ding to
the letter, the other more largely and beneficially after their intendment
and meaning.

The Common Law standeth upon sundry maxims or principles and years or
terms, which do contain such cases as (by great study and solemn argument
of the judges, sound practice confirmed by long experience, fetched even
from the course of most ancient laws made far before the Conquest, and
thereto the deepest reach and foundations of reason) are ruled and
adjudged for law. Certes these cases are otherwise called _pleas_ or
_action_, whereof there are two sorts, the one criminal and the other
civil. The means and messengers also to determine those causes are our
_writs_ or _briefs_, whereof there are some original and some judicial.
The parties _plaintiff_ and _defendant_, when they appear, proceed (if the
case do so require) by _plaint_ or _declaration_, _bar_ or _answer_,
_replication_, _rejoinder_, and so by _rebut_, _surrebut_, to _issue_ and
_trial_, if occasion so fall out, the one side affirmatively, the other
negatively, as common experience teacheth. Our trials and recoveries are
either by _verdict_ and _demur_, _confession_ or _default_, wherein if any
negligence or trespass hath been committed, either in process and form,
or in matter and judgment, the party aggrieved may have a _writ of error_
to undo the same, but not in the same court where the former judgment was
given.

Customary Law consisteth of certain laudable customs used in some private
country, intended first to begin upon good and reasonable considerations,
as _gavelkind_, which is all the male children equally to inherit, and
continued to this day in Kent, where it is only to my knowledge retained,
and nowhere else in England. It was at the first devised by the Romans, as
appeareth by Caesar in his _Commentaries_, wherein I find that, to break
and daunt the force of the rebellious Germans, they made a law that all
the male children (or females for want of males, which holdeth still in
England) should have their father's inheritance equally divided amongst
them. By this means also it came to pass that, whereas before time for the
space of sixty years they had put the Romans to great and manifold
troubles, within the space of thirty years after this law was made their
power did wax so feeble and such discord fell out amongst themselves that
they were not able to maintain wars with the Romans nor raise any just
army against them. For, as a river running wi