The liberty to hold pleas (tenere placita) is to have a court of one's own, and to hold it before a mayor, bailiff, &c., in such a place according to the course of the common law. (C. Finch, 166, 1 Inst., 114 b., 2 Inst., 71, 4 Inst., 87, 224, 2 Danv. abr., 161.)

BASSANIO. "In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt

But, being seasoned with a gracious voice,

Obscures the show of evil."

Plea denotes what either party in a court alleges in a cause depending there; and plea or pleading, in a more extensive sense, comprehends all the points or matters that follow the declaration, both on the defendant's and plaintiffs side, till issue be joined; though a plea in its ordinary acceptation signifies the defendant's answer to the plaintiff's declaration.

TIMON.

"Crack the lawyer's voice

That he may never more false title plead,

Nor sound his quillets shrilly."

Timon of Athens, Act 4, Scene 3.

HOLOFERNES. "Most barbarous intimation! yet a kind of insinuation, as it were, in via, in way of explication; facere, as it were replication."

Love's Labour Lost, Act 4, Scene 2. HAMLET. "What replication should be made by the son of a king?"

Replication (replication) is an exception of the second degree made by the plaintiff upon the answer of the defendant.

DON JOHN. "Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats."

Much Ado About Nothing, Act 2, Scene 2. When the parties by plea, replication, rejoinder, &c., are come to something affirmed by one, and denied by the

other, they are at issue. Issue (from issuer, emanare, to flow, exitus) is a single certain and material point issuing out of the allegations and pleas of the plaintiff and defendant, consisting regularly of an affirmative and negative, to be tried by twelve men.-1 Inst., 126 a 11, Rep. 10, Finch, Book 4, ch. 35.

"Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,

How to divide the conquest of the sight;

Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar,
My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.
My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,
(A closet never pierc'd with crystal eyes,)
But the defendant doth that plea deny,

And says in him thy fair appearance lies.
To 'cide this title is impanelled

A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart;

And by their verdict is determined

The clear eye's moiety, and the dear heart's part :

As thus; mine eye's due is thine outward part,

And my heart's right, thine inward love of heart.

6

Sonnet xlvi.

'To 'cide,' to decide. A quest of thoughts,' an inquest or jury. The process to bring in the jury in the Common Pleas is by venire facias and Habeas Corpora Juratorum. A Distringas juratorum goes out of the King's Bench to the same intent. Upon this writ of venire the sheriff shall return a jury in a panel, a little piece of parchment, annexed to the writ; on which account the jury is said to be impanelled.-Wood's Inst., 2nd ed., p. 590.

HAMLET.

"For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns

D

That patient merit from the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin."

Act 3, Scene 1.

Quietus, is the same as to say freed or acquitted, and is used by the Clerk of the Pipe, and auditors in the Exchequer, in their discharges given to the accountants, which usually conclude with these words, Abinde recessit quietus, generally termed a Quietus est. There is a Roll in the Exchequer called the Pipe, otherwise the Great Roll. The Clerk of the Pipe is one in whose custody are conveyed, out of the offices of the King's and Treasurer's Remembrances, &c., (as water through a pipe into a cistern,) all accounts and debts due to the king; so as whatsoever is in charge in this Roll, or Pipe, is said in the law to be duly charged. (See Cowel's Interpreter v. Clerk of the Pipe.) The Controller of the Pipe is the Chancellor of the Exchequer.Wood's Inst., 2nd edition, p. 470.

DAVY. "Those precepts cannot be served."

Henry IV., Act 5, Scene 1. Precepts here signify commandments, in writing, issued out by a justice of the peace, &c., for bringing a person or records before him.

FALSTAFF. "Was it for me to kill the heir apparent.

Merry Wives of Windsor, Act 2, Scene 4.

Heirs apparent are such whose right of inheritance is indefeasible, provided they outlive the ancestor; as the eldest son, who must by the course of the common law be heir apparent to the father whenever he happens to die; and Falstaff refers to Prince Henry, who was the heir apparent to the king, his father.

FALSTAFF. "Go, hang thyself in thine own heir apparent garters." First Par Henry IV., Act 2, Scene 2.

CLEON.

KING.

HASTINGS.

"One sorrow never comes, but brings an heir,
That may succeed as his inheritor."

Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Act 1, Scene 4. "When sorrows come they come not single spies, But in battalions !"

Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 5.

Richard III., Act 3, Scene 2.

"To bar my master's heirs in true descent."

"So now I have confess'd that he is thine,
And I myself am mortgag'd to thy will;
Myself I'll forfeit, so that other mine

Thou wilt restore, to be my comfort still :
But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,
For thou art covetous, and he is kind;
He learn'd but, surety-like, to write for me,
Under that bond that him as fast doth bind.
The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,
Thou usurer, that putt'st forth all to use,
And sue a friend, came debtor for my sake;
So him I lose through my unkind abuse.
Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me;
He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.

Sonnet cxxxiv.

"The statute of thy beauty," "The bond or obligation of thy beauty." Statutes merchant and statutes staple have been explained.

LADY MACBETH. "What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account."

LEAR. "No, they cannot touch me for coining;

Act 5, Scene 1.

I am the king himself."

King Lear, Act 4, Scene 6.

GONERIL. "Say, if I do; the laws are mine, not thine;

Who shall arraign me for 't."

King Lear, Act 5, Scene 3.

Lady Macbeth, Lear, and Goneril seem to refer to the ancient and fundamental principal of the English Constitution, that the king can do no wrong. Rex non potest peccare.-2 Roll. R. 304; Jenk. Cent. 9, 308.

EGEUS. "I beg the ancient privilege of Athens.
As she is mine, I may dispose of her,

66

Which shall be either to this gentleman
Or to her death; according to our law,
Immediately provided in that case."

Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 1, Scene 1.

Contrary to the king, his crown, and dignity."

Henry VI., Act 4, Scene 6.

Contrary to the form of the statute in that case made and provided" is the allegation which concludes indictments for offences which are contrary to the statute; if the offence is indictable at common law, the concluding words are, "against the peace of our said lady the Queen, her crown, and dignity."

CADE. "All the realm shall be in common."

Second Part Henry VI., Act 4, Scene 2.

CADE. "Henceforward all things shall be in common."

Second Part Henry VI., Act 4, Scene 7.

KING. "Leartes, I must common with your grief,

Or you deny me right."

Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 5.

MARIA. "My lips are no common though several they be."

Love's Labour Lost, Act 1, Scene 1.

A common is unapportioned land; a several, land or an estate in severalty, is where an estate is held by one person in his own exclusive right, without any other person being interested therein. But several, or severell, in Shakespeare's native county, Warwick, signified, it is said, the common field, common to a few proprietors, but