Dumont, Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, pp

5. Blaekstone I Comm. 62-4. : With us at présent the monuments and évidences of our légal customs are contaiued in the records of the several courts of justice, in books of reports and judicial décisions, and in the treatises of learned sages of the profession, preserved and handed down to us from the times of highest antiquity. Lïowever I therefore style thèse parts of our law leges non scripke, because their original institution and authority are not set down in writing, as acts of parliament are, but they receive their binding power, and the force of laws, by long and immémorial usage, and by their universal réception thoughout the kingdoaa. — 1 Comm. 67 : ... in our law the goodness of a custom dépends

322 NOTES. (Pp. 133-137)

upon its having been used time out of mind ; or, in the solennity of our légal phrase, time whereof the memory of inan lunneth not to the contrary.