A new institute of the imperial or, civil law. With notes shewing in some principal cases amongst other observations, how the common law, the laws of England, and the laws and customs of other nations differ from it. In four books. Composed for the use of some persons of quality. The third edition, corrected. By Tho. Wood, LL.D. Rector of Hardwick, Bucks, Commissary and Official of that archdeaconry. To which is added, as an introduction, a treatise of the first principles of laws in general; of their nature and design, and of the interpretation of them.

London: London: printed by W.B. for Richard Sare, at Gray's-Inn-Gate in Holborn. 1721., 1721. 3rd Edition . Leather. Very Good. Description: 8vo (8 × 5¼ in): t-p., 144, xvi, [8], 414, [10] p. (the last page contains ads). Contemporary polished calf, decorated in blind, morocco label. · Register: 8º: [pi]1 ^[pi]B-K^8 A^8 a^4 B-2D^8 2E^4. · Condition: Slight wear to head and tail of spine, but generally well-preserved; signed on the title-page "Dudley Hussey"; the preliminary treatise moderately browned and foxed. · Comments: Third edition, the last in the author's lifetime and the first to contain the "Treatise on the first principles of the law." In the main work, Wood describes the civil law on its own terms, according to the Insitutes of Justinian, and gives comparative notes on English law. The preliminary treatise is much more theoretical and synthetic. Wood was learned and industrious, but lacked literary genius; like his Institute of the Common Law, the main work dwells much on detail while neglecting broader principles. Perhaps the work prefixed to this edition was meant to answer that criticism. Despite his short-comings, Wood is credited with recognizing the contribution of the civil law to the form and content of the common law, without giving it undue primacy. Dudley Hussey was a lawyer active in Dublin in the second half of the eighteenth century; he was elected recorder (a judicial office) of that city in 1784 and died the following year. · References: Johnson 208 (3 copies); Worrall 66; Bridgman 368; Marvin 743; S&M 1:613(16); Holdsworth, HEL 12:425-427; ESTC T117075.