THE

ELEMENTS

OF

THE COMMON LAWS

ОР

ENGLAND.

CONTAINING,

FIRST, A Collection of some of the principal RULES and MAXIMS of the COMMON LAW, with their Latitude and Extent.

SECONDLY,-The Use of the COMMON LAW for Preservation of our Persons, Goods, and Good Names; according to the Laws and Customs of this Land.

TO HER

SACRED MAJESTY.

I DO here most humbly present and dedicate unto your Majesty a sheaf and cluster of fruit of the good and favourable season, which by the influence of your happy government we enjoy; for if it be true that silent leges inter arma, it is also as true, that your Majesty is in a double respect the life of our laws; once, because without your authority they are but litera mortua; and again, because you are the life of our peace, without which laws are put to silence. And as the vital spirits do not only maintain and move the body, but also contend to perfect and renew it; so your sacred Majesty, who is anima legis, doth not only give unto your laws force and vigour; but also hath been careful of their amendment and reforming: wherein your Majesty's proceeding may be compared, as in that part of your government, for if your government be considered in all the parts, it is incomparable, with the former doings of the most excellent Princes that ever have reigned, whose study altogether hath been always to adorn and honour times of peace with the amendment of the policy of their laws. Of this proceeding in Augustus Cæsar the testimony yet remains.

Pace data terris, animum ad civilia vertit

Jura suum; legesque tulit justissimus auctor.

Hence was collected the difference between gesta in armis and acta in toga, whereof Cicero disputeth thus:

Ecquid est, quod tam proprie dici possit actum ejus, qui togatus in republica cum potestate imperioque