CASE OF PERPETUITIES. xllii 



manuscript exists, (a) and seems to have been incorporated 

 in his reading on the statute of uses to the society of 

 Gray s Inn. 



He thus commences his address to the students: &quot; I 

 have chosen to read upon the Statute of Uses, a law 

 whereupon the inheritances of this realm are tossed at 

 this day, like a ship upon the sea, in such sort, that 

 it is hard to say which bark will sink, and which will 

 get to the haven ; that is to say, what assurances will 

 stand good, and what will not. Neither is this any lack 

 or default in the pilots, the grave and learned judges; but 

 the tides and currents of received error, and unwarranted 

 and abusive experience have been so strong, as they were 

 not able to keep a right course according to the law. 

 Herein, though I could not be ignorant either of the 

 difficulty of the matter, which he that taketh in hand 

 shall soon find, or much less of my own unableness, which 

 I had continual sense and feeling of; yet, because I had 

 more means of absolution than the younger sort, and more 

 leisure than the greater sort, I did think it not impossible 

 to work some profitable effect; the rather because where 

 an inferior wit is bent and constant upon one subject, he 

 shall many times, with patience and meditation, dissolve 

 and undo many of the knots, which a greater wit, distracted 

 with many matters, would rather cut in two than unknit : 

 and, at the least, if my invention or judgment be too barren 

 or too weak, yet by the benefit of other arts, I did hope to 

 dispose or digest the authorities and opinions which are in 

 cases of uses in such order and method, as they should take 

 light one from another, though they took no light from me.&quot; 



He then proceeds in a luminous exposition of the sta 

 tute, of which a celebrated lawyer of our times, (b) says: 



() See note 3 Q at the end. (/&amp;gt;) Mr. liargrave. 



