A Philological Commentary, Title page – Notice
A Philologicall COMMENTARY: OR, An Illustration of the most Obvious and Useful words in the LAVV.
With their Distinctions and divers Acceptations, as they are found as well in Reports Antient and Modern, as in Records, and Memorials never Printed: Usefull for all Young Students of the Law.
Arist. 3. Metaph. Cap 4.
foreign.
The second Edition Reviewed and Inlarged.
By Edward Leigh Gentleman, sometimes of the Middle Temple.
LONDON, Printed by A. M. for Charles Adams, and are to be sold at his Shop at the Sign of the Talbot near St Dustans Church in Fleetstreet. 1658.
To the right Honourable and his Honoured Kinsman JOHN LISLE Esq One of the Lords Comissioners of the Great Seal of England.
My LORD,
IF Consanguinity and long acquaintance, and Converse together in three famous Societies, may be a sufficient ground for the Dedication of a Book to one; I hope, it will neither seem incongruous to others, nor be judged presumption by you, that I make choice of a Lawyer, and among them, of your self (one of such eminent place in reference to the Laws of the Land) to Patronize a Treatise of our Municipall Laws. I wish the VVork were as well worthy of your acceptance, as the application of my self to you is proper. Lex humana (saith Aquinas) est quoddam dictamen 1. 2. Q. 97. Act. 1.rationis, quo diriguntur humani actus. A humane Law is a certain dictate of reason by which humane acts are directed. The Law of this Land is held to be the best every way for this Nation, it being the Birthright (as one of the great Sages of the Law saith) and the most antient and best InheritanceCooks preface to the 5 Rep. and on Lit. that the Subjects of this Realm have; for by it they enjoy not only their Inheritance and Goods, in peace and quietness, but their Life and their most dear Country in safety▪ Among other principles of the Law are divers generall and particular Customes, Cum enim aliquid multoties fit (saithAqu…nas loco prius …itato Act. 3. the Schoolman) videtur ex deliberato judicio provenire, & secundum hoc consuetudo & habet vim legis, & legem abolet, & est legum interpretatrix. For when any thing is done very often, it seems to proceed from deliberate Judgment, and according to this Custom both hath the force of a Law, and abolisheth a Law, and is the interpreter of Laws, Your Office is to moderate the rigour of the Law, to weigh what is generally meet, and for the person. Your Court is a Court of Equity or Conscience, as some call it. Let Conscience bear sway in all your publick and private Determinations: It is a Study well becoming a Christian Magistrate; to labour in all things to approve his waies to God, Acts 24. 1…. Heb. 13▪ 18. Lay out your self and your Abilities for him, before whose Barre the highest Judge on Earth must one day stand, and the higher our standing here is, the greater will the account be at the generall Audit. The consideration of which, I hope, will have an influence upon all your Sentences and Actions; If you shall make it your VVork to exalt God, he will pour his Blessings abundantly both upon your self, and whole Family, which shall be the desire of
My Lord, Your Affectionate Kinsman and Servant, Edward Leigh.
To the Candid READER.
Reader,
THere are three chief faculties, Law, Physick, and Divinity; the one respects the estate, the other the body, the third the soul. Every Englishman should labour for a competency of knowledg in all three; First of the Laws of the Land, that he may not (through the ignorance thereof) prejudice his estate; Secondly, of Physick, as the Proverb saith, Every man is a fool or a Physician; that is, either knows what is good or hurtfull for his own body, or else is not so wise as he should be; Thirdly, of Divinity; a man may be a bad Christian notwithstanding this knowledg; but he cannot be a good Christian without it.
The study of the Law is multorum annorum opus, and it must needs be the more difficult to attain unto perfection in it, since, though there be Inns of Court (Colledges as it were for Students in that Profession) yet the Law it self is not so well methodized (as other Sciences) nor are there Tutors or publick Teachers of the same, as of other Arts; butQui sibimet discipulus est, stultum habet pro magistro. every Student is to acquire knowledg in it by his own industry: most of the Cases which he reads, are to be commited to memory.
Of all that have written systematically as it were by way of Institutes, Littleton is most extolled, he being the *Cooks preface to the 10 Report, and Tookers case 2 Rep. Littleton is the true & surest Register of the fundaments and principles of our Law. Ployd. Comment. Wimbesh against Talbois.Ornament of the Common Law, and (as some say) the most perfect and absolute Work that ever was written in any humane Science; I have collected my Materials out of him and Sir Edward Cook upon him, and his Reports, Perkins, Fitzherb. Nat. Brevium, Ployden, L. Dyer, Brooks Abridgment, Dr. and Student, Terms of Law, Cowels Interpreter, and many others, some of which I quote in the Margin almost for every thing.
And I hope that this little Treatise being in English, and digested into an Alphabeticall order, will be usefull for young Students in the Law, Iustices of Peace, and other Countrey Gentlemen, whose benefit I especially intend in the publication of it. But least any should object (as perhaps some may) that I have nothing here but what is already in the Terms of Law, and Cowels Interpreter; I shall intreat the Iudicious, to compare what I have of the word Accessary, Actions, Appeal, in the letter A. with what is in them, and so likewise in any other Letter; (to instance in no more) and I doubt not but he will acknowledge, that there is difference enough between this and the others, though I do make use of them, as I do of divers other Authors.
This may suffice by way of Preface, I shall no longer detain thee from the Book, but wishing thee much good by these my labours, I rest,
Thy hearty well-wisher, Edward Leigh▪
Ab interpretatione ad nomen ipsum derivatum sicuti à genere ad speciem desumpta argumentatio est inanis, quod etymologia latius puteat quam nomen ipsum, certe in his Reciprocatio obscura & incerta est, maxime lege vernacula) sed à derivato ad derivationem argui longè melius potest, ut Tutor, ergo tueri debet, &c.