time, will, by this new strength laid to the foundation, somewhat the more settle and be corrected. Neither will the use hereof be only in deciding of doubts, and helping soundness of judgment, but further in gracing of argument, in correcting of unprofitable subtlety, and reducing the same to a more sound and substantial sense of law; in reclaiming vulgar errors, and generally in the amendment in some measure of the very nature and complexion of the whole law: and therefore the conclusions of reason of this kind are worthily and aptly called by a great civilian legum leges, for that many placita legum, that is, particular and positive learnings of laws, do easily decline from a good temper of justice, if they be not rectified and governed by such rules.

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

And therefore, whereas these rules are some of them ordinary and vulgar, that now seem but for grounds and plain songs to the more shallow and impertinent sort of arguments; either of them are gathered and extracted out of the harmony and congruity of cases, and are such as the wisest and deepest sort of lawyers have in judgment and in use, though they be not able many times to express and set them down.

For the former sort, which a man that should rather write to raise an high opinion of himself, than to instruct others, would have omitted, as trite and within every man's compass; yet nevertheless I have not affected to neglect them, but having chosen out of them such as I thought good, I have reduced them to a true application, limiting and defining their bounds, that they may be run upon at large, but restrained to point of difference for as, both in the law and other sciences, the handling of questions by common-place, without aim or application, is the weakest; so yet nevertheless many common principles and generalities

are not to be contemned, if they be well derived and reduced into particulars, and their limits and conclusions duly assigned; for there be two contrary faults and extremities in the debating and sifting out the law, which may be best noted in two several manner of arguments: Some argue upon general grounds, and come not near to the point in question: others, without laying any foundation of a ground, or difference, or reason, do loosely put cases, which, though they go near the point, yet being so scattered, prove not, but rather serve to make the law appear more doubtful, than to make it more plain.

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

Thirdly, whereas I could have digested these rules into a certain method or order, which, I know, would have been more admired, as that which would have made every particular rule, through his coherence and relation unto other rules, seem more cunning and more deep: yet I have avoided so to do, because this delivering of knowledge in distinct and disjoined aphorisms doth leave the wit of man more free to turn and to toss, and to make use of that which is so delivered to more several purposes and applications; for we see that all

the ancient wisdom and science was wont to be delivered in that form, as may be seen by the parables of Solomon, and by the aphorisms of Hippocrates, and the moral verses of Theognis and Phocylides; but chiefly the precedent of the civil law, which hath taken the same course with their rules, did confirm me in my opinion.

Fourthly, whereas I know very well it would have been more plausible and more current, if the rules, with the expositions of them, had been set down either in Latin or English; that the harshness of the language might not have disgraced the matter; and that civilians, statesmen, scholars, and other sensible men might not have been barred from them; yet I have forsaken that grace and ornament of them, and only taken this course: the rules themselves I have put in Latin, not purified further than the propriety of terms of law would permit; but Latin, which language I chose, as the briefest to contrive the rules compendiously, the aptest for memory, and of the greatest authority and majesty to be avouched and alleged in argument: and for the expositions and distinctions, I have retained the particular language of our law, because it should not be singular among the books of the same science, and because it is most familiar to the students and professors thereof, and besides that it is most significant to express conceits of law; and, to conclude, it is a language wherein a man shall not be enticed to hunt after words, but matter; and for excluding any other than professed lawyers, it was better manners to exclude them by the strangeness of the language, than by the obscurity of the conceit; which is such as though it had been written in no private and retired language, yet by those that are not lawyers would for the most part have been either not understood, or, which is worse, mistaken.

Fifthly, whereas I might have made more flourish and ostentation of reading, to have vouched the authorities, and sometimes to have enforced or noted upon them, yet I have abstained from that also; and the reason is, because I judged it a matter undue and pre

posterous to prove rules and maxims; wherein I had the example of Mr. Littleton and Mr. Fitzherbert, whose writings are the institutions of the laws of England: whereof the one forbeareth to vouch any authority altogether; the other never reciteth a book, but when he thinketh the case so weak in credit of itself as it needeth surety; and these two I did far more esteem than Mr. Perkins or Mr. Standford, that have done the contrary. Well will it appear to those that are learned in the laws, that many of the cases are judged cases, either within the books, or of fresh report, and most of them fortified by judged cases and similitude of reason; though in some cases I did intend expressly to weigh down authorities by evidence of reason, and therein rather to correct the law, than either to sooth a received error, or by unprofitable subtlety, which corrupteth the sense of the law, to reconcile contrarieties. For these reasons I resolved not to derogate from the authority of the rules, by vouching of the authorities of the cases, though in mine own copy I had them quoted for although the meanness of mine own person may now at first extenuate the authority of this collection, and that every man is adventurous to control; yet surely, according to Gamaliel's reason, if it be of weight, time will settle and authorise it; if it be light and weak, time will reprove it. So that, to conclude, you have here a work without any glory of affected novelty, or of method, or of language, or of quotations and authorities, dedicated only to use, and submitted only to the censure of the learned, and chiefly of time.

Lastly, there is one point above all the rest I account the most material for making these reasons indeed profitable and instructing; which is, that they be not set down alone, like short, dark oracles, which every man will be content to allow still to be true, but in the mean time they give little light and direction; but I have attended them, a matter not practised, no, not in the civil law to any purpose, and for want whereof, the rules indeed are but as proverbs, and many times plain fallacies, with a clear and perspicuous exposition, breaking them into cases, and opening their sense and

use, and limiting them with distinctions, and sometimes shewing the reasons whereupon they depend, and the affinity they have with other rules. And though I have thus, with as much discretion and foresight as I could, ordered this work, and, as I may say, without all colours or shews, husbanded it best to profit; yet nevertheless not wholly trusting to mine own judgment: having collected three hundred of them, I thought good, before I brought them all into form, to publish some few, that by the taste of other men's opinions in this first, I might receive either approbation in mine own course, or better advice for the altering of the other which remain: for it is great reason that that which is intended to the profit of others, should be guided by the conceits of others.