Tracts written by John Selden of the Inner-Temple, Esquire ; the first entituled, Jani Anglorvm facies altera, rendred into English, with large notes thereupon, by Redman Westcot, Gent. ; the second, England's epinomis ; the third, Of the original of ecclesiastical jurisdictions of testaments ; the fourth, Of the disposition or administration of intestates goods ; the three last never before extant.

THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE READER.

AND that the Tutelar or Guardian of my threshold may not entertain thee with unlucky or ill-boding terms, he doth freely be speak thee Health and Greeting, whoever thou art, Dear Reader. More∣over, he is in the humour to declare both the Occasion of drawing the first Furrow of this Enterprize, and also the Model and Frame of the whole Work, what it is, finished and compleated. It is a long while ago, considering how young a man I am, since from the first I have made it my hearty wish, that the ancient Ori∣ginal and Procedure of our Civil Law might more fairly and clearly be made out; as far, I mean, as the thing will bear, and as what store we have of publick Records affords assistance.

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉,

For several men with several things are pleas'd,

as said Archilochus of old; and I do own for my self, what Seneca the Declaimer saith,* 1.1 that I take pleasure in going back to Studies of Antiquity, and in looking behind me to our Grand-sires better times. Which, to say truth, they who do too much, slight,

* 1.2Ardua dum m••tuunt, amittunt ver•• viai.

that is,

Whilst l••fty passes they do fear, through sloth They lose the certain tracks and paths of troth

And, so may the Muses alway favour me, they are such things as are

—Anteiqua, sepolta, vetusta, * 1.3Quai faciunt mores veterésque novosque tenentem Moltarum veterum Legum, Divômque Hominumque Prudentem.—

as saith another old Latin Poet; that is, such stori•••• as are

Antique, buried in rubbish, old and musty, Which make one verst in customs old and new, And of Laws, Gods and Men giving a view, Render the careful Student skill'd and trusty.

Some spare hours have been spent by me in reading over Historians, Chronologers, Antiquaries, Foreigners and our own Countrey-men, those of Ancient date and the more polite of the Modern sort: those especially who seem'd to make out the quickest course to that Goal and design I spoke of. I have carefully cull'd out whatsoever I met with, that lookt like the Orders and Decisions of Praetors or Lord Chief Ju∣stices, and whatsoever concerns the Civil or Prophane Law. (Pro∣phane I call that, which is not held by the Religion of the Church; as Sextus Pompeius hath taught me.) I did judge that there were a great many things in those Writers worth the knowing, and which might deserve to be digested into a kind of Volume according to order of Chro∣nology, I did in the first place advise, and took that special order with my self, that as to this undertaking, I might with the greater ease have my Attendants ready at hand to wait upon my Studies. I went about to give s••me closure and coment, such as it is, (i. e. some method and con∣nexion) to the scattered and disjointed bulk, and I brought it to a con∣clusion; and assoon as it came into my mind to publish it, I endea∣voured according to that meanness, which it appears in, to finish it (that I may make use of a Mathematick term) with its Complement. I have set the model and frame upon a sure account (not upon mine

own credit neither, who am too apt to take on trust things suspected) and in a compendious way: I have writ my self compendiously and succinctly; I have transcribed out of others faithfully. I do on set purpose vouch the credit, I go upon, to be none of mine, but the Authors, I have taken out of, that I may not be accused of false dealing by unskil∣ful or careless Readers. I have applyed my self not only to the mean∣ing of the Writers, or to their historical account, but even to the very words and syllables, which they spoke, and have inserted them printed in a different character; those, I confess, unless it be from them of the middle age, many times sufficiently barbarous, that miserably want po∣lishing, such as Criti••ks cannot away with, and do very well agree with the Records and Reports of Law, which we converse with. However I would not have thee disdain in the mean time brimful and wholsome draughts of liquor, because the Bowl was not made in a Potters shop of Colias a place in Athens, or in cold Winter to slight a garment which is not made of Attick Wooll;* 1.4 as Plutarch hath admonished the hearers of Philosophy. Let young Ladies speak finically with their golden Flower∣amours, and let them, who have store and leave at once, court the graces of words and beauties of expression. 'Tis true, the care of exact speak∣ing, is a thing befits the Muses, yet how the most abstruse Mysteries even of the highest Urania, of Divinity it self, are laid open without it, the Thomists, the Scotists, and what other Sects and Parties of School-men there are, know well enough. And there are some others also, that think they know; I mean the inquirers into Heavenly Calcu∣lations (Astrologers) and the Weather-wise-men (Almanack-makers) who in good deed for the most part rely too much upon the trifling stories of their Masters. Now they, and not without good reason, have preferred the Arab Writers barbarously translated, and slovenly Bonatus before Julius Firmicus and modern Pontanus, as spruce as they are. These two may rather be termed Grammarians, than Astrologers. Nor do Aristotle's crabbed Lectures of natural Phi∣losophy discourage Interpreters or procure to themselves any discredit, by reason of the affected obscurity of speech, they are delivered in: and as to neatness of Poetry, Apollo himself hath been out-done by Sappho, Homer, Hesiod.* 1.5 Though the Matter doth often surpass the Work∣manship; yet who is there is so rigid or so fond a Censurer, as to dispa∣rage and debase the Matter upon the account of the Workmanship? Which I would not have be said only of those passages, which I have brought into this Piece out of those fore-mentioned Authors, but also of the whole Body of our Common-Law. I have, I hope, not unluckily be∣gun with the very first Inhabitants of this Isle, as far as we can come to the knowledge of them. Those Authors, whom I have followed in the

original of Story, I have, as it was meet, set down and remark'd, ad∣ding the Judgement and Censure of the Learned. Afterward, besides Caesar and Tacitus there are but few that afford us any help, and that but in few things too. For the name of Brittany was known but of late to the Greeks, but of late to the Romans; and the Britans were truly for a long while divided from all the world besides. But among Foreigners the latter Ages have enquired after them. I speak of Strabo, Pliny, Ptolomy, others; and a certain Writer of Asia, Marcianus Heracleotes, not y••t, that I know of, turned into Latin, saith thus, Albion the Brittish Isle hath in it Thirty Three Na∣tions,* 1.6 Fifty Nine remarkable Cities; and then he sub∣joyns other things concerning the number of Rivers, Promontories, Ha∣vens and Creeks or Bays. I have stretched out this Piece to the death of King Henry the Son of Mawd the Empress by Jeoffrey the Count of Angers in France. In whose time, or near thereabout, are the first beginnings of our Law, as our Lawyers now account. There come in by the way Richard called Coeur de Lion and King John; but there is scarce any thing in that interim to our purpose. I have on pur∣pose passed by Mr. Lambard's Archaeonomia (or Antiquites of Law) without medling with it at all, only when some obvious accasion did some∣times suggest it for the explaining of what is set down by us. I have divided the whole into two Books; the first closes with the Saxons; the second begins with the Norman Conquest, the most famous Aera or Date of the English Government in the reckonings of time.

But however to refer the original of our English Laws to that Conquest (as some make bold to do) is a huge mistake; forasmuch as they are of a far more ancient Date.* 1.7 For it is a remark amongst Statesmen, That new acquired Empires, do run some hazard by attemp∣ting to make new Laws: and the Norman did warily provide against this danger, by bestowing upon the yielding conquered Nation the re∣quital of their ancient Law: a requital, I say, but more, as it should seem, for shew than use; and rather to curry favour with the people at the present, than in good deed for the advantage of the English Name. Wherein he in some measure followed well near the practice of Alaricus, who having conquered the Romans, and finding that they took it in dudgeon to be bound up by the Laws of the Goths, though in other things they were compliant enough, restored to them the Roman Laws, but by sly interpretations against the sense and meaning of the Roman Laws he drew these Laws back again to the Gothish. For the times on this side the Normans entrance, are so full of new Laws, especially such as belong to the right of Tenancy or Vassalage; though other Laws have been carefully enough kept up from the time of the

Saxons, and perhaps from an earlier date. For neither did the gliding Decrees of that Blazing-Star, which appeared in the Easter of that year, so well known for this Victory, prognosticate, as the change of the Kingdom (a thing which Astrologers affirm) so the abolition of our Laws; and yet in some sense peradventure an alteration of them both; at that rate, I mean, as Jerom Cardan writes,* 1.8 that the Comet in the year 1533. which appeared in Aries (to which Sign, our Island ac∣cording to Ptolomies doctrine is lyable) under the North side of the Milky Way, being of a Jovial, Martial and Mercurial force and effica∣cy, was the fore-teller or fore-runner of the change of Religion; which happened three years after in Henry the Eighth's time. But whatever may be thought in other cases, Christianity is exempt from the Laws and over-ruling power of the Stars, and I do but too well perceive, that Cardan's piety is wanting in this and in other instances, and particu∣larly in casting our Saviours Nativity. And why do I too much besides my purpose, trouble my self about these things here? Go thy wayes to our Janus, (for thou canst hardly chuse but own him having two faces) where to speak of our English Brittish Law ('tis no Treason I trow so to call it)

Nobilitas nec origo latet, sed luce sequente* 1.9 Vincitur.—

That is,

It's noble rise doth not lye hid, but tight. Attending makes it far more clear and bright.

For,

Si nobilitas cunctis exordia pandit* 1.10 Laudibus, atque omnes redeunt in semina causae.

That is,

If nobleness doth first commence all praise, And all things from their seeds do themselves raise.

However it does not at all boast of its Romulus's, its Numa's,* 1.11 its Decemviri, its 2000. Books, its 4000. and 4000. and 4000. Verses, and the like; which having been digested long since (as it were

* 1.12—non hos quaesitum munus in usus,

That is,

A boon not purchas'd for such use as this)

do far and near bear sway in Courts of Law throughout all Europe; yet is not the rise and original of our Laws also less to be regarded; nor is it perchance for distance of time further from Iapetus than they. But go thy wayes, I say, and see that thou dost not undertake without reason and good advice, to fit any thing to the present Age, otherwise than the changes, the repeals and cancelling parts of Laws, and new emergencies and vicissitudes of affairs, which were frequent, will give thee leave. Remember Lucretius in this case alike as in others.

* 1.13Quod fuit in pretio, fit nullo denique honore; Porrò aliud succedit, & è contemtibus exit, In{que} dies magis appetitur, floretque repertum Laudibus, & miro'st mortaleis inter honore.

That is,

What was in price, at last hath no esteem; Whilst somewhat else starts up, and gains repute, And every day grows more in vogue and brute, And mortals strangely do it highly deem.

According to what that other, and the greatest Philosopher among the Poets saith,

* 1.14Multa dies, variusque labor mutabilis aevi Rettulit in melius.—

That is,

Time and the various toyl of changing age Many things betters, and reforms the Stage.

And the Greek sentence,

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.

For time to Laws themselves gives Law full oft.

without a world of rubs in the way and slips or distances of years, I saw I was not able to put upon the work the face of a History, and to muster up all things that are wanting. Very many things are so effaced by in∣jury of time, several things have been lost through neglect, nor is the Learned World under a small discontent, or at small variance by reason of this loss. These remains, which are left us, to be handled upon oc∣casion, I have alwayes accounted pleasant researches: I, and perhaps one may say, that those Learned Pieces, which Pomponius, Rivallius, Zasius, Oldendorp, Brissonius, and others, have published concer∣ning the Twelve Tables, and the Laws written upon Oaken Planks, upon Elephants Skins, and in former Ages upon Brass, are not of more use and advantage for the City Spire in Germany, than these Collecti∣ons may be for Westminster-Hall amongst us. We have said enough and to spare, concerning the model and frame of the Work. For me now to beg the Readers pardon, that I may speak a little concerning my self, seeing it was at my own choice, whether I would give him trouble or no, would be silly. If so be that any one shall shew himself more busie or pragmatical in these Writings of mine, than becomes him;

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉,* 1.15

Not knowing (as we say) a Pig from a Dog

I would not have him ignorant, that I value it no more than a rush, to be lashed with the flouts of prattle-boxes or tittle-tatlers, and such creatures as carry the Goddess Nemesis on pickpack. Nor does any one that is in his wits, when an Ass kicks and flings at him to little or no purpose, regard an idle oafish affront so as to requite it. I paint upon my weather-boards Averrunca, i. e. God forefend, (as they did of old Arse verse upon houses, to preserve them from fire.) May In∣tercedona, Pilumnus, and Deverra, drive away Silvanus, and keep him off from doing this tender Infant any harm. Well! let Ass••s and silly Animals commend, find fault, tune their pipes, how they will:

let the envious and ill natured with their sneerings, prate and talk; let snotty nosed Fellows and Clowns, that feed upon cockle bread, appro•••• what I write, or let them flout and fleer, or let them play Jack of both sides; it's all fiddle faddle to me, nor would I put a straw between.

* 1.16〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.

Brow-benders, making Nose and Chin to meet, With dangling Beards like sacks down to your feet.

Ye rigid Cato's and severe Criticks, do ye take in good part, what I have done; nor let me be altogether slighted, if by chance ye shall vouch∣safe to look this way, nor with your skew looks fore-speak my harvest in the blade. I shall readily and willingly yield the conquest to him that fairly gets it, and rightfully corrects me. But whoever thou art of that sort of men,

Per meos fines & aprica rura * 1.17Lenis incedas, abeasque parvis Aequus alumnis.

O're my bounds and sunny plain Take a gentle walk or twain; Then depart with friendly mind, To me and my Lambkins kind.

You,* 1.18 that are candid and courteous, know, that 'tis a very hard matter to brighten things that are grown out of use, to furnish things obscure with light, to set off things that are disdained, with credit, to make things doubtful pass for probable, to as∣sign to every thing its own nature, and every thing to its own nature; and that it is a very brave and gallant thing, as he sayes, for those that have not attained their design, yet to have endeavoured it; when the Will (as we say) is accepted for the Deed. But I know too, that every Cone or point of vision in the Opticks differs from a right angle;* 1.19 and I know how odious a thing a Train or solemn Procession is in the publick Games. Therefore, dear

Reader, I bid thee heartily farewel; and with a fortunate endeavour, fetch out hence, what may make for thy turn. Why do I delay all this while to let thee in? 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. Go thy wayes in, o'Gods name.

Laudamus veteres, sed nostris utimur annis:* 1.20 Mos tamen est aeque dignus uterque coli.

We praise old times, but make use of our own; And yet 'tis fit they both alike be known.

Go in and welcome heartily; and be not unkind to thy Entertainer,

From the Inner Temple London, Decemb. 25. 1610.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Senec. con∣trov.
• * 1.2

  Lucret. l. 1.
• * 1.3

  Eno. Annal. l. 7.
• * 1.4

  Plutar. de au∣diènde.
• * 1.5

  Plutar. lib. orac. Pyt••.
• * 1.6

  Marcian. Heracleot. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• * 1.7

  Philip. Ho∣nor. Thes. po∣litic. Lat. & Ital.

  Machiavell in Principe & comment. ad Liv. l. 1. c. 25. & 26.

  Cujacius. Al••er. Gentil. l. 3. c. 11. de jure bell.
• * 1.8

  H. Cardan. in Ptolem. l. 2. judic. astron. text. 54.
• * 1.9

  Stat. 1. Silv.
• * 1.10

  Claudian. in laud. Serenae uxor. Stilic.
• * 1.11

  L. 2. Sect. 2. omnia. C. de vet. jur. en••cl.
• * 1.12

  Virg. Aen. 1.
• * 1.13

  Lucret. l. 5. de rer. nat.
• * 1.14

  Virg. l. 11. Aeneid.
• * 1.15

  Aristoph. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• * 1.16

  Hegesand. Delphus ap. Athen. dip∣nos. 4.
• * 1.17

  Horat. Carm. 3. Od. 18.
• * 1.18

  Plin. epist. ad Nat. Hist.
• * 1.19

  Senec. praef. ad controver.
• * 1.20

  Ovid. Fast. 1.