The title for the 1621 edition is here given, that being the edition in the 1831 catalogue, though the book is not there credited
to the Jefferson Collection. Jefferson’s manuscript catalogue calls for two editions as above. The 1815 catalogue lists only one without particulars as to date or imprint. The entry is
checked in the working copy of the catalogue, denoting that the book had been received. Although the entry does not appear
on any of the lists of missing books made at that time, no copy is credited to the Jefferson Collection in the later catalogues,
and none of the various editions in the Library of Congress shows any sign of Jefferson provenance. It is not clear therefore
which edition was sold to Congress with the Jefferson Collection.
John Perkins, d. 1545, English jurist. The first Latin edition of this work appeared in 1528.
[1779]
15
Le tenures de Mons
r. Littleton.
p.f.
1815 Catalogue, page 77. no. 5, Les tenures de Monsr. Littleton, 24s.
LITTLETON,
Sir Thomas.
Les tenures de Monsieur Littleton . . .
London: imprinted for the Company of Stationers. Cum priuilegio.
1621.
Sm. 8vo. 192 leaves including the last blank.
STC 15758.
Sweet & Maxwell I, 293, 90.
Sir Thomas Littleton, 1422-1481, English judge and legal writer. This work, which formed the first part of Coke’s
Institutes
, was originally published in folio by Lettou and Machlinia, London, c. 1481.
[1780]
16
Coke’s 1
st. inst.
fol.
[
11th &
12th
] edñ.
1815 Catalogue, page 75. no. 172, Coke’s 1st institute, fol.
COKE,
Sir Edward.
The First Part of the Institvtes of the Lawes of England: or a Commentary upon Littleton, not the name of the author only,
but of the law it selfe . . . Authore Edw. Coke Milite. The
fourth edition, corrected.
London: Printed by
M. F. [Miles Flesher],
I. H. [John Haviland] and
R. Y. Assignes of
J. More Esquire, Anno
1639.
Law
Folio. 432 leaves in sixes, 1 folded table, engraved portrait frontispiece by I. Payne, title within a woodcut border (McKerrow and Ferguson 283).
STC 15786.
Lowndes I, 489.
Sweet & Maxwell I, 286, 12.
This edition is entered on Jefferson’s undated catalogue, with the price:
Coke Littleton, 4
th. edñ. fol.
3/.
The dated catalogue called originally for the 6th edition, crossed out and the 11th and 12th substituted. The book is marked missing in the working
copy of the 1815 catalogue and is included in the manuscript list of missing books made at a later date. The entry was dropped
from the later catalogues.
Copies of all these editions are in the Library of Congress but none is from the Jefferson collection.
Coke’s Institutes are in four parts: the first,
Coke on Littleton is a reprint of Littleton’s
Tenures
, with a translation and commentary; the second contains the text of various statutes from Magna Carta to the time of James
I, with a full exposition; the third is on criminal laws, and the fourth on the jurisdiction of the different courts of law.
Jefferson’s opinion of Coke, given when a law student at the age of nineteen, is found in a letter to John Page written from
Fairfield on December 25, 1762. After describing to Page how his picture of Rebecca Burwell came to be destroyed, he continued:
“
. . . And now although the picture be defaced there is so lively an image of her imprinted in my mind that I shall think of
her too often I fear for my peace of mind, and too often I am sure to get through old Cooke this winter: for God knows I have
not seen him since I packed him up in my trunk in Williamsburgh. Well, Page, I do wish the Devil had old Cooke, for I am sure
I never was so tired of an old dull scoundrel in my life . . .
”
Many years later, on January 16, 1814, Jefferson, in the previously quoted letter to Thomas Cooper, after commenting on Bracton
wrote: “
. . . the statutes which introduced changes began now ”
