560 Rev. Mr Wixt1ams on one Source of the 
sion of ideas is perhaps possible, from the close connection be- 
tween landed property and mortgages. But assuredly its liabi- 
lity to be mortgaged, could not in an early age have been the 
accident most likely to strike the sense, and to induce men to 
name land after it. What among the Sabine hills, and in a half 
pastoral state, could have given a better idea of a farm than to 
call it from Preeda, flocks and herds, Preedium their grazing ground, 
just as we to this day call a mountain farm a sheep-walk ? 
From Preedium (on the same principle as from Pretium, in- 
terpres-pretis, a broker, a price-settler between two foreign mer- 
chants) came Prees, Praedis, “the possessor of a preedium, or of 
Preedia, secondarily, “ one who could give good security, heritable 
security as it is called in Scotland.” Ascontus, in his commen- 
tary on CrcERro’s speech against Verres,' has the two following 
passages :-—“ Bona Preedia, dicuntur bona, satisdationibus obnoxia, 
sive sint in mancipiis sive in pecunia numerata; Preedia vero do- 
mus, agri.” “ Preedia sunt res ipse, Praedes homines, id est fide- 
jussores, quorum res bona Pradia dicuntur,” of which this ap- 
pears to be the translation :—* Bona preedia (two terms as usual 
in Roman law formularies, put together without a conjunction, as 
patres conscripti, &c.) are called the goods hable to be seized by 
creditors, whether they consist of saleable property or of ready 
money, but Preedia are house, lands.” “ Preedia are the things them- 
selves, Praedes the men who have given security, whose property is 
called by one name, Bona-predia,” i. e. what we call property per- 
sonal and real. Vendere Preedem was what is still called by lawyers 
to “sell up a man,” that is to sell all his property. In ancient times, 
under the cruel law of Rome, the man himself might have been 
liable to sale. The Roman etymologers have written much non- 
sense on this word, but not so much as emendators have compelled 
them to write. Varro says it comes from Presto est, which has 
been changed into an adverbial Pres, as if there had been any 
‘ Orat. adver. Lib. iii. 54. 
