there will be, whatsoever is now thought, question, who was the greater lawyer? For the books Of the terms of the law, there is a poor one, but I wish a diligent one, wherein should be comprised not only the exposition of the terms of law, but of the words. of all ancient records and precedents.

For the Abridgments, I could wish, if it were possible, that none might use them, but such as had read the course first, that they might serve for repertories to learned lawyers, and not to make a lawyer in haste but since that cannot be, I wish there were a good abridgment composed of the two that are extant, and in better order. So much for the common law.

For the reforming and recompiling of the statute law, it consisteth of four parts.

1. The first, to discharge the books of those statutes, where the case, by alteration of time, is vanished; as Lombards Jews, Gauls half-pence, &c. Those may nevertheless remain in the libraries for antiquities, but no reprinting of them. The like of statutes long since expired and clearly repealed; for if the repeal be doubtful, it must be so propounded to the parliament.

2. The next is, to repeal all statutes which are sleeping and not of use, but yet snaring and in force in some of those it will perhaps be requisite to substitute some more reasonable law, instead of them, agreeable to the time; in others a simple repeal may suffice.

3. The third, that the grievousness of the penalty in many statutes be mitigated, though the ordinance stand.

4. The last is, the reducing of concurrent statutes, heaped one upon another, to one clear and uniform law. Towards this there hath been already, upon my motion, and your majesty's direction, a great deal of good pains taken; my Lord Hobart, myself, Serjeant Finch, Mr. Heneage Finch, Mr. Noye, Mr. Hackwell, and others, whose labours being of a great bulk, it is not fit now to trouble your majesty with any further particularity therein; only by this you may perceive the work is already advanced but because this part of the work, which concerneth the statute laws, must of necessity come to parliament, and the houses will best like that which themselves guide, and the persons that themselves employ, the way were to imitate the precedent of the commissioners for the canon laws in 27 Hen. VIII. and 4 Edw. VI. and the commissioners for the union of the two realms, " primo" of your majesty, and so to have the commissioners named by both houses; but not with a precedent power to conclude, but only to prepare and propound to parliament.

This is the best way, I conceive, to accomplish this excellent work, of honour to your majesty's times, and of good to all times; which I submit to your majesty's better judgment.

AN OFFER TO KING JAMES

OF

A DIGEST

TO BE MADE OF

THE LAWS OF ENGLAND,

MOST EXCELLENT SOVEREIGN,

AMONGST the degrees and acts of sovereign, or rather heroical honour, the first or second is the person and merit of a lawgiver. Princes that govern well are fathers of the people: but if a father breed his son well, or allow him well while he liveth, but leave him nothing at his death, whereby both he and his children, and his childrens children, may be the better, surely the care and piety of a father is not in him complete. So kings, if they make a portion of an age happy by their good government, yet if they do not make testaments, as God Almighty doth, whereby a perpetuity of good may descend to their country, they are but mortal and transitory benefactors. Domitian, a few days before he died, dreamed that a golden head did rise upon the nape of his neck: which was truly performed in the golden age that followed his times for five successions. But kings, by giving their subjects good laws, may, if they will, in their own time, join and graft this golden head

VOL. V.

A A

upon their own necks after their death. Nay, they may make Nabuchodonozor's image of monarchy golden from head to foot. And if any of the meaner sort of politics, that are sighted only to see the worst of things, think, that laws are but cobwebs, and that good princes will do well without them, and bad will not stand much upon them; the discourse is neither good nor wise. For certain it is,

bad princes, and

that good laws are some bridle to as a very wall about government. And if tyrants sometimes make a breach into them, yet they mollify even tyranny itself, as Solon's laws did the tyranny of Pisistratus: and then commonly they get up again, upon the first advantage of better times. Other means to perpetuate the memory and merits of sovereign princes are inferior to this. Buildings of temples, tombs, palaces, theatres, and the like, are honourable things, and look big upon posterity: but Constantine the Great gave the name well to those works, when he used to call Trajan, that was a great builder, Parietaria, wall-flower, because his name was upon so many walls: so if that be the matter, that a king would turn wall-flower, or pellitory of the wall, with cost he may. Adrian's vein was better, for his mind was to wrestle a fall with time; and being a great progressor through all the Roman empire, whenever he found any decays of bridges, or highways, or cuts of rivers and sewers, or walls, or banks, or the like, he gave substantial order for their repair with the better. He gave also multitudes of charters and liberties for the comfort of corporations

that his bounty did But yet this, though

and companies in decay: so strive with the ruins of time. it were an excellent disposition, went but in effect to the cases and shells of a commonwealth. It was nothing to virtue or vice. A bad man might indifferently take the benefit and ease of his ways and bridges, as well as a good; and bad people might purchase good charters. Surely the better works of perpetuity in princes are those, that wash the inside of the cup; such as are foundations of colleges and lectures for learning and education of youth; likewise foundations and institutions of orders and fraternities, for nobleness, enterprise, and obedience, and the like. But yet these also are but like plantations of orchards and gardens, in plots and spots of ground here and there; they do not till over the whole kingdom, and make it fruitful, as doth the establishing of good laws and ordinances; which makes a whole nation to be as a well-ordered college or foundation.

This kind of work, in the memory of times, is rare enough to shew it excellent: and yet not so rare, as to make it suspected for impossible, incon`venient, or unsafe. Moses, that gave laws to the Hebrews, because he was the scribe of God himself, is fitter to be named for honour's sake to other lawgivers, than to be numbered or ranked amongst them. Minos, Lycurgus, and Solon, are examples for themes of grammar scholars. For ancient personages and characters now-a-days use to wax children again; though that parable of Pindarus be