possible avocations, and thought no labor too great, which brought any solid addition to their knowledge, or any increased facilities to their clients.

The necessity was the more pressing in those days, from the subtleties, and quibbles, and scholastic logic, which characterized every department of learning. The law then dealt with forms, even more than with substances. The slightest variance from the Registrum Brevium, the neglect of any precise technical order, the most insignificant error in words, the smallest mistake in the description of persons or things, nay, the omission of a single letter was perilous, and brought in its train an abatement of the suit, and sometimes, by consequence, an extinction of the remedy. The strictness observed in England, in the present times, to discourage the use of the Writ of Right, affords some feeble illustration of this misplaced ingenuity, in hunting up and sustaining objections. The curious refinements, the nice distinctions, the quaint conceits, the arbitrary formularies, and the stiff, unbending roughness of the bar and bench in those days, made everything important, from the first rudiment of principle, to the last ramification of practice. There were no public repositories, in which principles or practices could be ascertained by a glance of the eye. They were to be learned from the oral explanations of the ancient sages of the law, or the conversational debates of the judges, or the close lecture rooms of the benchers, or the dry expositions of the titular readers of the Inns of Court.

When Reports began to be published, the labor was not materially diminished. The decisions were not uniformly reported at stated times; and many cases were not reported at all. The early reports contain no indexes. The Year Books have not a single line, to direct the student to their contents, and leave their bulky and abbreviated text without title or comment, so mixed up in one common mass, that it requires no small share of historical knowledge to ascertain, who, at any given period, speak as judges or as counsel. When tables of contents came subsequently into fashion, they were so incomplete and incorrect, that they were comparatively of little assistance. Ashe's Repertory, or Table to the Year Books, large as it seems in two ponderous folios, does nothing more, than put one upon inquiry, and condescends not to select a single proposition asserted by the cases. Indeed the original indexes to the old reporters are almost useless, and, in some instances, serve only the bad purpose of misleading the inquirer, by holding out hopes, which vanish when he touches the adjudication.

The practice of keeping commonplace books, which was thus begun from absolute necessity by the old lawyers, was afterwards continued from a sense of its convenience. Nor was it generally discontinued by the profession until a late period; and it is not perhaps without some examples, even in the present age. In America, the anterevolutionary lawyers were in the habit of compiling manuscript abridgments for their private use, some of which have reached our times. They also left behind them many notes of adjudications, which are yet to be found in the hands of the curious and the learned. And probably, in most of the states, the practice of preserving short notes of new cases, was common among the leaders at the bar, until the legislature provided for the regular publication of Reports.

It is to sources like those already adverted to, that we owe the early, and perhaps all the abridgments hitherto made of the common law. What was introduced originally from the mere scantiness of public materials, in process of time obtained a continued favor from the unwieldy bulk of adjudications. Lord Coke poured the contents of his commonplace book into his Commentary upon Littleton, and his superabundant Reports. Plowden may well be suspected of the same overlearned zeal; and Lord Hale has attested his own unwearied diligence and antiquarian researches, by manuscript collections, which yet surprise us by their variety and comprehensiveness.

The earliest printed Abridgment of the law is that of Statham (Nicholas), who was appointed a baron of the exchequer in the eighth year of the reign of Edward the Fourth (1468). It is a very curious book, printed, as it would seem, before titlepages were in use, for it is without any titlepage, or imprint, or date; and the only notice we have of the printer, is the following brief and modest remark, at the end of a short table of contents; 'Per me R. Pynson.' It has been conjectured from the type, that it was printed at Rouen, by William Le Tailleur, who printed Littleton's Tenures for Pynson. The latter was bred in the service of Caxton, the first printer with metal types in England, and he succeeded his master in the business. Statham's Abridgment was published between the years 1470 and 1490, and is a remarkable specimen of the typography of the age. It shows, that there has been little substantial improvement in the art, during the three last centuries. The art appears indeed to have reached perfection within the first half century after its invention. The copy now before us seems to have formerly belonged to Sir Heneage Finch, afterwards the celebrated Earl of Nottingham. The paper is of a very firm, silky texture, forming a strong contrast to the sleazy linen and cotton of our day; the ink is of a bright jetty and unfaded black; the type, though small and partly composed of abbreviated characters, has a sharp and distinct face; and the mechanical execution is so exact, that scarcely a letter exhibits a blur, and the surface of every page presents a uniform appearance, putting to shame many of the standard volumes of our times. The work itself contains, under appropriate heads, brief abstracts of the cases in the Year Books, to the end of the reign of Henry the Sixth, as well as some cases not elsewhere to be found. It has now very little value, except occasionally to verify a quotation, or to gratify the curiosity of a professed antiquary.

The next Abridgment, in the order of time, is that of Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, first printed by Pynson about 1516, and afterwards reprinted in 1565 and 1577. The edition of 1565 is far the best, for size of type and general accuracy. Besides many cases not reported at large, it contains an abstract of all the cases in the Year Books, down to the twentyfirst year of the reign of Henry the Seventh. It has always been deemed of very high authority, where the author states cases solely on his own responsibility. The marginal titles and numbers, in the common editions of the Year Books, refer to the titles and numbers of this Abridgment. The learned author died in 1538, leaving behind him the reputation of a very laborious and upright judge.

At the distance of half a century afterwards, followed the Abridgment of Sir Robert Brooke, of which there have been several reprints; but the best is that on royal paper by Tottell, in 1573. It contains the substance of Fitzherbert, together with a collection of the later authorities, some of which are nowhere else extant.

The character of the Abridgments of Fitzherbert and Brooke, may be summed up in a few words. They are mere indexes, under general heads, of the principal adjudged cases up to their own times, in which the points are accurately stated, but without any attention to order, or any attempt at classification. As repositories of the old law, they now maintain a very considerable value, and may be consulted with advantage. Whoever examines them (for a thorough perusal of them will be a mere waste of time), will probably feel inclined, when he can, to ascend to the original sources; but if these should not be within his reach, he may rely with confidence, that these learned judges have not indulged themselves in a careless transcription, or a loose statement of the law. In our own practice we have frequently found them the safest guides to the old law, and particularly to the contents of the Year Books. At the times, when these Abridgments were originally published, they must have been very acceptable presents to the profession; but many of the titles are now obsolete; and the works lie on the dusty shelves of our libraries, rarely disturbed, except upon some extraordinary inquiry, touching the feudal tenures, or the doctrine of seizin. The modest motto prefixed to both of them deserves to be remembered; - Ne moy reproves sauns cause, car mon entent est de bon amour.

We pass over, without observation, Hughes's Abridgment, printed in 1660, because it embraces but a short period, and is a mere supplement to the earlier works; and also Sheppard's Abridgment, printed in 1675, because, though not disreputable in its execution, it scarcely struggled into existence against the superior work of Lord Chief Justice Rolle, which was published under the auspices of Sir Matthew Hale, in 1668. Lord Hale contributed to it a very able and learned preface, in which he bestows just commendation on its execution; and of the author he says, 'He was a man of very great natural abilities, of a ready and clear understanding, strong memory, sound, deliberate, and steady judgment; of a fixed attention of mind to all business, that came before him; of great freedom from passions and perturbations, of great temperance and moderation, of a strong and healthy constitution of body, which rendered him fit for study and business, and indefatigable in it.' The Abridgment itself is a posthumous work, intended by the author for his own private use, and not for the public; and Lord Hale says, 'though it is of excellent use and worth, yet it comes far short of the worth and abilities of him that compiled it, and therefore is an unequal monument of him.' The chief advantage, that it possesses over the earlier compilations, is in a more scientific arrangement of the materials, and a greater subdivision of the general heads, so as to bring together matters of the same nature or relative to the same branch, instead of heaping them up into one undistinguishing mass. Mr Hargrave, in his edition of Coke on Littleton (note 1 to page 9), speaks of it, as a 'work most excellent in its kind; and in point of method, succinctness, legal precision, and many other respects, fit to be proposed as an example for other Abridgments of Law.' In practice, however, it has been, in a great measure, superseded by the later works, and is resorted to, principally, to verify quotations, when the original authorities are not to be found reported at large, or when Lord Rolle has stated circumstances, which are omitted by other authors.

D'Anvers's Abridgment, printed early in the eighteenth century, which, Mr Viner informs us, was thirtytwo years in passing through the press,* is a mere translation of Rolle, with the addition of more modern cases, and is incomplete, extending only to the title 'Extinguishment.' Nelson's is chiefly borrowed from Hughes, and though the author was a very harsh and unsparing critic on the labors of others, his own have a general character of incorrectness stamped upon them, and have fallen into utter neglect.

Bacon's Abridgment, so well known to the profession, was first published in 1736, and has passed through six large editions. The contents of the work owe very little to the nominal author, (Matthew Bacon, Esquire, of the Middle Temple,) and were chiefly extracted from the manuscript collections of Lord Chief Baron Gilbert. Mr Gwillim has well observed, 'that it was the hard fate of his excellent writings to lose their author, before they had received his last corrections and improvements, and in that unfinished state to be thrust into the world without even the common care of an ordinary editor. Those invaluable tracts were, for the most part, published, not only with their original imperfections, without any attempt to supply their defects, or explain or correct what seemed in them perplexed or erroneous, but with all the improprieties and inaccuracies, which the ignorance and neglect of the amanuenses, whom the author's infirmities compelled him to employ, could accumulate upon them.' Mr Bacon deserves very little credit, in any view, because he seems so have been willing to appropriate to himself the labors of another, without due acknowledgment, and to have employed no diligence in correcting errors, and no learning in supplying deficiencies. He died before the work was completed; and the remainder, from the title 'Sheriff,' was furnished by Mr Sergeant Sayer and Mr Ruffhead.