350 A PROPOSAL FOR AMENDING 



FOR the auxiliary books that conduce to the 

 study and science of the law, they are three : Insti 

 tutions ; a treatise &quot; De regulis juris ;&quot; and a better 

 book &quot; De verborum significationibus,&quot; or terms 

 of the law. For the Institutions, I know well there 

 be books of introductions, wherewith students begin, 

 of good worth, especially Littleton and Fitzherbert s 

 &quot; Natura brevium ;&quot; but they are no ways of the na 

 ture of an institution ; the office whereof is to be a 

 key and general preparation to the reading of the 

 course. And principally it ought to have two pro 

 perties ; the one a perspicuous and clear order or 

 method ; and the other, an universal latitude or 

 comprehension, that the students may have a little 

 prenotion of every thing, like a model towards a 

 great building. For the treatise &quot; De regulis juris,&quot; 

 I hold it, of all other things, the most important to 

 the health, as I may term it, and good institutions of 

 any laws : it is indeed like the ballast of a ship, to 

 keep all upright and stable ; but I have seen little in 

 this kind, either in our law or other laws, that satis- 

 fieth me. The naked rule or maxim doth not the 

 effect : It must be made useful by good differences, 

 ampliations, and limitations, warranted by good au 

 thorities ; and this not by raising up of quotations 

 and references, but by discourse and deducement in 

 a just tractate. In this I have travelled myself, at 

 the first more cursorily, since with more diligence, 

 and will go on with it, if God and your majesty will 

 give me leave. And I do assure your majesty, 1 am 

 in good hope, that when Sir Edward Coke s Reports, 

 and my rules and decisions shall come to posterity, 



