ble treasure of sound and incontrovertible law. Plowden's " Commentaries " contain re ports of cases from 4 Edward VI to 20 Elizabeth. Lord Coke reports from that period to the end of the reign. The reports of Sir James Dyer contain the period from 4 Henry VIII to 23 Elizabeth. This " Report of Adjudications " is not to be compared with the two former works, being many of them short notes of cases, and none of them intended to be pub lished, but were such as were collected out of that judge's papers by his nephew and executor. None of the cases arc here so fully argued, nor the points so much treated at length, as in the two former reporters. They seem to be the concise notes of a man of business, containing an accurate state of the case, with the objections and answers as short as conveniently could be. Besides the reporters, several treatises and collections were printed. In 1596 was published Rastall's "Entries"; in 1568, Brooke's "Abridgment of the Law"; in 1572, the "Terms of the Law," by Rastall; in 1577, Pulton's "Abstract of the Penal Statutes"; in 1579, Theloal furnished the profession with his " Digest of Original Writs"; in 1580 was printed "Kitchen on Courts"; and, in 1598, a book upon "Forest Law " was published by Manwood. Rastall's " Entries " is a collection made by that learned judge; none of the precedents were his own, but were taken out of four dif ferent books; from the old printed book of "Entries "; from two manuscript collections made by a prothonotary of the Common Pleas, and a secondary of the King's Bench; and from a manuscript of Sir John More, a judge of the King's Bench, in the time of Henry VIII, and grandfather of the author. They are digested in perspicuous order; and, by means of divisions, subdivisions, and the variety of references, the contents of the book are extremely accessible. We may
judge by the sources from which this col lection was made, that these precedents were those in use in the time of Henry VI, and down through the reign of Henry VIII., and by the publication of them there can be no doubt but they were now in use. This book contains not only declarations and pleas, but many records at length. The " Abridgment " of Sir Robert Brooke is an improvement on the plan of Statham and Fitzherbert. The cases are here ar ranged with more strict regard to the title; but the order in which they are strung to gether is very little better, being generally guided only by the chronology. He ob serves one method, which contributes in some degree to draw the cases to a point; he generally begins a title with some modern determination, in the reign of Henry VIII., as a kind of rule to guide the reader in his progress through the heap of ancient cases which follow. He abridges with great care, in the language of his own time, sometimes adding a short observation, or quaere, fur nished by the experience of later times. So that, upon the whole, the substance of the Year-books, to which it is an excellent reper tory, is conveyed in this one volume, in a style and manner more generally acceptable than the original. This has the praise of being the most correct of these works. How ever, such works, with all their use, can rarely be ultimately relied on; the opinion of a court can hardly be so abridged as to convey all the circumstances which had their weight in a determination; something will escape in the transfusion. As far as the nature of their design can go, they are of excellent use; and the full extent of their design was not tried till the very methodical work of Mr. Justice Rolle appeared, and the modern ones of Bacon and Comyns. An ap plication to such a work as this to compre hend the great outline and extent of any branch, and a patient reading of the particu lar cases reported at length, more minutely to discern the grounds and principles upon
