OF A DIGEST OF LAWS. 359 



King Henry VIII. in the twenty-seventh year of 

 his reign, was authorized by parliament to no 

 minate thirty-two commissioners, part ecclesiastical, 

 and part temporal, to purge the canon law, and to 

 make it agreeable to the law of God, and the law of 

 the land ; but it took not effect : for the acts of that 

 king were commonly rather proffers and fames, than 

 either well-grounded, or well pursued : but, I doubt, 

 I err in producing so many examples. For as 

 Cicero said to Cassar, so I may say to your majesty, 

 &quot; Nil vulgare te dignum videri possit.&quot; Though 

 indeed this well understood is far from vulgar : for 

 that the laws of the most kingdoms and states have 

 been like buildings of many pieces, and patched up 

 from time to time according to occasions, without 

 frame or model. 



Now for the laws of England, if I shall speak 

 my opinion of them without partiality either to my 

 profession or country, for the matter and nature of 

 them, I hold them wise, just, and moderate laws : 

 they give to God, they give to Caesar, they give to 

 the subject, what appertaineth. It is true they are 

 as mixt as our language, compounded of British, 

 Roman, Saxon, Danish, Norman customs : and surely 

 as our language is thereby so much the richer, so 

 our laws are likewise by that mixture the more 

 complete. 



Neither doth this attribute less to them, than 

 those that would have them to have stood out the 

 same in all mutations. For no tree is so good first 

 set, as by transplanting and grafting. I remember 



