Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/495

 1^. ROBINSON: ANTICIPATIONS 481 later, and productive of some bad consequences, revived the statutes of 1650 and 1651.^ It is no wonder either that the RepubHcan jurists should have desired a code, or that they should have failed to make one. The outline of a code had been partly and roughly drawn ; the need for one was urgent ; the necessary science wanting. The outline had been drawn : authorities had been published in great numbers since 1640, some for the first time — writs, original (by Hughes) and judicial (by Brown- low) ; " Bracton ; " " Britton," Bishop of Hereford, or who- ever else ; " The Mirror," in French and in Enghsh ; Fitz- Herbert's " De natura brevium; " the last three parts of " The Institutes." Cases and statutes had been abridged — statutes by Wingate and by Hughes; Coke's reports by Trotman, Dyer's by Ireland, Brooke's by March; while Shepherd had abridged statutes and cases too. ^ Digests, more or less systematic, had appeared — Swinburne on "Wills," Bacon on "Uses," Wingate's " Statuta Pads,** Shepherd's " Parson's Guide ; " not to speak of Lambarde's and Selden's researches, West's " Symboleography," Brown- low's " Declaration and Pleadings." All these suggested something more, and made it seemingly feasible. " It is fit," said Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, " that laws should be plain for the people." ^ To make them plain, John Coke proposed to clear them of everything, " either properly and directly, or collaterally and obliquely, repugnant to the law of God," a method which he may have pursued in Ireland,* and which had been pursued in the Judaized code of New England.^ Ten years later Bulstrode wished " to file off the rust " from the laws, and to reduce them " into a sound »Stt. 4 Geo. ii. c. 26 (see 7 C. B., 462: Willes, 601); 6 Geo. ii. c. 14, §§ 3, 5 (cp. Noy [?], pref.): Bl, 2 « Comm.," 323: Smollett, bk. 2, c 4, §25: J. Wesley, "The doctrine of original sin," 1, 2, 9. ' Add " Special and selected law cases concerning persons and es- tates, collected out of the Reports and Year Books of the Common Law of Engl." (1641), and Finch's "Law" condensed by Wingate. » Burton, " Diary," 1657-8, Febr. 2, Rutt's note. CO. 11; 12; 14, § 13. Coke, though his "Vindication" is flattering and cowardly, was praised by Cromwell for his conduct in Ireland and died bravely [Ludlow, 123 (137), 398 (407)]. • Lechford, " Plaine dealing," pp. 26, 27, cited in " Exam. legg. Angl." c. 14, §3. Even then English Puritanism looked to America.
 * "The Vindication," etc., pp. 25, 26. Cp. "Exam. legg. Angl.,"