PREFACE. IT hath often been observed with concern, that the study of the laws of our country hath been totally neglected in the usual education of English gentlemen; and, in particular, that no opportunities of cultivating this branch of learning have hitherto been afforded in those excellent and illustrious seminaries, wherein every other science is taught in its utmost perfection. To remedy in some little degree so just a complaint, the compiler of the following sheets was induced about three years ago to institute, and since to continue, a course of lectures, calculated for the promotion of this study in the University of Oxford: and as he was encouraged to enter upon this undertaking by gentlemen, both in the university and out of it, for whose learning and judgment the world has the highest deference; so he cannot but acknowledge, with due gratitude, the favourable reception which hath been given it a mark of approbation, which he is sensible must be attributed entirely to the propriety of the design, and not to the manner of its execution. In order to render this attempt more extensively useful, he thought it incumbent upon him to accommodate his lectures, not only to the use of such students as were more immediately designed for the profession of the common law-but also of such other gentlemen as were desirous of some general acquaintance with the constitution and legal |