PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

THE object aimed at in the following work has been solely to illustrate the language of the law, and, with this view, its plan has been purposely confined to the exposition of words and phrases only, to the exclusion of much of the matter contained in most of law dictionaries now in use. In this respect, the example of the older lexicographers, such as Cowell and Spelman, has been followed, in preference to that of writers of more modern date.

The "Interpreter" of Cowell, the earliest systematic English work of the kind, possesses also the merit of being the basis of the best English law dictionaries which have been given to the public. The unsparing use, indeed, made of this author (frequently without acknowledgment) by those who have followed him, has justified to the letter the strong expression of Spelman,*—à plagiario nequiter devoratus. The "Nomo-Lexicon" of Blount is little more than a re-print of the Interpreter, (with, however, some valuable corrections,) and a very large portion of the Dictionary of Jacob has obviously been derived from the same source. The last named author seems to have been the first to introduce the practice of superadding to the definition and exposition of the terms of the law, summaries of the law itself, under the titles indicated by the terms explained; a practice which, though tending to give to dictionaries the form and bulk of cyclopædias, has been followed in several modern works of merit and authority.

The exclusion of this superadded matter from the plan of the present work, (as already mentioned,) has left room for more fully presenting the explanations which it is intended to convey, and which are given, it will be seen, through the double medium of definition and translation. In other words, it will be found to unite the qualities of a Dictionary and Glossary indicated in its title;-a combination which has enabled the author to present not only the ordinary terms of the law, but those also of rarer occurrence, those which are chiefly used for the purpose of illustration, and those which exclusively belong to the ancient law and to foreign systems. In both these aspects, its plan will now be more particularly explained.

As a Dictionary, it is devoted to the definition of law terms, including not only technical terms, or "words of art," properly so called, but also ordinary words which have been used in technical senses, or which have been made the subjects of judicial or legislative construction or definition.

As a Glossary, it is devoted to the translation and explanation of such law terms and phrases as are either partially or entirely obsolete, of terms belonging to foreign systems of law, of ordinary words occurring in old law writers, and of that great variety of entire and fragmentary phrases in various languages, (principally Law Latin and Law French, but occasionally Greek, Saxon, and the modern languages,) which are to be met with in the ancient and modern books: consisting of Law Maxims, quotations from old authors having the force of maxims, occasional lines or couplets in verse, detached portions of sentences, and initial or emphatic words of old writs, statutes and judicial formulæ.

The terms and phrases, thus defined and explained, comprise those of the common, civil, canon, and feudal law, the principal codes of the middle ages, the law of nations,

* Glossar. in præf.

the general maritime law of Europe and America, and the ancient and modern municipal law of Scotland, France and Spain, together with such as may be considered peculiar to the jurisprudence of the United States.

I. As a Dictionary, the work, as already observed, is exclusively devoted to definition; the matter being arranged in the following order: First, the word to be defined is given in its ordinary form, with such varieties in orthography as have been noticed, and followed by an abbreviation indicative of the language to which it belongs. Next are given, in brackets, the equivalent words, if any, of the old law, which are generally in Law Latin or Law French; and the composition or etymology of the word, according to the best authorities. To this succeeds a notice of the department of law to which the word belongs, briefly expressed; as, "In the civil law," "In English law," "In maritime law," "In criminal law," &c., according to the case; and where a term or proceeding is no longer in use, it is distinguished as being "In old English law," "In old practice," &c. After these preliminary explanations, the definitions follow. These have been either literally extracted, or made up from the best sources within the author's reach, and are illustrated, in most cases, by examples and quotations. Where a term has received various definitions from writers of authority, a selection has generally been made of the one which was deemed the best, but in the case of leading or important words, all the definitions which have been examined are given at length. In a few instances, new definitions are submitted, which are distinguished either by an asterisk at the end, or by the absence of any reference. Where a term has several significations, care has been taken to give all that could be collected, with the proper references; and the same is done where a word has been used in different senses, at different periods of time.

It has sometimes happened that no mere definition, however carefully expressed, would suffice to convey the full meaning of the term or phrase under consideration. In such cases, resort has been had to the aids of what may be called descriptive definition, and of illustration by example; the utility of which, it is believed, will be apparent. In addition to these, however, illustrations of a still more extended kind have occasionally been subjoined, somewhat on the plan of the "Diatribe" of Spelman; and as these supplementary notices constitute one of the peculiarities of the work, the objects and uses of them will now be briefly explained. With a view to greater distinctness, they are separated from the other matter by a very obvious mark, and are chiefly occupied with the following subjects: etymology-history of the introduction of terms and of the changes they have undergone in meaning-and critical observations on the definitions given.

The abuses to which etymology has at times been subjected, have contributed to give that branch of legal philology a much lower place in general estimation than it once enjoyed. Hence the comparatively slight attention paid to it in the modern law dictionaries, as contrasted with the laborious researches of Spelman, Calvin, and other early lexicographers. Its obvious value, however, in throwing light upon the meaning of language, cannot be obscured by any mere mistakes of judgment in its application. The failures of some of the great Roman jurists, as well as of Lord Coke and other eminent common lawyers, in matters of verbal derivation, seem to have arisen partly from a desire to accommodate the etymology of words to what, it was supposed, ought to be their meaning, and partly from an undue extension of the process of analysis itself, simple words being often needlessly, sometimes absurdly, separated into what were imagined to be, or to have been their component parts. Another source of error in etymology seems to have been, the neglect to treat it in a historical light. It is not enough to pursue a word back to its remotest literal elements, without reference to its legal use and application as fixed by time. The true legal elements of a word often lie at a much lower point in this scale than is generally supposed, and beyond this point there is no advantage, nay, often actual confusion and error, in tracing them. It is easy, for instance, to refer libel, (a defamatory publication,) to the Latin libellus, (a little book,) its undoubted origin as a mere word, but this throws no light on the essential meaning of libel, as a term of law. To reach such meaning, we must descend to the lower period when libellus was used to express not so much the outward form of the material and the writing, as the object intended by it, and when certain of these libelli

had become distinguished, as a class, by an epithet (famosi,) peculiarly expressive of their character, and which became thereafter inseparably annexed to them. To find the period when the term libellus famosus first acquired a settled meaning, is to fix the origin of the modern word libel. Indeed, without this reference to time, and its important influence in modifying, changing, and sometimes even reversing the sense of words, the most accurate and unquestionable derivations lose all their value as illustrations of meaning. The significance of the radical ideas of such words as "adjourn" and "assets," cannot be appreciated without reference to the periods when they first appear to have been used. Mere speculation, in short, is of little value in etymology, unless verified by examples of the actual use of words at former periods, and the process, (laborious as it may be,) of tracing words upwards through ancient records and writers, always keeping in view the influences which have been mentioned, seems to be the only accurate means of reaching what may, with any confidence, be pronounced the elements of their composition.

II. As a Glossary, the following work is necessarily devoted, in a great degree, to translation; a large proportion of the phrases explained being taken either from the Latin of the civil law, or the Law Latin and Law French of the old common law. In translating, care has been taken to follow the originals as closely as the English idiom would permit. In many instances, freer translations have been added for the purpose of clearer illustration, but in no case substituted for the others. Whenever it was practicable, phrases of a fragmentary character have been restored to their places, as portions of the clauses or sentences to which they were found to belong, and the entire clauses or sentences have themselves been presented and translated for the purpose of more clearly explaining their use and application.

Law maxims, it will be seen, occupy a prominent place in this department. In the translations of these, particular attention has been paid to accuracy, and errors and misconceptions of other translators have occasionally been pointed out. Short illustrations of their use have generally been given by examples and quotations from eminent writers and judges; and the maxims themselves have been traced, whenever practicable, to their sources in the old common law writers, or in the civil law.

A Glossary of names of places, and another of surnames will be found at the end of the work. These have been taken from the dictionaries of Cowell and Blount, with such corrections as appeared necessary, and with such additions as the limited time of the author would permit.

III. The principal authorities which have been followed or consulted in the preparation of this work are the Interpreter of Cowell and the Glossary of Spelman. Both these, indeed, may be said to constitute its basis; the latter, also, (which it were superfluous to commend,) being generally adopted as a model. The old Law French work entitled "Termes de la Ley," and the Dictionaries of Jacob, Tomlins, Whishaw, Holthouse and Wharton, with the American Dictionary of Bouvier, and the general Dictionaries of Webster and Richardson have also been referred to. A large number of new illustrations and many additional terms and phrases have been obtained from the civil law, and the best sources of English and American jurisprudence, including the well-known treatises of Bracton, Britton, Littleton, Coke, Blackstone, Wooddesson, Chitty, Stephen, Kent and Story, besides the principal common law and equity Reports.

Among the more ancient of the treatises just named, that of Bracton has been quoted with perhaps the greatest frequency. No apology is believed to be necessary for this, considering the important bearing of that great work upon the theory and practice of English jurisprudence ever since it was written. A large proportion of the Latin quotations scattered through the old books, (particularly the Reports and Institutes of Sir Edward Coke,) is taken directly or indirectly from Bracton's treatise, and several important maxims of English and American law, with many technical terms still in use, may be traced to the same source. A peculiar interest, moreover, attaches to this writer, from the circumstance that his is not only the first systematic law treatise of magnitude ever written in England, but was written at a time when the common law itself was in process of formation, and constitutes a principal channel through which many rules of the civil law, accompanied by more or less of its language, were engrafted upon the native jurisprudence.

Frequent reference has also been made to the early contemporary treatise of Britton, chiefly for illustrations of the meaning of terms and phrases in early law French, but occasionally, also, as throwing valuable light upon the sense of passages or single words in Bracton. The works of these two writers, indeed, may be said to represent respectively the Latin and French of the periods at which they were written, and are chiefly relied on as authorities for that purpose. The Latin of later periods has been illustrated by references to the Register, to the principal statutes and treatises composed in that language, and to the old reports and books of practice; the French, by references to the old French statutes, to the Year Books and later reports, and to the treatises of Littleton and other writers. The Norman Dictionary of Kelham has also been consulted, but the barbarous or corrupt forms of most of the terms given in that work, the occurrence of known typographical errors in some cases, and the general absence of reference to authority (which might furnish a ready means of correction) have prevented any very extensive use of its contents. The utility of the last named publication, it may be observed, would have been greatly enhanced, had the words it contains been accompanied in all cases by explicit references to the sources from which they were taken.

The Civil Law has contributed, it will be seen, a considerable proportion of the terms and phrases translated and explained in the course of this work. Most of these have been directly taken from the Institutes, Code, Digests, and Novels of Justinian; and the passages in which they occur have generally been quoted and translated as furnishing the best explanations of their meaning and application. Additional illustrations have been derived from the writings of the civilians and among these, the elementary works of Heineccius and Mackeldey, and the valuable Analysis of Hallifax have been most frequently referred to. A variety of definitions have also been extracted from the standard lexicons of Calvin, (who is mentioned by Cowell* in terms of peculiar commendation,) Prateus, Spiegelius, Oldendorpius, and others. These civil law terms do not appear to have been hitherto presented, to any extent, in any English law dictionary. A few are to be met with in Cowell, next to none in Spelman, and those which are given in later works are taken rather from the modern civil law, than the original collections of Justinian. From the constant reference made to the latter, however, in all the modern systems, as well as in American jurisprudence, their peculiar terms, as expressed in the original languages, have been thought to be of sufficient general importance to justify the particular attention which has been bestowed upon them. A number of important law maxims have also been quoted from the same sources, which are not to be found in the maxim books now in general use.

Next to the law of England, from which our own has been so extensively derived, that of Scotland is perhaps the most important to an English or American student, considered with reference to the terminology of the science. A marked peculiarity of this law, especially in its older periods, is its close adherence to the Latin in the forms of its technical terms, many of which are essentially Latin, the termination only being slightly varied; e. g. caution, cedent, decedent, decern, decreet, dispone, excambion, lucrative, successor, terce, transumpt, vitious, intromission, &c. The same law is valuable, also, from having preserved the meaning of several Saxon words and feudal terms which cannot be satisfactorily traced through the English books. These considerations will account for the particular attention paid to Scotch law terms in the following pages.

Throughout the work, it has been deemed an important part of the explanations given, to distinguish as accurately as possible between such terms and phrases as are still in use, and those which have become partially or entirely obsolete; and the same object has been kept in view in regard to such rules of law and practical proceedings as have been introduced or referred to, in the way of illustration. The proper distinction, in these cases, has been expressed either by the brief preliminary designation of the term, phrase or proceeding, as one "In old law," "In old practice," &c., or by compendiously noticing at the end of the definition or description, the changes by which proceedings have been abolished, laws repealed, or rules or customs abrogated. The Commentaries of Blackstone, in particular, have been compared throughout with

the valuable "New Commentaries" of Mr. Serjeant Stephen, by which they have been more closely accommodated to the present state of the law in England.

In adapting the work to the uses of American readers and students, care has been taken to introduce such matter as appeared to be of the most general and permanent interest and value. To keep accurately in view the terminology applicable to the jurisprudence of each particular State, especially in its dependence on the changes now so frequent and sudden in State legislation, would seem to be scarcely attainable by any degree of attention or industry that could be devoted to the subject. The difficulties attending definition as fixed by local statute law, arising from the entire absence of any common standard, have recently been placed in a strong light by an eminent American judge.* The definitions given in the standard treatises, and in the opinions of the bench, partake of a much greater degree of uniformity, and for this reason they have been more generally quoted and relied on.

With this prefatory notice of its plan and purpose, the work is now submitted to the examination of the profession. That its execution has fallen far short of its design, is already but too apparent to the author's own observation. Of the defects that may be discovered in its pages, some seem to be inseparable from the task of first compiling any matter of the kind from sources so numerous, and scattered over so wide a field. But it is hoped that neither these nor such as may be fairly chargeable to want of judgment, care or information, will be found seriously to impair its general utility, or occasion regret for the time and labor devoted to its composition.

New-York, Dec. 31st, 1850.

Mr. Justice Catron, in Nelson v. Carland, 1 Howard's R. 265, 271.