ENGLISH LAW BOOKS BOUGHT

The collection of early manuscripts and books relating to English law, made by the late George Dunn, has recently been purchased by auction for Harvard University. The collection, which cost $18,750, will be placed in the University's law library.

Among the purchases are manuscripts and volumes written by Sir Anthony Fitzherbert (1470-1538), an English jurist who served as Justice of the Court of Common Pleas for many years. The copy of his "Natura Breviu," is a sound and perfect copy (1519) which is said to be very rare. Besides this volume, there are: five samples of the work of Sir John Fortescue (1394-1476), an English lawyer who sat on the Chief Justice's bench in the King's Court in 1442; many copies of tenures written by Sir Thomas de Littleton (1407-1481), an English and legal writer, whose "Les Tenures" is a very rare edition; a precious book, "Exposiciones i minorz legu Angloz," by John Rastell the English printer and author who served in Parliament in 1529; and a number of valuable manuscripts dealing with the Magna Charta, printed in vellum "by an English scribe," one of which was probably executed at the beginning of the fourteenth century. With these newly acquired copies of early English statutes, there was purchased a valuable collection of original prints of the statutes themselves.