OF the two pieces here presented, the late Conyers Read
printed the "Ephemeris," with an introduction and notes, in the
Huntington Library Quarterly in 1952 ( XV, 123-158). Later,
when the Folger series of historical and literary documents was
planned, he proposed that the "Ephemeris," together with the
charges to juries, form a volume in it, and at the time of his
death in 1959 he had virtually finished his work on the text,
notes, and introduction of the charges.

The importance of these manuscripts lies in the nature of
William Lambarde's activities and abilities. He was one of the
foremost expositors of the Elizabethan judicial system, and for
this task he was admirably fitted by training, by the scholarly
bent of his mind, perhaps also by his social status among the
new gentry sprung from London trade. Even as a young man
he must have acquired something of the passionate devotion
to good order and of the belief in the dependence of good order
upon sound judicial proceedings that is so conspicuous in his
later utterances.

It may well have been this devotion that drove him to
abandon antiquarian pursuits in favor of a close study of the
judicial and law-enforcement systems. His Duties of Constables,
his Eirenarcha, and his Archion cover the whole range from

-v-