A Posthumous Work of Lord Coke. the Digest of the Laws of England, by Lord Chief Baron Comyns, presented, under the title ' Pleader,' a more systematic compilation upon this subject, than had previously ap peared — comprising the substance, not only of the authorities collected in the Doctrina Placitandi, but also of the cases subsequently decided, and reducing the whole, under dif ferent heads, upon a plan peculiarly scientific and masterly. It is, however, in its nature, only a digest of authorities, and better adapted, therefore, to the objects of the practitioner than of the student." In Dublin, in the year 1791, James Moore printed a book entitled A System of Plead ing including a translation of the Doctrina Placitandi or the Art and Science of Plead ing, originally written by Samson Ene'r, Serjcant-at-Law and now first translated from the Obsolete Norman French, etc. By a Gen tleman of the Middle Temple.
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And another has said of this curious old work : " The Doctrina Placitandi, the best of the old treatises upon pleading, was formerly in the highest repute. Chief Justice Willes said that there was more law and learning in Doctiina Placitandi than in any book he knew; and that it contained the substance of all the pleadings in the year books and Coke's reports. Other judges have been equally warm in its praises. It is little else, however, than an accurate alphabetical digest of cases upon pleading, the substance of which will be found in Stephen's Pleading, and* Samson Euer is now far advanced upon the road of forgotten authors." See 2 Wil son 88; I Crompt & J. 317; 2 East 340; 6 N. A. Rev. 62; Marvin's Legal Bibliogra phy, 299. The title-page has on the back in large type : — "I Allow and Approve the" Printing and Publishing of this Book, Fra. North."
A POSTHUMOUS WORK OF LORD COKE. IN 17 19 one T. Fleet of Pudding Lane, London, published a little book entitled Mother Goose's Melodies. The authorship of these poems has been the subject of heated controversy for almost three centuries, but now the question seems to have been settled for all time. The following passage from the diary of one Henry Flcete, recently ex humed by the Shellgame Society, has an im portant bearing on the matter : "Aprylle the Fyrste, 1629. This daye did Sir Edwarde Coke visit me, bearinge with him a large roll of paper the whiche he did give unto my keepynge. He did request me to leave it to my heires and that it should be printed and given to the world in ninetie veares from this date."
That the heirs faithfully carried out the trust has already been shown. It may be argued that there is no record of Coke's hav ing published any posthumous work either during his lifetime or after his death. But this is a mere detail and should not militate against the strong external evidence of au thorship just quoted, or the even stronger in ternal evidence of the poems themselves. Take for example the following selections : There was an old woman Lived under a hill; And if she's not gone, She lives there still. Here am I, little Jumping Joan; When nobody's with me, I'm always alone.
