COM 
Or under high commodes, with looks erect, 
Barefac’d devours, in gaudy colours deck’d, Gahv. 
COMMODIA'NUS (Gazeus), a Chriftian author in the 
fourth century, who wrote a work in Latin verfe, in- 
titled Inftruftions; the moral of which is excellent, but 
the verfe is heavy. M. Davies publilhed a fine edition of 
it in 1711, at the end of Municius Felix. 
COMMO'DIOtlS, adj. [commodus, Lat.] Convenient; 
fuitable; accommodate to any perfon ; fit; proper; free 
from hindrance or uneafinefs.—Such a place cannot be 
commodious to live in ; for being fo near the moon, it had 
been too near the fun. Raleigh. 
To that recefs, commodious for furprife. 
When purple light lhallnext fuffule the Ikies. Rope. 
Ufeful ; fuited to wants or necefiities. — Bacchus had 
found out the making of wine, and many things elle com¬ 
modious for mankind. Raleigh. 
COMMO'DIOUSLY, adv. Conveniently. Without 
diftrefs : 
We need not fear 
To pafs commodioujly this life, fuftain’d 
By him with many comforts, till we end 
In dull, our final reft and native home. Milton. 
Suitably to a certain purpofe.—Wifdom may have framed 
one and the lame thing to ferve commodioujly for divers 
ends. Hooker. 
COMMO'DIOUSNESS,/ Convenience; advantage.— 
Of cities, the greatnefs and riches increafe according to the 
commodioufnefs of their fituation in fertile countries, or up¬ 
on rivers and havens. Temple. 
COMMO'DITY,/. [commoditas, Lat.] Intereftj ad¬ 
vantage; profit.—They knew, that howfoever men may 
feek their own commodity, yet, if this were done with in¬ 
jury unto others, it was not to be fuffered. Hooker . 
Commodity, the biafs of the world. 
The world, which of itfelf is poifed well, 
Till this advantage, this vile drawing biafs. 
This fway of motion, this commodity , 
Makes it take head from all indifferency. 
From all dire&ion, purpofe, courfe, intent. Shakefpeare. 
Convenience; particular advantage.—Travellers turn out 
of the highway, drawn either by the commodity of a foot¬ 
path, or the delicacy or the freflinefs of the fields. Ben 
Jonfon. —Wares; merchandife ; goods for traffic.— Com « 
modifies are moveables, valuable by money. Locke. —Of 
money, in the commerce and traffic of mankind, the prin¬ 
cipal ufe is that of faving the commutation of more bulky 
commodities. Arbuthnot. 
COMMODO'RE, f. [probably corrupted from the Spa- 
niffi commandador.] The captain who commands a fqua- 
dron of ffiips ; a temporary admiral. 
COM'MODUS (L. Aurelius Antoninus), fon of M. 
Antoninus, lucceeded his father in the Roman empire. 
He was naturally cruel, and fond of indulging his licen¬ 
tious propenfifies; and regardlefs of the inltruftions of 
philosophers, and of the decencies of nature, he corrupted 
his own filters, and kept three hundred women, and as 
many boys, for his illicit pleafures. See Rome. 
COM'MON, adj. [ communis , Lat.] Belonging equally 
to more than one.—Though life and lenfe be common to 
man and brutes, and their operations in many things alike; 
yet by this form he lives the life of a man, and not of a 
brute. Hale. —He who hath received damage, has, befides 
the right of punilhment common to him with other men, 
a particular right to feek reparation. Locke. —The crime 
was common , common be the pain. Pope. —Having no pof- 
leffor or owner.—Where no kindred are to be found, we 
fee the poffeffions of a private man revert to the commu¬ 
nity, and fo become again perfeftly common ; nor can any 
one have a property in them, otherwife than in other 
things common by nature. Locke,— Vulgar; mean; not 
COM S63 
diftingulfhed by any excellence; often leen; eafy to be 
had ; of little value; not rare; not fcarce: 
Or as the man, who princes do advance 
Upon their gracious mercy-feat to lit, 
Doth common things, of courfe and circumftance, 
To the reports of com?non men commit. Davies. 
Public ; general; ferving the ufe of all.—He was advifed 
by a paihament-man not to be ftriit in reading all the 
common-prayer, but make fome variation. Walton. —I need 
not mention the old common fiiore of Rome, which ran 
from all parts of the town, with the current and violence 
of an ordinary river. Addifon.— Of no rank; mean; with¬ 
out birth or defcent: 
Flying bullets now, 
To execute his rage, appear too flow; 
They mifs, or fweep but common fouls away; 
For fuch a lofs Opdam his life mult pay. Waller. 
Frequent; ufual; ordinary.—There is an evil which I 
have feen common among men. Ecclef. vi. j. —Neither is it 
ftrange that there fhould be myfteries in divinity, as well 
as in the commoneji operations in nature. Swift.— Profli- 
tute.—’Tis a ftrange thing, the impudence of fome wo¬ 
men ! was the word of a dame who herfelf was common. 
VEJlrange. —Hipparchus was going to marry a common wo¬ 
man, but confulted Philander upon the occafion. Specta¬ 
tor. —In grammar. Such verbs as fignify both aftionand 
paffion are called common ; as afpernor, I defpife, or am de - 
JpifeJi and alfo fuch nouns as are both malculine and fe¬ 
minine, as parens. 
COM'MON,/. An open ground equally ufed by many 
perfons; and free for their cattle. In the eye of law, it 
is a right or privilege, which one or more perfons claim 
to take or ufe, in fome part or portion of that which an¬ 
other man’s lands, waters, woods, See. do naturally pro¬ 
duce; without having an abfolute property in fuch land, 
waters, wood, See. It is called an incorporeal right, which, 
lies in grant, as if originally commencing on fome agree¬ 
ment between lords and tenants, for fome valuable pur- 
pofes; which by age being formed into a prefcriptiois. 
continues, although there be no deed or inltrument in 
Writing which proves the original contract or agreement. 
2 Injl. 65. i Pent. 387. 
There is not only common of pafture, but alfo common 
of pifeary or fiffiing; common of eftovers; common of 
turbary; which fee under their feveral heads. The word 
common, however, in its molt ufual acceptation, fignifies 
common of pafture. This is a right of feeding one’s 
beafts on another’s land ; for in thole wafte grounds ufu- 
ally called commons, the property of the foil is generally 
in the lord of the manor ; as in common fields it is in the 
particular tenants. This kind of common is divided into 
common in grofs, common appendant, common appur¬ 
tenant, and common pur caufe de vicinage. Common in 
grofs is a liberty to have common alone, without any 
lands or tenements, in another perfon’s land, granted by 
deed to a man and his heirs, or for life, See. 4 Rep. 30. 
Common appendant is a right belonging to a man’s arabl# 
land, of putting beafts commonable into another’s ground. 
And common appurtenant is belonging to an eftate for 
all manner of beafts commonable or not commonable. 
4 Rep. 37. Plovud. 161. 
Common appendant and appurtenant are in a manner 
confounded, as appears by Fitzherbert; and are by him 
defined to be a liberty of common appertaining to or 
depending on a freehold; which common mult be taken 
with beafts commonable, as horfes, oxen, kine, and flieep; 
and not with goats, hogs, and geefe. But fome make this 
difference, that common appurtenant may be fevered from 
the land whereto it pertains, but not common appendant; 
which, according to fir Edward Coke, had this beginning; 
when a lord enf eoffed another of arable land, to hold of 
him in focage, the feoffee, to maintain the fervice of his 
plough, 
