61 



the "Institutes of the Laws of England," required vast time and 

 labour; and it is almost incredible that they could have been wiitten 

 after he became a Judge, and consequently it may be adniiued. as is 

 generally believed, that they were written whilst he was at the bar, and 

 ill the reign of Elizabeth. 



It is well known that the precincts of the forests in Englnnd had 

 courts of their own, and were governed by different lav,s liom the rest 

 of England ; and, of course, in treating upon the laws of this country, 

 so learned and so accurate a writer, as Coke is admitted to have been, 

 could not avoid noticing them. In the part of his Institutes upon the 

 Forest Courts, he describes the jurisdiction and functions of those tri- 

 bunals, and the animals to be met with in the forests of England ; and 

 in the quaint and peculiar language incident to writers of the time of 

 Queen Elizabeth, he proceeds to mention the beasts of chase and of the 

 forest. The following are extracts from his work upon that subject : — 



" There be many beasts of the forest by the laws of the forests of 

 England. The hart in summer, the hinde in winter, and all that pro- 

 ceed as of them ; the buck in summer, the doe in winter, and the 

 proceed of them ; the hare, male and female, and their proceed ; the 

 wild boar, male and female, and their proceed : and the u'olf, vicde and 

 female, and their proceed; the fox, male and female, and their proceed; 

 the martin, male and female; capreolus the roe, as it appeareth before, 

 is no beast of the forest, but it is a beast of chase. 



" The proceeds of the hare, the first year a leveret, the second a hare, 

 the third a great hare. Of a wilde boar : a pig, a hogge, a hog-stear, 

 a boar, and after a sanglier." 



" No beast of the forest, that is solivagum et nocivum is venison, as 

 the fox, the xvolf, the martin, because they be no meat, but caro eoium 

 est nociva." 



" So as the red deer, the fallow deer, the wild boar, and the hare, are 

 venison. Whereupon these two conclusions in the law of the forest do 

 follow : First, whatsoever beast of the forest is for the food of man is 

 venison, and therewith agreeth Virgil describing a feast, 

 ' Implentur veteiis bacchi pinguisq : ferinse.' "' 



It is to be presumed that a writer whose works are so accurate, as 

 Coke's are admitted to be, would not have stated, that the wolf was an 

 animal of chase in England at the time when he wrote, in the sixteenth 

 century, in the reign of Elizabeth, if it had then been extinct, and it 

 must be borne in mind, that he has used the present tense in writing of 

 it, which it is not likely that he would have done, if he had intended 

 to write respecting an animal which had formerly beon a beast of chiise, 



' CdLb's " riistitule* of iho F/aws of KnglmrJ," vol 1 p 3!fi. 



