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PRINTED FOR REED AND. HUNTER, LAW-BOOKSELLERS,
BELL-YARD, LINCOLN'S-INN.

1814.

BIBLIOTHECA

REGLA

MONACENSIS.

PREFACE.

THE History which I now presume to offer to the profession of the law, is an attempt to investigate and discover the first principles of that complicated system which we are daily discussing.

It has happened to the law as to other productions of human invention, particularly those which are closely connected with the transactions of mankind, that a series of years has gradually wrought such changes, as to render many parts of it obsolete; so that the jurisprudence of one age has become the object of mere historic remembrance in another. Of the numerous volumes that compose a lawyer's library, how many are consigned to oblivion by the revolu tions in opinions and practice; and what a small part of those which are still considered as in use, is necessary for the purposes of common business! Notwithstanding, therefore, the multitude of books, the researches of a lawyer are confined to writers of a certain period. According to the present course of study, very few indeed look further than Coke and Plowden. Upon the same scale of inquiry, the Year-Books are considered rather in the light of antiquities; and Glanville, Bructon, and Fleta, as no longer a part of our law.

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