a glorious victory gotten by a little offence. But all good laws were ever desirous of easy interpretation, when the matter itself was a burden: and it was well said of Gattinara to the emperor Charles V., " Chi vuole troppo abbracciare, va à pericolo di non strignere cosa alcuna ;" "He that strains the cord too hard, breaks it, and can bind nothing." "Periculosum est prægrave imperium: et difficile est continere quod capere non possis," said Curtius P. He that fills his hand too full, lets go more than he should. There is a measure in laws, which must not take in every thing, but let some things pass gently; fora government that is too heavy is dangerous: and therefore, without all peradventure, when the punishments are general, the least special ought to be taken. Thus gentlemen are not to be punished with the punishment of slaves and vagabonds. If bodily punishment by law be commanded, scourging is to be understood, or such as is in use in the nation, and not the cutting off a member, or putting to death, say the Greek lawyers 9. And there is no exception to this, but this only, that this is to be understood in lighter offences, not in greater; for in these it may be of as much concernment to justice that the severer part be taken, as it is to charity, that lighter offences should carry the lighter load. And therefore the Senat. Cons. Syllanianum decreed, that, if a slave had killed his lord, all the slaves in the house should die for it. It was a hard and a severe law; but it was a great crime, and by great examples the lives of masters were to be secured; and to this purpose C. Cassius the lawyer defended it with great reason, as is to be seen in his oration in Tacitus.

18. (3.) In matters of favour and matters of piety, the sense of the law is to be extended by interpretation. Things odious and correctory are called 'strictæ' in the law; and that which is favourable, is called 'res ampla;' because as the matter of that is to be made as little as it may be, so the matter of this may be enlarged. Thus if any thing be done in the favour of the children, the adoptive and the natural are included, when it is not to the prejudice of the legitimate. And that which is made legitimate, is to be reckoned as that, which is so ofitself; and he that is naturalized, is to be reckoned

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as a native; and a freedman, as he that was born free; and the privileges, granted to a city, are to be extended to the suburbs. But this rule is to be estimated as the former, there being the same reason of contraries, save only that there is, in the matters of favour, something of particular consideration. For although it is, by the former measures, set down who are the persons, and which are the causes to be favoured and eased; yet those persons are not in all cases to receive the advantage; that is, they are, in all cases, which the words of the law can bear, except that, by that favour, the whole process be evacuated, or the thing be lost. Therefore although the guilty person is favoured in all the methods and solemnities of law, where the law can proceed; yet where the favour would hinder the proceeding, the accuser and not the guilty person is to receive it. For the accuser hath the advantage of taking his oath in law, which the guilty person hath not; because the law supposes he will deny the fact, right or wrong. And thus we are also to proceed in our private intercourses of justice and charity, we are rather to believe the accuser swearing, than the accused. But if the accusation be not sworn, or if the guilty person be brought into judgment upon suspicion only, and a public fame, we are rather to believe: the accused swearing his innocence, than the voice of fame or uncertain accusers.

can alter it; and he that can cut off the hands, may certainly pare the nails: and since the legislative power never dies, and from this power the law hath its perpetual force, and can live no longer than he please,-by what method of law soever he signify his mind, whether it be by declaring the meaning of the law, or by abating the rigour of it, or dispensing in the case, or enlarging the favour, or restraining the severity; it is all one as to the event and obligation of conscience. The interpretation is to the law, as the echo to the voice; it comes from the same principle, and though it speaks less, yet it speaks oftener, and it speaks enough, so much as is then to be the measure of the conscience in good and evil.

2. For when the lawgiver does interpret his law, he does not take off the obligation of the law, but declares, that, in such a case, it was not intended to oblige. Tacitus tells of a Roman knight, who having sworn to his wife that he would never be divorced from her, was, by Tiberius, dispensed with, when he had taken her in the unchaste embraces of his sonin-law. The emperor then declared, that the knight had only obliged himself not to be divorced, unless a great cause should intervene. Thus we find that Pope Lucius III. did absolve them from their oath, that sware they would not speak to their father or mother, brother or sister, or show them any kindness: but this absolution quitted them not from the sin of a rash and impious oath, but declared that they were not bound to keep it. "Absolvit, i. e. absolutum ostendit';" as Pope Nicolas did, in the case of the Archbishop of Triers, he declared him to be at liberty; and the gloss" derives a warranty for this use of the word, out of the prophet Isaiah.

3. It was ill said of Brutus, that a prince might not be more severe, nor yet more gentle than the law. For there are many things, " quæ natura videntur honesta esse, temporibus sunt inhonesta," saith Cicero *, "which, at first sanction of the law and in their own nature, are honest, but in the change of times and by new relations, become unjust and intolerable:" and therefore the civil law allows to princes, a power "juvare, supplere, corrigere," "to help, to supply, to correct," the laws. For those are but precarious princes, who, when they see a case that needs a remedy, cannot command it; but like the tribunes of Rome, who, when they offered to intercede and interpose between Fabius and the sentence of Papyrius the dictator, by which Fabius was condemned, could effect nothing, till they went upon their knees in his behalf. But it is worse, that the laws of a nation should bind the prince, as Jupiter in Homer2 was bound by the laws of fate, so that he could not help his son Sarpedon, but sat weeping like a chidden girl. But of this I have already given sufficient accounts. The supreme power "dominus legum, canon animatus in terris, lex animata, fons justitiæ, supra jus dispensare potens," as Innocentius said of himself; and therefore of this there can be no question. "Inter æquitatem jusque interpositam interpretationem nobis solis et oportet, et licet inspicere," saith the emperor'; "The prince alone hath power to intervene between equity and strict law by his interpretation." This is now to be reduced to practice.

4. First, This power must be administered with nobleness and ingenuity; not fraudulently, or to oppress any one, which Cicero calls "calumniam, et nimis callidam, sed malitiosam juris interpretationem," "a crafty and malicious commentary." Such as was that act of Solyman, who after he had sworn never to take from Ibrahim Bassa his life, killed him when he was asleep, -because Talisman, the priest, declared that sleep is death. Thus the triumviri, in Rome, having a mind to kill a boy. which, by the force of law, they could not do, they gave him the 'toga virilis,' and forced him to be a man in estimation of law, that, by law, they might oppress him. And Mithridates, king of Armenia, thought himself secure, when Rhadamistus, the son of Pharasmanes the Iberian king, had promised he would neither stab nor poison him; but the young tyrant interpreted his promise maliciously, when he oppressed him with pillows and feather-beds. And all Europe hates the memory of the Archbishop of Mentz who, having promised to Atto Adel, a Palatine of Franconia, that he should safely return out of his castle, did indeed perform the letter of his word; but pretending kindness as well

as justice, when he had brought him forth out of the castle, passionately invited him to breakfast, and then killed him when he re-entered. The power of princes to give senses to their laws, must be to do justice and to give ease to the pitiable and oppressed.

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5. Secondly, This power is not to be administered but upon grave and just causes: for to be easy and forward in bending the laws by unnecessary interpretations, is but a diminution of justice, and a looseness in government; as was well observed by Livy d, speaking of those brave ages, in which the Roman honesty and justice were the beginning of the greatest empire in the world: "Sed nondum hæc, quæ nunc tenet seculum, negligentia divum venerat; nec interpretando sibi quisque jusjurandum et leges aptas faciebat, sed suos potius mores ad ea accommodabat;" "The neglect of the gods and the laws, was not gone so far as to bend the laws to the manners of men, but men measured their manners by the laws:"-and then no man can deny to a prince leave to derogate from his laws, by such interpretations. "Licet enim regi in civitate cui regnat, jubere aliquid quod neque ante illum quisquam, neque ipse unquam jusserat," saith St. Austin; "A king, in his own dominions, may command that, which neither any man before him, or himself before that time, commanded:" meaning, that although he must govern by his laws, yet, when there is a favourable case, he may give a new sense to them, that he may do his old duty by new measures. Thus Solomon absolved Abiathar from the sentence of death, which, by law, he had incurred,-because he had formerly done worthily to the interests of his father David. Thus when Cato, censor, had turned Lucius Quinctius Flaminius out of the senate, the majesty of the Roman people restored him; and though they had no cause to do it, yet they had power. Now this power, though it may be done by interpretation, yet when it is administered by the prince, it is most commonly by way of pardon, absolute power, and prerogative. Thus princes can restore a man in blood. "Fas est cuivis principi maculosas notas vitiatæ opinionis abstergeref." So Antony, the emperor, restored Julianus Licinianus, whom Ulpian the president had ba