efore when two sessions have been held in one year,
we usually mention stat. 1. or 2. Thus the bill of rights is cited, as
1 W. & M. st. 2. c. 2. signifying that it is the second chapter or
act, of the second statute or the laws made in the second sessions of
parliament, held in the first year of king William and queen Mary.]

FIRST, as to their several kinds. Statutes are either _general_ or
_special_, _public_ or _private_. A general or public act is an
universal rule, that regards the whole community; and of these the
courts of law are bound to take notice judicially and _ex officio_;
without the statute being particularly pleaded, or formally set forth
by the party who claims an advantage under it. Special or private acts
are rather exceptions than rules, being those which only operate upon
particular persons, and private concerns; such as the Romans intitled
_senatus-decreta_, in contradistinction to the _senatus-consulta_,
which regarded the whole community[d]: and of these the judges are not
bound to take notice, unless they be formally shewn and pleaded. Thus,
to shew the distinction, the statute 13 Eliz. c. 10. to prevent
spiritual persons from making leases for longer terms than twenty one
years, or three lives, is a public act; it being a rule prescribed to
the whole body of spiritual persons in the nation: but an act to
enable the bishop of Chester to make a lease to A.B. for sixty years,
is an exception to this rule; it concerns only the parties and the
bishop's successors; and is therefore a private act.

[Footnote d: Gravin. _Orig._ 1. Sec. 24.]

STATUTES also are either _declaratory_ of the common law, or
_remedial_ of some defects therein. Declaratory, where the old custom
of the kingdom is almost fallen into disuse, or become disputable; in
which case the parliament has thought proper, _in perpetuum rei
testimonium_, and for avoiding all doubts and difficulties, to declare
what the common law is and ever hath been. Thus the statute of
treasons, 25 Edw. III. cap. 2. doth not make any new species of
treasons; but only, for the benefit of the subject, declares and
enumerates those several kinds of offence, which before were treason
at the common law. Remedial statutes are those which are made to
supply such defects, and abridge such superfluities, in the common
law, as arise either from the general imperfection of all human laws,
from change of time and circumstances, from the mistakes and unadvised
de