for he that divideth things aright, can never err in the order of things. There is nothing surely which doth either more grow by diligence or by negligence more decay than memory: it is not good trusting to a sudden memory, but a night's rest will add great strength unto it. Of what force memory is by nature and labour Themistocles may witness, who in one year's space did speak the Persian language very perfectly, and Mithridates who did well understand the two and twenty languages of the nations whom he did govern. M. Crassus whilst he was President of Asia attained to the five differences of the Greek tongue. Cyrus did remember the names of all his soldiers who were in his camp. And if memory be necessary for any science, surely to the profession of the law, it is of weighty importance, which because it doth pursue accidentia, and infinita, requireth no help of nature so much as memory, for the understanding conveyeth the cases to the treasury, out of which it draweth them as often as use and opportunity doth demand. But if the understanding be good, and the memory nought, a man shall be a a lawyer to-day and none to-morrow. Wherefore in this part the student must excel, and that he may excel, he must labour, and that he may labour, he must have health, which I wish unto him. CHAP. VI. THAT THE UNDERSTANDING OF THE STUDENT OUGHT TO BE PROPORTIONABLE TO THE INTENDMENT OF THE LAW. THE law considereth things according to public respect, that is, as much as concerneth the common-weal, not according to their contingency in facto, which is every man's object, and familiar to common sense, and therefore needeth not any artificial handling; and the student's understanding must be so sequestered and refined from vulgar opinion, being the mother of error, and measuring things only by the skin and colour, that he must comprehend and conclude many things, which are very remote from the reach of the senses, and from ordinary apprehension; in which contemplation the common law of this realm of England, above all others, doth shew wonderful sharpness, and a most exquisite conceit, subtilizing things whereof common sense hath but a confused knowledge, being guided by the principal reason and inseparable truth of every thing, which the understanding straineth out of the secret and hidden causes of things; for as in herbs, if we touch them outwardly, we do not find nor feel any moisture in them, but rather take them to be dry, until by pressing or distilling of them, we wring out a juice proper to their nature. So the law doth conceive and conclude many things of ordinary contingents, which common sense cannot perceive, but rather imagineth them to be clean contrary to the truth, whereas they may, to a good understanding, easily appear to be true by the certainty and necessary co-ordination of their causes and reasons, that this may be made evident I mean to annex some particulars for the explaining thereof. 1. It is clear by law, that a term and a freehold of the self same thing may be both in one man at one time, yet if this be delivered to a superficial understanding, it will seem a paradox. Tenant for term of years maketh his executors and dieth, the executors purchaseth the reversion, in this case both the term and fee-simple are in the, executor to several purposes: for the term shall be assets to the use of the testator, and the fee-simple free inheritance for the use of the executor and his heirs *. And if a man be seised of land of an estate for life, the remainder to his executors for years, he may devise this term or assign itt. And if lessce for years grant his term to the wife of him in the reversion, and to a stranger, the inheritance of the husband cannot extinguish the moiety of the term; because he hath the inheritance in his own right, and the term in right of his wife. A man seised of land in right of his wife is attainted of felony, and the * 43 E. 3. 27. & Br. cases. +16 E. 2. per Herle, Covenants 25. 14. El. 416. Com. Bracebridge's case. |