on oppression he gives a long account of the law of waste.1 But it is comprehensive and well arranged. A comparison between its forty-one chapters and Staunford's work enables us to appreciate the effect of the additions to and alterations of the criminal law made during this period, both by the legislature, and by the judges of the common law courts and of the court of Star Chamber.

There is only one book written during this period which is exclusively devoted to the law of tort. That is John March's little book on actions for slander, published in 1647.2 Actions for slander had long figured prominently in the reports; and this book is an able attempt to extract some general principles from the cases. As is to be expected at a period when a comparatively new legal topic is only just beginning to acquire a separate form, the writer sometimes diverges to other subjects. Thus he discusses the question when a man's suit will expose him to an action; and in that connection he has something to say about malicious prosecution. We must wait some time for more books on special branches of the law of tort, or on the law of tort as a whole. As yet the practitioner or student gathered his information by searching the reports, abridgments, or indices under such entries as Detinue, Trespass, Deceit, or Case. This branch of the law is as yet very much implicated in the forms of action.

(iv) The lectures of Readers, textbooks, students' books, and law dictionaries.

3

During this period the lectures of the Readers of the Inns of Court on many different branches of the law, old and new, still formed an important part of the education of the law student. Of their merits it is difficult to judge. Comparatively few out of the many that exist in MS. have as yet found their way into print; and it is probable that many of these were never regularly reduced to writing by their authors. But we shall see that there was probably some deterioration in their quality at the latter part of this period," and a tendency to replace them by the study

1 Op. cit. 94b-97b.

4

2" Actions for Slander. A Methodical Collection under certain grounds and heads of what words are actionable in the law and what not.'

3 Vol. ii 506-507.

4 Moore's Reading on 43 Eliz. is stated specially to have been "abridged by himself," below 395 n. 4; in S.P. Dom. 1639-1640 485-486, ccccxlvi 25 there is a mention of a Reading by Mr. Jones of Lincoln's Inn who “did touch upon many points of honour, amongst the which it was questioned what honour was due to Secretaries of State by right or favour, as also whether they have any place de jure in the Upper House of Parliament. Messrs. Bates and Tailer having undertaken to argue it, concluded that they had no place in the Upper House, unless made barons or called by writ."

5 Vol. vi c. 8.

of the many short books upon various legal topics which were then beginning to appear.

It seems to have been usual-certainly from the sixteenth century onwards-that the readings should be on some selected statute or part of a statute.1 Roger North 2 assumes that this was so, and laments the decay of readings, mainly because lawyers and litigants were thus deprived of an authoritative interpretation of new statutes. But it was not an invariable rule that the readings should be on statutes-instances to the contrary are Calthorpe's reading on Copyholds, and Dodderidge's Reading on Advowsons.

A list of such of the Readings as are known to exist in print or MS., taken from Part II. of Brooke's Bibliotheca Legum Angliæ, will be found in the Appendix.3 Here I shall simply enumerate in the order of their publication one or two of the printed readings which I have seen.

In 1630, some readings by Dodderidge on advowsons, delivered at New Inn, were published under the title of "A compleat Parson;" and in 1635 a reading by Calthorpe on the relation between the lord of the manor and his copyholders. In 1642 appeared a fragment of Bacon's famous reading on the statute of Uses; in 1647 Brooke's readings on Henry VIII.'s statute of limitations, and on c. 17 of Magna Carta; in 1648 the readings of Dyer on Henry VIII.'s statutes of wills, of Brograve on the

6

1 Vol. ii 506 and n. 6.

7

8

2 Lives of the Norths, i 98, 99—"It was the design of these readers to explain to the students the constructions that were to be made upon new statutes, for clearing a way that counsel might advise safely upon them. And the method of their reading was to raise all imaginable scruples upon the design, penning, and sense of such new Acts as they chose out to read upon, and then to give a careful resolution of them. But now there is scarce a lawyer so hardy to advise a client to try a point upon a new statute whereof the event is at the peril of costs, and sometimes ruin of a poor man that pays for the experiment. . . . Probably a single judge at the assizes would not have opposed his sentiment against the learned determination of a reader so solemnly and publicly held forth (as at these exercises in the inns of court is done), which counsel at the bar in nice questions at law are allowed to appeal to for authority.'

3 App. II.

4"A compleat Parson, or a description of Advowsons or church livings delivered at severall readings at New Inne 1602, 1603, and now published for the common good."

5" The Relation between the lord of a manor and the copyholders his tenants, delivered in the learned readings of Charles Calthorpe."

Works (Ed. Spedding) vii 391-450; it was a double reading delivered in the Lent Vacation 1600; an edition with elaborate comments was published by Rowe in 1804.

7 This Reading deals with points in the criminal law; the title-page reads c. 16, but the first page reads c. 17, which is obviously right.

8 In a paper in the State Paper Office, probably of the year 1579, printed in Inner Temple Records i 470-473, a description is given of the Readers and Chief Barristers of the Inns of Court; Brograve is described as, "very lerned, pore, smaly practised, worthie of greate practice.'

4

clauses of the statute of Uses relating to jointures, and of Risden on Henry VI.'s statute of forcible entries;1 in 1656 the reading of Stone on Elizabeth's statute of bankrupts;2 in 1662 the reading of Denshall on Henry VII.'s statute of Fines;3 in 1676 the reading of Francis Moore on Charitable uses; in 1680 a reading by Thomas Williams on the statute 35 Henry VIII. c. 6 dealing with certain points connected with trials by jury,5 and a reading by Risden on the statute of 21 Henry VIII. c. 19 dealing with avowries; and in 1681 a reading of Sir Robert Holbourne on Edward III.'s statute of treasons." In 1791 there was published, in the Collectanea Juridica, a reading by Serjeant Carthew at New Inn in 1692 on two points arising on the statute of Uses, 8

6

9

Some of these readings consist simply of the statute, and of certain conclusions as to the effect of the statute, which were no doubt debated by the Reader and his auditors. Some, for instance Calthorpe's and Moore's readings, give a clear and sensible summary of the subject chosen. But many of these printed versions look as if they came from short notes taken by listeners, not always very intelligently.10 It would be unjust to their authors if we were to suppose that the printed version contains all that they said, or that they always made the statements attributed to them. It is very rare to find any authorities cited, or any sort of discussion of legal principles. The only reading which is really illuminating is Bacon's unfinished reading on the statute of Uses. His wide intellectual outlook and gift of style,

دو

1 Printed in one volume entitled, "Three Learned Readings; this Risden was Reader 1570, 1571, 1574-1575, 1577, 1578, Calendar of Inner Temple Records i 255, 259, 279, 289, 313.

2 The Reading on the Statute 13 Eliz. c. 7 touching Bankrupts; " it consists of an Introduction and an enumeration of points for discussion, and then of six divisions in which the cases are discussed; it is followed by a case set for New Inn, and twelve short divisions on it.

3" Le Reading del Monsieur Denshall sur l'estatute de Finibus fait anno 4 H. 7;" there are six lectures.

4 Printed at the end of the "Law of Charitable Trusts" by G. Duke (1676); it is stated to be an exact copy of the original under the author's hand, and it is certainly far fuller than any of the other readings, except Bacon's; another small book on this topic was published by J. Herne in 1664, designed to help those who served on the commissions appointed under Elizabeth's statute, vol. iv 398.

5 As to this work see vol. iv 260-261.

To be distinguished from the Risden who read on the statute of forcible entries, above n. 1; this Risden was called in 1595, Calendar of Inner Temple Records i 404, and became Reader in 1612, ibid ii 66.

7 Consisting only of three short lectures. Coke's Readings are dealt with below 460.

8 Collect. Jurid. i 369-377—it is a thin production.

E.g. the readings of Williams and Risden published in 1680.

10 Thus in Dyer's reading we find at p. the following proposition—“ A man hath two wives, and he deviseth his land to his latter wife in fee, the first wife shall have it!"-law students sometimes make curious stuff of their teachers' lectures.

1

united to his complete mastery of the technical rules of the common law, gave him the power to state and explain and criticise its rules in a manner comprehensible to a student and illuminating to a lawyer. We have already seen how great a light it sheds, not only on the statute, but also on the history of Uses.1 Here we may note that in it he rejected the "conceit of scintilla juris "2-it was only natural that he should be opposed to a doctrine of this kind, which savoured of the scholasticism which he had spent his philosophical career in combating. This one reading gives him a place beside those few great teachers who have appeared at infrequent intervals in the history of English law-beside men like Blackstone and Maitland.

The growth, at the latter part of this period, of short textbooks upon many various legal topics, is striking. The earliest of these textbooks-Littleton's Tenures —was also a student's book; and most of the textbooks of this period were written as much for students as for practitioners. But, towards the end of this period, we get a distinction between the textbooks on specific legal topics, and books of Institutes which were designed to give information upon the underlying principles of the law as a whole, and a short view of its most important rules.

During the sixteenth century the textbooks follow very closely the precedent set by Littleton. A book published in 1542 by Rychard Bankes, and entitled in the first edition, "The principall lawes and statutes of Englande," 5 and in the later editions, "Institutions or principall groundes of the lawes and statutes of England," is concerned almost entirely with the land law; and we have seen that the same topic fills much the largest part of Perkins' Profitable book." It is not till the following century that we get books written on other legal topics. In 1632 we have a curious work in five books on Women's Laws.8 The first

1 Vol. iv 410 seqq.

2 Reading on the Statutes of Uses, Works (Ed. Spedding) vii 428.

3J. E. G. de Montmorency, Francis Bacon, in Great Jurists of the World (Continental Legal History Series) 163.

4 Vol. ii 573-575.

5"The Principal lawes and statutes of Englande whyche be at thys present day in ure compendiously gathered together for the weale and benefit of the Kynges Majesties most lovyng subjectes, now recognized and augmented; " this looks as if there was an earlier edition, but I have not come across one.

The later editions of the sixteenth and first quarter of the seventeenth centuries profess to be corrected and augmented, but there is very little difference between them.

7 Above 388.

8The Lawes Resolutions of Women's Rights: or the Lawes Provision for Women. A Methodicall Collection of such Statutes and Customes, with the Cases, Opinions, Arguments and points of Learning in the Law as doe properly concerne Women;" the editor's preface tells us that the book was by an unknown author, and that he, having a copy, had corrected and published it.

book, after some introductory matter, deals mainly with wardship and coparcenary; the second with marriage curtesy and dower; the third with the law as to the relations, personal and proprietary, between husband and wife; the fourth with the rights of widows; and the fifth with the manner in which a woman was protected by the criminal law. We have seen that in 1647 John March published a useful little book on actions for slander,1 which reached a second edition in 1674.2 In 1651 William Shepherd published a short book on common law procedure, and a still shorter account of the cases in which equitable relief might be obtained. In 1655 he published a short book on conveyancing,* which was the most successful of his books. Perhaps this was due to the fact that he had the Touchstone to draw upon.5 However that may be, in spite of many rivals in this period and the next, it held its ground, and editions of it were published as late as 1822 and 1825.

6

8

3

7

Of books written about law to instruct students as to the kind of knowledge which they ought to acquire, and the best method of acquiring it, the most notable, written by a common lawyer, is Dodderidge's "English Lawyer." English lawyers, he says, are not, as is sometimes alleged, a learned race of unlearned men. Nor would they be good lawyers if they were; for, "the study of the Lawes must of necessity stretch out her hand and crave to be holpen and assisted almost by all other sciences." He goes on to show the need for a knowledge of such sciences as logic and etymology, illustrating his points by reference to rules of English law. Then, in the second part of the book, he gives

2 Term Catalogues i 165.

1 Above 393. 3"The Faithful Councillor, or the Marrow of the law in English: the 1st part showing how actions may be laid for relief in most cases of wrongs done; the 2nd part in what cases relief is to be had in Chancery; a good deal of law is grouped round the forms of action, epecially the actions on the case.

4" The President of Presidentes; an abstract of the general learning and forms of Presidents relating to all manner of Presidents now in use."

5 See Davidson, Precedents in Conveyancing (3rd ed.) 11.

6 The Exact Clerk (1656); a book by Herne (1658), said to have come from the MS. of an eminent conveyancer, also contains directions how to sue out and prosecute writs; a tract on particular estates by Dodderidge, and Observations concerning a deed of feoffment by Gent, both published with Noy's maxims, below 399, in 1642; for books of the following period see vol. vi c. 8.

7" The English lawyer, describing a method for the managing of the lawes of this land, and expressing the best qualities requisite in the student, practizer, judges, and fathers of the same; a book called "the Lawyers Light-a due direction for the study of the law" (1629), is simply the second part of the " English Lawyer (there entitled methodus studendi) printed separately; it was bound up with another short tract for students called "Use of the Law," attributed (probably falsely) to Bacon, see Bacon's Works (Spedding's Ed.) vii 453-457.

8" The profession of our law hath now and formerly had great numbers of students that have had as long and as ample institution in those sciences called liberall as any of them," at p. 33.

9 At p. 35.