The things that make a good judge or good interpreter of the laws are, first, “a right understanding” of that principal law of Nature called “equity,” which depending not on the reading of other men’s writings, but on the goodness of a man’s own natural reason and meditation, is presumed to be in those most that have had most leisure, and had the most inclination to meditate thereon. Secondly, “contempt of unnecessary riches and preferments.” Thirdly, “to be able in judgment to divest himself of all fear, anger, hatred, love, and compassion.” Fourthly, and lastly, “patience to hear, diligent attention in hearing, and memory to retain, digest and apply what he hath heard.”

The difference and division of the laws has been made in divers manners, according to the different methods of those men that have written of them. For it is a thing that dependeth not on nature, but on the scope of the writer, and is subservient to every man’s proper method. In the Institutions of Justinian, we find seven sorts of civil laws.