Abbreviations, and such other obsolete forms of writing, as occur in our ancient MSS. to facilitate the reading of ancient books and records."

2. "Of Ancient Deeds and Charters."

3. "Of the Original of Testaments and Wills, and of their Probate, to whom it anciently belonged."

4. “Of the Admiral's Jurisdiction, and the Officers thereof."

Among his papers were also found, 1. A Discourse of the Ancient Government of England in general.

2. Of Parliaments in Particular.

3. And lastly, A Catalogue of the Places and Dwellings of the Archbishops and Bishops of this Realm, now, or of former times, in which their several owners have ordinary jurisdiction, as of a parcel of their diocese, though they be situate within the precinct of another bishop's diocese.

A collection of the English works of sir Henry Spelman was published in 1625, folio, by Mr. Edmund Gibson, afterwards bishop of London. The same person soon after edited another collection, entitled Reliquia Spelmanniana; the posthumous Works of Sir Heury

Spelman, Knight, relating to the Laws and Antiquities of England; published from the original MSS. in 1698, folio. Both of these collections were reprinted together in 1723, in one volume, folio. From this collection I select the following extract.

Of the ancient Government of England.

To tell the government of England under the old Saxon laws, seemeth an Utopia to us at present; strange and uncouth: yet can there be no period assigned, wherein either the frame of those laws was abolished, or this of ours entertained; but as day and night creep insensibly one upon the other, so also hath this alteration grown upon us insensibly, every age altering something, and no age seeing more than what themselves are actors in, nor thinking it to have been otherwise than as themselves discover it by the present. Like them of China, who never travelling out of their own country, think the whole world to extend no further. As one therefore that has coasted a little further into former times, I will offer unto you a rude map thereof; not like those of the exquisite cosmographers of our latter ages, but like them of old, when as neither cross sails nor compass were yet known to navigators.

Our Saxons, though divided into many kingdoms, yet were they all one in effect, in manners, laws, and language; so that the breaking of their government into many kingdoms, or the re-uniting their kingdoms into a monarchy, wrought little or no change amongst them, touching laws: for though we talk of the West-Saxon law, the Mercian law, and the Dane law, whereby the west parts of England, the middle parts, and those of Norfolk, Suffolk, and the north, were severally governed; yet held they all an uniformity in substance, differing rather in their mulct than in their Canea, that is, in the quantity of fines and amercements, than in the course and frame of justice.

Therefore, when all these kingdoms grew into one monarchy, as under Alured, Ethelstane, Edgar, &c. this bred no notable innovation in any of them; for the king had no new law to impose upon his new subjects, nor were his new subjects unacquainted with his form of government; having always lived according to the same. So that when Edward the Confessor came to take away these small differences that were between these three laws, he did it even in these fickle and unconstant times, without all tumult or contradiction; making that his alteration famous rather by the new name, than by the new matter. For abolishing the three particular names before mentioned, he now called it the common law of

England, for that no part of the kingdom should henceforth be governed by any particular law, but all alike by a common law. But insomuch as this common law is but the half arch of the government, tending only to the temporal part thereof, and not unto the ecclesiastical; I cannot well present the one without the other, and must therefore make a project of the whole arch, that so the strength and uniformity of both the parts may the better be conceived.

As therefore each side of an arch descendeth alike from the cone, or top-point; so both the parts of that their government was alike deduced from the king, each of them holding correspondency one with the other, (like two loving sisters) both in aspect and in lineaments.

To begin with the right side, or eldest sister: the estate ecclesiastical was first divided into provinces ; every province into many bishoprics; every bishopric into many arch-deaconries; every arch-deaconry into divers deaneries; every deanery into many parishes. And all these committed to their several governors, parsons, deans, arch-deacons, bishops, and arch-bishops, who, as subordinate one to the other, did not only execute the charge of these their several portions, but were accountant also for the same to their superiors.

The parson, as ima species, was to hear and deter

mine the breaches of God's peace, of love, and cha rity, within his parish, to reprove the inordinate life of his parishioners: and though he could not strike with the ecclesiastical sword, yet might he shake it against them by enjoining notorious offenders to contrition, repentance, satisfaction, and some time by removing them from the blessed sacrament.

The dean to take cognizance of the life and conversation of the parsons and clergymen of every parish within his deanery; to censure breach of churchpeace, and to punish incontinent and infamous livers, by excommunication, penance, &c.

And because there could be no breach of the king's peace, but it must also break the peace and unity of the church; the bishop's dean in whose deanery the peace was broken, had in some cases 10s. for his part of the mulct, or fine thereof; as appeareth Ll. Ed. Confess. cap. 31.

The arch-deacon, drawing nearer to the bishop, drew the more pre-eminence from him, and was his coadjutor in the ordination of clerks, having a superintendent power over all parochial parsons within every deanery of his precinct.

The bishop, as the greatest orb of the diocese, had jurisdiction and coercion through the same, in all ecclesiastical causes, and in all persons; except monasteries exempted. And for this purpose had two general synods in the year, wherein all the clergy of