Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/88

72 the eighth were taken by the prothonotaries, or chief cribes of the court, at the expene of the crown, and publihed annually, whence they are known under the denomination of the year books. And it is much to be wihed that this beneficial cutom had, under proper regulations, been continued to this day: for, though king James the firt at the intance of lord Bacon appointed two reporters with a handome tipend for this purpoe, yet that wie intitution was oon neglected, and from the reign of Henry the eighth to the preent time this tak has been executed by many private and cotemporary hands; who ometimes through hate and inaccuracy, ometimes through mitake and want of kill, have publihed very crude and imperfect (perhaps contradictory) accounts of one and the ame determination. Some of the mot valuable of the antient reports are thoe publihed by lord chief jutice Coke; a man of infinite learning in his profeion, though not a little infected with the pedantry and quaintnes of the times he lived in, which appear trongly in all his works. However his writings are o highly eteemed, that they are generally cited without the author’s name.

thee reporters, there are alo other authors, to whom great veneration and repect is paid by the tudents of the common law. Such are Glanvil and Bracton, Britton and Fleta, Littleton and Fitzherbert, with ome others of antient date, whole treaties are cited as authority; and are evidence that caes have formerly happened in which uch and uch points were determined, which are now become ettled and firt principles. One of the lat of thee methodical writers in point of time, whoe works are of any intrinic authority in the courts of jutice, and do not entirely depend on the trength of their quotations from older authors,