Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/102

86 veral rule, that regards the whole community; and of this the courts of law are bound to take notice judicially and ; without the tatute being particularly pleaded, or formally et forth by the party who claims an advantage under it. Special or private acts are rather exceptions than rules, being thoe which only operate upon particular perons, and private concerns; uch as the Romans intitled, in contraditinction to the , which regarded the whole community : and of thee the judges are not bound to take notice, unles they be formally hewn and pleaded. Thus, to hew the ditinction, the tatute 13 Eliz. c. 10. to prevent piritual perons from making leaes for longer terms than twenty one years, or three lives, is a public act; it being a rule precribed to the whole body of piritual perons in the nation: but an act, to enable the bihop of Cheter to make a leae to A. B. for ixty years, is an exception to this rule; it concerns only the parties and the bihop’s ucceors; and is therefore a private act.

alo are either declaratory of the common law, or remedial of ome defects therein. Declaratory, where the old cutom of the kingdom is almot fallen into diue, or become diputable; in which cae the parliament has thought proper,, and for avoiding all doubts and difficulties, to declare what the common law is and ever has been. Thus the tatute of treaons, 25 Edw. III. cap. 2. doth not make any new pecies of treaons; but only, for the benefit of the ubject, declares and enumerates thoe everal kinds of offence, which before were treaon at the common law. Remedial tatutes are thoe which are made to upply uch defects, and abridge uch uperfluities, in the common law, as arie either from the general imperfection of all human laws, from change of time and circumtances, from the mitakes and unadvied determinations of unlearned judges, or from any other caue whatoever. And this being done, either by enlarging the common law where it was too narrow and circumcribed, or by re- training