hundred miles in the train. So the reader gets no facsimiles of the manuscripts; he gets an index where he should have had a digest, perhaps a translation; the luxury of cancelling sheets instead of confessing some stupid blunders, has been denied me, and I am sure that there must be more to be learned about Bracton's life than I have been able to discover at this eleventh, nay thirteenth, hour I find what I believe to be his marks on a roll of King John's reign (Coram Rege Roll, No 18). But as his treatise had lately been edited at the expense of the nation, and as there was no learned society whose business it was to encourage the study of English legal history (for the Selden Society was not yet born nor even thought of), it seemed likely that the Note Book would remain unprinted for many years, unless some one would make such an edition of it as could be made at his own cost and without giving to it all his time. Perhaps I was not the man for the work; but I have liked it well. BROOKSIDE, CAMBRIDGE. F. W. M. b M. I. 21. Trinity, A.R. 2, A.D. 1218 3. Easter and Trinity, A.R. 3, A.D. 1219 Michaelmas, A.R. 3-4, A.D. 1219 5. Hilary and Easter, A.R. 4, A.D. 1220 |