The Booke Called, The Mirrour of Justices: Made by Andrew Horne..

1646. First English-Language Edition of Horne's Mirrour of Justices Horne, Andrew [d.1328]. H[ughes], W[illiam], Translator. [Fitzherbert, Anthony (1470-1538)]. The Booke Called, The Mirrour of Justices: Made by Andrew Horne. With the Book, Called, The Diversity of Courts, And Their Jurisdictions. Both Translated Out of the Old French into the English Tongue. London: Matthew Walbancke, 1646. [xxxii], 288, 287-325, [9] pp. First leaf blank. Octavo (5-1/4" x 3-1/4"). Contemporary speckled sheep, blind rules to boards, blind fillets and (later?) lettering piece to spine, blind rules to board edges, edges of text block rouged, hand-lettered annotation ("Lawe") to its fore-edge. Faint staining and a few shallow scuffs to boards, light rubbing to extremities, foot of spine and bottom-edge of front board repaired, chipping to head of spine, vertical crack to lettering piece, corners bumped and lightly worn, front hinge mended with tissue, rear hinge starting before free endpaper, later bookplate (of Dr. and Mrs. H.R. Knohl) to front pastedown. Light toning to interior, small spots to a few leaves. $1,500. * First edition in English and the second edition overall. Written in about 1290, The Mirrour of Justices became an authority in the latter part of the sixteenth century when English lawyers began to look to Glanville, Bracton, and Britton as guides to put the common law into a more logical arrangement. It was not a reliable source, however. As Maitland observed, it is "the work of one profoundly dissatisfied with the administration of the law by the king's judges. As against this he appeals to myths and legends about the law of King Alfred's day and the like, some of which myths and legends were perhaps traditional, while others were deliberately concocted. Intelligently read it is very instructive; but the intelligent reader will often infer that the law is exactly the opposite of what the writer represents it to be." Mirrour was first published in Law-French in 1642. The Diversity of Courts is by Fitzherbert. Maitland, Collected Papers II:46. English Short-Title Catalogue R23979.