money, otherwise: if it be proved it is avoidable; if for money recited and not paid, it is void: and yet in the case of a man of full age the recital sufficeth.

If baron and feme be seised in the right of the feme, or by joint purchase during the coverture, and they join in a fine, the baron cannot declare the use for longer time than the coverture, and the feme cannot declare alone; but the use goeth, according to the limitation of law, unto the feme and her heirs; but they may both join in declaration of the use in fee; and if they sever, then it is good for so much of the inheritance, as they concurred in; for the law avoucheth all one as if they joined: as if the baron declare an use to I. S. and his heirs, and the feme another to I. D. for life, and then to I. S. and his heirs, the use is good to I. S. in fee.

And if upon examination the feme will declare the use to the judge, and her husband agree not to it, it is void, and the baron's use is only good; the rest of the use goeth according to the limitation of law.

To my loving Friends and Fellows,

THE

READERS, ANCIENTS,

UTTER-BARRISTERS, AND STUDENTS,

OF

GRAY'S-INN.

I Do not hold the law of England in so mean an account, but that which other laws are held worthy of, should be due likewise to our laws, as no less worthy for our state. Therefore when I found that not only in the ancient times, but now at this day, in France, Italy, and other nations, the speeches, and, as they term them, pleadings, which have been made in judicial cases, where the cases were mighty and famous, have been set down by those that made them, and published; so that not only a Cicero, a Demosthenes, or an Eschines, hath set forth his Orations, as well in the judicial as deliberative; but a Marrian and a Pavier have done the like by their pleadings; I know no reason why the same should not be brought in use by the professors of our law for their arguments in principal cases. And this I think the more necessary, because the compendious form of reporting resolutions, with the substance of the reasons, lately used by Sir Edward Coke, lord Chief Justice of the King's bench, doth not delineate or trace out to the young practisers of law a method and form of argument for them to imitate. It is true I could have wished some abler person had begun; but it is a kind of order sometimes to begin with the meanest. Nevertheless thus much I may say with modesty, that these arguments which I have set forth, most of them, are upon subjects not vulgar; and therewithal, in regard of the commixture, which the course of my life hath made of law with other studies, they may have the more va

riety, and perhaps the more depth of reason: for the reasons of municipal laws, severed from the grounds of nature, manners, and policy, are like wall flowers, which though they grow high upon the crests of states, yet they have no deep root: besides, in all public services I ever valued my reputation more than my pains; and therefore in weighty causes I always used extraordinary diligence; in all which respects I persuade myself the reading of them will not be unprofitable. This work I knew not to whom to dedicate, rather than to the Society of GRAY'S-INN, the place whence my father was called to the highest place of justice, and where myself have lived and had my procedure so far, as by his Majesty's rare if not singular grace, to be of both his councils: and therefore few men, so bound to their societies by obligation, both ancestral and personal, as I am to yours; which I would gladly acknowledge not only in having your name joined with mine own in a book, but in any other good office and effect which the active part of my life and place may enable me unto toward the Society, or any of you in particular. And so I bid you right heartily farewel.

Your assured loving friend and fellow,

FRANCIS BACON.

THE case needs neither repeating nor opening. The point is in substance but one, familiar to be put, but difficult to be resolved; that is, Whether, upon a lease without impeachment of waste, the property of the timber-trees, after severance, be not in him that is owner of the inheritance?

The case is of great weight, and the question of great difficulty: weighty it must needs be, for that it doth concern, or may concern, all the lands in England; and difficult it must be, because this question sails in confluentiis aquarum, in the meeting or strife of two great tides. For there is a strong current of practice and opinion on the one side, and there is a more strong current, as I conceive, of authorities, both ancient and late, on the other side. And therefore, according to the reverend custom of the realm, it is brought now to this assembly; and it is high time the question receive an end, the law a rule, and mens conveyances a direction.

This doubt ariseth and resteth upon two things to be considered; first, to consider of the interest and property of a timber-tree, to whom it belongeth: and secondly, to consider of the construction and operation of these words or clause, absque impetitione vasti: for within these two branches will aptly fall whatsoever can be pertinently spoken in this question, without obscuring the question by any other curious division.