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 COK • him for the work he assumed, and his learning appears to rise and over- flow upon almost every topic he discusses. " He brings us at once upon the matter and the substance of the law. Embracing with a giant's grasp the collected principles of the whole circle of the science, he deals with us as nature does in forming a flower or any other of her produc- tions. Frequently and truly has it been said that giants were in those days." Notwithstanding the many excellent qualities of the Commentary which " has endured the scrutinizing test of many generations and still stands a bulwark of the law," it is not faultless. Spelman, who had given tlie subject considerable attention, attributes to Lord Coke a want of knowledge of the feudal law, " from whence so many roots of our law have of old been taken and transplanted." Whatever defect the Institute may have originally possessed in this particular, has been supplied by the learned notes of Mr. Butler, who has drawn many illustrations from the law of feuds. 'The second objection to the Commentary is want of method, which defect is pretty generally conceded even by Coke's warmest admirers. Lord Bacon, in a letter to Coke, writes: "When you wander, as you often delight to do, you wander indeed, and give never such satisfaction as the curious tyro requires. This is not caused by any natural defect, but first for want of election, when you have a large and fruitful mind which should not so much labor what to speak, as to find what to leave unspoken. Rich soils are often to be weeded." Sir William Blackstone also says, that "The Institutes of Sir Edward Coke are unfortunately as deficient in method as they are rich in matter; at least the two first parts of them ; wherein, acting only the part of a commentator, he hath thrown together an infinite treasure of learning in a loose desultory order." It will not be denied that this is a serious existing defect of the Commentary, hut the severity of our censure will be somewhat softened by bearing in mind that it arose in part from the nature of the undertaking, and from the manner of legal writing not unfrequent in those days. Conciseness was not to be sacrificed to orna- ment, nor pith and brevity of composition, nor copioudfteference and quotation from sources however remotely connected viuth the subject under consideration, to be considered pedantic; and if vSh find the style and manner of the Commentary tinged with the quaintne^gf t])e times, " it is in general clear and expressive, and if it be ever^Hfeult to com- prehend the meaning, it is, generally speaking, owiMBniore to the abstruseness of the subject than to the obscurity of the Mnguage." The learning and ability with which Hargrave and Butler edited the Institute, is not equalled by any similar performance in modern times. Never did any legal author receive such illustrious homage as Littleton, in the character of his annotators, and the Commentary of Coke, by his editors, is occasionally made to reveal new beauties, v^-hich before were half concealed, enveloped in abstruse and subtile illustrations. 206