The suggestions by Lord Bacon upon Improvement of the Law are either

1st. Tracts upon the improvement of the law.

2dly. Scattered observations in different parts of his works.

Lord Bacon's Tracts for the Improvement of the Law are

1. Certificate touching the Penal Laws.

2. A Proposition to his Majesty touching the compiling and amendment of the Laws of England.

3. An offer to King James of a Digest of the Laws of England.

4. Dedication and Preface to his Law Maxims.

5. Draught of an Act against Usury, and

6. Ordinance for the Administration of Justice in Chancery.

7. Justitia Universalis.

Sir Stephen Procter's Project relating to the Penal Laws.

In the Harleian manuscripts in the British Museum there is the following memorial, viz. [See MS. Lansd. 486, fol. 21.]

1st. A Memorial touching the Review of Penal Lawes and the Amendment of the Common Law."

Forasmuch as it was one of his Majesties Bills of Grace That there should be certain Commissioners, 12 Lawyers and 12 Gent of experience in the Countrie for the Review of penal Lawes and the Repeal of such as are obsolete and Snaring, and the Supply where it shall be needful of Lawes more mild and fit for the time, &c. And thereupon to prepare Bills for the next Parliament. It were now a time for his Majty out of his Royal Authoritie and Goodness to act this excellent intent, and to grant forth a Commission accordingly wherein besides the excellency of the work in it self, and the pursueing of the intent of that Bill of Grace, Two things will follow for his Majesties Honour and repu

tation.

The one that it will beat down the opinion which is Sometime muttered, That his Majty will call no more Parliaments.

The other that whereas there are Some Rumors dispersed that now his Majesty, for the help of his wants, will work upon the penal Lawes, the people shall see his disposicion is so far from that, as he is in hand to abolish many of them.

There is a second work wch needeth no Parliament and is one of the rarest works of Sovereigne merit which can fall under the Acts of a King. For Kings that do reform the Body of their Lawes are not only Reges but Legis-latores, and as they have been well called, perpetui Principes, because they reign in their Lawes for ever.

Wherefore for the Common Law of England it is no Text Law, but the Substance of it consisteth in the Series and Succession of Judicial Acts from time to time which have been set down in the Books, which we term Year Books or Reports, so that as these Reports are more or less perfect, so the law itself is more or less certain, and indeed better or worse, whereupon a conclusion may be made that it is hardly possible to conferr upon this Kingdom a greater benefit, then if his Majty should be pleased that these Books also may be purged and reviewed, whereby they may be reduced to fewer Volumes and clearer Resolutions, which may be done,

By taking away many Cases obsolete and of no use, keeping a remembrance of some few of them for antiquity sake.

By taking away many Cases that are merely but iterations, wherein a few set down will serve for many.

By taking away idle Queres which serve but for seeds of uncertainty.
By abridging and dilucidating Cases tediously or darkly reported.
By purging away Cases erroneously reported and differing from the
original verity of the Record.

Bacon touching the amendment of Lawes.

Whereby the Common Law of England will be reduced to a Coræ or Digest of Books of competent volumes to be studied, and of a nature and content Rectified in all points.

Thus much for the time past.

But to give perfection to this work his Majty may be pleased to restore the ancient use of Reporters, wch in former times were persons of great Learning, wch did attend the Courts at Westminster, and did carefully and faithfully receive the Rules and Judicial Resolutions given in the King's Courts, and had Stipends of the Crown for the same; wch worthy institucion by neglect of time hath been discontinued.

It is true that this hath been Supplyed somewt of later times by the industry of voluntaries as chiefly by the worthy Endeavours of the Lord Dier and the Lo. Coke. But great Judges are unfit persons to be Reporters, for they have either too little leisure or too much authoritie, as may appear well by those two Books, whereof that of my Lo. Dyer is but a kind of note Book, and those of my Lo. Coke's hold too much de proprio.

The choice of the persons in this work will give much life unto it; the persons following may be thought on, as men not overwrought with practice, and yet Learned and conversant in Reportes and Recordes, There are Six Names, whereof three only may suffice according to the three principal courtes of Law, The King's Bench, The Common Plees, and The Exchequer.

Mr. Whitlock,
Mr. Noie,
Mr. Hedley,

Mr. Hackwell,
Mr. Courtman,
Mr. Robert Hill.

The stipend cannot be less than 100l. per annum, which nevertheless were too little to men of such Qualitie in respect of Some hindrance it may be to their practice, were it not that it will be accompanied with Credit and expectacion in due time of preferment.

The first notice which I find of this tract is in the Letters and Remains by Robert Stephens, 1734. It is not mentioned either by Rawley or by Archbishop Tennison.

Observations. This tract was first inserted in any edition of the works of Lord Bacon, in the year 1740, in the folio edition, in four volumes, by Mallet. Printed for Miller. The following is the title: Appendix containing several Pieces of Lord Bacon, not printed in the last edition in four volumes in folio: and now published from the original manuscripts in the library of the Right Honourable the Earl of Oxford. This appendix was published separately in folio in 1760, and is in vol. v. page 362, of this edition. I do not find any manuscript of this tract in the Harleian collection, but it is in the Lansdowne MSS. No. 236, fol. 198. The same as printed in Stephens, pp. 367-377.

2. Proposition touching the compiling and amendment of the Laws of England. This tract is thus noticed in the Baconiana, with a reference to the Resuscitatio, page 271: "The twelfth is, a Proposition to King James, touching the compiling and amendment of the Laws of England, written by him when he was attourney-general and one of the privy-council." It will be found in vol. v. of this edition, page 337. The following is a copy of the title: A Proposition to His Majesty. By Sir Francis Bacon, Knt. his Majesties Attorney-General and one of his Privy-Councel; touching the Compiling and Amendment of the Laws of England.

3. An Offer to our late Soueraigne King Iames of a Digest to be made of the Lawes of England. London, printed by John Haviland for Humphrey Robinson, 1629. It is thus noticed in the Baconiana by Archbishop Tennison: "The thirteenth is, An Offer to King James, of a Digest to be made of the Laws of England." It will be found in vol. v. of this edition, page 353. Another edition in folio was published in 1671, in the third edition of the Resuscitatio. The first edition was published in 1629, in a small 4to. by Dr. Rawley, consisting of four tracts, of which this is one.

⚫ In the Miscellan. Works, p. 137, and 2nd part of Resusc.

4. Dedication to Elements of the Common Law. In his dedication to the Queen, and in his preface to the Elements of the Common Law, there are various suggestions to the Queen, and observations upon improvement of the law. They will be found in vol. xiii. of this edition, page 133.

5. Justitia Universalis.

In the year 1605, Lord Bacon expresses his intention, in the advancement of learning, to write upon the laws of laws. The passage is as follows: "Notwithstanding, for the more public part of government, which is laws, I think good to note only one deficience: which is, that all those which have written of laws, have written either as philosophers, or as lawyers, and none as statesmen. As for the philosophers, they make imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths, and their discourses are as the stars, which give little light, because they are so high. For the lawyers, they write according to the states where they liye, what is received law, and not what ought to be law; for the wisdom of a law-maker is one, and of a lawyer is another. For there are in nature certain fountains of justice, whence all civil laws are derived but as streams and like as waters do take tinctures and tastes from the soils through which they run, so do civil laws vary according to the regions and governments where they are planted, though they proceed from the same fountains. Again, the wisdom of a law-maker consisteth not only in a platform of justice, but in the application thereof; taking into consideration, by what means laws may be made certain, and what are the causes and remedies of the doubtfulness and incertainty of law; by what means laws may be made apt and easy to be executed, and what are the impediments and remedies in the execution of laws; what influence laws touching private right of meum and tuum have into the public state, and how they may be made apt and agreeable; how laws are to be penned and delivered, whether in texts or in acts, brief or large, with preambles, or without; how they are to be pruned and reformed from time to time, and what is the best means to keep them from being too vast in volumes, or too full of multiplicity and crossness; how they are to be expounded, when upon causes emergent and judicially discussed, and when upon responses and conferences touching general points or questions; how they are to be pressed, rigorously or tenderly; how they are to be mitigated by equity and good conscience, and whether discretion and strict law are to be mingled in the same courts, or kept apart in several courts; again, how the practice, profession, and erudition of law is to be censured and governed; and many other points touching the administration, and, as I may term it, animation of laws. Upon which I insist the less, because I purpose, if God give me leave, (having begun a work of this nature in aphorisms), to propound it hereafter, noting it in the mean time for deficient. Vol. ii. of this edition, page 295.

Observations. The outline contemplated by Lord Bacon of a treatise on Universal Justice is, as it seems, contained in Aphorism 7, in his description of a good law published in 1623, in the Treatise de Augmentis. Vol. ix. p. 82.

Lex bona censeri possit, quæ sit

Intimatione certa;

Præcepto justa;

Executione commoda;

Cum forma politiæ congrua; et

Generans virtutem in subditis.

It probably was his intention to have completed this work, and if not, to leave it as a hint to future ages. The part which he has completed is in the first of his five divisions.

The Certainty of Laws. It is written in his favourite style of Aphorisms (see de Augmentis, Lib. vi.), in which the Novum Organum is written, in both of which there is the reality without the show of method; the frame is beautiful, although the divisions and muscles are not obtruded.

1. In general. Discretionary Law. 9.

1. Intimatione
certa.

1. Omission inevitable.

1. Analogy. 11 to 30.
2. Precedents.

Cases omitted. 2. Remedies. 3. Jurisdictions. S1. Equity.

47 to 52.

3. Reflection of Laws. 47 to 52.

2. Censorian.

1. Modes of making new Statutes. 54.
2. Board of Reformers. 55.

2. Different Un-
certainties. 9.

3. Obsolete Laws. 57.

1. Accumulation..

2. Obscurity. 52.

2. Ambiguity.
64 to 70.

UNFINISHED.

3. Manner of

expounding.

3. Variance of preamble and enactments.
1. Records and Reports. Mode of reporting.
2. Authentic Writers, 77.

3. Subsidiary Books. 79.

4. Prelections. 93.

5. Responses of Wisdom. 89 to 92.

1. Precipitation.

4. Uncertainty of Judgment.) 2. Emulation of Courts.

Different editions. The first edition was published in the Treatise de Augmentis, 1623. This was translated in the translation of the Treatise de Augmentis, by Watts, in 1640. About the year 1646, a translation of this work was published in Paris. The following is a copy of the title page: Les Aphorismes du Droit, traduits du Latin de Messire François Bacon, grand Chancelier d'Angleterre. Par I. Baudoin. A Paris.

Dedicated à Monsigneur Segrier, Chancelier de France. At the end of the privilege to print a translation of Bacon's works, is "Achevé d'imprimer, pour le première fois, le 20 Decembre, 1646."

Contents.

Pages 1---36. Des Lois en general.

Ce discours est une offre de Chancelier Bacon à son Roy, de faire un digest des Loix d'Angleterre.

36--111. Les Aphorismes du Droit.

111-130. De Devoir du Juge.

Ce discours et les suivans sont tiré des ouvres polites de l'autheur, et ie les ay admistez icy, pour ce qu'il m'ont semble propres au sujet.

130---139. Des requestes et des supplians.

139--147. De l'Expedition des Affaires.
147---end.

Du Conseil.

There is a copy of this in the British Museum, which I suppose to have been written about 1646. In the museum is Historia Vitæ et Mortis in French, by J. Baudoin, 4to. Paris, 1647, and in the privilege to print there is the date 1646. There is a new translation of this tract in 1733, by Shaw, in his edition of Bacon's philosophical works, in 3 vols. 4to. In the year 1806 an edition in 12mo. was published. The following is a copy of the title page: Franc. Baconii Exemplum Tractatus de Justitia Universali sive de Fontibus Juris, extractum ex ejusdem Auctoris opere de dignitate et augmentis scientiarum. Curante Lawry, juris consulto, qui suas notas prefationem que adjecit. Au Depot des Lois Romaines a Metz, chez Behmer. l'an 1806.

In the year 1822 a 12mo. edition was published in Paris, consisting of the Aphorisms in Latin with the notes. The following is a copy of the title page: Legum Leges sive Francisci Baconi Angliæ quondam Cancel. tractatus de fontibus Universi Juris per Aphorismos extractum ex ejusdem auctoris opere de dignitate et augmentis Scientiarum Annotationes quasdam subjecit. A. M.J. J. Dupin in scholis et curiis Parisiensibus Doctor et Advocatus. Dictabimus igitur quasdam Legum Leges, ex quibus informatio peti possit, quid in singulis legibus bene aut perperam positum aut constitutum sit. (Aph. 6.) Parisiis apud Fratres Baudouin Typog. Libr. Via de Vaugirard, No. 36. 1822.

In the year 1823 a translation into English by James Glassford, Advocate, was published at Edinburgh. The following is the title page: Exemplum Tractatus de Fontibus Juris, and other Latin Pieces of Lord Bacon, translated by James Glassford, Esq. Edinburgh, printed for Waugh and Innes, Chalmers and Collings, Glasgow; and Ogle, Duncan and Co. London. 1823.

Upon this subject Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments concludes thus: Systems of positive law, therefore, though they deserve the greatest authority, as the records of the sentiments of mankind in different ages and nations, yet can never be regarded as accurate systems of the rules of natural justice. It might have been expected that the reasonings of lawyers upon the different imperfections and improvements of the laws of different countries should have given occasion to an inquiry into what were the natural rules of justice, independent of all positive institution. It might have been expected that these reasonings should have led them to aim at establishing a system of what might properly be called natural jurisprudence, or a theory of the general principles that ought to run through, and be the foundation of the laws of all But though the reasonings of lawyers did produce something of this kind, and though no man has treated systematically of the laws of any particular

nations.