to pass the time and kill the consciousness of his situation. You may well suppose, adds the Colonel, that my first law lessons will be well remembered.*

The Library contains a collection of the principal writers on the Law of Scotland, including the works of Sir George Mackenzie, Lord Stair, Macdouall (Lord Bankton), Erskine, &c.; with the Decisions of the Court of Session from the earliest period, Morison's Dictionary, and all the modern Reports. There are also many works relating to the practice of the law in Ireland, besides the collection of Irish Statutes, and the Reports of the Courts of Law in that kingdom.

The works of some of the most eminent of the American jurists are likewise to be found in the Library, including those of the late Judge Story, some of them presented by himself; the Treatise on Evidence of Professor Greenleaf, presented by the author; the Commentaries of Mr. Chancellor Kent ; the treatises of Angell on Tide Waters, &c., those of Bishop on Marriage and Divorce, those of Hilliard on the Law of Contracts and of Torts, those of Parsons on Shipping, of Redfield on the Law of Wills, of Duer on Marine Insurance, and of Washburn on the American Law of Real Property, &c.

* Athenæum.

M

Besides these, there is a large collection of the

American Reports.

ENGLISH LAW.

2. REPORTS.

THE next division of the Library is that wherein are contained the volumes of the Reports of Arguments and Decisions in Courts of Justice. "The practice of collecting judicial decisions," says M. Dupin, "is of great antiquity. Craterus, the favourite of Alexander the Great, was the author of a work, the loss of which is much regretted by the learned; it was a collection of Athenian laws, amongst which were the decisions of the Areopagus, and the Council of Amphictyons. The Roman lawyers often quote the judgments of the Prætors, and the ordinances of other magistrates." That this practice prevailed at an early period in England is shown by a passage in Chaucer :

"In termes hadde he cas and domes alle

That from the time of King Will. weren falle.”

'English Jurisprudence has not any other sure foundation, nor consequently, the lives and properties of the subject any sure hold, but in the maxims, rules, principles, and juridical traditionary line of decisions, contained in the notes taken from time

to time, and published mostly under the sanction of the Judges, called Reports." * These reports are histories of cases with a short summary of the proceedings, which are preserved at large in the records of the courts of justice, the arguments on both sides, and the reasons the court gave for its judgment, noted down by persons present at the determination. The reports are extant in a regular series from the reign of Edward II. inclusive; and from his time to that of Henry VIII. they were taken by the prothonotaries or chief scribes of the court, at the expense of the crown, and published annually, whence they are known under the denomination of the Year-Books.+ As the Library of

Lincoln's Inn contains copies of all the Reports that have been published, besides a large collection of Manuscript Cases, including some of the earliest Year-Books, a summary notice of them may be here given.

The Year-Books were first printed, and for the most part in separate Years and Terms, by Machlinia, Pynson, &c. The whole series, with the exception of the reign of Edward II., was reprinted about 1600; and this edition was so much in request that copies were sold for a very high price until the publication of another in 1679, including

the reign of Edward II. by Serjeant Maynard, in eleven volumes, folio. There are in the Library twenty-five volumes of the original editions of the Year-Books printed by Pynson, Redman, Berthelet, Tottell, &c.; but it will be proper to notice first a Manuscript on vellum acquired some years ago by the Society, containing Reports of the reign of Edward I.* On the inside of the cover is the following autograph note of Mr. Samuel Heywood, the former possessor of the volume :

This book, according to the certificate on the first leaf, contains Reports of Cases in all the years of Edward I., and it appears from the Report of the Committee for examining Records appointed by the House of Commons in 1800, that there is no copy of these Reports extant in any of the Public Libraries. At the end is a very ancient copy of part of Britton, signed also by Wm. Fleetwood, who was Recorder of the City of London in the reign of Elizabeth, to whom this volume in its present state probably belonged formerly, as well as my MS. copy of Reports in the reign of Edward III. S. H.

The following is the certificate referred to in the foregoing note:-Hic liber Francisci Tate de Medio Templo continet in se omnes annos sive Repertorium Regis Edwardi Primi. Teste W. Fletewoode. At the end of the volume also is the signature: Wil

* There are also in the Library some other volumes in MS. containing Reports of the 30, 31, 32, and 33 years of Edward I.; as well as some others containing Reports of the reign of Edward II.

liam Fletewoode. The Manuscript, a small folio, contains 288 pages, exclusive of the portion of Britton bound with it.*

Of the early printed volumes twelve, in the original oak binding, were presented by Ranulph (or Randall) Cholmeley, and some of these had belonged to William Rastell, as appears by the following inscription on the inside of one of the

covers

Sayd that I Wm Rastell the xvi day of March in the xxx yere of Kyng Henry the viii have sold to Randall Cholmeley my fyve + gret boke of yeres whereof this is

* The statement that this volume contains Reports of Cases in all the years of Edward I. has been found to be erroneous, by the careful examination the Manuscript has undergone at the hands of Mr. J. Horwood, by whom some Reports of this period have been edited for the series of historical publications of the Master of the Rolls. It appears that the cases are chiefly of the 31st and 32d years of Edward I., with a few reports of some other years. Mr. Horwood states that the handwriting is of the reign of Edward II., and is of a beauty far surpassing that of any Manuscript Year-Book which has fallen under his notice. The Reports from the Year-Books which Mr. Horwood has edited consist of three volumes; those of the 30 and 31 Edward I., printed in 1863 from three MSS., two in the Library of Lincoln's Inn, the third in the British Museum; those of 32 and 33 Edward I., printed in 1864 from the MSS. in Lincoln's Inn Library; and those of 20 and 21 Edward I., in 1866, from a MS. in Cambridge University Library.

There are only four volumes with Rastell's name, which is written several times on the leaves, and sometimes in very neat Greek characters.