is case, according to the rules prescribed by these authorities, has
done what an ordinary would have done, in such case, then we should
adjudge it good, otherwise not.' To decide this question, they would
have to turn to the ancient writings and records of the canon law,
in which they would find evidence of the laws of advowsons, _quare
impedit_, the duties of bishops and ordinaries, for which terms Prisot
could never have meant to refer them to the Old or New Testament, _les
saincts scriptures_, where surely they would not be found. A license
which should permit 'ancien scripture' to be translated 'holy
scripture,' annihilates at once all the evidence of language. With such
a license, we might reverse the sixth commandment into 'Thou shalt not
omit murder.' It would be the more extraordinary in this case, where
the mistranslation was to effect the adoption of the whole code of the
Jewish and Christian laws into the text of our statutes, to convert
religious offences into temporal crimes, to make the breach of every
religious precept a subject of indictment, submit the question of
idolatry, for example, to the trial of a jury, and to a court, its
punishment, to the third and fourth generation of the offender. Do we
allow to our judges this lumping legislation?

The term 'common law,' although it has more than one meaning, is
perfectly definite, _secundum subjectam materiem_. Its most probable
origin was on the conquest of the Heptarchy by Alfred, and the
amalgamation of their several codes of law into one, which became
common to them all. The authentic text of these enactments has not been
preserved; but their substance has been committed to many ancient
books and writings, so faithfully as to have been deemed genuine from
generation to generation, and obeyed as such by all. We have some
fragments of them collected by Lambard, Wilkins, and others, but
abounding with proofs of their spurious authenticity. Magna Charta
is the earliest statute, the text of which has come down to us in an
authentic form, and thence downward we have them entire. We do not know
exactly when the common law and statute law, the _lex scripta et non
scripta_, began to be contra-distinguished, so as to give a second
acceptation to the former term; whether before or after Prisot's day, at
which time we know that nearly two centuries and a half of statutes were
in preservation. In later times, on the introduction of the chancery
branch of law, the