COK has been done him by the publishers of his orphan labours. The author confesses that in this work (4 Inst.) he amassed together every thing that seemed never so remotely to belong to any of the heads under which he had first ranked the whole of his matter ; so that, if there be some repetitions and tautologies, 'tis but what usually happens in the prime draughts of all common-place books. His great age, when he came to lick these papers over for the press, would not admit of nicety and exactness," William Prynne wrote a /0//0 of Brief animadversions upon the IVth Institute, in which he charges Lord Coke with piracy and numberless errors ; but the virulence and spleen manifested in his criticisms, and his disposition to magnify trifles, detracts very much from the value of his animadversions. Many of the mistakes of reference and misquotations in the folio editions of the last three Institutes, were corrected in the octavo editions. Nic. Eng. Hist. Lib, 74 ; Woolrych's Life of Co. 228 ; Gilbert's Com. PI. 4 n. ; Kelyng, 21 ; 3 Durn. & E. 348 ; Ram on Leg. Judg. 84. COKE, SIR EDWARD. Reports in 13 Parts, from the Uth Eiiz. to 13th Jac. I. A new edition, with abstracts of the prin- cipal points, and with additional Notes and References, including the Observations of Lord EUesmere, and the MS. Notes in the copy of the late Serjeant Hill. Tiie first three Parts and the fourth, to folio 38 a, by J. H. Thomas ; the rest of the fourth and remaining nine Parts, by J. F. Eraser. 6 vols. 8vo. London. 1826. The first XI. Parts of these Reports were published separately in French, between 1600 and 1616. Again printed in 1658, in English, without the Pleadings, which were separately published. The Xllth and Xlllth Parts appeared in 1677. 1680 a new English edition, with tables. In 1697, a finely printed French edition was published, with marginal references, by Edward Chilton. 1727, the XIII. Parts were printed in 7 vols., 8vo., with the Pleadings in Latin, and in 1738 the same edition was reprinted with the Pleadings in English. In 17G2, 2 vols., folio, the XI. Parts were published in French, and in 1777, in 7 vols., 8vo., an edition was published edited by George Wilson, with references to all the books of the Common Law, the Pleadings in Eng- lish, and many additional notes and references. Lord Coke's Reports retain a position among modern legal publica- tions that few of the elder Reports possess. Although some of the decisions that they contain have become obsolete, although others have been greatly modified by the revolutions which jurisprudence has under- gone for two and a half centuries, yet, many of them are leading cases that are now studied by those who ascend to the fountains of legal principles. 14 209
