786 (Dublin, 1792), a much improved edition was pub- 
 lished in 8vo., by Thomas Finch, Esq., the edition just 
 above mentioned.) 
 
 PEEEE WILLL4.MS. 
 
 7 Wm. ni.— 9 Geo. IH. (1695-1736.) 
 
 These reports, embracing a term of time when a suc- 
 cession of eminent men presided in Chancery, were always 
 regarded as one of the most perspicuous, useful, and in- 
 teresting repositories of equity law to be found in the 
 language.* But they have received great additional value 
 from the notes of their recent editor, Mr. Cox. "The 
 bench, the bar, and the public in general," said the Master 
 of the Rolls, Sir R. P. Arden,° referring to one of these 
 notes, " are much obliged to him for his very valuable 
 edition of those very valuable reports ;" and the Master 
 thought that the cases relating to the law in a particular 
 
 ' 18 Viner's Abridg. Pref. ' 1 Russ. and Mylne, 269. 
 
 ^7 Mod. 304; 5 Ves. Jr. 664; 7 Law Magazine, 377; quoted by Marvin, 
 Leg. Bib. tit. Precedents in Chancery. 
 * Page 514. 
 
 « 1 Kent's Com. 493; 4 Ves. Jr. 464; Bridgman's Leg. Bib. 359. 
 « 3 Ves. Jr. 130. 
 
312 THE CHANCERY REPORTERS. 
 
 case had been so well stated, the rules so accurately and 
 so shortly presented, and the principles so well extracted 
 from all the cases, that he preferred to use Mr. Cox's 
 language to his own. The same Judge expressed a similar 
 opinion of Mr. Cox's notes in another case,' and other 
 persons in different places, have spoken in the same way 
 of the excellence of these notes.* 
 
 Sir Launcelot Shadwell, Vice-Chancellor of England, re- 
 ports' Lord Eldon to have said in Nov. 1821, " that the 
 cases in the 3d volume of Peere Williams, were not of 
 equal authority with the cases in the first two volumes," 
 and adds as a reason, whether of his own or Lord Eldon's 
 I do not understand, that " the Reporter published those 
 two volumes during his lifetime, but did not publish the 
 cases in the 3d volume, because he did not think them of 
 equal authority." There is a mistake somewhere here ; 
 all three volumes of Peere Williams were published after 
 his death, and all by the same person, his son. I am not 
 aware that the 3d volume is essentially inferior to those 
 which precede it. Indeed, 66 pages of it are occupied with 
 the case of Eex v. Burrige, of which it is known that the 
 opinion of Lord Hardwicke, a splendid opinion indeed, 
 is printed verbatim from Lord Hardwicke's own MS.^ 
 (Edns. : Mr. Cox's edition has been printed in the United 
 States ; and in England as lately as 1826, with new refer- 
 ences. The editions prior to it are, 1st, in 1740 ; the first 
 two volumes, only, I presume. Folio ; published by the 
 
 • 4 Ves. Jr. 462. 
 
 2 1 Kent's Com. 493 ; App. to 1st Rep. on Pub. Rec. 383, quoted in 12 Am. 
 Jurist, 64; Pursuits of Literature, Dial. iv. 368, p. 292, Phi). 1800; Townsend's 
 Lives of Twelve Judges, vol. 1, p. 122, where Lord Eenyon recommends Mr. 
 Cox's edition of Peere Williams, to a young man who had applied to him for 
 advice as to a course of professional reading. Mr. Dunning did the same, 
 (Lawyer and Magistrate's Magazine, for July, 1791, vol. 3, pp. 175, 177.) 
 
 " 14 Simons, 655. 
 
 * Harris's Life of Hardwicke, vol. 1, p. 348. See the preface to the 3d 
 volume of Psere Williams, for the reason why it was not published along with 
 the first two. 
 
THE CHANCERY REPORTERS. 313 
 
 author's son ; 2d, 1746, two volumes folio ; (a 3d volume 
 appeared, I suppose, in 1749, in folio) ; 3d, in three volumes 
 folio, in 1768.) 
 
 GILBEET'S EEP0ET8. 
 
 4 Anne— 13 Geo. I. (1705-1727.) 
 
 " Reports of Cases in Equity, argued and decreed in the 
 Courts of Chancery and Exchequer, chiefly in the reign of 
 King George I., hy a late learned Judge : to which are 
 added some select Cases in Equity, heard and determined 
 in Ireland, by the same hand," &c. &c. 
 
 "Gilbert's Eeports" were to me, for some time, such a 
 "mass of things but nothing distinctly," — ^his "Cases in 
 Law and Equity" containing no cases in Equity at all ; 
 while his " Eeports" had them in two or three Equity 
 Courts at once, that I have displayed the title as above, 
 for the benefit of others who might happen to be in my 
 former condition. Of the present work, Mr. Viner says :* 
 " That the Eeports of Cases in Equity came out of his 
 lordship's study, is most certain ; that the copy thereof was 
 purchased by one of the patentees, of a person who had 
 no right or authority to dispose of it, is equally certain ; 
 and I have very good reason," he adds, " to think, that 
 had his lordship been living, he would no more have con- 
 sented to its publication than did his representative, who, 
 as I have been told, exhibited a bill in Chancery against 
 the publisher." The book is one of no kind of weight, 
 and when cited by Sergeant Wynne (22d June, 1737, in 
 the C. P.) " the court exploded the book, and told the Ser- 
 geant they hoped he would quote cases from some better 
 authority. "= It is sometimes cited as Gilbert's Eq. Eep., 
 and many of the cases in it seem, says Mr. Viner, to be 
 taken from a MS. copy of the Precedents in Chancery.' 
 
 • 1 Viner's Abridg. Pref. = Clarke. 
 
 » 5 Viner's Abridg. 408, fol. ed. Tit. Condition B. § 19, n. 
 
314 THE CHANCERY EEPOETERS. 
 
 As this last-named book is regarded as one of authority, 
 we must presume that the S. C. are few, or that the MS. 
 copy referred to by Viner was a bad one, or else that 
 " Gilbert's Reports" is a better book than has been sup- 
 posed. (Edns. : Fol. 1734; and 2d, in 1742.) 
 
 GILBERT. CASES IN LAW AND EQUITY. 
 
 12 Anne— 1 Geo. I. (1713-1715.) 
 
 " Cases in Law and Equity, with two treatises ; one on 
 the action of debt, the other on the Constitution of Eng- 
 land." This 'wo/k contains no Equity cases at all. Its 
 appropriate place, notwithstanding its title, is among the 
 Common Law Reporters.^ I insert it here only in virtue 
 of its title-page, which naturally would lead one to expect 
 to find it among Chancery reporters. (Edns. : 1760, 8vo.) 
 
 1^ ,^^Ui*^ SELECT CASES. 
 
 ' ^ 11 Geo. I.— 7 Gjso. II. (1724-1734.) 
 
 " Argued and adjudged in the High Court of Chancery, 
 before the late Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal, and 
 the late Lord Chancellor King, from the year 1724 to 1733, 
 with two tables," &c. ; by a gentleman of the Temple. In 
 the Savoy, 1740. The title of this work is given at large 
 in order to distinguish it from another volume of "Select 
 Cases," usually bound up with the work, quoted as " Cases 
 in Chancery," and already mentioned.* 
 
 The present book is said by Lord Redesdale, in a pass- 
 ing remark, to be a book of no great authority f an opinion 
 which he had previously intimated at the bar while Attor- 
 ney-General. He called it " an anonymous book, and 
 therefore, perhaps, not to be considered of so much autho- 
 rity."^ A second edition of this work, " with explanatory 
 
 ' See ante, p. 256, Common Law Eeporters. ^ Ante, p. 294. 
 
 » 2 Soil. & Lef. 634. ' < 5 Vesey, 598. 
 
THE CHANOERT^EEPOETEES. 315 
 
 notes and references to former and subsequent determina- 
 tions, by Stewart McISTaugbton, of the Middle Temple," 
 was printed in London, 8vo. in 1850. 
 
 MOSELY. 
 
 12 Geo. I.— 4 Geo. II. (1726-1731.) 
 
 When Mosely was cited before Lord Mansfield, the 
 Earl told counsel that the volume was one which should 
 not have been quoted ;' and this censure kept the book 
 for some time in disgrace." Lord Mansfield, however, was 
 rather given to despatching, in this summary way, such 
 books as reported anything with which he did not coincide ; 
 and this class of reports being somewhat numerous, a good 
 many volumes came in, of course, for an abatement of 
 honor. In the case before us, as in some others, perhaps, 
 the Chief Justice was a little hasty, and seems not to have 
 censured in his wisdom. A much better judge of the 
 merits of a Chancery reporter has deemed it proper to 
 record an emphatic dissent from him in this criticism. 
 Lord Eldon thought " very diiFerently" from Lord Mans- 
 field, "having always considered Mosely's Reports as a 
 book possessing a very considerable degree of accuracy ;"' 
 an opinion which he expressed more than once.^ Mr. 
 Hargrave, likewise, in noting an observation of Lough- 
 borough,' who once told counsel that " he had not heard 
 the book cited," mentions that he took the liberty of say- 
 ing on that occasion, that he had often heard it cited, and 
 that he had found very good matter in it. 
 
 ' 5 Bur. 2629. 
 
 2 3 Anst. 861 ; 5 D. & E. 560 ; Campbell's Lives of the Chanoellois, iv. p. 
 614 n. ; 1 Binney, 213. 
 
 ' 1 Meriv. 92 ; S. C. 19 Ves. Jr. 488, n. ; in Ogden v. Saunders (12 Wheaton, 
 365), Mr. Justice Johnson refers to a case in Strange, " and better reported in 
 Mosely." 
 
 *2 Swans. 195, n. 'Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, iv, p. 614, n. 
 
316 THE CHANCEET REPORTERS. 
 
 I am not conscious of its being anywhere remarked, 
 that in the case where Lord Mansfield condemned Mosely, 
 the accuracy of the reporter was established by a certifi- 
 cate from the Register's book.* (Edns. : Eol. 1744 ; and 
 2d, Dublin — also with a London title-page — 1803, in 8vo.) 
 
 SECOND, OR W. KELYNGE. 
 
 4 Geo. II.— 9 Geo; II. (1731-1736.) 
 
 Thus commonly cited to distinguish it from Kelyng's 
 Crown Cases, which is otherwise known as 1st or J. 
 Kelyng. The Equity cases which this volume contains, 
 constitute but a small portion, not more than one-sixth 
 part of the book. It belongs, therefore, more appropri- 
 ately, to the Common Law Reporters, under which, with 
 its character, it has been likewise placed. The work is 
 also sometimes quoted^ as " Rep. of Sel. Cas. in Ch. ;" 
 likewise as "Hardw. ;"' likewise as " Cases King's Bench 
 temp. Lord Hardwicke."* (Edns. : 1764.) 
 
 CASES TEMPORE TALBOT. 
 
 7 Geo. II 11 Geo. II. (1734-1738.) 
 
 Talbot ! whom lawyers and statesmen and poets have 
 alike delighted to honor: whom Lord Kenyon styled a 
 man of "consummate knowledge,"* and Willes "a very 
 great Chancellor;"* whose name, said Mr. Burke, will be 
 respectable in England, while the glory of the nation 
 forms any part of its concern ; and whose perennial love- 
 liness of character the Poet of The Seasons has sung in 
 strains which can never die ! As a Statesman ; as a Judge ; 
 
 ' See ante, " Remarks," § 27. 
 
 ' See 2 Equity Cases Abridged. 
 
 " 1 Sessions Cases, 22d ed. pp. 150, 179. * 1 W. Black. 208. 
 
 <■ 1 Cox, 248. « Willes, 472. 
 
THE CHANCERY REPORTERS. 317 
 
 in the Senate and the councils of his prince ; as a patron 
 and friend and judge of letters and the arts ; in the pleas- 
 ing light of domestic life, and in wider bounds, as " a 
 friend to human kind," his career is indeed resplendent 
 with honor and fame. 
 
 It is, I presume, as a great constitutional statesman that 
 Lord Talbot's name most deserves to be immortal ; and 
 that as a Judge he was, perhaps, like our own Tilghman, 
 not less to be admired for what he was than by what 
 he said. Undoubtedly, everywhere in the Cases temp. 
 Talbot, you see the purest and most steady intelligence, 
 united with affection unfailing for the justice of the case, 
 and with a vigor and comprehension of mind that reached, 
 at once, the yet higher justice of the law. I mean no 
 shade of disrespect to those excellent decisions, which I 
 never read but with admiration and delight. But speak- 
 ing with the discriminating truth of criticism, I should not 
 say that you see in them, by eminence, that transcendent 
 power which should place Lord Talbot in the line of great 
 Chancellors ; among men I mean of " the majestic sense;" 
 with N'ottingham, and Hardwicke, and Thurlow : men of 
 that order who never fail to make a science where they 
 do not find one ; and whose writings no man reads, with- 
 out recalling Bacon's language of the "wit of elevation 
 situate as upon a cliff." As a Chancellor he was great 
 perhaps in the particular, rather than in the general ; and 
 too perfect a Judge to have ever allowed himself to be a 
 splendid philosopher. 
 
 Lord Talbot presided in Chancery but for a short time ; 
 having been taken from the world in the very vigor of his 
 age. The work to which I have already referred, the 
 Cases temp. Talbot, comprises, I believe, all his decisions. 
 The first 217 pages are by Mr. Alexander Forrester, a 
 practitioner of repute at the equity bar. 
 
 I find in various cases' connected with copyright, a re- 
 
 > 4 Bur. 2331, 2340, 2378 ; 2 Eden, 328 ; 2 Brown's Pari. Cas. 138, Lond. 
 1803 ; 3 Swans. 674. 
 
318 THE CHANCERY REPOETEES. 
 
 ference to a suit of Mr. Forrester v. "Walter, 13 June, 1741, 
 in which an injunction was granted and acquiesced in for 
 printing Mr. Forrester's notes surreptitiously and without 
 Ms consent. It would thus appear that the work was "not 
 designed for the press, in the form, at least, in which it 
 appeared ; and Lord Campbell, in his Lives of the Chan- 
 cellors,* regards it as an insufficient monument to Lord 
 Talbot's juridical fame ; and has spoken of it, from the 
 cause I have mentioned, perhaps, in a tone of disparage- 
 ment. Mr. Welsby characterizes it more truly, I think. 
 "Lord Talbot's decisions," says he,*" "exhibit, indeed, 
 in the form in which we have them, little of the eloquence 
 so highly rated by his contemporaries; and which the 
 reporters of that day, devoted entirely to the illustration 
 of the legal doctrines of the cases, would perhaps have 
 deemed an incongruous and impertinent superfluity ; but 
 they display a strong and ready grasp of facts, a thorough 
 intimacy with legal principles and authorities, and an emi- 
 nently clear and logical exposition of them ; his judgment 
 being invariably accompanied by a statement, more or less 
 in detail, of the reasons upon which they were grounded. 
 They retain an authority almost untouched by the dissent 
 of later Judges." This opinion is confirmed by other 
 writers.^ 
 
 Lord Kenyon in one of his letters^ speaks of " Haw- 
 kins's Reports in the time of Lord Talbot." What book 
 does he refer to ? 
 
 This book is sometimes cited as Forrester.* (The best 
 
 1 Vol. iv. p. 666 : " His chief reporter is Forrester, a barrister who practised 
 "before him, and has left us an 8vo. volume entitled Cases Tempore Talbot. 
 This gentleman, witli an adequate share of professional knowledge and accu- 
 racy, possessed little skill in composition, so that he gives us a very faint notion 
 of the lucid reasoning and felicity of illustration, universally ascribed to the 
 Judge whose fame he ought to have perpetuated." 
 
 ^ Lives of Eminent Judges, p. 270. 
 
 ' 1 Kent's Com. 493 ; 1 Sumner's Vesey, Jr. x. ; Pref. to Mr. Hovenden's 
 notes ; Brooke's Bibliotheca Legum, 221. 
 
 * Townsend's Lives of Twelve Judges, vol. 1, p. 122. 
 
 • 2 Washington, 138. 
 
THE CHANCERY EEPOETEES. 319 
 
 edition of the Cases temp. Talbot is the 3d, by Mr. 
 "Williams ; 8vo. 1792, reprinted nicely on fine linen paper 
 at Dublin, in 1793. There are two former editions, one 
 in folio, 1741, the enjoined one, I suppose, and another in 
 the same shape in 1753.) 
 
 WEST. 
 
 9 Geo. II.— 13 Geo. II. (1736-1740.) 
 
 This book was first published in 1827, from original 
 MSS. said to be by Lord Hardwicke himself. It is a com- 
 pilation of cases during that period already reported in 
 Atkyns, &c., with the addition of some fi'om Lord Hard- 
 wicke's MSS. and improvements to almost all fi-om the same 
 Source and the Register's book. It was designed to be 
 only the beginning of a work, that upon the same plan, 
 should comprehend the whole time of Lord Hardwicke's 
 presiding in Chancery. It is to be lamented, that the 
 work was not continued, for as far as it goes it is of great 
 value, owing principally to its superior authenticity. 
 
 ATKYNS. 
 
 9 Geo. II.— 28 Geo. II. (1736-1755.) 
 
 The uncommon abilities of Lord Hardwicke, whose 
 name fills so large a space in the history of equitable juris- 
 prudence, render interesting even imperfect memorials of 
 his decisions : for but faint picture must we, unhappily, 
 regard all the records which transmit his judicial decrees 
 to posterity.* The K. B. once forbade counsel to cite 
 
 ' The reader who desires to see the full stature of Lord Hardwicke's mind, 
 will read with pleasure not only Mr. Harris's Life of Hardwicke, but also 
 Archdeacon Coxe's Life of Sir Kobert Walpole, and the Memoirs of Mr. Pel- 
 ham's administration, by the same author ; and the recently published letters 
 of the elder Pitt. In the many years of party conflict and high enterprise, dur- 
 
320 THE CHANCERY REPOETERS. 
 
 Atkyns;' and both BuUer and Chief Justice Sir James 
 Mansfield have expressed their vexation, at the incorrect 
 and slovenly way in which his notes were taken.^ Text 
 writers' akd counsel at the bar,'' have spoken in the same 
 way of Lord Hardwicke's reporters. 
 
 Of all these reporters, Atkyns, Vesey, Sr., and Ambler, 
 it is true enough that their style of reporting is jejune in^ 
 the extreme, presenting frequently a defective state of 
 facts ; that the arguments, both of counsel and court, are 
 often far from lucid, and that even the decree is some- 
 times wrongly given. Such censures are, however, more 
 applicable to the old editions of these reporters: for among 
 the inappreciable services of the late Earl of Eldon to the 
 Chancery jurisprudence of England, are to be numbered 
 his successful exertions to present, through modern and 
 improved editions, the records of his predecessor's judg- 
 ments. ,Cary, Tothill, Freeman, Vernon, the Cases 
 Tempore Talbot, Peere Williams, Atkyns, Ambler, Vesey, 
 Sr., and Brown, have all within the time of Lord Eldon 
 been presented anew to the profession ; while the reports 
 of Lord Kenyon, Mr. West, Mr. Eidgeway, Mr. Cox, Mr. 
 Eden, and Mr. Swanston,' give to us, now for the first 
 time, decisions made generations ago. His lordship's 
 veneration for precedent® and the deferential spirit of in- 
 
 ing which Lord Hardwicke held the seals of England, it would appear as if 
 few important measures were brought before the Council-board until after 
 fullest consultation with the Chancellor. In fact, it is obvious that in every 
 great emergency, reliance was had on him for extrication. And while we 
 may safely believe, that in the law was the centre of his thoughts and the 
 home of his mind, we must admit, too, that as a statesman, fit to legislate for 
 an empire, he was scarce less great than in that department where the world 
 hath called him, as yet, unequalled. 
 
 ' 1 W. Black. 571. 
 
 2 6 East, 29, n. ; 5 Taunt. 64. 
 
 »1 Kent's Com. 494; 2 Wooddesson, 362; 2 Kyd on Corp. 189, n. 
 
 * 3 Ridgeway's Parliamentary Cases, 240. 
 
 ^ Appendix to reports in vols. 2 and 3. 
 
 ' For instances of Lord Eldon's minute examinations of records, see Law 
 Review, iii. p. 363. 
 
THE CHANCERY REPORTERS. 321 
 
 quiry, wMcli marked Ms mind, not less than its self-de- 
 pendence and creative power, led counsel at his bar con- 
 stantly to search the Eegister's books for cases reported in 
 print. And a taste for this research was thus generated 
 and has grown up in England, with the happiest effects 
 upon modern jurisprudence.* (Edns. : One in 1765-8, 3 
 vols. fol. ; one in 1781-2, 3 vols, royal 8vo. ; a third in 
 1794, 8vo. much improved by Mr. Sanders, author of the 
 Essay on Uses and Trusts. This excellent edition has 
 entirely superseded the two former, and so much increases 
 the value of Atkyns, that this Reporter was reprinted, in 
 1826, in our country.'') 
 
 AMBiEK 
 10 Geo. II.— 24 Geo. III. (1737-1784.) 
 
 Embracing, as they do, a term of nearly fifty years, and 
 professing to give to us the decisions of five Chancellors, 
 of several Masters of the Rolls, and of more than one body 
 of Lords Commissioners, it need not be said that these 
 Reports, in less than 800 pages, must necessarily be short. 
 Of Lords Hardwicke and ISTorthington, two of Mr. Am- 
 bler's Lord Chancellors, we have other and more valu- 
 able contemporary records ; and the loss of Lord Bathurst's 
 cancellarian wisdom is not a great one. He is, however, 
 the principal reporter of Lord Camden, the most respect- 
 able by far of the Whig Chancellors, and indeed a very 
 interesting character. The " Reminiscence' ' which Charles 
 
 ' See post, tit. Vesey, Senior. 
 
 ^ Lord Campbell mentions that he has in his possession 4to. vols, of Lord 
 Hardwicke's decisions, beautifully written by Mr. Jodderall, an eminent Chan- 
 cery barrister : that this gentleman often does more justice to Lord Hardwicke, 
 than Atkyns or Vesey ; and is said, upon reference to the Register's books, to be 
 found more correct. (Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers, v. p. 50, n.) 
 It is also known that Lord Hardwicke himsplf kept pretty good notes of his 
 decisions. These ai-e yet preserved and have been resorted to with great good 
 effect to correct his reporters. See 4th Vesey, Jr. 689, 
 
 21 
 
322 THE CHANCERY EEPORTEKS. 
 
 Butler leaves us of the Earl's decisions, as delivered, causes 
 a regret that they should be presented to us in a mode so 
 defective, dry, and d'^U. " I distinctly remember," says 
 Mr. Butler,' " Lord Camden's presiding in the Court of 
 Chancery. His lordship's judicial eloquence was of the 
 colloquial kind, extremely simple, diffuse but not desul- 
 tory. He introduced legal idioms frequently, and always 
 with a pleasing and great effect. Sometimes, however, he 
 rose to sublime strains of eloquence ; but the sublimity 
 was altogether in the sentiment : the diction retained its 
 simplicity ; this increased the effect." Ambler as origi- 
 nally printed was of imperfect authority.^ A new and 
 much improved edition was given to the profession, in 
 1828, by Mr. Blunt. Prior to this edition there was a foHo, 
 London, 1790, and an 8vo. Dublin, same year. 
 
 BAEISTARDISTOK 
 
 13 Geo. H.— 15 Geo. II. (1740-1741.) 
 
 Eor the recovery of Barnardiston from one of Lord 
 Mansfield's ill-considered censures, see ante, p. 261, Com- 
 mon Law Reporters, tit. Barnardiston. 
 
 EHJGEWAY'S HARDWIOKE. 
 
 18 Geo. II.— 20 Geo. II. (1744-1746.) 
 
 For an account of this work, see ante, p. 269, Common 
 Law Reporters, tit. Ridgeway's Hardwicke. 
 
 VESEY, SENIOR. 
 
 20 Geo. 11.-29 Geo. II. (1747-1756.) 
 
 Much the best edition of these Reports is that by Mr. 
 Belt, in 3 volumes 8vo. 1818, including a supplement, in 
 
 ' Qaoted in Campbell's Lives of The Lord Chancellors and Keepers, v. 
 p. 263. 
 
 2 2 McCord's Chancery Rep. 313. 
 
THE CHANCERY EEPORTEES. 323 
 
 1825. Mr. Belt made a laborious examination of the 
 decrees and orders as found in the Eegister's books ; cor- 
 rected several of the statements in the original edition ; 
 added some MS. cases ; and, in short, revised and im- 
 proved the whole work. The circumstances under which 
 the volumes came before the public are given to us as fol- 
 lows in the authentic Life of Lord Eldon, by Horace 
 Twiss.* "Mr. Belt, a gentleman of the Chancery bar, 
 happened to mention, in Lord Eldon's hearing, that he 
 had prepared with great labor some notes on the Reports 
 of the elder Vesey. ' You should publish them,' said 
 the Chancellor. 'My lord,' replied Mr. Belt, 'I have 
 offered them to the booksellers ; but they will not take 
 the risk of the printing, and I cannot afford it myself.' 
 ' The notes ought not to be lost,' rejoined Lord Eldon : 
 ' Let me know what the printing would cost.' On learn- 
 ing the probable expense, which was estimated at £200, 
 Lord Eldon sent Mr. Belt a check for the amount. The 
 work was successful ; and when it had repaid its expenses, 
 Mr. Belt came to Lord Eldon, and proposed to repay him 
 the £200. 'Jifo, no! Mr. Belt,' said the Chancellor, 'I 
 wish to have the pleasure of making your work a present 
 to the profession. ' ' ' This edition, which has been reprinted 
 in the United States, has quite superseded the older ones 
 of 1771-73, 2 vols, fol., and 1788, 2 vols. 8vo. 
 
 KENYOK 
 
 26 AND 27 Geo. II. (1753.) 
 
 Containing decisions of Lord Hardwicke. See ante, 
 p. 278, Common Law Eeporters, tit. Kenyon.' 
 
 EDEiq". 
 30 Geo. II.— 7 Geo. Ill; (1757-1767.) 
 
 Lord Campbell, in a Life of his noble predecessor, Lord 
 
 > Vol. iii. p. 483. 
 
324 THE CHANCERY EEPOETERS. 
 
 I^orthington,' thus remarks of the Earl's character as a 
 Chancellor, and of his decisions contained in these 
 volumes : " He acquitted himself respectably ; but he was 
 contented if he could continue to fill the office, escaping 
 censure, without aiming at great reputation. He did not 
 follow the example of the fathers of equity, Lord Notting- 
 ham and Lord Hardwicke, who on coming to the Great 
 Seal, notwithstanding much previous familiarity with the 
 business of the court in which they were called upon to 
 preside, entered upon a laborious and systematic course of 
 inquiry and of study to qualify themselves for their new 
 situation, that they might discharge its duties in a manner 
 satisfactory to their own minds, and in the hope of being 
 permanently applauded as consummate magistrates. He 
 was satisfied with the stores of professional learning, not 
 inconsiderable, which he had laid in, and with bestowing 
 a reasonable share of pains on the diflterent cases which 
 successively came before him. He always took fiill notes 
 of the arguments of counsel, and he investigated import- 
 ant questions with much research. Sometimes he wrote 
 
 out elaborate judgments with his own hand 
 
 "For a long interval after his death, the proceedings of 
 the Court of Chancery in his time had been very insuffi- 
 ciently reported, and when I first entered the profession, 
 there were only traditionary recollections of his judg- 
 ments as of his jests f but a few years ago the pious 
 labors of his grandson, my most amiable and accom- 
 plished friend, the late Lord Henly, from the Chancellor's 
 own MSS., and from notes taken by several . eminent 
 counsel who had practised under him, produced two 
 volumes of his decisions, which greatly raised his reputa^ 
 tion with those best qualified to estimate it. These 
 show him to have been very bold and very vigorous, and 
 generally very sound, but they are certainly wanting in 
 
 ' Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers, v. p. 187. 
 * Ambler alone had noticed him. 
 
THE OHANCEET REPORTEES. 325 
 
 ^ the depth of thought, in the logical precision, and in the 
 extreme caution which distinguished the decisions of his 
 predecessor." 
 
 The reports of Mr. Cox (the learned editor of Peere 
 Williams), contain some decisions of Lord STorthington, 
 and also of Lord Hardwicke. 
 
LIST OF EEPORTEES, 
 
 ENGLISH, IRISH, SCOTCH, COLOOTAL, 
 AND AMERICAN, 
 
 IN THE DIFFERENT COTTRTS, BEGINNING WITH THE REIGN OP 
 GEO. III. A. D. 1760. 
 
 After the reign of George H., the Reports have a 
 much more systematized and uniform character than the 
 volumes prior to that time ; and their relative merits be- 
 ing sufficiently known to the profession, the cases are few 
 when I have done more than indicate their chronologic 
 sequence. 
 
 The English Reporters, when designated by years, are 
 commonly referred to, anno Regni; the Scotch, Irish, 
 Colonial, and American, more generally, anno Domini. 
 
 i 
 
 HOUSE OF LORDS. 
 
 Dow, 
 
 53 to 58 G. 111. 6 vols. 
 
 Bligh, 
 
 59 a. III. to 1 & 2 G. IV. 3 vols, and 
 
 
 vol. IV. part 1. 
 
 Bligh, New Series, 
 
 7 G. IV. to ,10 vols. 
 
 
 and vol. XI. parts 1, 2, and 3. 
 
 West, 
 
 1839, 1840, and 1841. 
 
 Note. — The Reports in this list marked with a (t) have been reprinted in 
 this country, each under its own name. Those marked (*) form the different 
 series published here under the general titles of English Common Law Reports, 
 English Ecclesiastical Reports, English Chancery Reports, British Crown Cases, 
 and English Exchequer Reports. 
 
REPORTERS AFTER 1760. 
 
 327 
 
 Dow & Clark, 8 G. IV. to 2 W. IV. 2 vols. 
 Clark & Finnelly, 5 W. IV. 12 vols. 
 Clark&Finnelly, New Series, 1847-8, 2 vols. 
 Kobinson, 2 Vict, to , vol. I. 
 
 The Scoteli appeals are printed separately at Edin- 
 burgh. See post. 
 
 fBrown, W. 
 f Vesey, Jr. 
 
 f Vesey & Beames, 
 
 fCooper, 
 
 fMerivale, 
 
 fSwanston, 
 
 Wilson, 
 
 f Jacob & Walker, 
 
 *Jacob, 
 
 *Turner & Eussell, 
 
 *Russell, 
 
 CHAiq"CERT. 
 
 18 to 34 G. ni. 4 vols.' 
 
 29 to 56 a. III. 20 vols., with Ho- 
 
 venden's Supplement, 22 vols. 
 52 to 54 G. III. 3 vols. 
 
 55 G. III. 1 vol. 
 
 56 & 57 G. III. 3 vols. 
 58 & 59 G. III. 3 vols. 
 58 & 59 G. III. 4 parts. 
 
 60 G. III. to 1 & 2 G. IV. 2 vols. 
 
 2 & 3 G. IV. 1 vol. 
 
 3 to 5 G. IV. 1 vol. 
 
 6 to 9 G. IV. 4 vols, and vol. V. parts 
 
 1 and 2. 
 10 G. IV. to 1 & 2 W. IV. 2 vols. 
 
 3 to 6 W. IV. 3 vols. 
 6 W. IV. to Viet. 5 vols. 
 
 4 & 5 Vict. 1 vol. 
 
 5 & 6 Vict, part 1. 
 2 vols. 
 2 parts. 
 
 *Eussell & Mylne, 
 *M^lne & Keen, 
 *Mylne & Craig, 
 Craig & Phillips, 
 Turner & Phillips, 
 Phillips, 
 Hall & Twells, 
 McNaughton & Gordon. 
 Kay, before Vice Chancellor 
 
 Wood, 
 Kay & Johnson, do. 
 
 {Cooper, temp. Brougham, 1833-4. 
 Cooper, Points of Practice, 1837-8, vol. I. 
 Cooper, temp. Cottenham, 1836-7. 
 
 ' Mr. Sugden informs us that most of the cases in the notes to Brown, are in 
 accurately reported. (Treat, on Powers, vol. ii. p. 280) ; b>it he cannot mean. 
 I presume, to speak of many of those excellent notes of Mr. Eden and Mr. 
 Belt, which give to us some most valuable cases, as in Lloyd v. CoUett, vol. 4. 
 p. 469. . ^ 
 
 16 to 17 Vict. 1 vol. 
 
 17 to 2 pts. 
 
328 KEPOETEES AFTEE 1760. 
 
 EOLLS' COURT. 
 
 Tamlyn, 9 Gr. IV. to 1 W. IV. 1 vol. 
 Keen, 6 W. IV. to 1 Vict. 2 vols. 
 Beavan, 1 Vict, to , 15 vols. 
 
 VICE-CHA^CELLOE OP ETsTGLAJSm'S COURT. 
 
 fMaddock, 45 G-. III. to 1 & 2 G. IV. 6 vols.* 
 *Simons & Stuart, 2 to 7 G. IV. 2 vols. 
 *Simons, 7 G. IV. to , 11 vols. 
 
 VIOE-CHANCELLOR SIR KNIGHT BRUCE'S 
 COURT. 
 
 ToTing & CoUyer, 5 & 6 Vict, to , 2 vols. 
 
 Collyer, 2 vols. 
 
 De Gex & Smale, lOth Vict, to , 1 vol. 2 pts. 
 
 VICE-CHANCELLOR SIR JAMES WIGRAM'S 
 COURT. 
 
 Hare, 5 & 6 Vict, to , 7 vols. 
 
 QUEEN'S BENCH. 
 
 fBurrow, 30 G. II. to 12 G. III. 5 vols. 
 
 Lofft, 12 to 14 G. ni. 1 vol.« . 
 
 ' 6th Maddock is sometimes cited as Maddoot and Geldart. 
 
 2 lioffi is confessedly a book of bad reputation. (Cooper's Bankrupt Law of 
 America, pref. vii. n. ; Bridgman's Leg. Bib. 205.) In the great case of Smith 
 T. Earl of Jersey (2 Brod. &B. 536), Park, J., said in the House of Lords, when 
 Loffl was cited, that, without forming any judgment of his own as to the merits 
 of the book, he could only say, that in a professional life of forty years, he had 
 never heard it cited three times ; and this, notwithstanding the fact, that the 
 volume embraced a portion of Lord Mansfield's judicial life, not covered by aijK 
 other Reporter^ Loffl has been printed both in folio and ogtavo. ^"ih.~f^^ 
 
* 
 * 
 
 EEPORTERS ATTER 1760. 329 
 
 f Cowper, Cases in Practice, 14 to 18 G-. III. 2 
 
 vols. 
 
 t*Douglas, 19 to 25 &. III. 4 vols.* 
 
 JDurnford & East, 26 to 40 G. III. 8 vols. 
 
 JEast, 41 to 53 G. in. 16 vols. 
 
 JMaule & gelwyn, 53 to 57 G. III. 6 vols. 
 
 *Barnewall & Alderson, 58 G. in. to 1 & 2 G. IV. 5 vols. 
 
 *Barnewall and Cresswell, 3 to 10 G. IV. 10 vols. 
 
 *Barnewall & Adolphus, 11 G. IV. to 4 W. IV. 5 vols. 
 
 *Adolphus & Ellis, 4 W. IV. to 4 Vict. 12 vols. 
 
 *Queen's Bench, 19 vols.^ 
 
 ' Smith, J. P. 44 to 47 G. III. 3 vols.' 
 
 Bowling & Eyland,^. 2 to 8 G. IV. 9 vols. 
 
 Manning & Kyland, 8 G. IV. to 1 W. IV. 5 vols. 
 
 Neville & Manning, 3 to 6 W. IV. 6 vols. 
 
 Neville & Perry, 7 W. IV. to 1 Vict. 3 vols. 
 
 Perry & Davison, 1 to 5 Vict. 4 vols. 
 
 Gale & Davison, 5 to 6 Vict. 2 vols., and vol. III. parts 
 1, 2 and 3. 
 
 Davison & Merivale, 1 vol. 
 
 ' In the 1st edition of Haywood's (North Carolina) Reports (vol. 1, p. 4), 
 Judge Williams is made to say, that he never knew a case in Cowper received 
 as law in this country. The remark, if ever it was made, would betray such 
 palpable ignorance, that without any authority on the subject, one should pre- 
 sume a blunder in reporting it. A note to the 2d edition, edited by Judge 
 Battle, informs us that he has it from good authority, that the remark was never 
 made use of. It is generally known, I presume, that the 3d and 4th volumes 
 of Douglas's Reports were published long after the first two. They were pre- 
 pared for the press by Messrs. Frere and Roscoe, to whom the MSS. of Mr. 
 Douglas were committed ; himself having relinquished the design which he 
 originally had of pubUshing them. Besides these reports in the K. B., Mr. 
 Douglas is the author of 4 vols, of cases of controverted parliamentary elections ; 
 a work which received a high tribute from Hargrave. (Co. Lit. 109 b. n.) 
 
 ^ The first sixteen by Adolphus and Ellis, (or Adol. & EL, New Series), and 
 the remaining Jhree by Ellis and Blackburn. 
 
 " These Reports of John Prince Smith, Esq., were introduced as part of a 
 monthly publication called The Law Journal; and some copies of cases having 
 been separated and bound distinctly, with a title-page, formed these volumes, 
 having the aspect of ordinary reports. Besides cases in the K. B., the volumes 
 contain a few cases in Chancery. The book is somewhat difilcult to find. 
 
330 REPORTERS AFTER 1760. 
 
 
 BAH, COUKT, &c. 
 
 Chitty, 
 
 59 & 60 a. lii. 2 vols. 
 
 Dowling, 
 
 1 W. IV. to 4 Vict. 9 vols 
 
 Bowling N. S., 
 
 4 to 6 Vict. 2 vols. 
 
 Bowling & Lowndes, 
 
 6 Vict, to , 6 vols. 
 
 Lowndes, Maxwell & Pollock, 13th to 15tli Vict. 2 vols. 
 
 EAXLWAY AM) OAN"AL CASES. 
 fRaUway and Canal Cases, 1838 to 1854, 7 vols.^ 
 
 COMMON" PLEAS. 
 
 *Blackstone, H. 26 to 28 G. tlL 2 vols. 
 
 fBosanquet & Puller, 36 to 47 Gt. III. 5 vols. 
 
 t*Taunton, 48 to 59 G. III. 8 vols.^ 
 
 *Broderip & Bingham, 59 G. III. to 1 & 2 G. IV. 3 vols. 
 
 *Bingham, 3 G. IV. to 4 W. IV. 10 vols. 
 
 *Bingham's New Cases, 4 W. IV. to 3 Vict. 6 vols. 
 
 *Manning & Granger, 3 to 4 & 5 Vict, to , 7 vols. 
 
 *Common Bench, 14 vols.' 
 
 * r Moore, A. 36 to 38 G. III. 1 vol.* 
 
 Marshall, 54 to 57 G. III. 2 vols. 
 
 Moore, B, 57 G. III. to 8 G. IV. 12 vols. 
 
 Moore & Payne, 9 G. IV. to 1 & 2 W. IV. 5 vols. 
 
 Moore & Scott, 2 to 4 W. IV. 4 vols. 
 
 Scott, 4 "W. IV. .to 3 Vict. 8 vols. 
 
 , Scott's New Eeports, 2 to 8 Vict. 8 vols. 
 
 ' The first two vols, by NiohoU, Hare, and Carrow ; the 3d by Carrow and 
 Oliver; the 4th by Carrow, Oliver, Bea van, and Lefroy; the 5th, 6th, and 7th, 
 by Oliver, Beavan, and Lefroy. 
 
 * When the 8th volume of Taunton was cited in the Exchequer, Baron Parke 
 observed that that volume " is a very apocryphal authority ; not supervised by 
 Mr. Taunton, but made up from his notes." 
 
 ' The first eight or nine are by Manning, Granger, and Scott ; and the residue 
 by Scott. 
 
 * " Reports of Cases argued and determined in the Courts of Common Pleas 
 and Exchequer Chamber, and in the House of Lords, from Easter Term, 
 36 Geo. III. to Hilary Terrn, 37 Geo. IH. inclusive," were printed in folio, 
 Anno 1800. They are usually bound up with 1 Bos. & Pull., and very impro- 
 perly placed afterjheirlleports of Trinity Term, 39 Geo. HI. (Bridgman's Leg. 
 
REPORTERS AFTER 1760. 331 
 
 EXCHEQUEI^-PLEAS SIDE. 
 
 Anstruther, 32 to 37 G. HI. 3 vols.^ 
 
 Forrest, 41 G. III. 1 part. 
 
 *Wiglitwiek, 50 & 51 G. III. 1 vol. 
 
 *Price, 54 G. IH. to 5 G. IV. 13 vols. 
 
 *M'Cleland, 4 & 5 G. IV. 1 vol. 
 
 *M'Cleland & Younge, 5 & 6 G. IV. 1 vol. 
 
 *Younge & Jervis, 7 to 11 G. IV. 3 vols. 
 
 *Crompton & Jervis, 11 G. IV. to 1 & 2 W. IV. 2 vols. 
 
 *Crompton & Meeson, 2 to 4 W. IV. 2 vols. 
 *Orompton, Meeson&Koseoe, 4 to 6 W. IV. 2 vols. 
 
 *Meeson & Welsby, 6 W. IV. to 10 Vict. 16 vols. 
 
 *Exchequer Keports, 10 Victoria to 2 vols. 
 
 f Tyrwhitt, 11 G. IV. to 5 W. IV. 5 vols. 
 
 1 TyrwMtt & Granger, 5 & 6 W. IV. 1 vol. 
 
 EXOHEQTJEI^-EQUITY SIDE. 
 
 Wilson, 57 G. in. part 1. 
 
 *Daniell, 57 to 59 G. ni. 1 vol. 
 
 (■ Younge, 11 G. IV. to 1 W. IV. 1 vol. 
 
 I Younge & Collyer, 4 W. IV. to 5 Vict. 4 vols. 
 
 NISI PEIUS. 
 
 fPeake, 30 to 52 G. III. 2 vols." 
 
 fEspinasse, 33 to 47 G. III. 6 vols, in 3. 
 
 jCampbell, 48 to 56 G. III. 4 vols.' 
 
 ' Styled by Mr. Jarman, " a Reporter of very doubtful authority." (Treatise 
 on Wills, vol. i. p. 164, n.) 
 
 ^ " My brother Peake's Reports are remarkably correct. I went the same 
 circuit, and was in the habit of taking notes. On many occasions I have com- 
 pared the cases, and know his to be particularly accurate." (C. J. K. B. quoted 
 by Marvin, Leg. Bib. p. 559, from Manning's N. P. Digest, Pref.) 
 
 ' " When I was a Nisi Prius Reporter," says Campbell, " I had a drawer 
 marked ' Bad Law,' into which I threw all the cases which seemed to me im- 
 properly ruled. I was flattered to hear Sir James Mansfield, C. J., say ' Who- 
 
332 
 
 REPORTERS AFTER 1760. 
 
 *Starkie, 
 
 *Eyan & Moody, 
 *Moody & Malkin, 
 *Moody & Bobinson, 
 
 * 
 
 * 
 
 57 G. ni. to 3 G. IV. 2 vols, and 1 
 
 part. 
 4 to 7 G. IV. 1 vol. 
 8 G. IV. to 1 W. IV. 1 vol. 
 
 1 W. IV. to ■ 
 
 2 vols. 
 
 Holt, 55 to 58 G. Uli 1 vol. 
 
 Gow, 58 to 59 G. III. 1 vol. 
 
 Carrington & Payne, 4 G. IV. to 4 Vict. 9 vols. 
 Carrington & Marshman, 3 to 5 Vict. 1 vol. 
 ^ Carrington & Kirwan, 6 and 7 Vict. 2 vols. 
 
 ADMIRALTY. 
 
 Marriott, 
 
 fKobinson, 
 
 fEdwards, 
 
 Dodson, 
 
 Haggard, 
 
 Kobinson, Jr. (or Wm.) 1840, 2 Vict, to 4 Vict. 2 vols. 
 
 16 to 19 G. III. 1 vol. 
 39 to 48 G. in. 6 vols. 
 48 to 50 G. in. 1 vol. 
 51 to 55 G. in. 2 vols. 
 2 G. IV. to 1 Vict. 3 vols. 
 
 PEIVT COUN'OIL. 
 
 Acton, 
 ^Knapp 
 Moore, E. T. 
 Moore's E. T. 
 Appeals, 
 
 East India 
 
 49 & 50 G. ni. 1 vol. and 1 part. 
 11 G. IV. to , 3 vols. 
 
 6 W. IV. to 
 
 6W. IV. to- 
 
 8 vols. 
 
 -,2 vols. 
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL AKD COUET OF DELEGATES. 
 
 *Phillimore, 
 *Addams, 
 
 49 G. ni. to 1 & 2 G. IV. 3 vols. 
 2 to 7 G. IV. 2 vols, and 1 part. 
 
 ever reads Campbell's Reports must be astonished to find how uniformly Lord 
 EUenborough's decisions were right.' My rejected cases which I had kept as 
 a curiosity, not maliciously, were all burnt in the great fire in the Temple when 
 I was Attorney-General." (Lives of The Lord Chancellors and Keepers, iv. 
 p. 458.) 
 
REPORTERS AFTER 1760. 
 
 333 
 
 *Haggard, 
 
 *Curteis, 
 
 Kobertson, 
 
 SGT. rv. to- 
 
 5 W. IV. to - 
 
 7th Vict, to • 
 
 -, 4 vols. 
 — , 3 vols. 
 -, 1 vol 
 
 BANKRUPTCY. 
 
 Bose, 
 
 Buck, 
 
 Glyn & Jameson, 
 
 Montagu & M' Arthur, 
 
 Montagu, 
 
 Montagu & Bligh, 
 
 Montagu & Ayrton, 
 
 Montagu & Chitty, 
 
 Deacon & Chitty, 
 
 Deacon, 
 
 Montagu, Deacon & De Grex, 
 
 De Grex, 
 
 50 to 56 G-. III. 2 vols. 
 57. to 60 a. III. 1 vol. 
 1 to 8 G. IV. 2 vols. 
 9 G. IV. 1 vol. 
 
 1 & 2 W. IV. 1 vol. 
 
 2 & 3 W. IV. 1 vol. 
 
 3 W. IV. to 2 Vict. 3 vols. 
 
 3 Vict, to 4 Vict. 1 vol. 
 2 to 5 W. IV. 4 vols. 
 
 5 "W. IV. to 3 Vict. 4 vols. 
 
 4 Vict, to , 2 vols. 
 
 2 vols. 
 
 ELECTION" CASES.^ 
 
 Douglas, 
 
 Eraser, 
 
 Luder, 
 
 Peckwell, 
 
 Corbett & Daniell, 
 
 Cockburn & Kowe, 
 
 Perry & Knapp, 
 
 Knapp & Ombler, 
 
 Falconer & Fitzherbert, 
 
 Barron & Austin, 
 
 Barron & Arnold, 
 
 Piggott & Kedwell, 
 
 Lutwyche, 
 
 15 & 16 G. III. 4 vols. 
 
 16 to G. III. 2 vols. 
 
 25 to 31 G. III. 3 vols. 
 
 43 to G. III. 2 vols. 
 
 59 G. ni. 1 vol. 
 
 2 & 3 W. IV. 1 vol. 
 2 & 3 W. IV. 1 vol. 
 4 & 5 W. IV. 1 vol. 
 
 7 W. IV. to , 1 vol. 
 
 4 to 6 Vict. 1 vol. 
 
 6 to 9 Vict. 1 vol. 
 
 7 to 9 Vict. 1 vol. 
 7th Vict. 
 
 ' When these cases were bited, 1844, in the Common Pleas, Withern and 
 Thomas, 7 Man. and Granger, 4 : the Chief Justice told counsel, that " so far 
 as the reasoning in these cases went, it might be proper to cite them, but not 
 as authorities." 
 
334 REPORTERS AFTER 1760. 
 
 MAGISTRATES' CASES. 
 
 Nolan, 1791 to 1793, 1 vol. 
 
 Dowling & Eyland, 2 to 8 G-. IV. 4 vols. 
 
 Manning & Eyland, 8 G. IV. to 1 W. IV. 2 vols. 
 
 Neville & Manning, 3 W. IV. to 6 W. IV. 3 vols. 
 
 Neville & Perry, 7 W. IV. to 1 Vict, parts 1 and 2. 
 
 Carrow, Hamerton & Allen, 3 yols. 
 
 CROWN, CASES RESERVED. 
 
 Leach, 1 to 35 G-. III. 2 vols.. 
 
 *Eussel & Eyan, 39 Geo. III. to 4 G. IV. 1 vol. 
 
 *Moody, 5 G. IV. to Vict. 2 vols. 
 
 Denison, 7tli Vict, to , 1 vol. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 Botts's Settlement Cases. 
 
 The Jurist, From 1837 to 1854, 18 vols. 
 
 Law Journal, From 1828 to 1844. 
 
 Legal Observer, or I pa i 
 
 Journal of Jurisprudence,, ) 
 
 LEADING CASES. 
 See post, same title in the American List. 
 
 IRISH REPORTS. 
 
 CHANCERY. 
 
 Wallis, 1766 to 1785, 1 vol. 
 
 fSchoales & Lefroy, 1802 to 1806, 2 vols. 
 
REPORTERS AFTER 1760. 335 
 
 fBall & Beatty, 1807 to 18»4, 2 vols. 
 
 Beatty, temp. Hart, 2 parts. 
 
 Molloy, temp. Hart, 2 vols, and 1 part: 
 
 Dmry & Walsh, 1887 to 1842. 
 
 Lloyd&Goold,temp.PluHkett, 1834 and 1836, 1 vol. 
 
 Lloyd & Goold, temp. Sugden, 1835, 1 vol. 
 
 Connor & Lawson, 1841, vol. 1. 
 
 Drury & Warren, 1841-3, 2 vols, and vol. III. parts 1 
 
 and,2. 
 Jones & Latouohe, 1844 to 1846. 
 
 Drury, part 1, 8 vols. 
 
 Irish Law & Equity, 11 vols. 1839, till present time. 
 
 EOLLS' COURT. 
 
 Hogan, temp. M'Mahon, 2 vols. 
 , Sausse& Scully, temp. O'Lo- 
 
 ghlen. 
 Flanagan & Kelly, vol. 1. 
 
 QUEEN'S BENCH. 
 
 Vernon & Scriven, 1786 to 1788, with some cases in the 
 
 Irish House of Lords, 1 vol. 
 Eidgeway, Lapp and Schoales, 34 and 35 Gr. III. 1 vol. 
 Fox & Smith, 1822 to 1824, 1 vol. 
 
 Smith & Batty, 1824 and 1825, 1 vol. 
 
 Batty, 1825 and 1826, 1 vol. 
 
 Hudson & Brooke, 1827 to 1830, 2 vols. 
 
 Alcock & Napier, 1831 to 1833, 1 vol. 
 
 Cook & Alcock, 1833 to 1834, 1 part. 
 
 Jebb & Symes, 1838 to 1840, 2 vols. 
 
 Jebb & Bourke, 1842, 1 vol. 
 
 Irish Law & Equity Keports, 1839, till present time. 
 
 COMMON PLEAS. 
 Smythe, 1839 to 1840. 
 
336 
 
 REPORTERS AFTER 1760. 
 
 OTSi PRros. 
 
 Armstrong & Macartney, 1842. 
 
 Hayes, 
 
 Hayes & Jones, 
 
 Jones, 
 
 Jones & Carey, 
 
 Longfield & Townsend, 1 vol. 
 
 EXCHEQUEE. 
 
 10 G. IV. to 2 W. IV. 1 vol. 
 ig^l to 1832, 3 parts. 
 1835 to 1837, 1 vol. and 2 parts. 
 1838 to 1839, 2 parts. 
 
 APPEALS Am) WEITS OE ERROR.- 
 PARLIAMEiq^T. 
 
 -IRISH 
 
 Ridge way. 
 
 1784 to 1798, 3 vols. 
 
 Alcoek, 
 Welsh, 
 Welsh, 
 Welsh, 
 
 REGISTRY OASES. 
 
 1832 to i839, 2 parts. 
 Cases at Sligo, 1838, 1 part. 
 Cases of James Feighny, 1838. 
 1838 to 1841. 
 
 *Jebb, 
 
 CROW^, CASES RESERVED. 
 1822 to 1840. 
 
 Conroy, 
 
 MISOELLANEOUS. 
 Howard's popeet cases. 
 
 Custodiam Eeports. Published in 
 1795. 
 
 ' Mr. Prime-Sergeant Fitz Gerald, who, in 1794, referred to this book in 
 the Irish Parliament," appears to have spoken of it disparagingly. But the At- 
 torney-General, Wolfe, somewhat indignantly called him to account. " Some 
 imputation," says the latter,' " has been endeavored to be cast upon the book, 
 
 ^ 3 Ridgeway'6 Parliamentary Gases, 37. b Id. 45. 
 
REPORTERS AFTER 1760. 337 
 
 Crawford & Dix, Cases in all the Courts, 1838, 1 vol. 
 
 Crawford & Dix, Circuit cases, 1839, 3 parts. 
 
 Law Eecorder, In all the Courts, 1827 to 1888, 10 
 
 vols. 
 Law & Equity Keports, In all the Courts, 11 vols. 1838 to 
 
 1846. 
 
 SCOTCH REPORTS. 
 APPEAIi CASES TO THE HOUSE OF LORDS.' 
 
 Eobertson, 1707 to 1827, 1 vol. 
 
 Shaw, 1821 to 1824, 2 vols. 
 
 Wilson & Shaw, 1825 to 1834, 7 vols. 
 
 Shaw & Maclean, 1835 to 1838, 3 vols. 
 
 Maclean & Kobinson, 1839 to 1840, 1 vol. 
 
 Kobinson, 1840 to 1841, 2 vols. 
 
 Bell, ' 1848 to 1849, 6 vols. 
 
 HIGH COURT OF JUSTICIARY. 
 
 Syme, 1826 to 1829, 1 vol. 
 
 Swinton, 1835 to 1841, 2 vols. 
 
 Brown, 1842 to 1845, 2 vols. 
 
 4rkley, 1846, "parts 1, 2, 3. 
 
 but every man conversant in the subject, knows that the cases were so decided. 
 The cases in that book, down to the year 1752, were printed from a manu- 
 script which was handed about from one lawyer to another, the late Mr. Malone, 
 Mr. Harwood, and others. Howard, who was an active, busy man, had an in- 
 clination to publish a collection of Popery Cases, and the vanity to pass for the 
 author of them. He obtained a copy of the manuscript, and the cases subse- 
 quent to 1752, he procured from gentlemen of distinction ; some from Mr. 
 Eatcliffe, others from Mr. Ridge, &c. ; and these gentlemen did carefully collate 
 the cases before they were published. The case of Ambrose v. Hifferman," was 
 taken by a gentleman of the bar who is still existing, pnd he reported the case 
 with all possible accuracy, so that as to the authority of the cases it is idle to 
 say they were not decided." 
 
 » The one controverted by Mr. Filz Gerald. 
 22 
 
338 EEPOETEES AFTER 1760. 
 
 CONSISTOEY COUET. 
 
 *Ferguson, 1 toL 
 
 SESSIONS COUET. 
 
 Shaw, Dunlop & Bell, 1821 to 1835, 13 vols. 
 
 Dunlop, Bell & Murray, 1835 to 1840, 5 vols. 
 
 Dunlop, Bell, Murray & Do- 
 naldson, 1840 to 1841, 1 vol. 
 
 Bell, Murray, Young, Ten- 
 nent, & Eraser, 1841 to 1849, 10 vols. 
 
 COLONIAL KEPOETS. 
 
 LOWER CA2TADA. 
 KING'S BENCH AND COUKT OF APPEALS. 
 Stuart, 1810 to 1836. 
 
 NOVA SCOTIA. 
 
 ADMIEALTY. 
 Stewart, 1803 to 1813. 
 
 EAST INDIES. 
 Strange, SirT. (at Madras), 1798 to 1816, 2 vols. 
 
THE AMERICAN REPORTERS. 
 
 339 
 
 AMERICAN REPORTS, 
 1. FEDERAL COURTS. 
 
 Dallas's Eeports, 
 Crancli's Reports, 
 "Wheaton's Eeports, 
 Peters's Eeports, 
 Howard's Eeports, 
 
 SUPEEME COUET. 
 
 From 17&0 to 1806, 4 vols. 
 1800 to 1815, 9 vols. 
 1816 to 1827, 12 vols. 
 1827 to 1844, 17 vols. 
 1843 to 1855, 16 vols. 
 
 CIRCUIT COUETS. 
 nEST cmcuiT. 
 
 Gallison's Eeports. 
 Mason's Reports, > 
 Sumner's Reports, 
 Story's Reports, 
 Woodbury & Minot's Reports, 
 Curtis's Reports, 
 
 From 1812 to 1815, 2 vols. 
 1816 to 1830, 5 vols. 
 1830 to 1839, 3 vols. 
 1839 to 1845, 3 vols. 
 1845 to 1849, 8 vols. 
 1851 to 1858, 1 vol. 
 
 SECOND CIRCUIT. 
 
 Paine' s Reports, 
 Blatchford's Reports, 
 
 From 1810 to 1826, 1 vol.» 
 1845 to 1850, 1 vol. 
 
 THIRD CIRCUIT. 
 
 Dallas's Reports. (The 2d, 3d, and 4tli volumes contain cases 
 decided in this court, from April Term, 1792, to October Term, 
 1806, inclusive.) 
 
 Wallace's (John Bradford), 
 
 May and October Sess. 1801. ^ 
 
 ' In 1st Paine and Duer's Practice, 288, n., there is a reference to 2 Paine's 
 Rep. I am not aware, however, that any such volume ever appeared. 
 
 ^ This volume contains the only reported opinions known to me of the Courts 
 of the United States as constituted under what was called Mr. Adams's Judi- 
 ciary Law, of 1801 ; an establishment of the National Courts said to have been 
 
340 THE AMERICAN EEPOBTEKS. 
 
 Peters's C. C. Reports, From 1803 to 1818, 1 vol. 
 
 Washington's C. C. Reports, 1803 to 1827, 4 vols. 
 
 » 
 
 deemed, by wise men of all sides, the happiest organization of our Federal 
 
 Judiciary, but which, " having grown up amidst the contentions of party, was 
 not spared by that which spares nothing." On the triumph of the democracy 
 under President Jefferson, the whole court was abolished ; " and Judges who 
 had received their commissions during good behavior were deprived of their 
 offices without the imputation of a fault." The bench in this circuit was com- 
 posed of William Tilghman, afterwards well known as Chief Justice of Penn- 
 sylvania ; Richard Basset, of Delaware, and William Griffith, of New Jersey. 
 The first of these is an historic name, and the second is sufficiently known. 
 Mr. Griffith's deserves not less honor than has been paid to either of them. 
 He was a native of New Jersey, and resided at Burlington, in which city he 
 died, in the summer, I think, of 1826. " It would be difficult," said an accom- 
 plished literary character of New Jersey, his friend, the Rev. Charles Henry 
 Wharton, D.D., " to form a wish for more splendid talents, more professional 
 acquirements, more ardent and unsophisticated attachment to his country, than 
 shone conspicuously in the character of William Griffith. He was literally a 
 father to the fatherless, a friend to the widow, and a benefactor to' the distressed 
 of every description. The pleasure of doing good was the reward of his other- 
 wise unpaid services. Selfishness, even in its most allowable form, seemed 
 scarcely to constitute a feature of his character. He appeared only to live for 
 his family and friends." The Corporation of Burlington, of which city, at the 
 time of his death, he was Mayor, " deeply deploring the loss of his great talents, 
 public services and exalted worth," justly, " declared him entitled to the highest 
 esteem and regard;" and the Assembled Ear of his native State — Mr. Richard 
 Stockton being at that time its leading member, and the originator, I pre- 
 sume, of this honorable testimonial, expressed as their united sense that " while 
 circumstances which he could not control, had deprived the latter years of a 
 useful life of the fruits of a long, able, and honorable practice at the bar, they 
 yet reflected with pride and satisfaction, upon his eminent talents, his personal 
 virtues, the fortitude that sustained, and the integrity that guided his conduct 
 in the trying scenes of his life." Mr. Griffith was the author of a most useful 
 and accurate work, of an ephemeral kind unfortunately, and never completed, 
 called The United States Law Register. 
 
 These Reports, which are few in number, and are contained in a small 
 volume, were taken while their author was a very young man. Subsequent 
 enterprises of another kind, engaged his fine professional parts, and prevented 
 further publication ; " leaving us," says Mr. Hall (1 Journal of Jurisprudencey 
 415, quoted in Marvin's Leg. Bib. 715), "only to regret that he who has 
 shown us how well he could report, has not gratified the public expectation 
 in respect to the same court since Judge Washington presided in it." It was 
 their author's intention to publish the decisions of Judge Washington, and 
 these were recently in the possession of his son, the late Horace B, Wallace, Esq., 
 of Philadelphia, whose testamentary executor purposes to present them to the 
 
THE AMERICAN REPORTERS. 341 
 
 Baldwin's Eeports, From 1829 to 1833, 1 vol. 
 
 Wallace's (John William) 
 Eeporte, 1842 to 1854, 2 vols. 
 
 EOBBTH CIRCUIT. 
 
 Call's Reports, part of vol. 6, From 1793 to 1825. 
 Brookenbrough's Reports, 1802 to 1836, 2 vols. 
 
 SEVENTH CIRCTFIT. 
 
 M'Lean's Eeports, From 1829 to 1854, 5 vols. 
 
 DISTRICT COURTS. 
 
 DISTRICT OP MAINE. 
 
 Ware's Reports, From 1822 to 1839, 1 vol. 
 
 Davies's Reports, 1839 to 1849, 1 vol. 
 
 DISTRICT OP NEW YORK. 
 
 Van Ness's Reports, 1813, 1 vol. 
 
 DISTRICT OP PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 Peters's Admiralty Decisions, From 1792 to 1807, 2 vols. 
 
 Franklin Library in that city, three large volumes richly bound in blue Turkey 
 morocco, of the Reporter's Notes, from 1801 to 1816, of cases in the 3d Circuit, 
 of which the bench was then occupied by Judges Washington and Peters. 
 They cover a part of the same term embraced by the work called Washington's 
 Circuit Court Reports ; " a book," says Mr. Marvin (Leg. Bib. 720), which was 
 " printed from Judge Washington's Notes, never originally designed for the 
 press;'' and which while accurate, so far as it goes, is but an imperfect monu- 
 ment to the judicial powers of that upright man. It was a matter of deep 
 regret with. Judge Washington, as it was with the profession of that day gene- 
 rally, and especially with Mr. Wallace's friends, that the decisions of the 3d 
 Circuit should not have been given to the Bar by their original Reporter. The 
 work would have been an enduring monument alike of his fine intellectual 
 powers and accomplishments, and of Judge Washington's first rate capacities 
 as a Judge upon the Circuit. 
 
342 THE AMKEICAN REPORTERS. 
 
 EASTERN DISTRICT OP PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 Gilpin's Reports, From 1828 to 1836, 1 vd. 
 
 Crabbe's Reports, 1842 to 1846, 1 vol. 
 
 DISTRICT OE SOUTH CAROLINA. 
 
 Bee's Admiralty Reports, From 1792 to 1805, 1 vol. 
 
 DISTRICT or COLUMBIA. 
 
 Cranch's C. G. Reports, From 1801 to 1840, 6 vols. 
 
 2. STATE COURTS. 
 
 MAINE.* 
 
 Greeyleaf's Reports, From 1820 to 1832, 9 vols. 
 
 Fairfield's Reports, 1833 to 1835, 3 vols. 
 
 Shepley's Reports, 1836 to 1849, 17 vols. 
 
 Appleton's Reports, 1841, 2 vols. 
 
 Redington's Reports, 1849 to 1853, 5 vols. 
 
 Heath's Reports, 1853, 1 vol. 
 
 NEW HAMPSHIEE. 
 
 New Hampshire Reports, From 1816 to 1844, 15 vols. 
 Foster's Reports, 1850 to 1853, 4 vols. 
 
 VERMONT. * 
 
 N. Chipman's Reports, From 1789 to 1791, 1 vol. 
 
 9 
 
 ' These are all cited as Maine Reports ; 2d Appleton and 7tli Shepley being 
 under one cover. 
 
 ^ After the first volume of Vermont Reports, which begin on the next page, 
 these Reports are cited by the name of the State, Vermont Reports. There 
 appears to be no 1st volume of Weston, his series beginning with vol. 2. 
 
THE AMERICAN REPORTERS. 
 
 343 
 
 Tyler's Eeports, 
 Brayton's Eeports, 
 D. Chipman's Eeports, 
 Aiken's Eeports, 
 Vermont Eeports, 
 Shaw's Eeports, 
 Weston's Eeports, 
 Slade's Eeports, 
 ■"Washburne's Eeports, 
 Deane's Eeports, 
 
 From 1801 to 1803, 2 vols.^ 
 
 1815 to 1819, 1 vol. 
 
 1789 to 1825, 2 vols. 
 ■For 1826 and 1827, 2 vols. 
 From 1826 to 1837, 9 vols. 
 
 1837 to 1839, 2 vols. 
 
 1839 to 1843, 4 vols. 
 
 1843, 1 vol. 
 
 1844 to 1851, 8 vols. 
 
 1851 to 1853, 2 vols. 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 Massachusetts Eeports, 
 Pickering's Eeports, 
 Metcalf s Eeports, 
 Cnshing's Eeports, 
 
 From 1804 to 1822, 17 vols." 
 1822 to 1840, 24 vols. 
 1840 to 1851, 13 vols. 
 1850 to 1854, 8 vols. 
 
 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 Kirhy's Eeports, 
 Boot's Eeports, 
 Day's Eeports, 
 Connecticut Eeports," 
 
 From 1785 to 1788, 1 vol.= 
 1789 to 1798, 2 vols. 
 1802 to 1810, 5 vols. 
 1814 to 1854, 22 vols.* 
 
 EHODE ISLAND. 
 
 Ehode Island Eeports, From 1835 to 1850, 2 vols.« 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 Coleman's Cases, 
 
 From 1794 to 1800, 1 vol. 
 
 Coleman & Gaines' Cases, 1794 to 1805, 1 vol. 
 
 Caines' Eeports (N. Y. Term.), 1803 to 1805, 3 vols. ' 
 
 Caines' Cases,' 1804 and 1805, 2 vols. 
 
 Johnson's Cases, . 1799 to 1803, 3 vols. 
 
 ' Tyler's Reports are not' considered good authority even in his own State. 
 By Savage, C. J. (4 Cowen, 28.) 
 
 " The 1st vol. of the Massachusetts Reports is by Williams ; the remaining 
 16 by Tyng. 
 
 ' This was the first volume of Reports ever printed in the United States. 
 
 *^The whole of these Reports except the 22d vol., which is by Matson, are 
 by Day. 
 
 6 The 1st by Angell ; the 2d, by Dnrfee. 
 
344 THE AMERICAN REPORTERS. 
 
 Lookwood's Eeversed Cases, in 
 Law & Equity, From 1799 to 1847, 1 vol. 
 
 Johnson's Reports, 1806 to 1823, 20 vols. 
 
 Johnson's Chancery Reports, 1814 to 1823, 7 vols. 
 
 Cowen's Reports, 1823 to 1828, 9 vols. 
 
 Wendell's Reports, 1828 to 1841, 26 vols. 
 
 Hoffman's Reports, 1839 to 1840, 1 vol. 
 
 Hill's Reports, 1841 to 1844, 7 vols. 
 
 Hopkins's Chancery Reports, 1823 to 1826, 1 vol. 
 
 Paige's Chancery Reports, 1828 to 1845, 11 vols. 
 
 Yates's Select Cases, Published in 1811, 1 vol. 
 
 Anthon's Nisi Prius Cases, From 1808 to 1818, 1 vol. 
 
 Rogers's New York City Hall 
 
 Recorder, 1816 to 1821, 6 vols. 
 
 Wheeler's Criminal Cases, 1798 to 1825, 3 vols. 
 
 Hall's Reports, For 1828 and 1829, 2 vols. 
 
 E. Delafield Smith, From 1850 to 1852, 1 vol. 
 
 Edwards's Chancery Reports, 1831 to 1842, 3 vols. 
 
 Clarke's Chancery Reports, 1839^ 1841, 1 vol. 
 
 Sandford's Chancery Reports, 1843Tb 1850, 4 vols. 
 
 Howard's Practice Reports, 1845 to 1852, 6 vols. 
 
 Denio's Reports, 1845 to 1848, 5 vols. 
 
 Barbour's Chancery Reports, 1845 to 1849, 3 vols. 
 
 Barbour's Supreme Court Re- 
 ports, 1847 to 1855, 17 vols. 
 
 Comstock's Reports, 1847 to 1852, 4 vols. 
 
 Sandford's S. C. Reports, 1849 to 1853, 5 vols. 
 
 Selden's Reports, 1858 to 1855, 3 vols. 
 
 Duer's Reports, 1854^-5, 2 vols. 
 
 Kernan's Reports, 1854, 1 vol. 
 
 Bradford's Reports, 1849 to 1853, 2 vols. 
 
 NEW JEESEY. 
 
 Bloomfield's Negro Cases. 
 
 Coxe's Reports, From 1790 to 1795, 1 vol. 
 
 Pennington's Reports, 1806 to 1813, 1 vol. 
 
 Southard's Reports, 1816 to 1820, 2 vols. 
 
 Halsted's Reports, 1821 to 1831, 7 vols. 
 
THE AMERICAN EEPORTEES, 
 
 345 
 
 Green's Eeports, 
 G-reen's Chancery Eeports, 
 Harrison's Eeports, 
 Saxton's Chancery Eeports, 
 Spencer's Eeports, 
 Halsted's Chancery Eeports, 
 Zabriskie's Eeports, 
 
 From 1831 to 1836, 3 vols. 
 1838 to 1846, 3 vols. 
 1837 to 1842, 4 vols. 
 1830 to 1832, 1 vol. 
 1847, 1 vol. 
 
 1849 to 1854, 4 vols. 
 
 1850 to 1853, 3 vols. 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 Dallas's Eeports, 
 Addison's Eeports, 
 Yeates's Eeports, 
 Binney's Eeports, 
 Sergeant & Eawle's Eeports, 
 Eawle's Eeports, 
 Wharton's Eeports, 
 Pennsylvania Eeports, 
 Watts's Eeports, 
 Watts & Sergeant's Eeports, 
 Pennsylvania State I^eports, 
 Browne's Eeports, 
 Ashmead's Eeports, 
 Parsons' Select €ases, 
 Brightl/s Nisi Prius Eeports, 
 Miles's Eeports, 
 Pennsylvania Law Journal, 
 American Law Journal, 
 do. do. Eegister, 
 The Legal Intelligencer, 
 Vaux's Decisions, 
 
 From 1754 to 1806, 4 vols. 
 1791 to 1799, 1 vol. 
 1791 to 1808, 4 vols.' 
 1799 to 1814, 6 vols. 
 1814 to 1829, 17 vols. 
 
 1828 to 1835, 5 vols. 
 1835 to 1841, 6 vols. 
 
 1829 to 1832, 3 vols. 
 1832 to 1840, 10 vols. 
 1841 to 1844, 9 vols. 
 1846 to 1855, 22 vols.'' 
 1806 to 1814, 2 vols. 
 
 1808 to 1841, 2 vols. 
 
 1841 to 1851, 2 vols. 
 
 1809 to 1851, 1 vol. 
 1835 to 1840, 2 vols. 
 
 1842 to 1848, 7 vols. 
 1848 to 1852, 4 vols. 
 1855, 3 vols. 
 
 1845 to 1855, 10 vols. 4to. 
 1841 to 1846, 1 vol.» 
 
 ' The following is a MS. entry on the fly-leaf of Mr. E. D. Ingraham's copy 
 of Teates : " Chief Justice Tilghman told me to-day, that it was a. pity these 
 Reports were ever published. They were loose notes. April 16th, 1S21. So 
 said Judge Duncan, 7th July, 1821, on looking at the preceding entry. Mr. 
 Lewis said, on hearing that they were to be published, ' that they would un- 
 settle the law.' " 
 
 ^ The 1st ten are by Barr, the 11th and 12th by Jones, and the residue by 
 Harris. 
 
 ' A small volume, published by Mr. Vaux, for some time Recorder of Phila- 
 delphia, of oases thought by him of uiterest, and of his action, in committing per- 
 sons charged before him with crimes. The title giving it a prima fack claim 
 to a position among Judicial Reports, I insert it in my lists. 
 
346 THE AMERICAN REPORTERS. 
 
 DELAWABE. 
 
 Harrington's Reports, From 1832 to 1847, 4 vols. 
 
 MARYLAND. 
 
 Harris & M'Henr/s Reports, From 1700 to 1799, 4 vols. 
 Harris & Johnson, 1800 to 1826, 7 vols. 
 Harris & Gill, 1826 to 1829, 2 vols. 
 Gill & Johnson, 1829 to 1842, 12 vols. 
 Bland's Chancery Reports, 1811 to 1832, 3 vols. 
 Gill's Reports, 1843 to 1851, 9 vols. 
 Maryland Reports, 1851 to 1854, 5 vols.' 
 Maryland Chancery Deci- 
 sions, 1851 to 1854, 4 vols. 
 
 VIRGINIA. 
 
 Barradall's (MS.) Reports, From to . 
 
 Jefferson's Reports, 1730 to 1772, 1 vol. 
 
 Virginia Cases, 1786 to 1826, 2 vols.^ 
 
 Wythe's Chancery Reports, 1788 to 1798, 1 vol.* 
 
 Washington's Reports, 1790 to 1796, 2 vols. 
 
 Call's Reports, 1779 to 1825, 6 vols. 
 
 Hening & Munford's Reports, 1807 to 1809, 4 vols. 
 
 Munford's Reports,] 1809 to 1820, 6 vols. 
 
 ' The 1st and 2d vols, are by Magruder, the 3d, 4th, and 5th, by Miller. 
 
 ^ The 1st vol. is by Brockenbrough and Hbhnes ; the 2d by Brookenbrough. 
 
 ' A very greatly improved edition of Wythe, edited by B. B. Minor, Esq., 
 L. B., of the Richmond Bar, with a memoir by the editor, and an appendix con- 
 taining many very learned notes by Mr. Green, appeared in 1852. No Ameri- 
 can Reporter has ever been so learnedly and carefully edited. An interesting 
 account of the Reporter himself, George Wythe, is given to us in " The Repub- 
 lican Court, or American Society in the Days of Washington :" the most recent, 
 but not the least valuable of those numerous and excellent works, for which 
 American history and letters are so greatly indebted to Dr. Rufus Wilmot Gris- 
 wold, of New York; the "author," as he has been justly termed, of "The 
 Prose Writers'' and "The Poets" of America. 
 
THE AMERICAN EEPOKTEES. 347 
 
 Gilmer's Eeports, From 1820 to 1821, 1 vol. 
 Eandolph's Eeports, 1821 to 1828, 6 vols. 
 
 Leigh's Eeports, 1829 to 1841, 12 vols. 
 
 Eobinson's Eeports, 1842 to 1844, 2 vols. 
 
 Grattan's Eeports, 1844 to 1855, 10 vols. 
 
 NORTH CABOLINA. 
 
 Martin's Eeports, From 1778 to 1797, 2 vols.* 
 Haywood's Eeports, 1789 to 1806, 2 vols. 
 Taylor's Reports, 1789 to 1816, 2 vols. 
 North Carolina Term Eeports, 1816 to 1818, 1 vol. 
 Conference Eeports, by Came- 
 ron & Norwood, 1800 to 1804, 1 vol. 
 Murphey's Eeports, 1804 to 1819, 3 vols. 
 Carolina Law Eepository, 1813 to 1816, 2 vols. 
 Hawks's Eeports, 1820 to 1826, 4 vols.^ 
 Devereux' Eeports, 1826 to 1834, 4 vols. 
 Devereux' Equity Eeports, 1826 to 1834, 2 vols. 
 Devereux & Battle's Eeports, 1834 to 1840, 4 vols. 
 
 3d and 4th vols, bound in one. 
 
 Devereux & Battle's Bq. Eep., 1834 to 1840, 3 vols. 
 
 Iredell's Law Eeports, 1840 to 1852, 13 vols. 
 
 Iredell's Equity Eeports, 1840 to 1852, 8 vols. 
 
 SOUTH CABOLINA. 
 
 Bay's Eeports, From 1783 to 1804, 2 vols. 
 
 Brevard's Reports, 1793 to 1816, 3 vols. 
 
 Dessausure's Equity Eeports, the Eevolution to 1813, 4 vols.^ 
 
 Nott & M'Cord's Eeports, 1817 to 1820, 2 vols. 
 
 Constitutional Eeports, 1812 to 1822, 2 vols.* 
 
 ■ Originally published in two volumes, now very scarce, and subsequently 
 reprinted, in a condensed form, as the first 139 pages of 2d North Carolina 
 Reports ; the residue being taken up with 2d Haywood. 
 
 ' 1 Hawks is sometimes called Ruffin and Hawks. 
 
 ' Where these volumes are found in their original binding, most persons, I 
 think, are struck with its peculiarity. The cause of it is, I believe, that it was 
 done by negroes ; slaves, of course. 
 
 * Sometimes, / believe, called South Carolina Reports, and sometimes Tread- 
 way's. 
 
348 THE AMERICAN REPOETERS. 
 
 Constitutional Reports, 2d 
 
 Series/ From 1817 to 1818, 2 vols. 
 
 Harper's Eeports, 1823 to 1824, 1 vol. 
 
 Harper's Equity Reports, 1824, 1 vol. 
 
 M'Cord's Reports, 1820 to 1828, 4 vols. 
 
 M'Cord's Chancery Reports, 1825 to 1827, 2 vols. 
 M'Mullan's Chancery Re.- 
 
 ports, 1827 to 1843, 1 vol. 
 
 Bailey's Reports, 1828 to 1882, 2 vols. 
 
 M'Mullan's Reports, 1835 to 1842, 2 vols. 
 
 Hill's Reports, 1883 to 1887, 8 vols. 
 
 JBailey's Equity Reports, 1830 to 1831, 1 vol. 
 
 Riley's Law Cases, 1836 to 1887, 1 vol. 
 
 Rice's Law Reports, 1838 to 1839, 1 vol. 
 
 Hill's Chancery Reports, 1833 to 1837, 2 vols. 
 
 Riley's Ch^icery Reports, 1836 to 1837, 1 vol. 
 
 Rice's Chancery Reports, 1838 to 1839, 1 vol. 
 
 Spear's Equity Reports, 1842 to 1844, 1 vol. 
 
 Spear's Law Reports, 1842 to 1844, 2 vols. 
 
 Cheves's Reports, 1839 to 1840, 1 vol. 
 
 M'Mullan's Chancery Cases, 1840 to 1842, 1 vol. 
 
 Richardson's Reports, 1844 to 1854, 7 vols. 
 
 Richardson's Equity Reports, 1844 to 1854, 6 vols. 
 
 Strobhart's Equity Reports, 1846 to 1851, 2 vols. 
 
 Strobhart's Reports, 1846 to 1851, 5 vols. 
 
 GE0RGIA.2 
 
 Charlton's (T. U. P.) Reports, Cases decided previous to 1810, 
 
 1vol. 
 Charlton's (R. M.) Reports, From 1811 to 1887, 1 vol. 
 Dudley's Reports, 1821 to 1838, 1 vol. 
 
 Georgia Decisions, 1841 to 1843, 1 vol. 
 
 Kelly's Reports, 1846 to 1847, 3 vols. 
 
 ' Sometimes called Mill's. 
 
 ^ After the Georgia Decisions, these Reports are cited by the name of the 
 State. 
 
THE AMERICAN REPORTERS. 
 
 349 
 
 Kelly & Cobb's Keports, From 1848 to 1849, 2 vols. 
 Cobb's Reports, 1849 to 1855, 10 vols. 
 
 ALABAMA. 
 
 Alabama Reports, 
 Stewart's Reports, 
 Stewart & Porter's Reports, 
 Porter's Reports, 
 Alabama Reports, N. S., 
 
 Prom 1820 to 1826, 1 vol.i 
 1827 to 1831, 3 vols. 
 1831 to 1834, 5 vols. 
 1834 to 1839, 9 vols. 
 1840 to 1853, 22 vols.a 
 
 LOUISIANA. 
 
 Martin's Reports, 
 Martin's Reports, N. S., 
 Louisiana Reports, 
 Robinson's Reports, 
 Louisiana Annual Reports, 
 
 From 1809 to 1823, 12 vols. 
 1823 to 1830, 8 vols. 
 1830 to 1841, 19 vols.« 
 1841 to 1846, 12 vols. 
 1846 to 1852, 7 vols.* 
 
 MISSISSIPPI. 
 
 Walker's Reports, 
 Howard's Reports, 
 Smedes & Marshall's Reports, 
 Freeman's Chancery Reports, 
 Smedes & Marshall's Chan- 
 cery Reports, 
 Cushman's Reports, 
 
 From 1818 to 1832, 1 vol. 
 1834 to 1843, 7 vols. 
 1843 to 1851, 14 vols. 
 
 1839 to 1843, 1 vol. 
 
 1840 to 1843, 1 vol. 
 1852 to 1855, 4 vols. 
 
 ' By Minor. 
 
 ^ The 1st eleven by the Judges ; thence to the 16th byOrmond; the 16th, 
 17th, and 18th, by Cooke; the 9th, 20th, and 21st by Sheppard; and the 22d 
 by the Judges. 
 
 ' The 1st five by Miller, thence to the 19th inclusive by Curry. 
 
 ■• The 1st four by Robinson ; the 5th and 6th by King ; and the 7th by 
 Randolph. 
 
350 
 
 THE AMERICAN REPORTERS. 
 
 TENNESSEE. 
 
 Overton's (Tennessee)Eeports, 
 
 Froml791tol815, 2 vols. 
 
 Cooke's Keports, 
 
 1811 to 1814, 1 vol. 
 
 Heywood's Keports, 
 
 1816 to 1818, 3 vols. 
 
 Peck's Keports, 
 
 1822 to 1824, 1 vol. 
 
 Martin & Yferger's Keports, 
 
 1825 to 1828, 1 vol. 
 
 Yerger's Keports, 
 
 1832 to 1837, 10 vols. 
 
 Meigs's Keports, 
 
 1838 to 1839, 1 vol. 
 
 Humphrey's Keports, 
 
 1839 to 1851, 11 vols, 
 
 Swan's Keports, 
 
 1853 to 1854, 2 vols. 
 
 KENTUCKY. 
 
 Hughes's Keports, 
 Kentucky Decisions, 
 Hardin's Keports, 
 Bibb's Keports, 
 Marshall's (A. K.) Keports, 
 Littel's Keports, 
 Littel's Select Cases, 
 Monroe's Keports, 
 Marshall's (J. J.) Keports, 
 Dana's Reports, 
 Ben. Monroe's Keports, 
 
 From 1785 to 1801, 1 vol. 4to.* 
 1801 to 1805, 1 vol.* 
 1805 to 1808, 1 vol. 
 1808 to 1817, 4 vols. 
 1817 to 1821, 3 vols. 
 1822 to 1824, 5 vols. 
 1795 to 1821, 1 vol. 
 1824 to 1828, 7 vols. 
 1829tol832, 7 vols. 
 1833 to 1840, 10 vols. 
 1840 to 1854, 14 vols. 
 
 OHIO. 
 
 Hammond's Ohio Keports, From 1821 to 1839, 9 vols. 
 
 Wright's Keports, 
 Wilcox's Keports, 
 Stanton's Keports, 
 Crris wold's Keports, 
 Lawrence's Keports,, 
 
 1831 to 1834, 1 vol. 
 
 1840 to 1841, 1 vol. 
 
 1841 to 1845, 3 vols. 
 1846 to 1851, 6 vols. 
 1852, 1 vol. 
 
 • Both of these books are rare. The last is sometimes called " Printed 
 Decisions." Copies of them are in the library of the Law Association of 
 Philadelphia. 
 
THE AMERICAN REPORTERS. 
 
 351 
 
 M'Cook's Keports, 
 Warden's Eeports, 
 
 1853, 1to1> 
 1854, 1 vol." 
 
 Blackford's Eeports, 
 
 Carter's Reports, 
 Porter's Keports, 
 
 INDIANA. 
 
 From May, 1817, to 1850, inclusive, 
 8 vols. 
 1852 to 1853, 2 vols. 
 1853, 1 vol. 
 
 ILLINOIS. 
 
 Breese's Eeports, 
 Scammon's Reports, 
 Gilman's Reports, 
 Peck's Reports, 
 
 From 1819 to 1830, 1 vol. 
 1832 to 1843, 4 vols. 
 1844 to 1849, 5 vols. 
 1850 to 1854, 4 vols. 
 
 Missouri Eeports, 
 
 MISSOTIEI. 
 
 From 1821 to 1854, 18 vols.' 
 
 Douglas's Eeports, 
 Manning's Eeports, 
 
 MICHIGAN. 
 
 From 1843 to 1847, 2 vols. 
 1847 to 1850, 1 vol. 
 
 ARKANSAS. 
 
 Pike's Reports, 
 English's Reports, 
 
 From 1837 to 1845, 5 vols. 
 1845 to 1853, 8 vols. 
 
 ' Called sometimes 1st Ohio State, N. S. 
 
 ^ 22d Ohio Reports, by which name — Ohio Reports— the decisions of this 
 State are continued. 
 
 ' The 1st, 2d,' 3d, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th, by Bay; the 4th, by Napton; the 
 9th, 10th, and 11th, by Stringfellow ; the 12th and 13th, by Robards ; the 14th 
 and 15th, by Gardenhire; the 16th, 17th, and 18th, by Bennett. 
 
352 
 
 THE AMERICAN REPORTERS. 
 
 Florida Reports, 
 
 FLORIDA. 
 
 From 1846 to 1849, 2 vols.* 
 
 Morris's Reports, 
 Greene's Reports, 
 
 Texas Reports, 
 
 Chandler's Reports, 
 
 IOWA. 
 
 From 1848, 1 vol. 
 
 1849 to 1852, 2 vols. 
 
 TEXAS. 
 
 From 1848 to 1849, 2 vols." 
 
 WISCONSIN. 
 
 From 1849 to 1852, 4 vols, in 2. 
 3. MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 Chandler's Criminal Trials, 
 
 From 1637 to 1798, 2 vols. 
 
 Wharton's State Trials, 
 
 
 179.3 to 1800, 1 vol. 
 
 Wheeler's Criminal Cases, 
 
 
 1791 to 1825, 3 vols. 
 
 Hall's American Law Journal, 
 
 
 1808 to 1815, 4 vols. 
 
 Hall's Jour, of Jurisprudence, 
 
 
 1670 to 1821, 1 vol. 
 
 The Law Reporter, 
 
 
 1838 to 1855, 18 vols. 
 
 American Law Register, 
 
 
 1852 to 1855, 3 vols. 
 
 American Railway Cases, Smith & 
 
 
 Bates, 
 
 
 1835 to 1852, 1 vol. 
 
 4. BURLESQUE EEPORTEES. 
 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 Wm. Fortescue's Report, Stradling v. Stiles. 
 Decisions of Sergeant Arabin. 
 
 UNITED STATES. 
 
 Gait's Reports of Cases before Justices of the Peace in Ohio. 
 
 ' The 1st vol. by Branch ; thfe 2cl, by Archer. 
 2 By Webb and Duval. 
 
LEA1>ING CASES. 
 
 Smith's Leading Cases ; witli American Notes, by Hare and "Wal- 
 lace. 
 
 White and Tudor's Leading Cases in Equity ; with American Notes, 
 by Hare and Wallace. 
 
 American Leading Cases, by Hare and Wallace. 
 
 At the close of sucli a book as this, in which the wearied 
 readeV has been studying a history of more than two thou- 
 sand volumes, written and printed, of every kind of author, 
 every kind of reporter, and every kind of merit in both ; 
 of volumes composed, even within their single limits, of 
 heterogeneous or discordant elements — appearing often to 
 the public with false names, and having frequently a secret 
 history, now almost buried in oblivion, yet often most 
 necessary to be recovered, recorded and remembered ; it 
 is probable he will hail with delight such a title in the law 
 as Leading Cases, and acknowledge with satisfaction and 
 gratitude, the truth of the remarks which follow. They 
 are the Publishers' announcement of this series of Leading 
 Cases, now well known, and the history, character, neces- 
 sity, and objects of which, Messrs. T. & J. W. Johnson, 
 Law Booksellers, of Philadelphia, thus present : 
 
 " It must be obvious to every professional man," say 
 these gentlemen, " that the nature and value of what are 
 called adjudged cases, has greatly changed of late, and is 
 changing more and more every day. Prom the immense 
 multiplication of reported cases, many of them being of 
 local or individual interest merely, many others, consist- 
 ing more of the application than the settlement of any 
 principle, and many of all kinds, no doubt, being both 
 hastily considered, and questionably decided — it has come 
 to pass that precedent, in its ancient and technical power, 
 
 23 
 
354 LEADING CASES. 
 
 is hardly known to the courts at all ; and that ' a case' — 
 once so much sought for, so deferentially listened to, and 
 so scrupulously followed — ^is now much less inquired after 
 than ' a principle' and ' a reason.' Much of this has been 
 brought about by the structure of our American Confede- 
 racy and courts. "We have an indefinite number of tribu- 
 nals, all of supreme authority within their spheres ; we 
 have hardly fewer federal courts, whose jurisdiction is 
 superposited over the same or wider territories, but who 
 are neither bound, nor in the habit of yielding to the other 
 tribunals, which are uncontrollable in their own orbits. 
 And we have a Supreme Court of the United States, 
 which, while possessing controlling authority ov6r the 
 former courts, possesses none at all over these last. From 
 every one of all these courts, Eeports of cases are cou- 
 stantly issuing, and with the whole body of modern Eng- 
 lish Reports, adding to both the great collections which 
 come down to us from past times, we have got at last to 
 have a number, variety, complexity, confusion and con- 
 tradiction of cases, which no man can subordinate to any 
 practical use on the ancient principle of authority in pre- 
 cedents. Where then, and how, is relief to be found in 
 this never-ending, still-beginning projection of new cases? 
 No how and nowhere, manifestly, but in the system which 
 the evil itself has suggested, and which, in such works as 
 those that we speak of, it has so abundantly justified, — ^the 
 system of Leading Cases. The profession has got weary 
 of following the now interminable lines and divarications 
 of minqr boundaries. They are done with vouching of 
 ancient surveys ; many of them made in haste or with 
 hesitation, imperfectly or ignorantly at first, and now 
 oftentimes so worn away, as to make it doubtful whether 
 they were ever fully made at all. They can no longer 
 find either safety or end in trusting to the multitudinous 
 and contradictory soundings marked upon recent maps 
 with such exhaustless and careless profusion. They 
 must seek to guide themselves by principles of wider and 
 
LEADING CASES. 355 
 
 better science ; by the great established landmarks, wbose 
 authenticity no one can question, and by the great ' light- 
 houses of the law,' which never fail, are never dimmed, 
 and are most visible in those times when the need of guide 
 is mostly felt. They must, in short, return again to the 
 True Principle of Precedents, which by an excess of respect 
 to cases, the mere illustrations of them, has been insen- 
 sibly corrupted and almost forgotten. 
 
 " This then is the idea of The Leading Oases of Smith, 
 White and Ttjdgii, Haee and Wallace. To select some 
 one or more great case or cases on each leading head of 
 the law ; a case where the question in issue was itself one 
 of principle ; where the case was argued on both sides by 
 eminent men ; decided by a court of high authority, com- 
 posed of the first judges of their time, and where the 
 report has been received and considered in all time since 
 as a great, comprehensive and authoritative exposition of 
 the law on that particular subject. Upon such a case as a 
 centre, then to group around, in relation to it, those sub- 
 sequent cases which crystallize themselves about in pro- 
 per report, whether of correlation or dependence on it ; 
 and so to form a fabric and system which shall be firmly 
 fixed in its base, and comprehensive, proportioned, conve- 
 nient, and shapely in its remaining structure and develop- 
 ments. 
 
 "It maybe said that this series of Leading Cases contains 
 
 the BODY OF THE LaW. 
 
 " In the excellent Leading Cases of Smith, are found those 
 great fiindamental cases, beginning as far back as the Chief 
 Justiceship of Coke, and coming through the times of Ho- 
 bart. Holt, Chief Justice Parker, Willes, Lord Mansfield, 
 Loughborough, Kenyon, and other great judges — ^which 
 have laid those deep and broad foundations of the law which 
 give to it the nature and the name of a great and liberal 
 science. The Leading Cases in Equity are the necessary 
 English complement to the common law cases of Smith. 
 They present their subjects in a later and more refined 
 
356 LEADING CASES. 
 
 state of the legal science ; they show it in a more applied 
 and concrete form, and we here see the legal system of the 
 other series in its completed operation upon ' each change 
 of many colored life,' and upon the active, opulent, com- 
 mercial and highly artificial structure of modem society. 
 It is a great mistake, we may here add, to suppose that the 
 doctrines of scientific equity are either eradicated, super- 
 seded, or inapplicable in our State of Pennsylvania, or in 
 those other States where Chancery as a separate jurisdic- 
 tion does not exist. The fasion of the systems makes a 
 study of equitable principles more important than ever. 
 The distinction between law and equity is not, as many 
 people suppose, an artificial one. Though extremely deli- 
 cate in many instances, it is in all, a real and fiindamental 
 distinction, and one just as wide as the distinction between 
 human duties and human rights. It is the very honor and 
 beauty of justice, and will always, in some form, make a 
 part of municipal law. The fact that it ceases to be ad- 
 ministered through separate jurisdictions, and by pecuhar 
 forms, makes the more necessary that its essential princi- 
 ples and the modes, measures, and times of their applica- 
 tion, be understood with falness and accuracy. The 
 Ambeioan Leading Cases, are a complement to the two 
 English works. They give our own interpretations, illus- 
 trations, corrections and control of the English Jurispru- 
 dence, whether of Law or Equity, and show it to the 
 world as it takes its cast and color from the freedom, in- 
 telligence, constitution and pursuits of our own wonderful 
 people. The whole series presents in the best way, for it 
 presents it both abstractly and concretely, and in the posi- 
 tive and historic form — the Jurisprudence of the United 
 States as it comes to us from our mother country, and as 
 it actually exists in this country at this time, modified or 
 improved by our own equal or greater men. This cast of 
 elementary book is eminently adapted for practical use. 
 The very form of it controls all discussion and essay that 
 is metaphysical or speculative merely. No subject need 
 
LEADING CASES. 357 
 
 be pursued through, useless refinements merely to com- 
 plete an outline ; the necessity and fault of many text- 
 books. Everything springs from, and is subordinated to 
 the actual, the practical, the needed. And the result of 
 everything is intended for the student, and the practitioner 
 of American Law, in our country, in our own day. 
 
 <' The merits of all these works have been established in a 
 practical way by the great and constantly increasing de- 
 mand for them throughout the United States. Though un- 
 commonly large editions of all of them have been printed, 
 the present is the Fifth American edition of Smith ; the 
 Third of the American Leading Cases, and the Second 
 of the Leading Cases in Equity. The whole series has 
 received the highest praise from the Legal Journals, Ee- 
 viewB, and Eegisters of the country without distinction of 
 place ; and great numbers of references, accompanied fre- 
 quently with expressions of respect, from the Supreme 
 Judicial Tribunals of nearly every State in our Union, 
 attest the entire impartiality of these criticisms and re- 
 views. The whole establishes the judicial authorily of 
 these books, and places their merits beyond a question." 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 A CHEONOLOGICAL STATEMENT OF THE 
 FEINTED LAW KEPORTS, 
 
 AHB OP THE 
 
 COTEMPORAET MANUSCRIPTS BY WHICH THEY MAY BE 
 AUTHENTICATED AND IMPROVED.' 
 
 HEKRY m.— October 19, 1216. 
 
 PRINTED REPORTS. 
 
 Jenkins, Exchequer, 4, 19, 21. 
 
 EDWAED I.— B'ovEMBBR 16, 1272. 
 
 PRINTED REPORTS. 
 
 Jenkins, Exchequer, 18, 34. 
 KeUwey, K. B. and C. P. 6. 
 Year Book Memoranda of the Exchequer only, Part I. 1 to 29. 
 
 COTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPTS. 
 Lincoln' a Inn Library : 
 A Year Book, 17, 18, 19, 30, 31, and 32 Edw. 1. 
 
 Bishop Moris' s Collection, Public Lib. Cambridge : 
 402. A Year Book, temp. Edw. 1. 
 
 ' See anie,^'' Remarks," § 35, p. iv. n., and pp. 52, 77 n. 
 
MEANS OF IMPROVEMENT. 359 
 
 Lmidowne Collection, British Museum : 
 564, 14. Reports of Adjudged Cases temp. Edw. 1. 
 
 M8S. Middle Temple Library: 
 Placita Coram Rege, temp. Edw. 1 ; containing, as appears, a short statement 
 of Records of Proceedings and Judgments in that King's Cotirts, in the several 
 years of his reign. 
 
 / 
 
 EDWAKD n.— July 7, 1307. 
 
 FEINTED REPORTS. ^ 
 
 Jenkins, Exchequer, 5, 15, 18. 
 
 Year Book, Part I. K. B., C. P., and Exch., 1 to 19. Maynard. 
 
 COTEMPOKARY MANUSCRIPTS. 
 Lincoln's Inn Library ; 
 
 Year Book, 1 to 20 Edw. 2. This MS. Is entirely different from the printed 
 Maynard's, Edw. 2 ; containing many Cases not in the latter, and such as 
 are found in both, being differently reported. — Return of Lincoln's Inn to 
 Record Commission. 
 
 Bishop Moris' s MS. Public Lib. Cambridge : 
 
 306. A Year Book, temp. Edw. 2. 
 308. « « " Edw. 2. 
 
 Bishop Tanner's Collection, Bodleian Lib. Oxon: 
 
 13. Relationes Placitorum Vulgo diet. Year Book. Incipientes, anno 1 Edw. 
 2 ; et Finientes, anno ultimo Edw. 2. 
 
 Harleian Collection, British Museum : 
 
 571. Collectanea de Annalibus Juridices Regni, R. Edw. 2. 
 
 572. Pars Annalium Juridicorum, Regni Regis Edw. 2. — This MS. differs in 
 
 parts from the two following. 
 739, 1 to 11. Abstracts from Year Books, 1 to 10 Edw. 2. 
 739, 13. Year Book, 20 Edw. 2. 
 
 835. Annales Juridioe, abannoprimo to anno 13, inclusive. 
 2184. Part of a Year Book, temp. Edw. 2, particularly as to his 5, 6, 7, 8, 13, 
 
 and 14 years. 
 3283. A Year Book of the reign of Edw. 2. 
 3639. Annales Juridioe, ab anno 3 ad 19 Edw. 2. 
 
 Margrave's Collection, British Museum : 
 210. Year Book, several years of Edw. 2. 
 
360 APPENDIX. 
 
 EDWAED m.— January 25, 1327. 
 
 PRINTED REPOKTS. 
 
 Benloe, K. B. and C. P., 32. 
 
 Jenkins, Exchequer, 1 to 47. 
 
 Keilwey, K. B. and C. P., 1 to 47. 
 
 Tear Book, K. B. and C. P., Part II. 1 to 10. 
 
 « " f Part in. 17, 18, 21 to 30, 38 and 39. 
 
 « « « Part rV. 40 to 50. 
 
 " " " Part V. Liber Assisarum, 1 to 51. 
 
 COTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPTS. 
 Lincoln's Inn Library : 
 Year Book, 1 to 46 E(Jw. 3. 
 
 Inner Temple Library : 
 
 Year Book from 10 to 16 Edw. 3, inclusive. " This Year Book is extremely 
 valuable, the whole of the period to which it relates, except the lOth year, 
 being deficient in the printed copies. It is very fairly written in a coeval 
 hand; and upon examining the 10th year with the printed copy, they appear 
 so nearly alike as to induce a belief that this MS. for that yeeir was used in 
 the printed edition." — Seturn of the Imner Temple to Record Commission. 
 
 Year Book; contains anni 38, 40, 41, 42, Edw. 3; 3 Hen. 6. — The handwrit- 
 ing in which this MS. is written is not coeval. 
 
 A Volume of Reports, in which there are a few Cases in the reigns of Edw. 3, 
 Hen. 6, but chiefly temp. P. & M. and Eliz. 
 
 Bish^ Tanner's Collection, Bodleian Library, Oxon: 
 
 260. Liber Annalium a Termino Hilar, anno B. K. Edw. 3, usque ad Term 
 Michs. anno R. Edw. 3. 
 
 Bishop Moris' s Collection, Pub. Library, Cambridge : 
 
 180. Liber Annalis, temp. Regis Edw. 3, annis 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. 
 307. A Year Book, temp. King Edw. 3. 
 
 309 to 316 and 325. Eight Vols. Year Books, temp. E. 3, Rich. 2, Hen. 4, 5, 6, 
 Rich. 3. 
 
 Hargrave Collection, British Museum: 
 297. Reps. Hil. 40 Edw. 3, to Mich. 45 Edw. 3. 
 
MEANS OF IMPROVEMENT. 361 
 
 Harleian Collection, British Muaewm. : 
 
 3636. Annales Juridioi, 06 mmo 2 ad 10 Edw. 3. 
 3626. " - " "3 ad 10 Edw. 3. 
 
 739, 14 to 24. Year Books, 1 to 11 Edw. 3. 
 
 740, 3 to 14. « 1 to 11 Edw. 3. 
 
 741, 13 to 19. « 13 to 19 Edw. 3. 
 741, 21 to 22. " 20 to 21 Edw. 3. 
 
 811, 1. Part of Year Book, temp. Edw. 3, 19 to 31, the latter part of the 35th 
 
 year, the 36th, 37th, and greater part of the 38th years. 
 3283. A Year Book, temp. 3, &o.. Law French. 
 
 Lansdowne Collection, British Museum : 
 
 1074, 23. Entries of several sorts of Pleadings on Record, temp. Edw. 3, Hen. 
 6 and 7. 
 
 RICHABD n.— June 21, 1377. 
 
 PRINTED REPORTS. 
 
 Bellewe, K. B. and C. P., 1 to 22. 
 Jenkins, Exchequer, 1 to 22. 
 
 COTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPTS. 
 Lincoln's Inn Library : 
 Year Book, 2, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, Rich. 2. 
 
 Bishop Moris' s Collection, Pub. Library, Cambridge : 
 312. Year Book, temp. Rich. 2. 
 
 Lansdowne Collection, British Museum : 
 
 557. The Year Book, or Juridical Annals during the reign of Rich. 2. — The 
 Year Books of this rfiign have never been printed. This MS. and the 
 two above, in Lincoln's Inn Library, and Public Library, Cambridge, 
 will fill up the chasm of this reign in the Year Books. 
 
 HEXRY IV.— Sbptbmbbe 29, 1899. 
 
 PRINTED REPORTS. 
 
 Jenkins, Exchequer, 1 to 14. 
 
 Year Book, K. B. and C. P., Part VI. 1 to 14. 
 
362 APPENDIX. 
 
 COTEMPOaAET MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 Lincoln's Inn Library : 
 
 Year Book, 2, 8, 11, 13 Hen. 4. 
 
 .^ Bishop Tanner's Coll. Bodldan Library, Oxon : 
 
 250. Reports in the time of Hen. 4. 
 
 Bishop Moris's Coll. in Pub. Library, Cambridge : 
 
 310. A Year Book, temp. Hen. 4, &c. • 
 
 312. « « " 
 
 Harldan Coll. British Museum .' 
 
 5142 to 5. Term Eeps. 26 Hen. 8 to 19 Eliz., with some of Hen. 4 and 5. 
 
 Sargrave's Collection, British Museum : 
 
 1. A Year Book, beginning Mich. 2 Hen. 4, and ending Easter 9 Hen, 5 ; and 
 see Note in Hen. 5. 
 
 HENEY v.— March 20, 1413. 
 
 PRINTED REPORTS. 
 
 Jenkins, Exchequer, 1 to 10. 
 
 Year Book, K. B. and C. P., Part VI. 1, 2, 5, and 7 to 10. 
 
 COTEMPORAKY MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 Lincoln's Inn Library : 
 
 Year Book, 1, 5, 9. 
 
 Bishop Moris's Coll. Public Lib. Cambridge : 
 
 310. Year Book, temp. Hen. 5. 
 312. « " Hen. 5. 
 
 5142 to 5. Term Keps. 26 Hen. 8 to 19 Eliz., with some of Hen. 4 and 5. 
 
 Sargrave's Collection, British Museum : 
 
 1. A Year Book, beginning Mich. 2 Hen. 4, and ending Easter 9 Hen. 5. — 
 Several Cases in this MS. are given in the same words as in the printed 
 Year Books of the same time. Mr. Hargrave was of opinion that the 
 other Cases were mostly, or wholly in print ; the writing is a very 
 ancient Court-hand. The Volume appears heretofore to have belonged 
 to the Yelverton Collection. 
 *^* If the description of this Vol. be accurate, it must contain the years of 
 Hen. 5 not in the printed Year Books, viz., the 3, 4, and 6th years. 
 
MEANS OF IMPKOTEMENT. 363 
 
 HENET VL— August 31, 1422. 
 
 PRINTED KEPORTS. 
 
 Benloe, K. B. and C. P., 2, 18. 
 
 Jenkins, Exchequer, 1 to 39. 
 
 Year Book, K. B. and C. P. Parts VII. and VIII. 1 to 4, 7 to 12, 
 
 14, 18 to 22, 27, 28, 30 to 39. 
 
 COTEMPOEART MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 Lincoln's Inn Library : 
 Year Book, 1, 2, 3 Hen. 6. 
 
 Inner Temple Library : 
 A Volume of Keps. in which there are a few Cases of E. 3 and Hen. 6. 
 Bishop Moris's Coll. Pub. Library, Cambridge : 
 
 309. A Year Book, temp. Hen. 6. 
 
 310. " « Hen. 6. 
 312. « « Hen. 6. 
 
 Earleian Collection, British Museum : 
 
 4585. Eeports from 24 Hen. 6 to end of Eliz. — The name of Robert Paynel is 
 in this Book ; then follow Ex-Libro Francisci Moore, Mititis servien- 
 tis ad legem soripto propria manu ipsins. 
 
 4557. Reports, 11 to 22 Hen. 6.— In the first leaf of this MS. is this, in the 
 handwriting of Robert- Paynel : " Note, in this Book are the 13 and 14 
 years of Henry 6, which are not in the printed books." 
 
 Lansdowne Collection, British Museum : 
 
 1074, 23. Entries of several sorts of Pleading on Record, temp. Edw. 3, Hen. 
 6 and 7. 
 
 EDWAED IV.— March 4, 1461. 
 
 PRINTED REPORTS. 
 
 Jenkins, Exchequer, 1 to 22. 
 
 Year Book, Annals, K. B. and C. P., Part IX., 1 to 22. 
 Year Book, Keports, K. B., C. P., and Exeh., Part X., 5th long 
 quinto. 
 
364 APPENDIX. 
 
 COTBMPOKAEY MANUSCRIPTS. 
 HarUian Collection, British Museum : 
 
 4585. Reports, 24 Hen. 6 to the end of Elizabeth. 
 1345. Extracts from Year Books of Edw. 4. 
 1691, 1. Various Reports, Edw. 4, Hen. 7, &o. 
 
 Sargrave's Collection, British Museum : 
 105. Reports, East. T. 22 Ed. 4 to 21 Hen. 7 (Latin). 
 
 EDWAED v.— April 9, 1483. 
 
 PRINTED REPORTS. 
 
 Jenkins, Exchequer. 
 
 Year Books, K. C. and C. P., Part XI. 
 
 COTEMPORART MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 Sarleian Collection, British Museum : 
 
 1345, 4. Extracts from Year Books, temp. Edw. 5. 
 4585. Reports, 24 Hen. 6 to the end of Elizabeth. 
 
 Lansdowne Collection, British Museum, : 
 105. Reports, Easter Term, 22 Edw. 4, Edw. 5, Rich. 3, to 21 Hen. 7. 
 
 RICHAED m-^TuNB 22, 1483. 
 
 PRINTED REPORTS. 
 
 Jenkins, Exchequer, 1 and 2. 
 
 Year Book, K. B. and C. P., Part XI. 1 and 2. 
 
 OOTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 Bishop MorUs Collection, Fub. Lib. Cambridge : 
 
 310. Year Book, Rich. 3. 
 
 Sargrave's Collection, British Museum : 
 
 105. Reports, Edw. 4 and 5, R. 3, and Hen. 7. 
 
 ffarleian Collection, British Museum : 
 
 1345, 5. Year Book Extracts, temp. Rich. 3. 
 4585. Reports, 24 Hen. 6 to the end of Elizabeth. 
 
MEANS OP IMPROVEMEKT. 365 
 
 HENEY Vn.— Apeil 22, 1485. 
 
 PRINTED REPORTS. 
 
 Benloe, K. B. and C. P., 1. 
 
 Jenkins, Exchequer, 1 to 24. 
 
 Keilwey, K. B. and C. P., 12, 13, 17 to 24. 
 
 Moore, K. B., 0. P., Exch., and Chancery, 1 to 24. 
 
 Year Book, K. B. and C. P., Part XI. 1 to 16, 20 to 24. 
 
 COTEMPORABY MANUSCRIPTS. 
 Lamdowne Collection, British Museum : 
 
 1074, 23. Entries of several sorts of Pleading on Record, temp. Edw. 3, Hen. 
 6 and 7. 
 
 Sarleian Collection, British Museum : 
 
 1345, 3. Extracts from Year Books, temp. Hen. 7. 
 
 1691, 2. Various Reports, temp. Edw. 4 and Hen. 7, &o. 
 
 1624, 1. Reports, anno 4 Hen. 7 to the last year of his reign. 
 
 Lansdowne Collection, British Museum : 
 105. Reports, East. Term, 22 Edw, 4 to 21 Hen. 7 (Latin). 
 
 HENRY Vm.— April 22, 1509. 
 
 PRINTED REPORTS. 
 
 Anderson, C. P., 25, &c. 
 
 Benloe, C. P., 1 to 38. 
 
 N. Benloe, K. B., C. P., and Exch., 22, &c. 
 
 Benloe, Keilwey and Ashe, K. B., C. P., and Exch. 
 
 Brooks's New Cases, K. B., C. P., and Exch. 
 
 Dalison, C. P., 38. 
 
 Dyer, K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chan., 4, &c. 
 
 Jenkins, Exchequer, 1 to 38. 
 
 Keilwey, K. B. and C. P., 1 to 11, and 21. 
 
 Moore, K. B., C. P., Exch. and Chan., 3. ^ 
 
 Year Book, K. B. and C. P., Part XL, 13, 14, 18, 19, 26, 27. 
 
366 APPENDIX. 
 
 COTEMPORAEY MANUSCRIPTS. 
 Lansdovme Collection, British Museum : 
 
 1077. A miscellaneous irregular Collection of Reports of Cases, from Hen. 8 
 to Car. 1, by T. Levinge, 8ergeant-at Law ; to which is added, a Col- 
 lection of Cases in C. P., 1653 to 1663, by K. Levinge, Barrister at 
 Law, of Inner Temple, and Recorder of Chester. 
 
 1059. Containing Reports of Sir F. Moore, transcribed, but not abridged, from 
 his own MSS. Although these are not the whole of Moore's Reports, 
 there are many amongst them not to be found in the printed copy. 
 
 Harleian Collection, British Museum : 
 
 1345, 2. Extracts from Year Book, Hen. 8, 12 to 27 years. 
 
 355. A Paper Book, wherein are contained the Reports of Mr. Sergeant Ben- 
 low, with Indexes prefixed. 
 
 4817. Anderson and Warburton's Reports. The Reports of Mr. Justice War- 
 burton begin at folio 152. 
 
 1691, 2. Various Reports, temp. Hen. 8. 
 
 1715, 2. Reports of Pleadings had in the Courts at Westminster, extracted 
 from the Plea Rolls of Hen. 8. 
 
 1624, 2. Reports, anni 1, 6, 9, 11, 17 Hen. 8. 
 
 5142 to 5. Four Volumes of Term Reports in Law French and English, 26 
 Hen. 8 to 19 Eliz., &o. 
 
 4585. Reports, 24 Hen. 6 to the end of Elizabeth. 
 
 Margrave's Collection, British Museum : 
 
 2. Reports 28 Heta. 8 to 38 Hen. 8, Edw. 6, and part of Queen Mary's. — The 
 
 printed Year Books terminate Trin. 27 Hen. 8 ; but these Reports ex- 
 tend to and include the whole of that reign, the reign of Edw. 6, and 
 part of Queen Mary's. 
 
 3. Reports, temp. Hen. 8, Phil, and Mary, and Elizabeth. 
 
 4. Reports collected from the reigns of Hen. 8, Edw. 6, Phil, and Mary, and 
 
 Elizabeth. 
 6. Reports by Judge Harper, Mich. 37 Hen. 8 to Mich. 26 and 27 Elizabeth. 
 33, 2. Extracts from Benlow's Reports, temp. Hen. 8, Phil, and Mary and 
 
 Elizabeth. 
 388, 1. Reports of Cases, 1 to 32 Hen. 8. 
 388, 4. Reports of Cases, temp. Hen. 8. 
 
 EDWAED VI.— January 28, 1547. 
 
 PRINTED REPORTS. 
 
 Anderson, C. P., 1 to 6. 
 Benloe and DalisoO; C. P.; 2. 
 
MEANS OF IMPROVEMENT. 367 
 
 Brooks's New Cases, K. B., C. P., and Exoh. 
 New Benloe, K. B., C. P., and Exch., 1 to 6. 
 Dyer, K. B., C. P., Exch. and Chan., 1 to 6. 
 Jenkins, Exchequer, 1 to 6. 
 Moore, K. B., C. P., Exch. and Chan., Ito 6. 
 Plowden, K. B., C. P., and Exch., 4 to 6. 
 
 COTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPTS. 
 Lansdotone Collection, British Museum : 
 
 1077, An irregular Collection of Reports, by T. Levinge, Hen. 8 to Car. 1 ; to 
 which is added, Cases in Com. Pleas, 1653-1663, by R. Levinge, of 
 Inner Temple, and Recorder of Chester. 
 
 Sarldan Collection, British Musmm : 
 
 5141. Law Cases, 6 Edw. 6, and 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 Phil, and Mary, by Justice 
 
 Wra. Dalison, in law French. 
 6681. A Quarto, containing the Second Book of Plowden's Reports, with 
 
 Tables prefixed. 
 5142 to 5. Term Reports, 25 Hen. 8, Edw. 6, P. and Mary to 19 Elizabeth. 
 4585. Reports, 24 Hen. 6 to the end of Elizabeth. 
 355. Mr. Sergeant Benlow's Reports, with Indexes. 
 4817. Anderson and Warburton's Reports. 
 
 Margrave's Collection, British Museum : 
 
 2. Reports, 28 Hen. 8 to 38 Hen. 8, Edw. 6, and part of Queen Mary's.— The 
 
 printed Year Books terminate Trin. 27 Hen. 8 ; but these Reports extend 
 to, and include, the whole of that reign, the reign of Edw. 6, and part of 
 Queen Mary's. 
 
 3. Reports, terap. Hen. 8, Ph. and M., and Eliz. 
 
 4. Reports collected from the reigns of Hen. 8, Edw. 6, Phil, and Mary, and 
 
 Eliz. 
 6. Reports by Judge Harper, Mich. 37 Hen. 8 to Mich. 26 and 27 Elizabeth. 
 
 PHILrP AND MAEY.— July 6, 1553. 
 
 PRINTED REPORTS. 
 
 Anderson, C. P., 1 to 6. 
 
 Benloe and Dalison, 0. P., 1 to 5. 
 
 Benloe in Keilwey and Ashe, K. B., C. P., and Exch., 1 to 5. 
 
 New Benloe, K. B., C. P., and Exch., 1 to 5. 
 
 Brooks's New Cases, K. B., C. P., and Exch., 1 to 5. 
 
368 APPENDIX. 
 
 Gary's Chancery, 5. 
 
 Dyers, K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chan., 1 to 5. 
 
 Dalison in Keilwey and Ashe, C. P., 1, 4, and 5. 
 
 Jenkins, Exchequer, 1 to 5. 
 
 Leonard, K. B., C. P., and Exch., 1 to 5. 
 
 Moore, K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chanc, 1 to 5. 
 
 Owen, K. B. and C. P., 4 to 5. 
 
 Plowden, K, B., C. P., and Exch., 1 to 5. 
 
 COTEMPORAEY MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 Lansdovme Collection, British Museum : 
 
 1072. A Collection of Cases, temp. Mary and Elizabeth, transcribed from 
 Harper. — Mr. Umfreville, the late possessor of this MS., says in a. 
 note, "This Book, although a Copy, contains many Special Cases 
 • regnante Elizabeth." 
 
 1077. A Miscellaneous Collection of Cases, Hen. 8 to Car. 1, by T. Levinge, 
 Sergeant at Law ; likewise Cases in C. P., 1653 to 1663, by R. Le- 
 vinge, Recorder of Chester. 
 
 Harleian Collection, British Museum : 
 
 5141, 1. Law Cases, 6 Edw. 6 ; 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 Phil, and Mary, by Justice 
 
 Wm. Dalison, in law French. 
 1624, 3. Reports, anno 4 and 5 Phil, and Mary. 
 .5142 to 5. Term Reports, 26 Hen. 8, Edw., 6 P. and M., to 19 Eliz. ; with some 
 
 Cases in Hen. 4 and 5. 
 4585. Reports, 24 Hen. 6 to the end of Elizabeth. 
 
 355. Mr. Sergeant Benlow's Reports, with Indexes. 
 4817. Anderson and Warburton's Reports. 
 6681. Plowden's Reports, Part 11. with Tables. 
 
 Inner Temple Library : 
 A Collection of Reports, temp. Philip and Mary, and Elizabeth. 
 Margrave's Collection, British Museum : 
 
 2. Reports, 28 Hen. 8 to 38 Hen. 8, Edw. 6, and part of Q. Mary.— The 
 
 Printed Year Books terminate Trin. 27 Hen. 8 ; but these Reports 
 extend to, and include, the whole of that reign, the reign of Edw. 6, 
 and part of Q. Mary's. 
 
 3. Reports, temp. Hen. 8, Phil, and Mary, and Elizabeth. 
 
 4. Reports collected from the reigns of Hen. 8, Edw. 6, Phil, and Mary, 
 
 and Elizabeth. 
 6. Reports by Judge Harper, Mich. 37 Hen. 8 to Mich. 26 and 27 Elizabeth. 
 
MEANS OF IMPROVEMENT. 369 
 
 33, 2. Extracts from Benlow's Reports, temp. Hen. 8, Phil, and Mary, and 
 
 Elizabeth. 
 388, 5, Cases, temp. Phil, and Mary, and Elizabeth. 
 
 ELIZAEETH.— November 7, 1558. 
 
 PKINTED REPORTS. 
 
 Anderson, C. P., 1 to 45. 
 
 Benloe in Keilwey and Ashe, K. B., C. P., and Exch., 2 to 20. 
 
 Bendloe, K. B., C. P., and Exch., 1 to 17. 
 
 Benloe, C. P., 1 to 21. 
 
 Brownlow and Goldsborough, C. P., 11 to 45. 
 
 Gary, Chancery, 1 to 45. 
 
 Coke, K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chan., 14 to 45. 
 
 Croke, K. B., and C. P., 24 to 45. 
 
 Dalison, C. P., 1 to 16. 
 
 Dalison in Keilwey and Ashe, C. P., 2 to 7. 
 
 Dickens, Chancery, a few Cases. 
 
 Dyer, K. B. and C. P., 1 to 23. 
 
 Grodbolt, in all the Courts, 17 to 45. 
 
 Goldsborough, in all the Courts, 28 to 31, 89 to 43. 
 
 Hobart, in all the Courts, a few Cases. 
 
 Hutton, C. P., 26 to 38. 
 
 Jenkins, Exchequer, 1 to 45. 
 
 Leonard, K. B., C. P., and Exch., 1 to 45: ' 
 
 Moore, K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chan., 1 to 45. 
 
 Noy, K. B. and C. P., 1 to 45. 
 
 Owen, K. B. and C. P., 1 to 45. 
 
 Plowden, K. B., C. P., and Exch., 1 to 21. 
 
 Popham, K. B., C. P., and Chan., 34 to 39. 
 
 Saville, C. P. and Exch., 22 to 36. 
 
 Tothill, Chancery, 1 to 45. 
 
 Yelverton, K. B., 44 and 45. 
 
 COTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 Lansdowne Collection, British Museum : 
 
 582. Short Notes of Cases at Common Law, temp. Eliz. and Jac. 1, 
 1057. A large Collection of Cases, Pleadings, and Reports, in various Confts, 
 temp. Elizabeth. At the beginning is the great case Of Soroggs v. 
 Colshill. 
 
 24 
 
370 APPENDIX. 
 
 1060. A Collection of Repotts of certain Cases adjudged, temp. Elizabeth, in 
 
 K. B., C. P., and Exchequer, by divers eminent persons ; amongst 
 whom are Justice Harper, Baron Saville, Sir J. Walter, and Matthew 
 Ewens. From internal evidence this MS. was Mr. Powle's, and 
 afterwards Mr. Umfreville's. It appears to have been written ante- 
 rior to 38 Elizabeth. 
 
 1061. Reports of Cases between 28 Eliz. and 11 Jac. 1. 
 1065. « " K. B., Hil. 41 to Mich. 43 Eliz. 
 
 599. Reports of Cases in Chancery, collected from the Records of the Court. 
 1058. Reports, K. B., East. 43 to Hil. 45 Eliz. 
 1172, 1. Reports of Cases, temp. Eliz. and Jac. 1. 
 
 1067. Reports, K. B., 14 to 43 Elizabeth. 
 
 1068. A Collection of Cases in various years, during the reign of Elizabeth. 
 
 Mr. Umfreville calls this volume " a copy from a good collection." 
 1074, 24. Reports, K.B., Hit. to Mich. 39 Elizabeth. " Qui swat bom," says 
 
 Mr. Umfteville. 
 1074, 24. Various Reports in Com. Pleas, from 40 EUz. to 1 Jac. 1 . 
 
 1072. A Collection of Cases, temp. Mary and Eliz., from Judge Harper. See 
 
 Mr. Umfreville's note to this number, Phil, and Mary. 
 
 1073. Cases, C. P., from 28 to 37 Eliz. 
 
 1076. Reports, K. B. and C. P., 25 to 42 Elizabeth. 
 
 1077. A Miscellaneous Collection of Cases and Reports, Hen. 8 to Car, 1, by 
 
 Sergeant T. Levinge ; and Cases in C. P. 1653 to 1663, by R. Levinge, 
 
 Recorder of Chester. 
 ] 078. Reports of Cases, K. B. temp. Eliz., written at the time. 
 1084. A Miscellaneous Collection of Cases, &c., temp. Elizabeth ; amongst 
 
 which, at fol. 36, will be found some Reports of Ch. Jus. Wray. This 
 
 volume has the Autograph of Mr. Calthorpe, but was written at the 
 
 time before mentioned. 
 
 1086. Reports and Pleadings, temp. Elizabeth. 
 
 1087. A Collection of Cases in K. B., C. P., and Exch. 24 to 37 Eliz. Mr. Um- 
 
 freville observes, that many of the Cases in C. P. are reported in 
 Anderson. 
 
 1088. Reports, K.B., 42 and 43 Elizabeth. 
 
 1095. Reports, K. B. and C. P., 6 to 36 Eliz. ; at the end are a few Cases, 4 
 Car. 1. 
 
 1099. Reports of Cases in K. B., 39 and 40 Elizabeth, by T. Fleming, afterwards 
 Chief Justice. Some of these Cases have been printed in Coke's 
 Reports, but they are much more fully reported in the present Collec- 
 tion, according to a remark made at the end of the Tables, where 
 such cases are particularly named. 
 
 1101, 1. Sir J. Saville's Reports in the Exch. temp. Eliz. Mr. Umfreville says, 
 " not in the printed Reports." 
 
 1101, 4. Reports of Cases in various years of Elizabeth. 
 
 ^102. Reports of Cases in B. R. and C. B., 35 and 36 Elizabeth. 
 
 1103. Reports of a few Cases in C.P. in various years of Elizabeth. 
 
 1104. An Abridgment of Cases in K. B., C. P., and Exch. 6 to 41 Elizabeth. 
 
MEANS OP IMPROVEMENT. 371 
 
 1106. Eeports of Cases in various years of Elizabeth, transcribed 1698. Some 
 
 of the Marginal References are in the handwriting of Rob. Paynel. 
 1018. A part only of Yelverton's Eeports. 
 
 1110, 2. Reports of Chancery Cases in divers years Q. Elizabeth. 
 1113. A Collection of Reports of Cases in divers Courts from 43 Eliz. to 10 
 
 Jao. 1. " Seemingly in the handwriting of Mr. Siderfin ; and see 
 
 llllinJao. 1." 
 1121. With Readings of Coke, &c. A few Cases, temp. Eliz.; amongst them 
 
 is Sir F. Bacon's argument in the great case of Perpetuities, or Chud- 
 
 ley's Case. 
 1079. Sir Edw. Coke's Reports, 12 and 13 Parts. 
 601, 1. A volume formerly belonging to Chief Justice Hale, whose Autograph 
 
 is on it, " The 12th Part of Coke's Reports, said, in a note by Mr. 
 
 Umfreville, to contain cases not in the printed copy." 
 1059. The Eeports of Sir F. Moore, transcribed from his own MSS. ; although 
 
 these are not the whole of Moore's Reports, there are many amongst 
 
 them not to be found in the printed copy. 
 
 Barleian Collection, Brituh Museum : 
 
 1575. A Book of Reports, 37 Eliz. to 12 Jac, 1. These Reports and such like, 
 says a note, are not only useful to Students in our Common Law, but 
 to Historians, Antiquaries, and Heralds, who, from these books, may 
 gather many noble materials for illustrating the history of places and 
 families. 
 
 1631, 1. Reports, Law French, 23, 27, 33, to 40 Eliz. 
 
 1631,4. Like Eeports, but larger than the former, 36 to 40 Elizabeth. 
 
 1679, 1. Eeports of Trials, Mich. 41 to Hil. 42 Eliz. 
 
 4558. Eeports 39 Eliz., and 15 and 16 Jac. 1. This book belonged to E. Pay- 
 nel, of Gray's Inn. 
 
 4562. Eeports Commini Banco, 26 to 32 Eliz. 
 
 4552. A book of Precedents and Abridged Cases in Law, from 33 to 41 Eliz. 
 443, 4. Eeports of Cases, temp. Eliz. 27, 28, and 29 years. 
 443, 5. Eeports and Shorter Notes touching divers Cases, adjudged 28 to 36 
 Eliz., both inclusive, with an Index. 
 
 3327. Exemplification of several Cases in the first five Books of Eeports, 
 Coke. 
 
 3920. Continuation of the above to the 11th Part. 
 
 1331. Eeports, 27 to 30 Eliz., by Sir Ed. Hendon, afterwards a Baron of the 
 Exchequer. 
 
 1636. A Manuscript of Button's Eeports. 
 
 1059, 1, &o. A large Collection of detached Cases of this time. 
 
 1330, 1. Eeports of Trials in the Star Chamber, 40 Eliz. to 4 Jao. 1. 
 
 1330, 2. Reports of many Pleas and Trials in B. E. In this and the preceding 
 Tract are many extramdinary Cases. 
 
 1693. Reports of Law Cases, argued in the Queen's Courts towards the latter 
 end of Queen Elizabeth's reign. 
 
372 APPENDIX. 
 
 1696. A pretty large Collection of Law Cases happening from 5 to 27 Eliz. 
 
 inclusive, 
 
 1697. A Collection of Law Cases and Reports of Trials in the Queen's Bench, 
 
 36 to 40 Eliz. 
 
 1624, 4. Reports, anni, 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15, 23, 26, 27, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 
 36, 37, 38, and 39 Eliz., but not in the order of time as here stated. 
 514, 2 to 5. Term Reports 26 Henry 8 to 19 Eliz., with some of Henry 4 and 5. 
 
 1588, 1. Reports, ab anno, 23 to 27 Eliz. inclusive. 
 
 1633. Reports of Law Cases tried in the Queen's Bench, anno 30, 31, 32 and 
 33 Eliz. 
 
 1722. A Collection of Reports, Trin. 27 Eliz., to Hil. 29 Eliz. "Which seem 
 to be accurately taken." 
 
 2036, 1 to Many Terms in Elizabeth's reign. 
 
 4812. Reports from 29 to the 33d of Elizabeth. 
 
 4814. Miscellaneous Reports, temp. Eliz. and Jac. 1. 
 
 4988. Reports in the Queen's Bench, 21 to 34 Eliz. 
 
 4998. Reports from 31 to 40 Eliz. 
 
 6686. Cases and Precedents in Law, from 33 Eliz. to 5 Jac. 1. 
 
 6707. Proceedings in K. B. and Exch. temp. Eliz. 
 
 6745. Proceedings in the Queen's Bench, 35, 36, 37, 38 years of Queen Eliza- 
 beth. 
 
 4585. Reports from 24 Henry 6 to the end Eliz. 
 355. A volume containing the Reports of Mr. Sergeant Benlow. 
 
 4817. Anderson and Warburton's Reports. 
 
 6681. The 2d Part of Plowden's Reps., with tables. 
 
 Inner Temple Library : 
 
 A volume of Cases in Philip and Mary, and Eliz. 
 
 9 vols, of Reports, K. B., C. P., and Exch. temp. Eliz., Jac. 1, and Car. 1. 
 
 Lincoln's Inn Library : 
 A Collection of Reports, temp. Eliz., Jac. 1, and Car. 1. 
 
 ffargrave's Collection, British Museum : 
 
 3. Reports temp. H. 8, Phil, and Mary, and Eliz. 
 
 4. Reports collected from the reigns of Henry 8, Ed. 6, Phil, and Mary, and 
 
 Eliz. 
 
 5. Reports by Lord Chief Baron Walter, being Cases temp. Eliz., with a 
 
 short Account of the Reporter, who lived till the 6 Car. 1, in the 
 handwriting of Mr. Umfreville. 
 
 6. Reports by Judge Harper, Mich. 37 Henry 8, to Mich. 26 and 27 Eliz. 
 
 7. Reports 36 to 41 Eliz. by Mr. Hy. Were, afterwards Judge of the Mar- 
 
 shalsea. 
 
 8. Another copy of Harper's Reports, and a part of Sir J. Walter's Reports. 
 
 9. Exchequer Cases temp. Eliz., formerly in the Yelverton Collection. 
 
MEANS OF IMPROYEMENT. 373 
 
 10. Judge Harper's Reports, beginning 2, and ending IS and 16 Eliz. At 
 
 the end of these Reports is a learned Argument proving the King's 
 right to the Sea Lands and Salt Shores ; together with the Copy of a 
 Decree in the Exchequer, upon an Information for an encroachment 
 upon the river Thames, by the erection of houses. 
 
 11. Reports of Cases In K. B., C. P., and Exch., 24 to 30 Eliz. This volume 
 
 was formerly in the Yelverton Collection, and contains, among other 
 oases, a full Report of the famous Case of Fenwick and Mitford. 
 
 12. Reports in K. B. and C. P., collected by Mr. Godfrey, temp. Eliz. and 
 
 Jac. 1. 
 
 13. Reports, Mich. 42 Eliz. to Trin. 43 Eliz. 
 
 14. Cases in B. R.and C. B., Trin. 36 to Hil. 38 Elizabeth. 
 
 15,2. Reports of Cases in K. B., C. P., and Exch., Eliz. and Jac. 1.— These 
 Reports begin 9 Eliz., but are not in chronological order. 
 
 15. 8. Reports of various Cases in various years of Queen Elizabeth's reign, not 
 
 placed chronologically. — The volume, containing the last two num- 
 bers, formerly belonged to the Yelverton Collection, and Mr. Har- 
 grave was of opinion that some of the cases in the time of Elizabeth, 
 without the Reporter's name, were by Sir Chris. Yelverton. 
 17, 1. Reports, Hil. 32 Eliz. to Trin. 10 Jac, presumed,from internal evidence, 
 to be by Sir Christopher Yelverton. 
 
 26. Reports, K. B., C. P., and Star Chamber, temp. Eliz., with different read- 
 
 ings in the same reign ; amongst the Reports, at folio 571, is a Collection 
 of Cases by Sir James Dyer, not in print. 
 
 27, 2. Chief Justice- Popham's Reports, beginning Mich. 34 Eliz., and ending 
 
 Easter 39 Eliz. — This MS. is bound with Chief Justice Hyde's Reports, 
 in his own handwriting. The above Reports are attributed to Pop- 
 ham, by a title at the beginning in the handwriting of Lord Chief 
 Justice Hyde. 
 29. Cases Eliz. and Jac. 1, in the Court of Wards and in the C. P. — The first 
 part of this MS. contains Cases expressed to be taken from Mr. Noy's 
 Reports, folio 1 ; the second is a collection of Cases stated to be copied 
 from Reports of a Mr. Deane, Reader of Gray's Inn, fol. 145 ; the third 
 part is intituled Yelverton, folio 235, and contains only two Cases, the 
 first of which is a very long and full Report of the Case of Zangis 
 against Wischard, about a right of towing-path next the river Lea, which 
 Case is cited in 3 Term Reports, 258, from Sergeant Turner's MSS. 
 
 33, 2. Extracts from Bendlow's Reports, temp. H. 8, Phil, and Mary, and Eliz. 
 
 34, 8, Cases of Error in Exchequer Chamber, temp. Eliz. and Jac. 1. 
 
 37, 1. Reports temp. Eliz. and Jac. 1, in the Exchequer Chamber, K. B. and 
 C.P. 
 
 45. Notes taken in C. P. by Mr. Gouldsborough, one of the Prothonotaries of 
 the same Court, concerning amendment of Writs and Records, and ar- 
 resting of Judgment in all manner of actions. — " This collection of Notes 
 by Gouldsborough, seems quite distinct both from the printed Reports 
 with his name, and from the printed Collection with his and Brown- 
 low's name, F. H." 
 
374 APPENDIX. 
 
 50. Reports of Cases in B. R. and Exchequer, 34 to 39 Eliz., with Indexes. 
 61. Reports of Cases C. B. from 37 Eliz. to 39, by Mr. Duck, of Lincoln's Inn, 
 
 with Ind. 
 88. Reports of Cases 33 to 39 Eliz., expressed to be in the proper hand of Ld. 
 
 Ch. J. Popham. 
 150. Cases in C. B. 1656 and 1657, also from the 12 to 19 Car. 2, by H. Dar- 
 rel), Esq., with cases and opinions of Hale, Maynard, and Finch, 
 relative to Wills and Settlements. 
 213. Reports in the K. B. 42 and 43 Eliz. 
 281, 5. Causes in Chancery, gathered by Sir George Cary, one of the Masters 
 
 of the Chancery. 
 356. K. B. Reports 37 to 39 Eliz. with an Index to the Cases in the hand- 
 writing of Mr. Umfreville. 
 
 373. A volume entitled by Mr. Umfreville, to whom it formerly belonged, as 
 
 well as Mr. Hargrave, " Jordan's Collectanea," containing copies of 
 Cases of the time of Queen Eliz. reprinted at large, and not elsewhere 
 to be found. A Table of Cases is given, page 246 : at page 53 is 
 Lord Coke's Report of the Judgment and part of the Arguments in 
 Shelly's case, in English. 
 
 374. Judge Harper's Reports temp. Eliz. 
 388, 5. Cases temp. Phil, and Mary, and Eliz. 
 403, 1. Reports of Cases temp. Eliz. 
 
 JAMES I.— March 24, 1603. 
 
 PRINTED REPORTS. 
 
 Anderson, C. P., 1. 
 
 Benloe, K. B., C. P., and Exch., 19 to 23. 
 
 Bridgman, C. P., 12 to 19. 
 
 Brownlow and Groldsborougt, C. P., 1 to 23. 
 
 Bulstrode, K. B., 7 to 15. 
 
 Cary, Chancery, 1. 
 
 Coke, K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chan., 1 to 13. 
 
 Croke, K. B. and C. P., 1 to 23. 
 
 Davies, K. B., C. P., and Exch., 2 to 9. 
 
 Glanville, Election before Committee of H. C, 21 to 22. 
 
 Godbolt, all the Courts, 1 to 23. 
 
 Hobart, all the Courts, 1 to 23. 
 
 Hutton, C. P., 10 to 28. 
 
 Jenkins, Exchequer, 1 to 21. 
 
 Jones, "William, K. B. and C. P., 18 to 23. 
 
 Lane, Exchequer, 3 to 9. 
 
MEANS OP IMPROVEMENT. 375 
 
 Leonard, K. B., C. P. and Bxoh., 1 to 12. 
 
 Ley, K. B., C. P., Exch., and Court of Wards, 6 to 23. 
 
 Moore, K. B., C. P., Bxch. and Chan., 1 to 18. 
 
 Noy, K. B. and C. P., 1 to 23. 
 
 Owen, K. B. and C. P., 1 to 12. 
 
 Palmer, K. B., 17 to 23. 
 
 Popham, K. B., C. P., and Chan., 15 to 23. 
 
 Reports in Chancery, 13. 
 
 Rolle, K. B., 12 to 22. 
 
 Tothill, Chancery, 1 to 23. 
 
 Winch, C. P., 19 to 23. 
 
 Yelverton, K. B., 1 to 10. 
 
 COTEMPORAKT MANUSCRIPTS. 
 Lansdowne Collection, Britith Museum: 
 
 582. Short Notes of Cases at Common Law, temp. EUz. and Jac. 1. 
 
 1061. Reports of Cases between 28 Eliz. to 11 Jac. 1. 
 
 1063. Reports of Cases in K. B. from 22 Jac. 1 to 2 Car. 1, by Ravenscroft. 
 
 1172, 1. Reports of Cases temp. Eliz. and Jao. 1. 
 
 1172, 2. Reports 4 Jao. 1. — Said by Mr. Dmfreville to be Yelverton's Collec- 
 tion, beginning at fol. 95 in printed copy, and to be, perhaps, ori- 
 ginal. 
 
 1172, 4. Reports 7 to 9 Jac. 1. — Said by Mr. Umfreville to be Yelverton's, be- 
 ginning at page 153 of the printed copy. 
 
 1172, 5. Reports K. B. 8 Jao. 1. 
 
 1172, 6. Reports K. B. 9 Jac. 1. 
 
 1172, 7. Reports in the Exch. Mich. 8 Jac. 1 to East. 10 Jac. 1.— Said by 
 Mr. Umfreville to be part of Lane's Report. 
 
 1074, 24. Various Reports in C. P., from 4 Eliz. to 1 Jac. 1. 
 
 1075. Cases concerning the Customs and Privileges of London temp. Jac. 1, 
 
 by Sir Henry Calthorpe, Recorder ; at the end of them, fol. 40, is a 
 Collection of K. B. Cases, 1 to 9 Jac. 1. 
 1077. A Miscellaneous Collection of Reports, Hen. 8 to Car. 1, by T. Levinge, 
 Sergeant at Law ; likewise C. P. Reports, 1653 to 1663, by R. Levinge, 
 Recorder of Chester. 
 
 1090. Lord Hobart's Book of Reports, K. B., &c., temp. Jao. 1. 
 
 1091. Sir Humphrey Winch's Reports in C. P. temp. Jao. 1.— Mr. Umfreville 
 
 states in a note on the first leaf, that these Reports, though printed as 
 Judge Winch's, are by Mr. AUestree. 
 
 1093. A Collection of Cases, Special Pleadings, &c., temp. Jao. 1. 
 
 1094. Ravenscroft's Reports, Chy., K. B., C. P., Ex., and Star Chamber, 21 Jac. 
 
 1 to 9 Car. 1. 
 1096, 6. Reports of Cases, K. B., 3 Jac. 1. j 
 
376 APPENDIX. 
 
 1097. Reports of Cases in K. B., 20 and 21 Jac. 1. 
 
 1098. Reports of Cases at the Assizes temp. Car. 1, interspersed with some 
 
 Exch. Cases, Jac. 1. 
 1 108. A part only of Sir H. Yelverton's Reports in K. B., being those which 
 begin at 33, and end at page 148 of the printed copy. 
 
 1110. 1. Reports of Chancery Cases 9, 10, 12, 13 Jac. 1, by an anonymous, but 
 
 able. Person. 
 
 1111. Reports of Cases in K. B., &o. from 2 to 7 Jac. 1. 
 
 1113. A Collection of Reports of Cases in divers Courts, from 43 Eliz. to 10 
 Jac. 1. — Mr. Umfreville with some reason conceives the handwriting 
 to be that of Mr. Siderfin. 
 
 1112. Reports of Cases, 3 to 20 Jac. 1. — At the end of the Volume is a Collec- 
 
 tion of Cases concerning Errors in the Exch. Chamber, printed in 
 Moore's Reports. 
 
 120. The Original of Sergeant Ravensoroft's Reps., K. B. temp. Jac. 1 . 
 
 601, 1. A Volume, formerly belonging to Lord Hale, whose Autograph is on it 
 The 12th Part of Coke's Reps., said, in a note by Mr. Umfreville, 
 to contain oases not in the printed copy. 
 
 485, 1. Mr. Serg. Glanville's Election Cases, 21 and 22 Jac. 1. 
 
 1080. Reports in K. B. from 15 to 21 Jac. 1. — There is a long note in this 
 work on the subject of Palmer's Reports, which Mr. Umfreville con- 
 tends to be part of Godfrey's Reports, of which this Manuscript is 
 likewise a portion. 
 
 1059. Containing Reps, of Sir F. Moore, transcribed from his own Manuscript. — 
 Although these are not the whole of Moore's Reps., there are many 
 amongst them not to be found in the printed copy. 
 
 Marldan Collection, Sritish Museum : 
 
 1575. A Book of Reports, 37 Eliz. to 12 Jac. 1. — See Note to this No. in Eliza- 
 beth's reign. 
 
 1031, 5. Reports of Trials at Westminster, 1, 2, and 4 Jac. 1. 
 
 1631, 8. Do. in B. R., 4 and 8 Jac. 1. 
 
 1679, 2. Reports of Trials and Cases, Mich. 1 to Pasch. 11 Jac. 1. 
 
 4558. Reports, 39 Eliz. to 15 and 16 Jac. 1. — This Book belonged to Rob. 
 Paynel, of Gray's Inn. 
 
 4561. Reports K. B., 13 and 14 Jac. 1, with Index. 
 
 5131. Reports C. P., 8, 6, 7, Car. 1, and 22 Jac. 1. 
 
 6688, 3-4. Reports 2 and 3 Jac. 1, law French. 
 
 6713. Proceedings K. B.,7, 8, 9, 10, Jac. 1. 
 
 1330, 1. Reports and Trials in the Star Chamber, 40 Eliz. to 14 Jac. 1. 
 
 1332, 2. Reports of many Pleas and Trials in Banco Regis, 2, 3, 6, 7 Car. 1. — 
 In this and the preceding Tract are many extraordinary cases. 
 
 4813. Hutton's Reports. — A true Copy of the MSS. written by the Judge's own 
 
 hand, 15 Jac. 1 to 14 Car. 1. 
 1636. Another MS. Copy of Hutton's Reports. 
 
 4814. Miscellaneous Reports temp. Eliz. and Jac. 1. 
 
MEANS OF IMPROVEMENT. 377 
 
 4815. 12th Part of Coke's Reports.— This MS., says a note, is " not published 
 
 in print." 
 6686. Cases and Precedents in Law, 33 Eliz. to 5 Jao. 1. 
 355. Mr. Serg. Benlow's Reports, with Indexes prefixed. 
 4817. Mr. Justice Anderson's Reps., and Mr. Justice Warburton's Reports of 
 
 this time. 
 
 Inner Temple Library : 
 9 vols, of Reports in K. B., C. P., and Exoh., temp. Eliz., Jao. 1, and Car. 1. 
 
 Lincoln's Inn Library : 
 A Collection of Reports in the reigns of Elizabeth, Jao. 1, and Car. 1. 
 
 Sargrave'a Collection, British Museum : 
 
 12. Reports of Cases K. B. and C. P., collected by Mr. Godfrey, temp. Eliz. and 
 
 Jac. 1. 
 15, 9. Reports of Cases in C. B., beginning East. 8, and ending East. 11 Jac. 1. 
 
 15, 10. Reports, by Mr. Pettie, taken in K. B., beginning Hil. 9 Jac. 1, and end- 
 
 ing Mich. 10 Jac. 1. — Mr. Hargrave was of opinion that these Re- 
 ports temp. Jao. 1, were by Sir H. Yelverton, son of Sir Christopher 
 Yelverton. 
 
 16, Sir Hy. Calthorpe's copy of Lane's Exch. Reports temp. Jac. 1. — Mr. Har- 
 
 grave has written this note at the beginning ; " I find that this MS. copy 
 of Lane's Reports contains matter not in the printed book. The cases 
 of Airi and Aloock, which is here in fol. 66 and 206, and in the printed 
 book page 33, is an instance ; the latter has not the first part of the 
 case." 
 
 17, 1. Reports Hil. 32 Eliz. to Trin. 10 Jac. 1. — Presumed, from internal evi- 
 
 dence, to be by Sir Christopher Yelverton. 
 
 17. 4. Sir Christopher Yelverton's Argument, in the Exchequer Chamber, in 
 
 the Case of Post Nati, 7 May, lS08, 6 Jac. 1. 
 
 18. Cases in B. R., in the 9 and 10 Jao. 1, with Indexes. 
 
 19. Reports, by Mr. Antony Mills, of Cases in C. B., beginning Mich. 2 Jac. 1, 
 
 ending Hil. same year. 
 
 20. Reports in B. R., 13 and 14 Jac. 1, supposed, by Mr. Hargrave, to be a MS. 
 
 copy of part of RoUe's Reports, having many cases reported in the same 
 words as in vol. 1 of that work. 
 
 21. Reports in B. R., from 17 to 20 Jao. 1, with Indexes. — On examination, 
 
 several cases appear to be the same as in Palmer's Reps. 
 
 22. Judge Hutton's Reports of Cases in the time of Jao. 1 and Car. 1, with 
 
 Indexes. — A Note at the beginning says, " 9 Aug. 1793. This MS. 
 copy of Hutton's Reports does not seem quite so copious as my other 
 MS. copy (see Numb. 46), but I calculate that it contains at least twice 
 as many cases as are in the printed copies. It begins and ends like 
 the printed Reports, and has not the full account of Judge Hutton's case 
 
378 APPENDIX. 
 
 with Harrison, which my other copy contains, but only the short Report 
 
 in print. — Francis Hargrave." 
 28. Reports of Cases C. B., temp. Jac. 1. This MS. consists of two Parts ; 
 the first is a copy of part of Hobart's Reports ; the second is intituled 
 " Reps, incerti Authoris." Some of the Cases in this latter Part are 
 in Hobart, but the Report is by a different hand, and the Cases are 
 more fully given. 
 
 30. Reports of Cases in the Courts of Chancery, King's Bench, and Ex- 
 
 chequer, in the reign of Jac. and Car. 1, by Arthur Turner. The 
 author of these Reports is stated, in a note by Mr. Umfreville, who 
 formerly possessed this volume, to have been called to the degree of 
 Sergeant, in Trinity Terra, 12 Car. 1 ; and tq have been the father of 
 Sir Edward Turner, who was Speaker of the House of Commons in 
 the reign of Car. 2, and made Chief Baron of the Exchequer, May 23, 
 1671. 
 
 31. Reports of Cases in the Exchequer Chamber and C. B., frorn Mich. 15 
 
 to Mich. 18 Jac. 1. 
 
 32. Reports of Cases in B. R., East. 7 Jac. 1, to Trin. 10 Jac. 1. 
 
 33. 1. Reports in the Exch. from 3 to 12 Jac. 1. These Cases are stated by 
 
 a former possessor of the book, to be chiefly by Lane, and to contain 
 many Cases not in the printed collection. 
 
 33, 4. A Copy of the Record in Fuller's case, Trin. 5 Jac. 1. 
 
 34, 2. Calthorpe's Cases respecting the Customs of London; and see Nos. 
 
 35 and 36. 
 34, 6. Part of Sir Edward Coke's 12th Report. 
 34, 8. Cases of Error in the Exchequer Chamber and other Courts, temp. 
 
 Eliz. and Jac. 1. 
 37, 1. Reports temp. Eliz. and Jac. 1, in the Exchequer Chamber, K. B. and 
 
 C.P. 
 
 46. Reports in Common Bank, from Trin. 15 Jac. 1 to Trin. 14 Car. 1, inclu- 
 
 sive, by Judge Hutton. On the first leaf is this note : " 9th Aug. 1 793. 
 This volume, upon examination, I find to contain about twice as much 
 in quantity as is in the printed edition of Hutton's Reports. The dis- 
 proportion in the number of Cases is still greater; for this book 
 according to the table prefixed, contains three hundred ; whereas the 
 printed book, according to its table, has only seventy-two. — ^F. H." 
 
 47, 2. Cases B. R., 13 Jac. 1. 
 
 52. Cases in C. B., beginning Hil. 6 Jac. 1, and ending Trin. 8 Jac. 1. 
 174. Cases in Chancery in the reigns of Jac. 1, Car. 1 and 2. " These Cases 
 
 are at the beginning stated to be from Docquets of Decrees, &c.. in the 
 
 office of John Wilkinson, Esq., one of the Six Clerks in Chancery. 
 
 After the first 32 pages, many of the cases are printed in the book, 
 
 called 1 Chan. Cases.— F. H." 
 317. The Reports of Sir William Jones, one of the Justices of the Common 
 
 Pleas, in the latter part of the reign of James 1, and in the early part 
 
 of Car. 1, translated into English by Mr.. Hargrave, before he was 
 
 called to the Bar,- 
 
MEANS OP IMPROVEMENT. 379 
 
 362. Reports in B. R. and C. B. from 20 Jac. 1 to 4 Car. 1, by Robert Pay- 
 
 nell, Esq. 
 385, 386, 387. Sir Henry Calthorpe's Reports, temp. Jao. 1 and Car. 1 ; vol. 
 
 1 and 2. 
 
 CHAKLES I.— May 27, 1625. 
 
 PRINTED REPORTS. 
 
 Aleyn, K. B., 22 to 24. 
 
 Bendloe, K. B., C. P., and Exch., 1 to 3. 
 
 Bulstrode, K. B., 1 to 14. 
 
 Clayton's Pleas of As., York, 7 to 24. 
 
 Croke, K. B. and C. P., 1 to 16. 
 
 Grodbolt, all the Courts, 1 to 13. 
 
 Hetley, C. P., 3 to 7. 
 
 Hutton, C. P., 1 to 14. 
 
 Jones, William, K. B. and C. P., 1 to 16. 
 
 Latch, K. B., 1 to 3. 
 
 Ley, K. B., C. P., Exchequer, and Court of Wards, 1 to 4. 
 
 Littleton, C. P. and Exch., 2 to 7. 
 
 March, K. B. and C. P., 15 to 18. 
 
 Nelson, Chancery, 1 to 24. 
 
 Noy, K. B. and C. P., 1 to 24. 
 
 Palmer, K. B. and C. P., 1 to 4. 
 
 Popham, K. B., C. P., and Chan., 1 to 2. 
 
 Reports in Chancery, 1 to 24. 
 
 Style, K. B., 21 to 24. 
 
 Tothill, Chancery, 1 to 21. 
 
 COTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPTS. 
 Lansdowne Collection, JSritith Museum : 
 
 580. Notes and Arguments of Cases at Common Law, in the reign of Car. 1. 
 
 1063. Reports of Cases K. B. from 22 Jac. 1 to 2 Car. 1. 
 
 1064. Reports of Cases in K. B. from 14 Car. 1 to 2 Jao. 2. 
 595. Short Notes of Cases in K. B. temp. Car. 1. 
 
 1066. Reports in the Upper Bench, 1650 to 1659. At fol. 259 is the case of 
 Forster v. Barrington, 1659, concerning the privilege of officers of the 
 Exchequer to be sued in their own Court. 
 
 1077. A Miscellaneous Collection of Reports, Hen. 8 to Car. 1 ; with a colleor 
 
380 APPENDIX. 
 
 tion of Cases, at fol. 67, in C. P., by R. Levinge, Recorder of Chester, 
 from 1653 to 1663. 
 
 1081. A large Collection of Reports in K. B., C. P., and Exchequer, 11 to 15 
 
 Car. 1. 
 
 1082. Reports in C. P., 11 and 12 Car. 1. 
 
 1083. Reports of Sir T. Widdrington in the K. B., and Robert Paynell's Re- 
 
 ports in the Exch. temp. Car. 1. Mr. Umfreville remarked, that 
 many of the Records of the Exchequer having been lost by fire, Pay- 
 nell's Reports are become very valuable, and from the known inte- 
 grity of the author may be depended on as authentic ; with Biographical 
 Notices of the authors. See p. 1 and 355 of the MSS. ; and see No. 
 1092 following. 
 1092. Another Copy of Widdrington's Reports, with some variations from the 
 former. Mr. Umfreville remarks, that many of these Cases will cor- 
 rect the erroneous-impressions in Latch. 
 
 1094. Ravenscroft's Reports in Chan., K. B., C. P., and Exch. and Star Cham- 
 
 ber, 21 Jao. 1 to 9 Car. 1. 
 1085. Reports, K. B., 3 to 7 Car. 1. 
 1089. Ditto of Cases in K. B., 4 to 18 Car. 1. 
 
 1095. Reports, K. B. and C- P., 6 to 36 Elizabeth. At the end are a few Cases, 
 
 4 Car. 1. 
 1098. Reports of Cases at the Assizes, temp. Car. 1, interspersed with some 
 
 Exch. Cases, Jac. 1. 
 1100. Reports of Cases in the K. B., 2 to 4 Car. 1. 
 1100. An original Collection of Reports in the Upper Beach, 1654-1673. 
 
 Sarleian Collection, Sritith Museum : 
 
 298, 4. Sir Simon D'Ewes's Reports, Trin. and Mich. 1 Car. 1. 
 1631, 9. Reports of Trials in B. R., 9 Car. 1. 
 5131, 1. Reports, C. P., 5, 6, 7 Car. 1, and 21 Jac. 1. 
 4553, 1. A Collection of Precedents and Adjudged Cases in Law, from 2 to 5 
 
 Car. 1. 
 1330, 2. Reports of many Pleas and Trials in B. R., 2, 3, 6, 7 Car. 1. 
 1694, 2. Reports in B. R., 9 Car. 1. 
 4811. Reports in Court of K. B. from 9 to 14 Car. 1. 
 4813. Hutton's Reports, a true Copy of the MS. written with the Judge's own 
 
 hand, 15 Jac. 1 to 14 Car. 2. See also 1636. 
 4816. Cases, 5 to 9 Car. 1. 
 
 355. Mr. Sergeant Benlow's Reports, with Indexes prefixed. 
 1636. A MS. Copy of Button's Reports. See also 4813. 
 
 Inner Temple Library : 
 9 Vols, of Cases in K. B., C. P., and Exch., lemp. Elizabeth, Jao. 1, and Car. 1. 
 
 Lincoln's Inn Library : 
 A Collection of Reports in the reigns of Elizabeth, James 1, and Car. 1. 
 
MEANS OF IMPEOYEMENT. 381 
 
 Bargrmis Collection, Brilwh Museum : 
 
 22. Judge Hutton's Reports, temp. Jao. 1 and Car. 1. See note to this num- 
 
 ber in Elizabetli. 
 
 23. Reports of Cases in C. B., beginning Michaelmas 12 Car. 1, and ending 
 
 Trin. 1656, by Thomas Cory, Chief Prothonotary of that Court; with 
 Indexes. On a leaf at the beginning of this volume is the following 
 annotation by » former possessor, Mr. Umfreville : " This Note-book 
 is much estimated, as it contains a collection of very many Cases de- 
 termined upon Demurrers and Special Verdicts, debated and deter- 
 mined Communi Banco, few whereof are elsewhere to be found. — E.U." 
 
 24. Reports of Cases in the K. B., Chan., and Exoh., but chiefly in the former 
 
 Courts, from the 1st to the 8th Car. 1 ; with Indexes. 
 
 25. 1. Reports of Cases argued and adjudged in the Court of K. B., 1 to 8 
 
 Car. 1. The Cases are not chronologically arranged ; but there are 
 Indexes to the cases and matter. 
 
 27, 4. Reports of Cases in the K. B. and Star Chamber, beginning Trin. 3 
 Car. 1, and ending Trin. 7 Car. 1, by Sir Nicholas Hyde, Chief Justice 
 K. B. The following note accompanied the title of this volume in 
 the MS. catalogue, delivered with the Hargrave Collection : 
 
 The Reports, by Lord Chief Justice Hyde, are in his own hand- 
 writing ; the other Reports are attributed to Popham, by a title at the 
 beginning in the handwriting of Lord Chief Justice Hyde. In 3 
 Keble, 467, there is a citing of these Reports of Hyde, by Lord Hale. 
 This MS. was formerly a part of the collection of the first Duke of 
 Chandos, and it was once the book of Sir Rob. Hyde, Chief Justice of 
 B. R. in the reign of King Car. 2, and nephew of Sir Nicholas Hyde. 
 In fol. 97 of this MS., Lord Chief Justice Hyde gives a very parti- 
 cular and curious account of the manner in which King Car. 1, pre- 
 viously to passing the Petition of Rights, consulted the Judges secretly 
 on the claimed Right of the King to commit without showing cause, 
 and on the effect which the Petition might have on his prerogative. 
 The questions to the Judges, and their answers, are given at length. 
 And this account of a Transaction which does not appear to be noticed 
 in print, concludes with other circumstances which attended the 
 passing of the Petition of Rights. 
 
 27, 6. Coriton's Case, K. B., Trin. 13 Car. 1. 
 
 30. Reports in the Courts of Chancery, K. B., and Exch., in Jac. 1 and Car. 1, 
 by A. Turner. 
 
 35, 36. Select Arguments in Parliament and other Courts, by Sir Hy. Cal- 
 thorpe, Recorder of London, with Indexes. " Amongst the arguments 
 in the first vol. is one upon the case of Habeas Corpus, in the 3d of 
 Car. l,on a commitment for refusing a loan to the King; with two or 
 three others upon great State Cases in the same reign." 
 
 38, 39. Reports by Serg. Widdrington in B. R., from 1 to 7 Car. 1, in 2 vols., 
 with Indexes. In the beginning of vol. 1, these books are styled 
 
382 APPENDIX. 
 
 " Mr. Justice Wadham Wyndham's Copy of Widdrington's Reports." 
 Amongst the cases, one is of Mr. Seldon, &o., on Habeas Corpus, in 
 Trin. 5 Car. 1 ; and it is observable that Mr, Rnshworth, in his col- 
 lections relative to the same case, professes to take part of them from 
 Widdrington's Reports. See Rush. 679, and Appendix 18. 
 
 At the end of vol. 2 there is a distinct Collection of Widdrington's 
 Reports, marlced Liber K. This Fart begins with Easter, 9 Car. 1, 
 and has a separate Index of names of cases. 
 
 40. Cases in K. B. and Exchequer Chamber, beginning Easter, 5 Car. 1, 
 
 ending East. 13 Car. 1, by Sir Orlando Bridgman, Attorney-General 
 to Car. 2, while Prince of Wales, and, after the Restoration, succes- 
 sively. Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, Lord Chief Justice of the 
 C. P., and Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. 
 
 41. Exoh. Cases from Trin. 3 Car. 1, to Hil. 4 Car. 1, with names of cases 
 
 at the beginning. 
 
 42. Reports of Cases in B. R., Hil. 14 Car, 1, to East. 4 Car. 2, with names 
 
 of cases. 
 
 43. Reports chiefly of Cases in B. R., beginning Mich. 4 Car. 1, and ending 
 
 Hil. 20 Car. 1 , with Index. 
 
 44. Circuit Cases before the Judges of Assize and Nisi Prius, from 4 to 11 
 
 Car. 1. 
 
 46. Judge Hutton's Reps. C. P., 15 Jac. 1 to 14 Car. 1 with Table of Cases. 
 
 See note to this number in Jac. 1. 
 
 47. 1. Cases in B. R. from Hil. 4 Car. 1, to Trin. 8 Car. 1. 
 
 S3, 2. Reports of Cases in the K. B., 15, 16, and 17 Car. 1, and of Cases in 
 
 Chancery, in Mich. 1651, and also a few Cases in B. R. and C. B., 26 
 
 and 27 Car. 2. 
 99. .Reports of Cases determined in the Court of Chancery, principally in 
 
 the reign of King Car. 2. Some of the cases are in the reign of Car. 
 
 1. See Case No. 1. " Many of these Reports are in totidem verbis, 
 
 as in the printed Reports, Sometimes where the case is in print, the 
 
 report here is a diiferent one." See Cases, Nos. 233, 276. 
 " Some of the Cases are not given in the printed Reports." See 
 
 Cases, Nos. 322, 332, 126. 
 111. Cecly's Reports, temp. Car. 1. 
 174. Cases in Chancery, temp. Jac. 1, Car. 1, and Car. 2. See Note to this 
 
 No. in Jac. 1. 
 317. Mr. Hargrave's Translation of Sir Wm. Jones's Reports. See this No, 
 
 in Jac. 1. 
 362. Reports in B. R. and C. B.,from 20 Jac. 1 to 4 Car. 1, by Robert Paynell. 
 378. Reports in B. R., 8 to 15 Car. 1, 
 385, 386, 387. Sir Henry Calthorpe's Reports temp. Jac. 1 and Car. 1, vol. 1 
 
 and 2. 
 404, 1. Notes of a few Cases, taken about the year 1638. 
 
 48. Cases in the Upper Bench, Mich. 1652 to Hil. 1657, with Index. 
 
 59. Cases and Determinations in 1653 and 1654, and some Special Cases in 
 
MEANS or IMPROVEMENT. 383 
 
 the Exoh. Chamber in the reign of Car. 2. — In this collection there is a 
 Report of the Case of Manby and Scott, with Lord Chief Justice Hyde's 
 argument in the Exchequer Chamber, verbatim ; there is also a Report 
 of the famous case of Somes and Barnardiston, containing the arguments 
 of the Counsel B. R., and those of the Judges upon the Writ of Error in 
 Exch. Chamber. 
 150. Cases in C. B., 1656 to 1657; also -from the 12 to 19 Car. 2, by H. Bar- 
 rel, with Cases and Opinions of Hale, Maynard, and Finch, relating to 
 Wills. 
 
 CHAELES n.— Mat 29, 1660. 
 
 FEINTED EEP0KT8. 
 
 Bridgman, 0., C. P., 1 to 8. 
 Carter, C. P., 16 to 27. 
 Cases in Chancery, Part 1, 12 to 30. 
 « " Part 2, 26 to 37. 
 
 Clayton's Pleas of Ass. at York, 1 and 2. 
 Dickens, Chancery, a few Cases. 
 Finch, Chancery, 25 to 32. 
 
 Freeman, K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chan., 22 to 37. 
 Hardres, Exchequer, 7 to 21. 
 Jones, T., K. B. and C. P., 19 to 37. 
 Keble, K. B., 13 to 30. 
 
 Kelyng, Sir J., Crown Cases, and in K. B., 14 to 20, 
 Levinz, K. B. and C. P., 12 to 37. 
 Lutwyche, C. P., 34 to 37. 
 
 Modern, K. B., C P., Exch., and Chan., vol. 1 and 2, 1 to 29, 
 " K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chan., vol. 3, 26 to 30. 
 " K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chan., vol. 3, 34 to 37, 
 Nelson's Chancery, 1 to 37. 
 Parker, Exchequer, 30. 
 
 PoUexfen, K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chan., 22 to 37. 
 T. Kaymond, K. B., C. P., and Ex., 12 to 35. 
 Keports in Chancery, 1 to 37. 
 Saunders, K.B., 18 to 24. 
 Select Cases in Chancery, 33. 
 Shower, K. B., 30 to 37.' 
 Siderfin, K. B., C. P., and Exoh., 9 to 22. 
 Skinner, K. B., 33 to 37. 
 
384 APPENDIX. 
 
 Style, K. B., 1 to 7. 
 
 Vaughan, C. P., 17 to 25. 
 
 Ventris, K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chan., 20 to 37. 
 
 Vernon, Chancery, 32 to 37. 
 
 COTEMPORAKY MANUSCRIPTS. 
 Lamdowne Collection, British Museum .• 
 
 896. Short Notes of sundry Law Cases temp. Car. 1. 
 
 1064. Reports of Cases K. B., from 14 Car. 1 to 2 Jao. 2. 
 
 1077. A Miscellaneous Collection of Cases from H. 8 to Car. 1, with a Collec- 
 tion of Cases in C. P., by R. Levinge, from 1653 to 1663. 
 
 1 105. Sir Bartholomew Sho wers's own Note Book of Cases, chiefly wherein he 
 himself was counsel ; several amongst them concerning the Customs 
 of London, that have never been printed. On the first leaf is the 
 following interesting note by the former possessor of the volume, 
 Mr. Umfreville : " This MS. greatly controls the printed Showers, 
 and contains many good Cases not printed, and seems to be his regu- 
 lated Collection of Cases, prepared, as I conceive, by himself, and 
 methodized from his Note Book with a view to the Press. But his 
 papers, after his death, falling into the hands of a bookseller, he 
 causa lucri at different times printed his general collection, without 
 due consideration had of these selected Cases, which were the only 
 Cases, I conceive Sir Bartholomew ever intended for the Press. — 
 E. U." 
 
 Mr. Umfreville then notices the Cases in this MS. which are omit- 
 ted in the printed copy. At the end of the volume are various Bio- 
 graphical Notices of Sir Bartholomew's, likewise in his own hand, 
 and the names of the Cases reported, but not alphabetically. 
 
 1109. An Original Collection of Reports in the Upper Bench, 1654 to 1673. 
 
 1069, 1070. The Original of Parts 1 and 2 of Siderfin's Reps, in K. B. and 
 C. P., beginning with the year 1657. 
 
 Barleian Collection, British Museum: 
 
 4813. A true copy of Mr. Justice Button's Reports, taken from a MS. written 
 
 with his own hand, 15 Jac. 1 to 14 Car. 2. 
 1636. Another copy of Judge Button's Reports. 
 
 BargravSs Collection, British Museum : 
 
 42. Reports of Cases in B. R., from Hil. 14 Car. 1 to East. 4 Car. 2. 
 47, 10. Two or three Cases Mich. 15 and 16, and Pasoh. 20 Car. 2. 
 49, 1. Reports of Cases in C. B., from Trin. 1664 to Hil. 1665, by Edw. Ed- 
 kins, Esq., with a table of cases. 
 S3, 2. Reports of Cases in the King's Bench, in the 15, 16, and 17 Car. 1 ; and 
 
MEANS OP IMPROVEMENT. 385 
 
 cases in Chancery in Mich. 1651 ; and also of a few oases in 
 B. R. and C. B., 26 and 27 Car. 2. 
 55 to 58. Sir Orlando Bridgman's Reps, and Arguments, from the 12 to 17 Car 
 2, being the time during which he was Chief Justice of Common 
 Pleas. The Reports of Sir Orlando Bridgman were known to 
 Chief Justice Holt, for in 1 Raymond, 380, he cites from thence the 
 Case of Chamberlayne and Prescott, which is reported in the first 
 volume of this Collection, p. 54. 
 
 59. Cases and Determinations in C. B. 1653 and 1654, and some special Cases 
 
 in the Exch. in the reign of Car. 2. — See note to this No., Car. 1. 
 
 60. The Reports of Sir Thos. Jones temp. King Car. 2, apparently the original 
 
 of the printed edit. 
 
 61. Proceedings in the case of Quo Warranto against the City of London, temp. 
 
 Car. 2. 
 
 62. A small Collection of Exch. Cases in the 16, 17, 20,21, and 22 Car. 2, and 
 
 Mich. 1671. 
 
 63. Cases in the reign of Car. 2, with Sir Thos. Powys's Arguments in them. — 
 
 These cases and arguments seem to be in the Judge's own hand- 
 writing whilst he was at the bar. 
 
 64. 65. Reports of Cases in B. R. from the 12 to the 26 Car. 2, in 2 vols., with 
 
 Indexes. In the first vol. is the following Manuscript Note, in Mr. 
 Hargrave's hand : " Some few of the cases in this and the accom- 
 panying volume, particularly the first two cases in this volume, are 
 the same with Levinz's Reports ; but this collection contains a great 
 number of cases not in Levinz, and also difierent Reports of the 
 same cases. How much more copious this collection is than Le- 
 vinz's for the same time, will appear by this — the collection here 
 and in the accompanying volume begin exactly at the same time as 
 the first volume of Levinz, namely, Mich. 12 Car. 2, and ends, ex- 
 clusive of a case placed out of order, with the Case of Rea and 
 Barnes, which was in Mich. 26 Car. 2, and is in page 117 of the 
 second volume of Levinz. But, as I calculate, for this space of time 
 there is about twice as many cases, and twice as much matter here 
 as will be in Levinz's Reports." 
 
 70, 8, Cases, collected by Lord Chief Baron Dodd. 
 
 71, 2. Reports of Cases in B. R., Chan., and Exch. Chamber, and Parliament, 
 
 and also before the Delegates, beginning Trin. 30 Car. 2, and ending 
 Trin. 1713, by Ld. Ch. Baron Dodd. 
 
 99. A volume containing Reports of Cases determined in the Court of Chan- 
 cery, principally in the reign of Car. 2. — ^Some of the cases are oi 
 the reign of King Charles 1 ; see Case No. 1.— See note to this No. 
 in Car. 1. 
 
 150. Cases in C. B., 1656 and 1657 ; also from the 12 to 19 Car. 2, by H. Dar- 
 rell, with Cases and Opinions of Hale, Maynard, and Finch, relating 
 to Wills and Settlements. 
 
 25 
 
386 APPENDIX. 
 
 161. Reports of Cases in B. R., beginning Mich. 33 Car. 2, and ending Mich. 
 
 4 Wil. and Mary, with Indexes. 
 
 162. Cases in Chancery of 20 Car. 2, and of other years both before and after. 
 
 Msiny of them are said to be in print. 
 
 174. Cases in Chancery temp. Jac. 1, Car. 1, and Car. 2. See note to this 
 No. in Jac. 1 . 
 
 204. Cases in Chancery, chiefly between 29 Car. 2, and Trin. 1709. 
 
 320. Cases in Chaiicery, Mich. 19 Car. 2. 
 
 339, 4. Lord North's Argument as Chief Justice of C. B., in the Exch. Cham- 
 ber, in the great case between Soam and Barnardiston, being the 
 case in action against a sheriff for a double return, with a me- 
 morial prefixed relating to a censure of Lord North, iij some of the 
 printed copies of PoUexfen's Report of that case ; and written, as 
 Mr. Hargrave apprehended, by Roger North. — And see this table 
 Car. 1, No. 59, Hargrave Collection. 
 
 339, 1. Some few Cases in B. R., East. 19 Car. 2 ; the first and principal one 
 being the case of Sir Hugh Wyndham and others, of a Somerset- 
 shire Grand Jury, fined by Lord Chief Justice Keeling, for finding 
 against his direction. 
 
 369. Reports of Cases in B. R., 36 Car. 2 to 1 Wil. and Mary. 
 
 370. The Reports of Sir Thos. Street, one of the Judges of the Common Pleas, 
 
 36 Car. 2, 4 Jac. 2. 
 493, 5. The Earl of Shaftesbury's Case, Trin. 29 Car. 2. 
 
 JAMES n.— rBBRUAKY 6, 1685. 
 
 PRINTED REPORTS. 
 
 Carthew, K. B., 2 to 4. 
 
 Gases in Chancery, Part II., 1 to 3. 
 
 Cases of Settlements, K. B., 2 to 4. 
 
 Comberbach, K. B., 1 to 4. 
 
 Freeman, K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chan., 1 to 4. 
 
 Levinz, K. B. and C. P., 1 and 2. 
 
 Lutwyohe, C. P., 1 to 4. 
 
 Modern, K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chancery, vol. 3, 1 to 4. 
 
 Parker, Exchequer, 3 and 4. 
 
 Reports in Chancery, 1 to 3. 
 
 Showers, K. B., 1 to 4. 
 
 Skinner, K. B., 1 to 4. 
 
 Ventris, K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chan,, 1 to 4. 
 
 V"ernon, Chancery, 1 to 4. 
 
MEANS OF IMPROVEMENT. 387 
 
 COTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 Lansdowne Collection, British Museum : 
 
 1064. Reports of Cases, K. B., 14 Car. 2 to Jao. 2. 
 
 1105. Sir Bartholomew Showers's Note- book of Cases, chiefly wherein he him- 
 self was counsel, &o. — See note to this number, Car. 2. 
 
 Hargraiiis Collection, British Museum : 
 71, 2. Cases in B. R., Chan., Exoh., and Delegates, 30 Car. 2 to Trin. 1713, by 
 
 Ch. Baron Dodd. 
 101. Reports of Cases in B. R., beginning Mich. 33 Car. 2, and ending Mioh. 
 
 4 Will, and Mary, with Indexes. 
 204. Cases in Chancery, chiefly between 29 Car. 2 and Trinity, 1709. 
 
 369. Reports of Cases in B. R., 36 Car. 2 to 1 William and Mary. 
 
 370. Reports of Sir Thomas Street, Judge of the C. B., 36 Car. 2 to 4 Jac. 2. 
 
 WILLIAM m.— February 13, 1689. 
 
 PRINTED REPORTS. 
 
 Carthew, K. B., 1 to 12. 
 
 Cases of Settlement, K. B., 1 to 14. 
 
 CoUes, Parliamentary Cases, 9 to 14. 
 
 Comberbach, K. B., 1 to 10. 
 
 Comyns, K. B., C. P., Exch., Chancery, and Delegates, 7 to 14. 
 
 Fortescue, K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chan., 7 to 14. 
 
 Freeman, K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chan., 1 to 14. 
 
 Kelyng, Sir J., Crojra Cases, and in K. B., 8 to 13. 
 
 Levinz, K. B. and C. P., 1 to 8. 
 
 Lutwyche, C. P., 1 to 14. 
 
 Modern, K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chanc, vol. 3, 1 and 2. 
 
 " " « " " vol. 4, 3 to 7. 
 
 " " « « " vol. 5, 5 to 11. 
 
 " " « « " vol. 12, 2 to 14. 
 
 Parker's Exchequer, 4 to 13. 
 Peere Williams, Chan, and K. B., 7 to 14. 
 Precedents in Chancery, 1 to 4. 
 Lord Raymond, K. B. and C. P., 4 to 14. 
 Eeports in Chancery, vol. 2, 5. 
 
 Reports temp. Holt, K. B., C. P., Exch. and Chan., 1 to 14. 
 Salkeld, K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chan., 1 to 14. 
 Select Cases in Chancery, 5, 9. 
 
388 APPENDIX. 
 
 Showers, K. B., 1 to 6. 
 
 Skinner, K. B., 1 to 9. 
 
 Ventris, K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chan., 1 and 2. 
 
 Vernon, Chancery, 1 to 14. 
 
 COTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPTS. 
 Lansdowne Collection, Briiish Museum : 
 
 568. A Collection of Cases in Chancery and B. R. temp. Will. 3, made by 
 some Lawyer, and formerly possessed by Mr. Umfreville. 
 
 1114. A small volume of Cases in Chancery before Lords Commissioners Tre- 
 vor, Eawlinson, and Hutchins, in the reign of Will, and Mary. 
 
 628 to 631. Cases in various matters of Law and Commerce, with Opinions 
 thereon of eminent Counsel, 1700 to 1733, in 4 vols, fairly written. 
 
 637. A Collection of Cases in various matters of Law, with the Opinions of 
 eminent Counsel therein, temp. Will. 3, Anne, and Geo. 1. At the end 
 are some Precedents of Pleadings in Latin. — Formerly in the possession 
 of J. West, Esq. 
 
 583. A Note-book of Decisions in Chancery Cases on Appeals, 1700 to 1730. 
 
 1105. Sir Bartholomew Showers's Note Book of Cases, chiefly wherein he him- 
 self was counsel, &o. — See note to this number, Car. 2. 
 
 Harldan Collection, Britith Museum : 
 
 5314, 1. Law Reports and Cases in English and French, temp. Will, and 
 Mary. 
 
 Margrave's Collection, British Museum : 
 
 66, 2. Reports in C. B. and B. R., 6 Will, and Mary, 1694 to 1696, taken by 
 Sir Robert Raymond, and transcribed from a. copy in the possession of 
 H. Jacob, Esq., of the Inner Temple. 
 
 66, 3. Reports of Cases in K. B. 9 Anne, and C. B. 1697, taken by Mr. Ser- 
 geant Salkeld. 
 
 66, 4. Cases by H. Jacob, Esq., in B. R. and Exch. 12 Will, and Mary, to 1705. 
 
 66,. 6. Cases in B. R., Mich. 8 Will. 3, to Trinity 10 Will. 3, inclusive. 
 
 71, 2. Reports of Cases in B. R., Chancery, and Exchequer Chamber, and Par- 
 
 liament, also before the Delegates, beginning Trinity 30 Car. 2, and 
 ending Trin. 1713,by Chief Baron Dodd. 
 
 72. Cases in Chancery, 1700 to 1709, Feb. 11, inclusive, by William Melmoth, 
 
 Esq., with Indexes. — This MS. volume is copied from the first volume 
 of Mr. Melmoth's Reports. Mr. Melmoth was a senior Bencher of Lin- 
 coln's Inn, and died April 6, 1743, in the 77th year of his age. He was 
 joint editor with IJtIr. Peere Williams, of Vernon's Reps. His own Re- 
 ports came down to 1742. 
 161. Reports of Cases in K. B., beginning Mich. 33 Car. 2, and ending Mich. 
 4 W. and Mary ; with Indexes. 
 
MEANS OF IMPROVEMENT. 389 
 
 182. Cases in B. R., temp. Will, and Mary, William, and Anne. 
 
 204. Chancery Cases, chiefly between 29 Car. 2 and Trin. Terra, 1709. 
 
 369. Reports of Cases in B. R., 36 Car. 2 to 1 Will, and Mary. 
 
 493, 4. Cases in C. B., 3 May, 1700, Civitas London v. Woods. 
 
 84 to 86. Reports of Cases in the House of Lords, Chanc, B. R., C. B., and 
 Exch., chiefly from 1727 to 1752 inclusive, but conteiining one 
 Case before the House of Lords as far back as 1693; with In- 
 dexes. — The first case is a very curious one, before the House of 
 Lords, in 1693, on the Petition of Lady Isabella, Duchess of Graf- 
 ton, and W. Bridgraaii, Esq., her trustee, concerning the ofiice of 
 Chief Clerk of the King's Bench ; and on this number in Geo. 1. 
 
 A]OE.— Mat 8, 1702. 
 
 FEINTED REPORTS. 
 
 Brown, Parliamentary Cases, 1 to 13. 
 
 Bunbury, Exchequer, 12 to 13. 
 
 Cases concerning Settlements, K. B., 1 to 13. 
 
 Cases on Practice, C. P., 5 to 13. 
 
 Colles, Parliamentary Cases, 1 to 8. 
 
 Comyns, K. B., C. P., Exch., Chancery, and Delegates, 1 to 13. 
 
 Dickens, Chancery, a few Cases. 
 
 Portescue, K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chan., 1 to 13. 
 
 Freeman, K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chan., 1 to 5. 
 
 Gilbert's Cases in Law and-Bquity, 12 and 13. 
 
 Gilbert's K. B., Chancery, and Exchequer, 4 to 13. 
 
 Kelyng, Sir J., Crown Cases and in K. B. 
 
 Lutwyche, C. P., 1 and 2. 
 
 Modern, K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chan., vol. 6, 2 and 3. 
 
 " " " « " vol. 7, 1. 
 
 " « " " " vol. 10, 8 to 13. 
 
 « « " « " vol. 11, 4 to 8. 
 
 Parker, Exchequer, 6 to 12. 
 Peere Williams, Chancery and K. B., 1 to 13. 
 Practical Kegister, C. P., 3 to 13. 
 Precedents in Chancery, 1 to 13. 
 Lord Raymond, K. B. and C. P., 1 to 13. 
 Exports in Chancery, 4 to 8. 
 Eeports temp. Holt, 1 to 9. 
 Salkeld, K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chan., 1 to 10. 
 
390 APPENDIX. 
 
 Sessions Cases, K. B., 9 to 13. 
 Vernon, Chancery, 1 to 13. 
 
 COTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 Lansdowne ColUctioh, Sritish Museum : 
 
 628 to 631. Cases in various matters of Law and Commerce, with Opinions 
 thereon of eminent Counsel, 1700 to 1733, in 4 vols. 
 
 637. A Collection of Cases in various matters of Law, with opinions of emi- 
 nent Counsel thereon, temp. Will. 3, Anne, and Geo. 1. . At the end 
 are some Pleadings in Latin. — Formerly the property of J. West, Esq. 
 
 583. A Note Book of Decisions on Chancery Cases on Appeals, 1700 to 1730. 
 
 1107. Reports of Cases, K. B., from 9 Anne to 12, by F. C. Marsham, Esq., 
 afterwards a Master in Chancery ; in the Reporter's own band. 
 
 Margrave's Collection, British Museum : 
 
 66, 1. Cases in K. B. 1702 to 1704, transcribed from the MS. of Herbert Jacob, 
 Esq., of the Inner Temple, written with his own hand. 
 
 66, 3. Cases in B. R., 9 Anne and C. B., 1697, taken by Mr. SeTgeant Salkeld. 
 
 66, 4. Cases by Herbert Jacob, Esq. in B. R. and Scaocario, 12 Will, and Mary 
 to 1705. 
 
 66, 5. Cases in B. R., 1702 and 3, inclusive, taken by Mr. Sergeant Rugelly. 
 
 71. 2. Reports of Cases in B. R., Chancery, Exeh. Chamber, and Parhament, 
 
 and also before the Delegates, beginning Trin. Term, 30 Car. 2, and 
 ending Trin. 1713, by Lord Chief Baron Dodd. 
 
 72. Cases in Chancery, 1700 to Feb. 11, 1709 inclusive, by Wm. Melraoth, 
 
 Esq., with Indexes. — See note to this number, in Will, and Mary. 
 
 73. Liber Albo ; being a Collection of Chancery Cases, in the reigns of Queen 
 
 Anne and Geo. I, — Lord Chief Baron Gilbert, in his Lex PrEetoria, refers 
 to this book both by the name of Liber Albo, and likewise under the 
 title of 2 MS. Chancery Cases. Most of these Reports are printed in 
 Gilbert's Equity Reports, Precedents in Chancery, or Equity Cases 
 Abridged. 
 
 75. Cases in Chancery, B. R., and C. P., in the reigns of Anne and Geo. 1 . — 
 
 Most of these Cases are printed in Gilbert's Precedents in Chancery. 
 
 76. Cases in Chancery, &c., temp. Anne and Geo. 1, mostly printed in Prece- 
 
 dents in Chancery. 
 
 77. Cases in Chancery during the latter end of Anne's reign, and for the first 
 
 four or five years of Geo. 1. — The Cases are not placed in order of 
 time. 
 
 78. 2. Cases in B. R., 4 Annae Reg. 
 
 78, 9. Cases in C. B. and Chancery, from the third to the seventh yearof Queen 
 
 Anne. 
 80, 81, 82. Cases in Chancery, C. B., Exch., but chiefly the former, from' 1706 
 
 to 1724, inclusive, in 2 vols. — A note in Hargrave's hand, says : 
 
MEANS OF IMPKOVEMENT. 391 
 
 " Upon looking into several of these oases I found some not in print, 
 and others to differ from the printed Reports of the same cases." 
 
 182. Cases in B. R. temp. W. and M., King Will., and 2 Anne. 
 
 202. Reports of Cases argued and adjudged in the Courts of K. B., C. P., and 
 Chancery; together with some Cases and Opinions, chiefly between 
 1705 and 1746. 
 
 204. Chancery Cases, chiefly between 29 Car. 2 and Trin. 1709. 
 
 306. Reports of Cases in Chancery in the time of Queen Anne, and of two 
 Cases at Common Law. — At the beginning is the following note, in 
 Mr. Hargrave's hand : " Upon examination I find the Chancery Cases 
 here to be in Gilbert's Equity Reports in tot. verb, except in one in- 
 stance, in which I have made a note to the contrary. As to the two 
 Common Law Cases, one is printed in 11 Mod., and the other is re- 
 ported in the same book, but not exactly in the same words." — F. H. 
 
 365 to 367. Reports at law and Equity, by James Strode, Esq., of Lincoln's 
 Inn, in 3 vols., temp. Anne, Geo. 1, and Geo. 2. 
 
 70, 8. Cases collected by Lord Chief Baron Dodd. 
 
 GEOEGE I.— August 1, 1714, 
 
 PRINTED REPORTS. 
 
 Barnardiston, K. B., 12 and 13. 
 
 Brown, Parliamentary Cases, 1 to 13. 
 
 Bunbuiy, Exchequer, 1 to 13. 
 
 Cases concerning Settlements, 1 to 13. 
 
 Cases of Practice, C. P., 1 to 13. 
 
 Comyns, K. B., C. P., Exch., Chan., and Delegates, 1 to 13. 
 
 Dickens, Chancery, 1 to 13. 
 
 Fortescue, K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chan., 1 to 13. 
 
 Gilbert, K. B., Chan., and Exch., 1 to 12. 
 
 Modern, K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chancery, vols. 8, 9—8 to 12. 
 
 « « " " « vol. 10—1 to 11. 
 
 Moseley, Chancery, 12 and 13. ' 
 
 Parker, Exchequer, 4 to 13. 
 Peere Williams, Chancery and K. B., 1 to 13. 
 Practical Kegister, C. P., 1 to 13. 
 Precedents in Chancery, 1 to 8. 
 Lord Eaymond, K. B. and C. P., 1 and 10 to 13. 
 Select Cases in Chancery, 10 to 13. 
 Sessions Cases, K. B., 1 to 13. 
 
392 APPENDIX. 
 
 Strange, K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chan., 2 to 13. 
 Vernon, Chancery, 1 to 5. 
 
 COTEMPOEART MANUSCRIPTS. 
 Lansdowne Collection, British Museum : 
 
 628 to 631. Cases in various matters of Law and Commerce, with the Opi- 
 nions of eminent Counsel thereon, 17X)0 to 1733, in 4 vols. 
 
 637. A Collection of Cases in various matters of Law, with the Opinions of 
 eminent Counsel thereon, temp. Will., Anne, and Geo. 1. At the end 
 are some Pleadings in Latin ; formerly the property of J. West, Esq. 
 
 583. A Note Book of Decisions in Chancery Cases on Appeals, 1700 to 1730. 
 
 586. Notes of Pleadings and Cases in K. B., 12 G. 1. 
 
 587. » « « « 13 Geo. 1. 
 
 588. " « « " 13 G. 1, and 1 G. 2. 
 
 Hargrave's Collection, British Museum : 
 
 70, 1. Cases in the Exchequer, A. D. 1721 and 1722, copied from Bunbury's 
 Reports. 
 
 70, 5, 7, and 9. Further Extracts from Bunbury's Reports. 
 
 73. Liber Albo ; being a Collection of Cases in Chancery, temp. Anne and 
 Geo. 1. — See note to this number in Anne. 
 
 75, and 76. Cases in Chancery, B. R. and C. B., in the reigns of Queen Anne 
 and Geo. 1 . — Most of them printed in Precedents in Chancery. 
 
 77. Cases in Chancery during the latter end of Anne's reign, and for the first 
 four or five years of Geo. 1. 
 
 80, 81, 82. Cases in]Chanoery, C. B., and Exchequer, but chiefly in the former, 
 from 1706 to 1724. — See note to this number in Queen Anne. 
 
 83. Cases in the House of Lords, Chancery, C. B., and B. R., from 1720 to 
 1730, inclusive. 
 
 84 to 86. Reports of Cases in the House of Lords, Chancery, B. R., C. B., and 
 Exchequer, chiefly from 1727 to 1752, inclusive, but containing one 
 Case before the House of Lords, as far back as 1693 ; 3 vols, with 
 Indexes. — See note to these numbers in Anne, and the following : 
 " Amongst other important matter in these volumes there is a full 
 Report of the Arguments of Mr. Henley, afterwards Earl ofNorth- 
 ingtdn, for the defendant in error, at the Bar of the House of Lords 
 in the case of Martin, on the demise of Treconnell, against Strachan ; 
 and of the Opinion of the Judges for the defendant in error, as 
 delivered by Willis, Ch. J. There is also a full Report of the famous 
 case of Burgess v. Wheate, in the King's Bench, upon its being sent 
 there by the Lord Chancellor." 
 
 138. A Collection of Chancery Cases and Opinions, chiefly in the time of King 
 Geo. 1. 
 
 202. Reports of Cases argued and adjudged in the Courts of K. B., C. P., and 
 
MEANS OF IMPROVEMENT. 393 
 
 Chancery ; together with some cases and opinions, chiefly between 
 
 the years 1705 and 1746. 
 303. Cases in Chancery, temp. Geo. 1. 
 365 to 367. Reports at Law and in Equity, by James Strode, Esq., of Lincoln's 
 
 Inn, in 3 vols., temp. Anne, Geo. 1, and Geo. 2. 
 
 GEOEGE n.— June 11, 1727. 
 
 PRINTED REPOETS. 
 
 Ambler, Chancery and Bxch., 11 to 34. 
 
 Andrews, K. B., 11 and 12. 
 
 Atkins, Chancery, 9 to 27. 
 
 Barnardiston, K. B., 1 to 7. 
 
 Barnardiston, Chancery, 13 and 14. 
 
 Barnes, C. P., 5 to 34. 
 
 Belt's Supplement to Vesey, Sen., Chan., 20 to .28. 
 
 Blackstone, W., K. B. and C. P., 20 to 24, 30 to 34. 
 
 Brown's Parliamentary Cases, 1 to 34. 
 
 Bunbury, Exchequer, 1 to 14. 
 
 Burrow, K. B., 30 to 34. 
 
 Burrow, Settlement Cases, K. B., 5 to 34. 
 
 Cases of Settlement, K. B., 1 to 5. 
 
 Cases of Practice, C. P., 1 to 20. 
 
 Cases temp. Talbot, Chan., K. B., and C. P., 7, 10. 
 
 Comyns, Exch., Chancery, and Delegates, 1 to 13. 
 
 Cunningham, K. B., 7 to 10. 
 
 Dickens, Chancery, 1 to 34. 
 
 Eden, Chancery, 31 to 33. 
 
 Fitzgibbon, K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chan., 1 to 5. 
 
 Fortescue, all the Courts, 1 to 10. 
 
 Forster, Crown Cases, 16 to 34. 
 
 Kelynge, W., K. B., C. P., and Chan., 4 to 8. 
 
 Kenyon, K. B. and C, 26 to 30. 
 
 Leach, Crown Cases, 4 to 34. 
 
 Mosely, Chancery, 1 to 3. 
 
 Parker, Exchequer, 16 to 34. 
 
 Peere Williams, Chancery and K. B., 1 t;o 8. 
 
 Practical Kegister, C. P., 1 to 15. 
 
 Kaymond, Lord, K. B. and C. P., 1 to 6. 
 
 Keports temp. Hardwicke, K. B., 7, 10. 
 
394 APPENDIX. 
 
 Sayer, K. B., 25 to 29. 
 
 Select Cases in Chancery, 1 to 6. 
 
 Sessions Cases, K. B., 1 to 20. 
 
 Strange, K. B., C. P., Exch., and Chan., 1 to 21. 
 
 Vesey, Sen., Chancery, 20 to 28. 
 
 Willes, C. P., Exch., Chan., and House of Lords, 11 to 32. 
 
 Wilson, K. B. and C. P., 16 to 34. 
 
 COTEMPORART MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 Lansdowne Collection, British Museum : 
 
 628 to 631. Cases in various matters of Law and Commerce, with Opinions of 
 eminent Counsel thereon; 1700 to 1733; in 4 vols. 
 
 583. A Note Book of Decisions in Chancery Cases upon Appeals, ] 700 to 1730. 
 S94. Short Notes of Cases in Chancery and K. B., 1731 to 1739. 
 
 584. Notes of Pleadings and Cases in B. R., 9 to 12 Geo. 2. 
 
 585. " " " " 12 Geo. 2. 
 
 588. « « « " 13 G. 1 and 1 G. 2. 
 
 589. " " " " 1 Geo. 2. 
 
 590. " " « " 1 and 2 Geo. 2. 
 
 591. « " " " 2 and 3 Geo. 2. 
 
 592. " " " " 4 Geo. 2. 
 
 593. " " " " 3 and 4 G. 2. 
 
 Inner Temple Library : 
 Cases determined in Law and Equity, 1750 to 1765, by Thomas Ley, Esq. 
 (bequeathed to the Society), in 4 vols. 
 
 Margrave's Collection, British Museum : 
 
 54. Cases in Law and Equity, A. D. 1731 to 1746, with an Index. — At the 
 
 beginning of the volume is this note, in Mr. Hargrave's hand, in pencil : 
 
 " 11th Feb. .1795.— One of the Ballow MSS. now belonging to Earl 
 
 Camden, received from Mr. Hardinge this day." 
 67. Cases in Chancery, Hil. 1735 to 1736-7. 
 79. Oases in Chancery whilst Lord King held the Great Seal, Mich. 1726 to 
 
 Mich. 1730. — The MS. note of a former possessor says, " These Cases 
 
 are in print, Moseley's Reps, being the same." 
 83. Cases in the House of Lords, Chancery, K. B., and C. P., from 1700 to 
 
 1730 inclusive. 
 84 to 86. Reports of Cases in the House of Lords, Chan., K. B., C. P., and 
 
 Exchequer, chiefly from 1727 to 1752 inclusive, in 3 vols. — See note 
 
 to this number in Anne and Geo. 1. 
 152. Cases from 1733 to 1766. — The same as those in Forrester's Reports. 
 202. Reports of Cases argued and adjudged in the Courts of K. B., 0. P., and 
 
 Chancery, beween 1705 and 1746. 
 
MEANS OF IMPROVEMENT. 395 
 
 328. Cases in the Court of K. B. in the reign of Geo. 2. 
 
 334. Cases in Chancery and K. B. 11 Geo. 2. — Inside the cover of this volume 
 is the following note : « 1 1 Feb. 1795. One of the Ballowe MSS. now 
 belonging to Earl Camden, received from Mr. Hardinge this day. — F. H," 
 
 365 to 367. Reports at Law and in Equity, by James Strode, Esq., of Lincoln's 
 Inn, in 3 vols., temp. Anne, Geo. 1 and 2. 
 
 383 and 412. Vols. 2 and 4 of Cases in Chancery, with Index. — Within the 
 cover of this manuscript is the following note, in Mr.' Hargrave's 
 handwriting : " Note, that the whole collection of Mr. Paul Jodrell's 
 Equity Notes, of which this volume is the fourth, consists of 6 vols, in 
 quarto ; a complete set is in the possession of Mr. Henry Jodrell, who 
 is so obliging as frequently to indulge me with the use of vols. 1, 2, 3, 
 5, and 6. I have a copy of vol. 2, but it is without an Index of mat- 
 ter." At the end of this volume are a few notes in Mr. Hargrave's 
 hand-writing, from the Index of matter to vol. 6. 
 
 435. Cases in B. R., 32 Geo. 2, and one Case in C. B., 33 Geo. 2, in the hand- 
 writing of Mr. Hargrave. — Within the cover of this MS. is written, 
 " Ex notis Francisci Filmer Arraigeri." 
 
 In closing this statement of the Manuscript Reports, it may not be 
 inappropriate to make some observations on the sources from which it 
 has been derived, and to give, by way of illustration, a few extracts 
 from the reports of the commissions appointed by the legislature to 
 inquire into the state of the public records of the country, and from 
 the returns made to the commissioners' by the several inns of court, 
 the universities, and other public institutions, of the legal manuscripts 
 in their possession. 
 
 The first report on the public records, made by a select committee 
 of the House of Commons, in the year 1800, contains much valuable 
 matter. That part of it which relates to the Year Books and judicial 
 proceedings is as follows : 
 
 ' The names of the commissioners were as follows : William Henry Ca- 
 vendish, Duke of Portland, William Wyndham, Baron Grcnville, and the Right 
 Honorable Henry Dundas, the three principal Secretaries of State; the Right 
 Honorable Henry Addington, Esq., Speaker of the House of Commons ; Wil- 
 liam Pitt, Chancellor and under Treasurer of the Exchequer ; Sir Richard 
 Pepper Arden, Knt., Master of the Rolls; Lord Frederick Campbell, Clerk- 
 Register of Scotland ; Sylvester Douglas, Knt., one of the Commissioners of the 
 Treasury, late Lord Glenbervie; Sir John Mitford, Knt., then Attorney-General, 
 late Lord Redesdale ; Sir William Grant, Knt., then Solicitor-General, late 
 Master of the Rolls; Robert Dundas, Esq., Lord Advocate for Scotland; and 
 Charles Abbot, Esq., late Lord Tenterden. 
 
396 APPENDIX. 
 
 " The judicial proceedings of the earliest date are those of the 
 Curai Regis, commencing in the reign of Richard I. ; the Placita 
 Forestae, and the Courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas, be- 
 ginning from the reign of Edward the First." 
 
 " Some of the most curious and instructive records of the Curia 
 Regis have been already published by Maddox in his Notes to his 
 History of the Exchequer j others of them are probably contained 
 in the abstracts and transcripts preserved at the Chapter House, and 
 in the Libraries of some of the Inns of Court ; and, with regard to 
 the rest, it is very doubtful whether they are sufficiently perfect for 
 publication. 
 
 " Of the Placita Forestae, which are dispersed in so many different 
 repositories, it might be useful to print one G-eneral Catalogue." 
 
 "The special judgments of the Common Law Courts, in the 
 reign of Edward the First, are highly commended by Lord Hale, 
 who says,' ' That the reasons of the law, upon which the court 
 proceeded, is many times expressly delivered upon the record 
 itself.' And the value which he set upon them, appears by the 
 large selections arid copies from them which he obtained and be- 
 queathed, with his other MSS., to the Society of Lincoln's Inn. 
 
 " It may be desirable, therefore, that his selections should be 
 printed, and that such other selections should be made as were sug- 
 gested by the Keeper of the Chapter House Records, in 1732, or that 
 the Abstract now preserved in the Chapter House, and specified by 
 the present officer in his return upon this subject, or the book 
 mentioned in the return from the Society of the Middle Temple, 
 should be printed; accordingly, as it may appear upon a careful in- 
 spection and comparison of them all, that any of the latter compila- 
 tions can be substituted for Lord Hale's if his cannot be obtained for 
 the public, or perhaps be made supplementary to it, if they should 
 appear to take in a larger compass of time. 
 
 " As these records would be particularly serviceable in illustrating 
 the Year Books, a subject discussed with great erudition and ability, 
 in a return made from the Society of Lincoln's Inn, your commit- 
 tee strongly recommend that the series of those books, from Edward 
 the First to Henry the Eighth, should be completed, by printing 
 those hitherto unpublished, of which there are several extant in the 
 libraries of Lincoln's Inn, the Inner Temple, and the British 
 
 ' Hale's History of the Common Law, cap. 7. 
 
MEANS OP IMPROVEMENT. 397 
 
 Museum ; and also by reprinting the rest from more correct copies, 
 as those which are already in print are known to be, in many in- 
 stances, incorrect and erroneous. A G-eneral Index to the whole 
 would be a very necessary addition to such a work, which forms so 
 Taluable a monument of our practical jurisprudence in its earliest 
 
 The return made by the Society of Lincoln's Inn, alluded to in 
 the above extract, contains the following section upon the subject of 
 these pages. 
 
 " Eeports of judicial proceedings, viz. : First, Year Books, some- 
 times called Relationes, Annales, Narrationes, Anni and Tempora. 
 Of these there are many volumes, a few of them being duplicates. 
 They also are, for the most part, fairly written, and in the hands of 
 the respective periods to which they relate, and which periods are 
 
 BEIQNS. TEARS. 
 
 Edward 1 17, 18, 19, 30, 31, and 32. 
 
 " 2, 1 to 20. 
 
 " 3 1 to 46. 
 
 Eichard 2, 2, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13. 
 
 Henry 4 2, 8, 11, 13. 
 
 " 5, 1, 5, 9. 
 
 " 6, 1,2,3. 
 
 Edward 4, 10. 
 
 "2. Reports not official, in the reigns of Eliz., Jac. 1, and Car. 1. 
 
 "1. Year Books. Whatever may have been the nature of the 
 authority under which those books were compiled, and whatever the 
 particular description of the compilers (concerning which there 
 seems to be a considerable diversity of opinion) they are universally 
 considered as containing official and authentic accounts of the argu- 
 ments and decisions in the most important causes which came before 
 the chief tribunals of this country, from a very early period down 
 to the general introduction of printing. About which time certain 
 eminent judges and lawyers, as Keilwey, Moore, Benloe, Dyer, Plow- 
 den, &c., began, without any special appointment or duty, to make 
 similar compilations, with a view of committing them to the press. 
 Such a valuable monument of practical law and jurisprudence as the 
 Year Books, probably does not exist in any other country. But 
 
 "1. In the printed editions of these important annals there are 
 many chasms and interruptions in the series of years. 
 
 " 2. The printed copies abound with many imperfections of other 
 
398 APPENDIX. 
 
 sorts. The oases, arguments, and judgments, are not so fully stated 
 in them as they are to be met with in some of the manuscripts, be- 
 cause those editions were (so it should seem) made from other 
 manuscripts less complete, the editors not having had the means or 
 industry, at least, of resorting to those which were more full and 
 accurate. 
 
 " 3. They are printed so close, so many of the manuscript abbrevia- 
 tions are retained, and there is so little separation in paragraphs, or 
 distinction between what is said by the counsel and what is said by 
 the judges, that it often requires the experience and sagacity of a 
 legal antiquary, and generally much more time than the practising 
 lawyer can bestow, to read, or rather to decipher the passages to 
 which there is occasion to refer. 
 
 " 4. There is no general well-digested index to them. 
 
 "1. Of the chasms. There are extant, in manuscript, in this and 
 other repositories. Year Books from Edward I. inclusive to the 1st 
 of Henry VIII. ; but of the series of years, in that long space of 
 time, there are wanting in the printed editions, 
 
 " The whole of the reign of Edward I., except the short memoranda 
 in Scaccario prefixed to what now forms the first printed volume. 
 
 " The reign of Edward III., anno 11 to 16, anno 19, 20, and 31 
 to 37. 
 
 " The whole of Richard II. 
 
 " Of Henry V. anno 3, 4, 6. 
 
 " Of Hemy VII. anno 17, 18, 19." 
 
 " A variety of reasons concur to render itprobable, that if not the 
 whole, a considerable part of these deficiencies, might be supplied 
 from existing manuscripts." 
 
 The subject of Lord Hale's will, and the obstruction it might 
 occasion to the suggestions of the commissioners, is hinted at in 
 those suggestions. That part of the will of Lord Hale, which relates 
 to his books and manuscripts, is as follows : 
 
 " As a testimony of my honor and respect to the Society of Lin- 
 coln's Inn, where I had the greatest part of my education, I give and 
 bequeath to that honorable Society the several manuscript books con- 
 tained in a schedule annexed to my will. They are a treasure worth 
 the having and keeping, which I have been near forty years in gather- 
 
 ' This statement omits the 5, 6, 13, 15, 16, 17, Henry VI., which are likewise 
 wanting in the printed editions. 
 
MEANS OF IMPROVEMENT. 399 
 
 ing, witli very great industry and expense. My desire is, that they 
 be kept safe and all together, in remembrance of me. They were 
 fit to be bound in leather, and chained and kept in archives. I 
 desire that they may not be lent out or disposed of. Only, if I 
 happen hereafter, to have any of my posterity of that Society, that 
 desires to transcribe any book, and gives very good security to restore 
 it again within a prefixed time, such as the benchers of that' Society 
 in council shall approve of; then, and not otherwise, only one book 
 at one time may be lent out to them by the Society. They are a 
 treasure not fit for every man's view, nor is every man capable of 
 making use of them. Only — I would have nothing of these books 
 printed, but entirely preserved together for the use of the industri- 
 ous learned members of that worthy Society." 
 
 After stating instances in which the restrictions, contained in the 
 will of Lord Hale, had been disregarded, the learned Reporter' pro- 
 
 " I have judged it right to set forth, specially, all that could be 
 stated with authenticity, relative to this departure, under the direc- 
 tion and authority of the House of Lords, from the words of Lord 
 Hale's will, as, when we consider the eminent persons then living, 
 who were benchers, or had been members of the Society, it will not 
 be doubted but that they must have given due consideration to the 
 subject, and must have thought that they were either bound to a 
 compliance with the orders of that House and its sub-committee, or, 
 at least, fully justified in their compliance. Their conduct, on that 
 occasion, may, therefore, perhaps, be considered as having formed a 
 rule and precedent for a like compliance with any similar order of 
 either house of Parliament. Indeed, it can hardly be supposed that 
 Sir Matthew Hale himself would have wished to oppose his own de- 
 sire of withholding his manuscripts from the public to such high 
 authority ; although a sense of the value of his gift to the Society, 
 and an anxiety for its preservation, may seem to have led him, in 
 making his will, into a way of thinking on the subject inconsistent 
 with his general love of his profession, and that zeal for extending, 
 to the country at large, the benefit of his great learning, which he so 
 fully manifested by the valuable works he himself either published 
 or prepared for the press." 
 
 The return of the benchers of the Inner Temple contains an im- 
 
 ' Sylvester Donglas, Esq., afterwards Lord Glenbervie. 
 
400 APPENDIX. 
 
 portant MS. of a Year Book, temp. Edward III., extending from 
 the lOth to the 16th of his reign. See the table of that reign and 
 the note appended. 
 
 The return of records deposited in the Chapter House, made by 
 Sir George Rose, lays open a valuable source for the correction of a 
 portion of the Year Books by official MSS. The following extract 
 will be read with interest. 
 
 " It will probably be difficult to decide now, when the proceedings 
 of the Curia Regis finished, and the Courts of King's Bench and 
 Common Pleas first sat as distinct courts. In the old calendars, the 
 Rolls are called of the Curiae Regis to the end of Henry III., and 
 from 1 Edw. I. of the King's Bench and Common Pleas ; but nothing 
 I have seen appears to justify that. On the contrary, I find, in King 
 John's reign, mixed titles in the Rolls. A few Rolls, of the reign 
 of Henry III., are said to be in the Tower. 
 
 " Not being able to decide when the court was divided, I state, as 
 has been formerly done, that the Rolls of the King's Bench in this 
 Treasury are from 1 Edw. I. to the end of Henry V. ; and the Rolls 
 of the Common Pleas, from the beginning of Edw. I. to the end of 
 Henry VII.,* except those of a few terms in the latter reign, which 
 are in the Treasury of the Common Pleas." 
 
 The returns made by the British Museum under this commission 
 are very incomplete, since the catalogues which now give access to 
 the invaluable and very extensive stores of MSS. in that institution 
 were not then in existence, and may be said to have emanated from 
 that commission. The catalogue of the Harleian Collection is a 
 great work, and its indexes have, in the course of the present in- 
 quiry, been found strictly correct and complete. The catalogue of 
 the Lansdowne Collection describes the several contents with suffi- 
 cient accuracy, but its index is so grossly defective, that the compiler 
 found great difficulty in giving an accurate statement of the objects 
 of legal research with which that collection is enriched. No pains 
 were spared, and it is hoped that little, if anything, worth noticing 
 has escaped his observation. Since the date of the commission above 
 alluded to, the valuable and extensive Manuscript Collection of Mr. 
 Hargrave has been added to the Museum. 
 
 ' Sir Matthew Hale says, "that in the time of King John, the courts of King's 
 Bench and Common Pleas were distinct courts, but states mixed proceedings 
 on the Rolls." Hist. Com. Law, 149, 1 51. 
 
MEANS OF IMPEOVEMENT. 401 
 
 The MSS. in the table under the following title, " Bishop Moris's 
 MSS., Public Library, Cambridge," are not mentioned in the return 
 made by that University, which leads to a doubt whether the de- 
 scription of this collection, given in the table, is a correct one. The 
 catalogue of the collection, of which these MSS. is a portion, will be 
 found in a volume in the British Museum, entitled "Catalogi Libro- 
 rum Manuscriptorum Anglias et Hibernias," and against the title of 
 it is this note, in writing : " Now, in the Public Library of Cam- 
 bridge." Not having had an opportunity of ascertaining this fact, 
 and not doubting but that these MSS. are in existence, if not at Cam- 
 bridge, elsewhere, we have included them (imperfectly described as 
 they are, without any guide as to what portion of the several reigns 
 they include) in our table, with this brief explanation, and we shall 
 take an early opportunity of looking into and describing them ac- 
 curately. Independent of the value of these MSS. with a view to 
 the collations of the printed Year Books, which, from what we have 
 seen, is likely to prove of the first importance in authenticating them, 
 there are the following in this collection, which are doubly important 
 as not being in print, and no perfect copies elsewhere apparently to be 
 found. — No. 402. A Year Book in the reign of Edw. I. may be more 
 at large than the short notes of that reign contained in the volume in 
 the Middle Temple Library, and may complete the reign of Edw. I. 
 of Lord Hale's MS., the printing of which has been recommended 
 by the Eecord Commission; and this is the more probable from the 
 following statement, extracted from the Lincoln's Inn returns before 
 mentioned : " As to the reign of Edw. I., it is clear, from Fitzher- 
 bert's Abridgment, that there were extant, in his time, Year Books 
 of that period; and SirM. Hale, in his History of the Common Law, 
 mentions ' that some of those, though broken, yet the best of their 
 kind, were in Lincoln's Inn Library.' " (Cap. 8. p. 186.) Likewise 
 those in the reign of Richard 2, Henry 5, and Henry 6. There is 
 likewise«B,nother Year Book, not included in the table for want of 
 date ; it is thus described in the catalogue — " No. 399. An ancient 
 Year Book, bound in vellum, fol.^' 
 
 It is presumed that from among the various MSS. enumerated, 
 the reiga of Edw. 1 may be added, for the first time, to the printed 
 Year Books; the various years now omitted in the reigns of Edw. 3, 
 Richard 2, Henry 5, 6, 7, and 8, supplied, and that the Hargrave 
 and Harleian collection will furnish an additional volume, including 
 the reigns of Edw. 6, and Philip and Mary. 
 
 26 
 
402 APPENDIX. 
 
 The detaohed collections of Keports, by eminent practitioners, after 
 the Year Books ceased to be continued, are very numerous, and most 
 of them of the first authority and consequence ; others of less autho- 
 rity, derive their value from their forming so many links in the series, 
 ■which would otherwise be incomplete. The notes appended to the 
 various MSS. in the table, which are for the most part to be found 
 ' in the handwriting of their former possessors, or have been since 
 written upon examination of their contents, will show the improve- 
 ments which many published Keports are capable of receiving from 
 these invaluable sources ; and there are doubtless many more MSS. 
 appearing in the table without note or observation, which will be 
 found, upon examination, of no less value. 
 
AN ALPHABETICAL LIST OF THE 
 REPOETERS, 
 
 UP TO THE YEAK 1855, WHETHEK IN PRINT OR MS.* 
 
 A. 
 
 Acta CancellarisB, 
 
 PiOE. 
 
 . 285 
 
 Acton, 
 
 332 
 
 Adams. 
 
 
 Addama, 
 
 332 
 
 Addison, .... 
 
 . 345 
 
 Adolphug & Ellis, 
 
 Adolphus & Ellis, New Series, 
 
 Aiken, .... 
 
 329 
 
 329, n. 
 
 343 
 
 Alabama, .... 
 
 . 349 
 
 Alabama, New Series, 
 
 Alcook, .... 
 
 349 
 . 336 
 
 Alcook & Napier, 
 
 335 
 
 Aleyu, .... 
 AUestree, 
 
 . 200 
 190 
 
 Ambler, .... 
 American Law Register, 
 American Leading Cases, 
 American Railway Cases, 
 Anderson, .... 
 
 . 321 
 352 
 
 . 353 
 352 
 
 . 93 
 
 Andepon & Warburton, MS., 
 Andrews, . 
 
 366, 367, 368, 372 
 . 274 
 
 Angell, .... 
 Annaly, .... 
 Anstruther, 
 
 . 343, u. 
 
 . 271 
 
 331 
 
 * Tha American Bepoiters are designated by italics. 
 
404 
 
 AN ALPHABETICAL LIST 
 
 Anthon, 
 
 Appleton, 
 
 Arabin (Burlesque), . 
 
 Archer, 
 
 Arkley, 
 
 Armstrong. 
 
 Armstrong & McCartney, 
 
 Arnold. 
 
 Ashmead, 
 
 Ashe's Tables in Keilway, 
 
 Atkyns, 
 
 Bailey, 
 
 Bailey Chancery, 
 
 Ball & Beatty, 
 
 Baldwin, 
 
 Barhoiir, 
 
 Barbour Chancery, 
 
 Barnardiston, K. B., 
 
 Barnardistou Chancery, . 
 
 Barnes, 
 
 Barnewall & Adolphus, 
 
 Barnewall & Alderson, 
 
 Barnewall & Cresswell, 
 
 Barr, 
 
 Barradall, MS., 
 
 Barron & Arnold, 
 
 Barron & Austin, 
 
 Batty, 
 
 Bay, South Carolina, 
 
 Bay, Missouri, 
 
 Beatty, ... 
 
 Beavan, 
 
 Bee, ... 
 
 Bell, .... 
 
 Bell, Murray, Young, Tennent & 
 
 Bellewe, Hen. VIII., 
 
 Bellewe, Rich. II., 
 
 Belt, Supplement to Vesey, Sen., 
 
 Benne, . . . ^ 
 
 Benloe & Dallison, 
 
 Benloe, New, 
 
 B. 
 
 Frazier, 
 
 . 344 
 342 
 . 352 
 352, n. 
 . 337 
 
 . 336 
 
 . 345 
 83, n. 
 . 319 
 
 . 348 
 
 348 
 . 335 
 
 341 
 . 344 
 
 344 
 
 . 261 
 
 261, 322 
 
 . 268 
 
 329 
 . 329 
 
 329 
 345, n. 
 
 346 
 . 333 
 
 333 
 . 335 
 
 347 
 . 351 
 
 335 
 . 328 
 
 342 
 . 337 
 
 338 
 
 . 91 
 
 79 
 
 . 322 
 
 235 
 . 80 
 81,93 
 
OP THE EEPOETERS. 
 
 405 
 
 Benloe, Old, . 
 
 Benloe in Ashe, . 
 
 Benloe in Keilwey, . 
 
 Benloe, MS., 
 
 Ben Monroe, . 
 
 Bennett, . 
 
 Berton. 
 
 Bibb, 
 
 Bingham, 
 
 Bingham, New Cases, 
 
 Binney, 
 
 Blackerly. 
 
 Blackford, 
 
 Blackstone, Wm., 
 
 Blackstone, Hen., 
 
 Bland, 
 
 Blatchford, . 
 
 Bligh, . 
 
 Bligh, New Series, 
 
 Bloomfield, 
 
 Bosauquet & Puller, . 
 
 Botts, 
 
 Bradford, 
 
 Branch, . 
 
 Brayton, 
 
 Brevard, 
 
 Bridgman, John, 
 
 Bridgman, Orlando, . 
 
 Brightly, . 
 
 Broekenbrough, 
 
 BrocJcenbrough Cases, 
 
 Brockenbroxgh ds Holmes, 
 
 Broderip & Bingham, 
 
 Brooke, New Cases, . 
 
 Brown, Chancery, 
 
 Brown, High Court of Judiciary, 
 
 Brown, Parliament, . 
 
 Browne, P. A., 
 
 Brownlow & Gouldsborough, 
 
 Buck, 
 
 Bulstrode, 
 
 Bunbury, 
 
 Burnett, MS., 
 
 . 81 
 
 83, n. 
 
 I • 83, u. 
 
 366, 367, 368 
 
 . 350 
 
 351 
 
 350 
 . 330 
 
 330 
 . 345 
 
 . 351 
 
 '111 
 . 330 
 
 346 
 . 339 
 
 326 
 . 326 
 
 344 
 . 330 
 
 334 
 . 344 
 352, n. 
 . 343 
 
 351 
 . 347 
 
 179 
 . 203 
 
 346 
 . 341 
 346, n. 
 346, n. 
 
 330 
 . 91 
 
 327 
 . 337 
 
 254 
 . 345 
 
 110 
 . 3.33 
 
 178 
 . 257 
 77, n. 
 
406 
 
 AN ALPHABETICAL LIST 
 
 Burritt, ' 
 
 Burrow, • 
 
 Burrow, Settlement Caaes, 
 
 328 
 334 
 
 C. 
 
 Caines' Cases, ..... 
 
 . 343 
 
 Caines' N. Y. Term, .... 
 
 343 
 
 Caldecott. 
 
 
 Call, 
 
 . 341,346 
 
 Calthrop, ...... 
 
 . 178 
 
 Cameron (f Norwood, .... 
 
 347 
 
 Campbell, ...... 
 
 . 331 
 
 Carolina Law Repository, 
 
 347 
 
 Carrington & Eirwati, .... 
 
 . 332 
 
 Carrington h MarsHman, 
 
 332 
 
 Carrington & Payne, .... 
 
 . 332 
 
 Carrow & Oliver, .... 
 
 330, n. 
 
 Carrow, Oliver, Beavan & Lefroy, . 
 
 330, n. 
 
 Carrow, Hamerton & Allen, . ■ ; 
 
 334 
 
 Carter, ...... 
 
 . 209 
 
 Carter, . ..... 
 
 351 
 
 Carthew, • . 
 
 . -246 
 
 Gary, 
 
 287 
 
 Case of the Duchy of Cornwall, 
 
 . 180 
 
 Cases in Chancery, .... 
 
 296 
 
 Cases in King's Bench, temp. Lord Hardwicke, 
 
 . 316 
 
 Cases of Practice, . . . . 
 
 167 
 
 Cases of Settlement, .... 
 
 . 257 
 
 Cases Taken and Adjudged, 
 
 302 
 
 Cases temp. Pinch, .... 
 
 . 303 
 
 Cases temp. Hardwicke, 
 
 . 268,316 
 
 Cases temp. Holt, . 
 
 . 247 
 
 Cases temp. Macclesfield, 
 
 238 
 
 Cases temp. Queen Anne, .... 
 
 . 239 
 
 Cases temp. Talbot, .... 
 
 316 
 
 Cases temp. WUliam III., .... 
 
 . 240 
 
 Cecly, MS., 
 
 382 
 
 Chancery Calendars, .... 
 
 . 280 
 
 Chancery Cases, ..... 
 
 296 
 
 Chancery Reports, .... 
 
 . 294 
 
 Chandler, Criminal Trials, 
 
 352 
 
 Chandler, Ee^orts, Wisconsin, 
 
 . 362 
 
OF THE REPORTERS. 
 
 407 
 
 Charlton, R. M., 
 
 Charlton, T. U. P., 
 
 Cheke, MS., 
 
 Cheves, . 
 
 Chibburn, MS., 
 
 Chipman, N., 
 
 Chipman, D., 
 
 Chitty, . . ' . 
 
 Choice Cases in Chancery, 
 
 Clark & Finnelly, 
 
 Clark & Finnelly, New Series, 
 
 Clarke, . 
 
 Clayton, 
 
 Cobb, 
 
 Cobbett, 
 
 Cockburn & Rowe, 
 
 Cocke, 
 
 Coke, V . 
 
 Coleman, 
 
 Coleman & Caine, 
 
 CoUes, 
 
 CoUyer, . 
 
 Colquit, 
 
 Comberbach, 
 
 Common Bench, 
 
 Comstock, 
 
 CoEttyns, 
 
 Conference, 
 
 Connecticut, . 
 
 Connor & Lawson, 
 
 Conroy, 
 
 Constitutional, 
 
 Constitutional, New Series, 
 
 Cook & Alcock, . 
 
 Cooke, 
 
 Cooke, 
 
 Cooper, Chan. Cases, 
 
 Cooper, Practice Cases, . 
 
 Cooper, Rep. temp. Brougham, 
 
 Cooper, Rep. temp. Cottenham, 
 
 Corbett & Daniell, . 
 
 Corey, MS., 
 
 Cowen, 
 
 348 
 348 
 
 77, n. 
 348 
 
 77, n. 
 342 
 343 
 330 
 288 
 327 
 327 
 344 
 197 
 349 
 67 
 333 
 349 
 112 
 343 
 343 
 254 
 328 
 227 
 245 
 330 
 344 
 253 
 347 
 343 
 335 
 336 
 347 
 348 
 335 
 256 
 350 
 327 
 327 
 327 
 327 
 333 
 381 
 344 
 
408 
 
 AN" ALPHABETICAL LIST 
 
 Cowper, ...... 
 
 Cox, Chancery. 
 
 Coxe, ...... 
 
 329 
 344 
 
 Crabbe, ..... 
 
 . 342 
 
 Craig & Phillipa, .... 
 Crunch, S. C. U. &, ... 
 Cranch, C. C. U. S., . 
 
 327 
 
 . 339 
 
 342 
 
 Crawford & Dix, .... 
 
 . 337 
 
 Crawford & Dix, Circuit Cases . 
 
 337 
 
 Croke, ..... 
 
 . 143 
 
 Croke, Admiralty. 
 
 
 Crompton & Jervis, .... 
 
 . 331 
 
 Crompton & Meeson, .... 
 Crompton, Meeson & Koscoe, 
 
 331 
 . 331 
 
 Cunningham, ..... 
 
 Ourrij, 
 
 Curteis, ...... 
 
 271 
 
 . 349 
 
 333 
 
 Curtis, ..... 
 
 . 339 
 
 Cmliing, ..... 
 Cushman, ..... 
 
 343 
 . 349 
 
 D. 
 
 Dallas, 
 
 Dallison, Printed, 
 
 Dallison, MS., 
 
 Dalrymple. 
 
 Dana, 
 
 Daniel, 
 
 Darrel, MS., . 
 
 Dauson & Lloyd. 
 
 Davies, Irish, 
 
 Davies, English. 
 
 Davies, 
 
 Davison, & Merivale, 
 
 Day, . 
 
 Deacon, . 
 
 Deacon & Chitty, 
 
 Deane, Printed, . 
 
 Deane, MS., 
 
 Deas & Anderson. 
 
 339, 345 
 
 80 
 
 367, 368 
 
 . 350 
 
 331 
 
 . 383 
 
 . 167 
 
 . 341 
 329 
 
 . 343 
 333 
 
 . 333 
 343 
 
 . 373 
 
OF THE REPORTERS, 
 
 D'Ewes, MS., . 
 
 De Gex, .... 
 
 De Gex & Smale, 
 
 De Gex, MacNaughton & Gordon, 
 
 Denio, 
 
 Denison, 
 
 Desaussure, . 
 
 Devereux, 
 
 Devereax, Equity, 
 
 Devereux & Battte, 
 
 Devereux & Battle, EquHy, 
 
 De Winchedon, . 
 
 Dickens, 
 
 Dodd, MS., 
 
 Dodson, 
 
 Douglas, . 
 
 Douglas, Election Cases, 
 
 Douglass, 
 
 Dow, .... 
 
 Dow & Clark, or Dow, New Series, 
 
 Dowling, 
 
 Dowling, New Series, 
 
 Dowling & Lowndes, 
 
 Dowling & Ryland, Magistrates' Cases 
 
 Dowling & Eyland, Queen's Bench, 
 
 Drewry. 
 
 Drury, .... 
 
 Drury & Walsh, 
 
 Drury & Warren, 
 
 Duck, MS., . 
 
 Dudley, .... 
 
 Dunlap, Bell, & Murray, 
 
 Dunlop, Bell, Murray & Donaldson, 
 
 Dim; 
 
 Durfee, .... 
 
 Durnford & East, 
 
 Dyer, .... 
 
 B. 
 
 Eagle. 
 
 Eagle & Younge. 
 
 East, . 
 
 Eden, 
 
 Edgar. 
 
 409 
 
 , .380 
 
 333 
 . 328 
 
 347 
 . 344 
 
 334 
 . 347 
 
 347 
 . 347 
 
 347 
 
 . 347 
 
 66 
 
 . 293 
 
 388, 391 
 
 . 332 
 
 329 
 . 333 
 
 351 
 . 326 
 
 327 
 . 330 
 
 330 
 . 330 
 
 334 
 . 329 
 
 335 
 . 335 
 
 335 
 . 374 
 
 348 
 . 338 
 
 338 
 
 . 344 
 
 343, n. 
 
 . 329 
 
 87 
 
 329 
 323 
 
410 
 
 AN ALPHABETICAL LIST 
 
 Edwa/rds, 
 
 Edwards, 
 
 Egerton, MS., 
 
 Elchie. 
 
 Ellis & Blackburn, 
 
 Emlyn, 
 
 English, . 
 
 Equity Cases, 9th Modern, . 
 
 Equity Cases, Abridged, . 
 
 Espinasse, 
 
 Ewens, 
 
 344 
 . 332 
 77, n. 
 
 329, n. 
 . 56 
 
 351 
 . 235 
 
 305 
 . 331 
 
 370 
 
 Fairfield, 
 
 Falconer. 
 
 Falconer & Fitzherbert, 
 
 Farresly, . 
 
 Ferguson, 
 
 Finch, Cases temp., 
 
 Fitzgibbons, . 
 
 Flanagan & Eelly, 
 
 Fleming, MS. 
 
 Florida, . 
 
 Foley, 
 
 Forrest, . 
 
 Forrester, 
 
 Fortescue, J., 
 
 Portescue, W., Burlesque, 
 
 Foster, 
 
 Poster, 
 
 Pox & Smith, 
 
 Praser, 
 
 Freeman, . 
 
 Freeman, Chancery, . 
 
 Freeman, K, B., . 
 
 FergussoD, 
 
 . 342 
 
 . 333 
 234 
 
 . 338 
 303 
 
 . 263 
 335 
 
 352 
 . 153 
 
 331 
 . 316 
 
 251 
 253, 352 
 
 342 
 . 274 
 
 335 
 . 333 
 
 349 
 . 302 
 
 241 
 . 338 
 
 G. 
 
 Gale. 
 
 Gale & Davison, 
 
 Gallison, 
 
 329 
 339 
 
411 
 
 Gait, Burlesque, .... 
 
 352 
 
 Gardenhire, ..... 
 
 . 351 
 
 Georgia Decisions, 
 
 348 
 
 Georgia Beports, .... 
 
 348, n. 
 
 Gibson, 
 
 
 Gilbert, Eeporta, .... 
 
 . 313 
 
 Gilbert, Gases Law & Equity, 
 
 . 256, 314 
 
 GiM 
 
 . 346 
 
 Gill & Johnson, .... 
 
 346 
 
 Gilman, ..... 
 
 . 351 
 
 Gilmer, ..... 
 
 347 
 
 Gilpin, ..... 
 
 . 342 
 
 Glan, MS. 
 
 
 Glanville. 
 
 
 Glyn, MS., .... 
 
 n,n. 
 
 Glynn & Jameson, .... 
 
 . 333 
 
 Godbolt 
 
 142 
 
 Godfrey, MS., . . . . 
 
 . 77, n., 373 
 
 Gouldsborough, .... 
 
 149 
 
 Gouldsborough, MS., .... 
 
 . 373 
 
 Gow, ..... 
 
 332 
 
 Grattan, .... 
 
 . 347 
 
 Green, lovm, .... 
 
 352 
 
 Green, New Jersey, .... 
 
 . 345 
 
 Green, New Jersey Chancery, 
 
 345 
 
 Greenleaf, ..... 
 
 . 342 
 
 Griswold, ..... 
 
 350 
 
 H. 
 
 Haggard, Admiralty, .... 
 
 . 332 
 
 Haggard, Consistory or Ecclesiastical, 
 
 333 
 
 HaU, 
 
 . 344 
 
 Hall, American Law Journal, 
 
 352 
 
 Sail, Journal of Jurisprudence, 
 
 . 352 
 
 Hall&Twells, 
 
 327 
 
 Ealsted, 
 
 . 344 
 
 Hoisted, Chancery, .... 
 
 345 
 
 Hammond, ..... 
 
 . 350 
 
 Hanmer, ...... 
 
 > . . 278,323 
 
 Harcase. 
 
 
 Hardin, ...... 
 
 350 
 
 Hare, ..... 
 
 . . .328 
 
 Hare fl& WaMace, ..... 
 
 353 
 
412 
 
 AN ALPHABETICAL LIST 
 
 Hardres, 
 
 Hardwicke, 
 
 Harper, MS., . 
 
 Harper, Law, 
 
 Harper, Equity, 
 
 Harrington, 
 
 Harris, 
 
 Harris & Gill, 
 
 Harris & Johnson, 
 
 Harris & McHenry, 
 
 Harrison, 
 
 Harrison & WoUaston 
 
 Hawks, 
 
 Hayes, 
 
 Hayes & Jones, 
 
 Haywood, 
 
 Hawkins, MS., 
 
 Heath, 
 
 Hendon, MS., 
 
 Hengham, MS., . 
 
 Hening & Munford, 
 
 Hetley, 
 
 Heywood, 
 
 Hill, N. Y., 
 
 Hill, S. C, Law, 
 
 Hill, S. C, Cluxncery, 
 
 Hingham, MS., 
 
 Hobart, 
 
 Hodges. 
 
 Hoffman, . 
 
 Hogan, • . 
 
 Holt, 
 
 Holt, Cases temp.. 
 
 Home. 
 
 Hopkins, 
 
 Hopkinson. 
 
 Horewood. 
 
 Home & Hurlston. 
 
 Hovenden's Supplement to Vesey, Junr., 
 
 Howard, Mississippi, 
 
 Howard, N. Y., . 
 
 Howard, U. S. S. C, 
 
 Howard, Irish, 
 
 Howell's State Trials, 
 
 11, 367, 368, 370, 372, 
 
 . 201 
 268, 316 
 1, 373, 374 
 
 348 
 . 348 
 
 346 
 345, n. 
 
 346 
 . 346 
 
 346 
 . 345 
 
 . 347 
 
 336 
 . 336 
 
 347 
 . 318 
 
 342 
 . 371 
 64,77 
 . 346 
 
 196 
 . 350 
 
 344 
 . 348 
 
 348 
 64,77 
 
 162 
 
 344 
 . 335 
 
 332 
 . 247 
 
 . 344 
 
 327 
 349 
 344 
 339 
 336 
 54 
 
OF THE EEPOETEES. ' 
 
 413 
 
 Hudson & Brooke, 
 Hughes, . 
 Humphrey, 
 Hutton, Printed, . 
 Hutton, MS., . 
 Hyde, MS., 
 
 . 335 
 350 
 
 . 350 
 179 
 
 . Z11 
 11, n., 381 
 
 Illinois, 
 
 Irish Term. 
 
 Ingham, MS., 
 
 IredeU, 
 
 Iredell, Chancery, 
 
 Irish Law & Equity, 
 
 . 351 
 
 ui 
 
 . 347 
 335 
 
 Jacob, 
 
 Jacob, 
 
 Jacob & Walker, 
 
 Jardine, . 
 
 Jebb, . 
 
 Jebb & Bourke, . 
 
 Jebb & Symes, 
 
 Jefferson, . 
 
 Jenkins, 
 
 Jodrell, MS., 
 
 Johnson, 
 
 Johnson, Cases, 
 
 Johnson, Chancery, 
 
 Jones, 
 
 Jones, Pennsylvania, 
 
 Jones & Carey, 
 
 Jones & La Touche, 
 
 Jones, Wm., or 1st Jones, 
 
 Jones, Thomas, or 2d Jones, . 
 
 Journal of Jurisprudence, Hall, 
 
 Judges, 
 
 Jurist, 
 
 . 247 
 
 327 
 
 . 327 
 
 57 
 
 . 336 
 
 335 
 . 335 
 
 346 
 . 59 
 
 321 
 . 344 
 
 343 
 . 344 
 
 336 
 345, n. 
 
 336 
 . 335 
 
 185 
 . 217 
 
 352 
 . 349 
 
 334 
 
414 
 
 AN ALPHABETICAL LIST 
 
 K. 
 
 Karnes. 
 
 Kay. 
 
 Keble, 
 
 Keck, 
 
 Keen, 
 
 Keilwey, . 
 
 Kelyng, J., or 1st Kelyng, 
 
 Kelynge, W., or 2d Kelynge, 
 
 Kdly, 
 
 Kelly & Cobb, . 
 
 Kentucky Decisions, 
 
 Kenyon, . 
 
 Kernan, 
 
 King, 
 
 Kirby, 
 
 Knapp, 
 
 Knapp & Ombler, 
 
 . 207 
 300 
 
 . 328 
 84 
 
 . 209 
 
 267, 316 
 
 348 
 
 349 
 
 . 350 
 278, 323 
 
 . 344 
 
 349, n. 
 
 . 343 
 332 
 
 . 333 
 
 Lander. 
 
 
 Lane, ....... 
 
 173 
 
 Latch, ....... 
 
 . 190 
 
 Law Journal, ...... 
 
 334 
 
 Law Journal, Pennsylvania, .... 
 
 . 345 
 
 Law Eecorder, ...... 
 
 337 
 
 Law Begister, ..... 
 
 . 352 
 
 Law Reporter, ...... 
 
 352 
 
 Lawrence, ...... 
 
 . 350 
 
 Leach's Crown Cases, ..... 
 
 . 267, 334 
 
 Leading Cases, ..... 
 
 . 353 
 
 Lee, ....... 
 
 332 
 
 Lee, Cases temp. Hardwicke, 
 
 . 272 
 
 Legal Intelligencer, ..... 
 
 345 
 
 Legal Observer, ..... 
 
 . 334 
 
 Leigh, ....... 
 
 347 
 
 Leonard, ...... 
 
 . 99 
 
 Levinge, MS., 366, 368, 
 
 370, 374, 385 
 
 Levinz, ...... 
 
 . 206 
 
 Lewin, ....... 
 
 334 
 
415 
 
 Ley, Printed, . . 
 
 175 
 
 Ley, MS., 
 
 . 395 
 
 Liber Assisarum, Year Book, 
 
 68 
 
 Lilly, 
 
 . 260 
 
 Littel's Reports, ..... 
 
 350 
 
 LitteVs Select Decisions, 
 
 . 350 
 
 Little Brooke, ..... 
 
 91 
 
 Littleton, ..... 
 
 . 192 
 
 Lloyd & Goold, temp. Plunket, 
 
 335 
 
 Lloyd & Groold, temp. Sugden, 
 
 . 335 
 
 ' Lloyd & Welsby. 
 
 
 Loelcwood, ..... 
 
 . 344 
 
 Lofft, ...... 
 
 328 
 
 Longfield & Townsend, 
 
 . 336 
 
 Long Quint., Year Book, 5th Ed. IV., . 
 
 74 
 
 Louisiana, ..... 
 
 . 349 
 
 Louisiana Annual, .... 
 
 349 
 
 Lciwndea, Maxwell & Pollock, 
 
 . 330 
 
 Lucas, ...... 
 
 238 
 
 Lnder, ..... 
 
 . 333 
 
 Lutwyche, ..... 
 
 244 
 
 Lutwyche, Election Cases, 
 
 . 333 
 
 M. 
 
 Macclesfield, . 
 McCooTc, . 
 McCord, Law, 
 McCord, Equity, . 
 McFarland. 
 M'Lean, . 
 M'Lean & Robinson, 
 M'Leland, 
 
 M'Lelaud & Young, . 
 McMullan, 
 
 McMuUan, Chancery Cases, . 
 hMcMfllgBiyChancer^^eports. 
 McHaugfiton fflOFwioI^^'^ . 
 Maddock, 
 
 Maddock & Geldart, . 
 Maine, 
 Magruder, 
 Manning, 
 
 'J,. 
 
 ■Cr C^\L^ 
 
 238 
 351 
 348 
 348 
 
 341 
 337 
 331 
 331 
 
 348 
 348 
 
 :^y.i^ 
 
 27. 
 
 328 
 328, n. 
 
 342 
 . 346 
 
 351 
 
416 
 
 AN ALPHABETICAL LIST 
 
 Manning & Granger, . 
 Manning, Granger & Scott, 
 Manning & Ryland, Points of Practice, 
 Manning & Ryland, Magistrates' Cases, 
 March, 
 
 March, New Cases, 
 Marriott, . . 
 
 Marsham, MS., 
 Marshall, 
 
 Marshall, A. K., . 
 Marshall, J. J., 
 Martin, North Carolina, . 
 Martin, Louisiana, 
 Martin, Louisiana, New Series, 
 Martin & Yerger, 
 Maryland, 
 
 Maryland, Chancery, 
 Mason, MS., 
 Mason, 
 
 Massachusetts, 
 Matson, 
 
 Maule & Selwyn, . 
 • Maynard, 
 Meeson & Welsby, 
 
 Melmoth, MS. 
 
 Merivale, 
 
 Metcalf, . 
 
 Miles, 
 
 MiU, 
 
 Mills, MS., . 
 
 Miller, Louisiana, 
 
 Miller, Maryland, 
 
 Minor, 
 
 Missouri, . 
 
 Modern Cases, 
 
 Modern Cases, per Farresly, 
 
 Modern Cases at Law and Equity, 
 
 Modern Reports, . 
 
 MoUoy, 
 
 Monro, 
 
 Monroe, 
 
 Monroe, Ben., 
 
 . 330 
 330, n. 
 . 329 
 
 334 
 . 92 
 
 197 
 . 332 
 
 390 
 . 330 
 
 350 
 . 350 
 
 347 
 . 349 
 
 349 
 . 350 
 
 346 
 
 . 346 
 
 77 
 
 . 339 
 
 343 
 343, n. 
 
 329 
 65, 299 
 
 .331 
 . 350 
 
 . 327 
 
 343 
 . 345 
 
 348 
 . 377 
 
 349 
 . 346 
 
 349 
 . 349 
 
 351 
 . 234 
 
 2.34 
 . 235 
 
 21-9 
 . 335 
 
 285 
 . 350 
 
 350 
 
Montagu, • • . . . 
 
 333 
 
 Montagu & Ayrton, .... 
 
 . 333 
 
 Montagu & Bligh, .... 
 
 333 
 
 Montagu & CMtty, .... 
 
 . 333 
 
 Montagu, Deacon & De Gex, 
 
 333 
 
 Montagu & McArthur, 
 
 . 333 
 
 Moody, ...... 
 
 334 
 
 Moody & Malkin, .... 
 
 . 332 
 
 Moody & Robinson, .... 
 
 332 
 
 Moore, A., . ■ . , . 
 
 . 330 
 
 Moore, B., ..... 
 
 330 
 
 Moore, Sir Francis, Printed, 
 
 . 85 
 
 Moore, Sir Francis, MS., 
 
 363, 366, 371, 376 
 
 Moore, J. B., . 
 
 . 330 
 
 Moore, B. T., . 
 
 332 
 
 Moore & Payne, . . . . . 
 
 . 330 
 
 Moore & Scott, ..... 
 
 330 
 
 Morris, ..... 
 
 , 352 
 
 Mosely, ...... 
 
 316 
 
 Munford, ..... 
 
 . 346 
 
 Murphy, . ..... 
 
 347 
 
 Murphy & Hurlston. 
 
 
 Mylne & Craig, . . . . . 
 
 . 327 
 
 Mylne & Keen, ..... 
 
 327 
 
 N. 
 Na/pion, ...... 
 
 . 351 
 
 Nelson's Folio Reports in Chancery, 
 
 303 
 
 Nelson's 8vo. Reports in Chancery, . 
 
 . 296 
 
 Nelson's Modern, .... 
 
 . 227,233 
 
 Neville & Manning, Points of Practice, 
 
 . 329 
 
 Neville & Manning, Magistrates' Cases, . 
 
 334 
 
 Neville & Perry, Points of Practice, . 
 
 . 329 
 
 Neville & Perry, Magistrates' Cases, 
 
 334 
 
 New Benloe, ...... 
 
 . 93 
 
 New Hampshire, . . . , . 
 
 342 
 
 New Jersey, ...... 
 
 , 344 
 
 New Reports, ..... 
 
 330 
 
 New York Term, . . . . . 
 
 . 343 
 
 Nichol, Hare & Carrow, .... 
 
 . 330, n. 
 
 Nolan, ...... 
 
 . 334 
 
 North Carolina Term, .... 
 
 347 
 
 Nott&McCwd, 
 
 . 347 
 
 Noy, ....... 
 
 108 
 
 27 
 
418 
 
 AN ALPHABETICAL LIST 
 
 Ohio, - 
 
 Oliver, Beavan & Lefroy, 
 
 Ormond, 
 
 Overton, . 
 
 Owen, 
 
 Paige, 
 
 Paine, 
 
 Palgrave, 
 
 Palmer, 
 
 Parker, 
 
 Parsons, . 
 
 Paynell, MS., . 
 
 Peake, 
 
 Peck, Tennessee, 
 
 Peek, niinois, 
 
 Peckwell, 
 
 Peere WiUiams, . 
 
 Pennington, . 
 
 Pennsylvania Law Journal, 
 
 Pennsylvania Reports, 
 
 Pennsylvania State Reports, 
 
 Penrose <Ss Watts, 
 
 Perry & Cavison, 
 
 Perry & Knapp, 
 
 Peters, Admiralty, 
 
 Peters, S. 0. U. S., . 
 
 Peters, C. C. U. S., 
 
 Petit Brooke, 
 
 Pettie, MS., 
 
 Phillimore, 
 
 PhiUipa, . 
 
 Pickering, 
 
 Pigott & Eodwell, 
 
 Pike, . 
 
 Plowden, Printed, 
 
 Plowden, MS., 
 
 Pollexfen, 
 
 Pooley, 
 
 363, 
 
 . 351 
 
 330, n. 
 
 349, n. 
 
 350 
 
 . lor 
 
 . 344 
 
 339 
 . 51 
 
 184 
 . 2?6 
 
 345 
 Sn, 380 
 
 331 
 . 350 
 
 351 
 . 333 
 
 311 
 . 344 
 
 345 
 . 345 
 
 345 
 . 345 
 
 329 
 . 333 
 
 341 
 . 339 
 
 340 
 . 91 
 
 311 
 . 332 
 
 327 
 . 343 
 
 333 
 . 351 
 
 100 
 367, 368, 372 
 
 219 
 305, 310 
 
OF THE REPORTERS. 
 
 419 
 
 Popham, ... 
 
 150 
 
 Porter, Alabama, ..... 
 
 . 349 
 
 Porter, Indiana, ..... 
 
 315 
 
 Powis, MS., ...... 
 
 . 385 
 
 Practical Register in the Common Pleas, 
 
 254 
 
 Practical Register in Chancery, 
 
 . 306 
 
 Precedents in Chancery, .... 
 
 310 
 
 Price, ...... 
 
 . 331 
 
 Printed Cases in the House of Lords, 
 
 248 
 
 Printed Decisions, KmtucJcy, . . . ' . 
 
 . 350 
 
 Proceedings in Chancery, 
 
 280 
 
 Queen's Bench, 
 
 . 329 
 
 R. 
 
 Randall, MS., .... 
 
 . 11 
 
 Bandolph, Virginia, .... 
 
 347 
 
 Randolph, Mississippi, 
 
 349, n. 
 
 Ravenscroft, MS., .... 
 
 3T5, 316, 380 
 
 Bawle, .... 
 
 . 345 
 
 Bawle, Penrose §" Watts, .... 
 
 345 
 
 Raymond, Lord, .... 
 
 . 248 
 
 Raymond, Sir Thomas, .... 
 
 . 205,388 
 
 Beddington, ..... 
 
 . 342 
 
 Reports, Coke, ..... 
 
 112 
 
 Reports in Chancery, 
 
 .294 
 
 Reports of Select Cases in Chancery, 
 
 316 
 
 Reports temp. Finch, 
 
 . 303 
 
 Reports temp. Hardwicke, 
 
 316 
 
 Reports Q. A., 
 
 . 239 
 
 Rhodes, MS., 
 
 11 
 
 Bice, Law, . . . . • 
 
 . 348 
 
 Bice, Equity, ..... 
 
 348 
 
 Bichardson, . . ■ ■ ■ 
 
 . 348 
 
 BicTiardson, Equity, .... 
 
 . • . 348 
 
 feidgway's Hardwicke, 
 
 269, 322 
 
 Ridgway's Parliamentary Cases, . 
 
 336 
 
 Eidgway, Lapp & Schoales, . 
 
 . 335 
 
 Biley, Law, . . . . • 
 
 348 
 
 Biley, Equity, .... 
 
 . 348 
 
420 
 
 AN ALPHABETICAL LIST 
 
 Soiards, 
 
 Bobertson, 
 
 Eobinson, House of Lords, 
 
 Bobinson, Admiraltj, 
 
 Bobinson, W. or Jr., . 
 
 Bobinson, Virginia, 
 
 Bobinsm, Louisiana, 
 
 Sogers, 
 
 BoUe, . 
 
 Boot, 
 
 Bose, . 
 
 Rotuli Curiae Regis, 
 
 Buffin & Hauikes, 
 
 Bugelly, MS., 
 
 Bussell, 
 
 Bussell & Mylne, 
 
 Bussell & Byan, 
 
 Eyan & Moody, . 
 
 Salkeld, 
 
 Salmon, . 
 
 Sandford, Chancery, 
 
 Sandford, Supreme Court, 
 
 Saunders, 
 
 Suasse & Scully, . 
 
 Saville, Printed, 
 
 Saville, MS., 
 
 Saxton, 
 
 Sayer, 
 
 Scammon, 
 
 Schoales & Le&oy, 
 
 Scott, 
 
 Scott, New Beports, 
 
 Select Cases in Chancery, 
 
 Selden, y. 
 
 Sergeant & Bawle, 
 
 Sessions Cases, . 
 
 STiaw, 
 
 Shaw, 
 
 Shaw, Dunlop & Bell, 
 
 Shaw, Dunlop, Bell &. Murray, 
 
 . 351 
 256, 333, 337 
 . 327 
 
 332 
 . 332 
 
 347 
 . 349 
 
 344 
 . 180 
 
 343 
 
 . 333 
 
 51 
 
 . 347 
 
 390 
 . 327 
 
 327 
 . 334 
 
 332 
 
OF THE REPOETEKS. 
 
 421 
 
 Shaw & MacLean, 
 
 Sheppard, 
 
 SJiepley, 
 
 Shower, . 
 
 Siderfin, 
 
 Simons, . 
 
 Simons k Stuart, 
 
 Skinner, , 
 
 Slade, 
 
 Smedes & Ma/rshall, 
 
 Smedes & MarsTiall, Chancery, 
 
 Smith, E. Belafidd, New TorJe, 
 
 Smith, J. P., 
 
 Smith, J. W., Leading Cases, 
 
 Smith & Batty, 
 
 Smith & Bates, 
 
 Smythe, . 
 
 South Carolina, . 
 
 Southard, 
 
 Spear, Law, 
 
 Spear, Equity, 
 
 Special Law Cases, 
 
 Spencer, 
 
 Spelman, MS., 
 
 Spottiswoode. 
 
 Stanton, 
 
 Star Chamber Cases, 
 
 Starkie, 
 
 State Trials, 
 
 Stewart, 
 
 Stewart, . 
 
 Stewart & Porter, 
 
 Story, 
 
 Strange, Sir J., 
 
 Strange, Sir B., . 
 
 Street, MS., , 
 
 Stringfellow, 
 
 Strobhart, 
 
 Strohhart, Equity, 
 
 Strode, MS., . 
 
 Stuart, 
 
 Style, 
 
 Swan, 
 
 391 
 
 . 337 
 
 349 
 
 . 342 
 
 243, 248 
 
 . 202 
 
 328 
 . 328 
 
 244 
 . 343 
 
 349 
 . 349 
 
 344 
 . 329 
 
 352 
 . 335 
 
 352 
 . 335 
 347, n. 
 . 344 
 
 348 
 . 348 
 
 199 
 
 . 345 
 
 77 
 
 . 350 
 197 
 
 . 332 
 54- 
 
 . 338 
 349 
 
 . 349 
 339 
 
 . 258 
 
 338 
 
 386, 387 
 
 351 
 
 . 348 
 348 
 , 393, 395 
 338 
 200 
 339 
 350 
 
422 
 
 AN ALPHABETICAL LIST 
 
 Swanston, 
 
 Swinton, 
 
 Syme, 
 
 327 
 33T 
 33T 
 
 Talbot, Cases Temp., . 
 Tamlyn, . 
 Tanfield, MS., 
 Tcuppan. 
 Taunton, . 
 Taylor, 
 
 Term Reports, Durnford & Bast, 
 
 Texas, 
 
 Thatcher. 
 
 Tothill, 
 
 Townshend. 
 
 Treadway, 
 
 Turner, MS., 
 
 Turner & Phillips, 
 
 Turner & Russell, 
 
 TyUr, 
 
 Tyng, 
 
 Tyrwhitt, . 
 
 Tyrwhitt & Granger, . 
 
 316 
 
 328 
 
 11 
 
 330 
 34T 
 350 
 329 
 352 
 
 292 
 
 . 34?, n. 
 
 n, 378, ,381 
 
 32T 
 
 . 327 
 
 343 
 
 . 343 
 
 331 
 
 . 331 
 
 V. 
 
 Van Ness, 
 
 Vaughan, 
 
 Vaux, 
 
 Ventris, 
 
 Vermont, . 
 
 Vernon, 
 
 Vernon & Scriven, 
 
 Vesey,'Sen., . 
 
 Vesey, Jun., 
 
 Vesey & Beames, 
 
 Virginia Cases, . 
 
 341 
 210 
 343 
 218 
 343 
 307 
 335 
 322 
 327 
 327 
 346 
 
OF THE REPORTERS. 
 
 423 
 
 w. 
 
 Walher, . 
 
 ■ . . 
 
 349 
 
 Wallace, 
 
 
 . 339 
 
 Wallace, MS., 
 
 . 
 
 . 339, n. 
 
 Wallace, Jr., . 
 
 
 . 341 
 
 Wallace & Hare, . 
 
 . 
 
 353 
 
 Wallis, 
 
 
 . 334 
 
 Walter, MS., 
 
 
 372 
 
 Warberton, MS., 
 
 
 11, 366, 367, 372, 377 
 
 Warden, . 
 
 . 
 
 351 
 
 Ware, 
 
 
 . 341 
 
 Washburn, 
 
 
 343 
 
 Washington, Joseph, . 
 
 
 227, 228 
 
 Washington, Bushrod, 
 
 Virginia, . 
 
 346 
 
 Washington, Bushrod, 
 
 a a u. s., . 
 
 . 340 
 
 Watts, . . 
 
 
 345 
 
 Watts <& Sergeant, 
 
 
 . 345 
 
 Webb & Duval, . 
 
 . 
 
 352 
 
 Wearg, MS. 
 
 
 
 Welsby, IJurlstone & Gordon, 
 
 . 331 
 
 Welch. 
 
 
 
 Welsh, . 
 
 
 336 
 
 Wendell, 
 
 
 . 344 
 
 West, 
 
 
 319 
 
 Weston, 
 
 
 . 343 
 
 Wharton, 
 
 
 345 
 
 Wharton, Sf.ak Trials, 
 
 
 . 352 
 
 Wheaton, 
 
 
 339 
 
 Wheeler, 
 
 
 . 352 
 
 White & Tudor, . 
 
 
 353 
 
 Whittlesey. 
 
 
 
 Widrington, MS., 
 
 
 77, n., 380, 381 
 
 Wightwick, 
 
 
 331 
 
 Wilcox, 
 
 . 
 
 . 350 
 
 WiUes, , 
 
 
 273 
 
 Williams. 
 
 
 
 Wilmore, Wollaston & Davison. 
 
 
 Wilmore, Wollaston & 
 
 Hodges. 
 
 
 Wilmot, 
 
 . 
 
 . 279 
 
 Wilson, . 
 
 . . * 
 
 276 
 
 Wilson, Chancery, 
 
 
 . 327 
 
 Wilson, Exchequer, 
 
 . 
 
 331 
 
424 
 
 Wilson & Shaw, 
 
 . 337 
 
 "Winch, ..... 
 
 189 
 
 Winchedon, .... 
 
 . 66 
 
 Windham, MS., .... 
 
 . 77, n. 
 
 Wiseman, MS., 
 
 .77,n. 
 
 Woodbury & Miiwt, 
 
 339 
 
 Wray, MS., .... 
 
 . 370 
 
 Wright, ..... 
 
 235 
 
 Wright, .... 
 
 . 350 
 
 Wythe 
 
 346 
 
 Taies, ..... 
 
 . 344 
 
 Year Books, ..... 
 
 62 
 
 YecUes, ..... 
 
 . 345 
 
 Yelverton, Printed, .... 
 
 153 
 
 Yelverton, MS., .... 
 
 . 377 
 
 Yerger, ...... 
 
 350 
 
 Younge, ..... 
 
 . 331 
 
 Youuge & CoUyer, Exchequer, . 
 
 331 
 
 Younge & CoUyer, Vice-Chaucery, 
 
 . 328 
 
 Younge & Jervis, ..... 
 
 331 
 
 ZahrisMe, 
 
 345 
 
 THB END.