which our printed volumes are based; and (iv) in the variety of their contents and style.

(i) Origins. The capacity to take notes swiftly and accurately was a very necessary accomplishment for a lawyer from a very early period in the history of the common law. As in the Middle Ages, so in this period, the reports were made primarily, not for publication, but for the reporter's own use. Even Plowden's and Coke's reports, though afterwards published by their authors, were made primarily for their own use. It is not therefore surprising to find that some of these reports contain cases, not reported at first hand by the reporter, but copied from some other source; while others contain cases decided after the author's death. A good many of Dyer's reports, for instance, must have been copied by him from some MS., unless it can be supposed that he began to make his reports at the age of one year. It is clear also from the preface, written by his nephews to their selection from his reports, that they were made for his own private use, and not with any idea of publication. But the style in which a man writes for his own use will generally be very different from the style in which he writes for publication. MS. will not be so carefully corrected, and there will sometimes be a repetition or a hiatus. As Lord Ellesmere said in the Star Chamber, "In Diar are reports as he heard them, and also opinions

5

1 See Manningham's Diary (C.S.) xvii; the editor, noticing the skill with which Manningham made notes of sermons, says "one is inclined to suspect that the business of note taking may have been at that time one of the branches of legal education; " more probably necessity made it, as at the present day, an accomplishment which every student must acquire by practice.

2" This work I originally entered upon with a view to my own private instruction only, without the least thought or intention of letting it appear in print," Plowden's Rep. Pref. iii.

3"I have since the 22nd year of her Majesty's reign, which is now twenty years compleat, observed the true reasons, as near as I could, of such matters in law.. . . . as have been adjudged upon great and mature deliberation; and as I never meant... to keep them so secret for my own private use as to deny the request of any friend to have either view or copy of any of them: so till of late I never could be persuaded . . . to commit them to print," I Co. Rep. Pref.; 7 Co. Rep. Pref. he tells us that he first made the report of Calvin's Case for "his own private use.'

* Dyer's life was from 1512-1582; the cases in his reports extend from 1513-1582; other instances of reports not made at first hand by the reporter are the books of Latch's and Gouldesborough's reports, while Dalison, Winch, Popham and Owen contain cases decided after their authors' deaths, Wallace op. cit. 18.

5 It appears that his nephews only published them because they were much pressed to do so; and that they only published a selection; but it would appear that Dyer himself contemplated a revision with a view to publication of some of his reports; Vaillant, in the Preface to his edition and translation, cites the following note from the MS.-" Here followe certaine cases of Lord Dier's collection which for some private reasons hee thought fitt not to make them vulgarr;" in fact somewhat the same reasons seem to have prevented publication of all a man's reports immediately after his death as now prevent too speedy a publication of his memoirs; Farewell and Dyer particularly point out that they have published nothing which may tend to the deprivation slander or discredit of any persons, their estates or titles."

2

and doubtes, and thus are strange things printed which detract greatly from the authority of Diar's book." What is true of Dyer's reports is also true of the reports of many of his contemporaries, e.g. of Anderson, Popham, Hobart, Benloe, and Dalison. In one or two cases indeed the reports were written or prepared by the author for publication and published by him—the reports of Plowden and Coke are the most famous and the earliest instances but even in their cases publication was an after thought. Later we have the reports of Davis, Bulstrode, Style, Calthorpe, March, Clayton, and the collection of Jenkins, all of which were written in order to be published. Thus the origin of some of these reports is similar to the origin of at any rate some of the Year Books-they were collections of cases made by the author for his own use in his own practice; and, naturally, they have similar imperfections. Moreover, if it be true that others of the Year Books were compiled from notes taken that they might be copied and published,* their origin may be compared to those of the reports which were written or revised with a view to publication.

(ii) Circumstances of publication. We can see the same general likeness between the Year Books and the reports in the circumstances under which many of them were printed and published. It is probable that in this, as in the medieval period, most lawyers made collections of cases. Sometimes they copied from other collections, and sometimes they reported what they had heard in court. It is clear that the possession of such a collection, made by a distinguished lawyer, would be a great help to a practitioner. Some lawyers freely lent their collections of cases; 5 but others, when they had got hold of such a collection, were unwilling to allow other people to see it. Exclusive access to authoritative information of this kind would be an obvious advantage to them in their practice. But for these same reasons the competition of students, practitioners and publishers to get hold of these collections, known to be circulating amongst the author's friends, was very keen. Nor were the publishers very scrupulous as to the methods they employed. Plowden tells us

1 Hawarde, Les Reportes etc. 127; cp. Burrow's remarks upon Bunbury's reports

5 Burr at p. 2659.

As to Coke see above 364 11. 3; as to 3 Vol. ii 536.

Plowden see below 366 n. 1.
+ Ibid 539-540.

5 E.g. Plowden and Coke, above n. 2; and cp. Pref. to Leonard's Reports. Thus the editors of W. Jones's Reports say that the reason why they were not published earlier was because, "the MS being lent to Serjeant Glinne, presently after the author's death, was by him appropriated to his own use;" and the reason assigned in the preface for the late publication of Littleton's reports was the fact that they had come to the hands of his brother, one of the barons of the Exchequer, who kept them for his own private use.