[Bishop Stillingfleet's library was purchased by Archbishop Marsh for
his public library in Dublin. A few years since Robert Travers, Esq.,
M.D., of Dundrum near Dublin, was engaged in preparing for publication
a catalogue of Stillingfleet's printed books, amounting to near 10,000
volumes. The bishop's MSS. were bought by the late Earl of Oxford, and
are now in the Harleian Collection. See _The Life of Bishop
Stillingfleet_, 8vo., 1735, p. 135., and _Biog. Brit._ s. v.]
_The whole System of Law._--On December 26, 1651, the Long Parliament,
stimulated by Cromwell to various important reforms in civil matters,
resolved,--
"That it be referred to persons out of the House to take into
consideration what inconveniences there are in the law, and how the
mischiefs that grow from the delays, the chargeableness, and the
irregularities in the proceedings of the law, may be prevented; and the
speediest way to reform the same."
The commission thus appointed consisted twenty-one persons, among whom were
Sir Mathew Hale, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, and John Rushworth. They seem
to have set to work with great vigour, and submitted a variety of important
measures to Parliament, many of which were {390} adopted. They also
prepared a document "containing the whole system of the law," which was
read to the House on January 20 and 21, 1652; and it was resolved "That
three hundred copies of the said book be forthwith printed, to be delivered
to members of the Parliament only."
Is anything known of this work at the present day?