142 PREFACE. 



and instructing ; which is, that they be not set down alone, 

 like short dark oracles, which every man will be content 

 still to allow to be true, but in the mean time they give little 

 light or direction; but I have attended them, a matter 

 not practised, no not in the civil law to any purpose, and 

 for want whereof, indeed, the rules are but* as proverbs, 

 and many times plain fallacies, with a clear and per 

 spicuous exposition, breaking them into cases, and opening 

 them with distinctions, and sometimes showing the reasons 

 above whereupon they depend, and the affinity they have 

 with other rules. And though I have thus, with as good 

 discretion and foresight as I could, ordered this work, and, 

 as I might say, without all colours or shows, husbanded it 

 best to profit; yet, nevertheless, not wholly trusting to 

 mine own judgment; having collected three hundred of 

 them, I thought good, before I brought them all into form, 

 to publish some few, that,, by the taste of other men s 

 opinions in this first, I might receive either approbation 

 in mine own course, or better advice for the altering of the 

 other which remain ; for it is great reason that that which 

 is intended to the profit of others should be guided by the 

 conceits of others. 



