New Atlantis (utopian novel)

the crown), they did so to please the people; the first only promised, and the latter actually abolished the Danegelt original: "Danegelt"; a land tax originally raised to pay tribute to Viking invaders. Henry II was the first to give life to the Magna Carta, but he did not yield to it fully enough to bind his heirs to the agreement.

But once the people had tasted the honey, they were unwilling to part with its sweetness; and closing their eyes again to the risks, they soon compelled King John to confirm it at Runnymede. Later, that unfortunate prince Henry III more fully confirmed and restored those old laws of King Edward.

But besides these grand, protective original: "Præfidiary"; from the Latin praesidiarius, referring to laws that serve as a defense or safeguard laws—which were extorted by the force of the common people from these weak and unhappy princes—we have had so many Acts, Ordinances, Orders, and Resolves, etc., made recently within the span of only one or two five-year periods original: "lustrums"; a period of five years, that even the cleverest legal expert original: "picklock of the law" has enough work just to explain original: "enucleate" their sense and meaning.

Among the Locrians An ancient Greek tribe known for their strict legal codes, anyone who proposed a new law had to wear a rope around his neck to be strangled if the law was found to be useless or did not please the people. But this over-wise, "just," and learned age has produced so many lawmakers and regula-