form and appearance, their orbits and motions; then pass to the enumeration and description of some of the more celebrated historical appearances; and, in conclusion, discuss a few of the results already made out regarding their constitution, together with the various speculations and theories which have been thrown out of late years bearing upon the same question.

The striking feature of C. when seen with the naked eye, and a feature which at once distinguishes them from other celestial bodies, is their hairy-like appendage or tail-hence the name, from Lat. coma, 'hair.' The rest of the comet, or the head, is of a nebulous appearance, consisting of a hazy envelope, and a more or less bright nucleus. These characteristics are, however, not universal, some C. presenting merely a globular_nucleated mass, without any tail, others not even a nucleus. In several instances, more tails than one have been observed, and it has been remarked that these appendages, when present, are generally turned away from the sun. The orbits in which C. move never approach the nearly circular form of those of the planets, but are distinctly elliptical-sometimes so eccentric as to be undistinguishable, for the comparatively brief time the comet is visible to us, from a parabola. There are also authenticated instances of hyperbolic orbits, the C. describing which of course cannot return to the solar system, unless perhaps the course be permanently altered through the perturbing influence of some of the larger planets. Again C. are found to move in planes inclined at all angles to the ecliptic, and to revolve round the sun with a motion as often retrograde as direct. As a comet approaches the sun, it diminishes in bulk, though to us, whom it also approaches, it may appear to increase. The tail is a later development, and is not present when the comet is first observed by the telescope. It is subject to constant changes and pulsations, sometimes seeming to sweep through space at a speed to which the planetary velocities are scarcely comparable. The head, when viewed through a telescope, not unfrequently presents the appearance of a series of concentric luminous rings, with a bright nucleus in the centre; while at other times the nucleus emits on the side next the sun jets as it were of flame, moving and vibrating as if in a region of conflicting currents.

One of the most interesting C. of modern times is Halley'sinteresting especially as being the first whose periodic revolution was recognised, and whose return was boldly predicted by that celebrated astronomer. Noticing the great similarity between the elements of the C. of 1531, 1607, and 1682, Halley fixed the reappearance of the 1682 comet for the year 1759. As the time approached, Clairaut, calculating from the observations of 1682, and taking into account the possibly perturbing influence of Jupiter and Saturn, fixed its perihelion passage for April 13, 1759. The true date was March 12. Messrs Damoiseau and Pontecoulant calculated its next return for November 7, 1835, and the calculation differed from the observed time by less than a week. Its next appearance will be in 1910, and the same comet has been identified with those of 1456 and 1378, the latter of which was observed by the Chinese. It is noticeable that this comet has been diminishing in splendour at each reappearance, and probably after a few more returns it will become invisible to the naked eye. The comet of 1744 is remarkable as having had six tails. The present century has been uncommonly rich in brilliant C., of which we may mention the two great ones of 1811; those of 1819, 1825, and 1847; that of 1843, whose head was only 96,000 miles from the sun's surface at its perhelion passage, and whose tail, not less than a hundred million. of miles long, seemed to sweep through two right angles in two hours; the brilliant appearances of 1858 (Donati's) and 1861, both remarkable for the rapid evolutions and dissipations of their envelopes, and the latter further interesting from the now almost settled fact that the earth passed through the extremity of its beautiful fan-shaped tail on the evening of June 30; and, lastly, Coggia's second comet of 1874. This list, however, gives little or no idea of the numerous C. visible by telescopic aid, and far less of the myriads which probably exist, but which have hitherto escaped detection. The most interesting of these telescopic C., possessing as they do short periods, and therefore belonging more to our system than their farther-reaching brethren, are Encke's (period 3'29 years), De Vico's (5'46), Winnecke's (551), Brorsen's (558), Biela's (6'61), D'Arrest's (6'64), Faye's (7'44). Biela's comet was discovered by that astronomer in 1826, and identified with the C. of 1772 and 1805, in which latter year it was seen by Olbers with the naked eye. In 1846 it was obIn 1846 it was ob

served to split into two portions, which were still distinct on its next appearance in 1852. In 1859 and 1866, though eagerly looked for, no signs of its existence were detected, and it was regarded by many as a thing of the past. Mr Hind, however, calculated its perihelion passage for October 6, 1872, from Dr Michez's orbit of 1866, and prepared sweeping ephemerides for September and October, with variations of + 8 days in perihelion passage. It escaped observation, however, till November 30, when Mr Pogson, Madras Observatory, received a startling telegram from Professor Klinkerfues, which ran thus: "Biela touched earth on 27th; search near Theta Centauri.' After two mornings of vain search, a glimpse of it was obtained. Circumstances were more favourable on December 3, when the comet was seen with a bright nucleus and a faint but distinct tail. It has been doubted, however, whether this comet was really Biela's, and was not rather another and quite a distinct body. Coggia's small comet of 1873 has been identified by Professor Weiss of Vienna with the first of 1818, discovered by Pons at Marseilles, the plane of whose orbit was so nearly parallel to that of Biela's, that by some it was supposed to have been derived from the latter by a splitting analogous to what was observed in 1852. Every year several of these hazy telescopic bodies are discovered, but they possess little interest save to the

astronomer.

The first step towards the true comprehension of what C. really are was made by Tycho Brahé, when he demonstrated in 1577 that they were extraneous to our atmosphere. Not much more than a century later, Newton showed them to be subject, like planets, to the law of gravitation; and sometime after the lapse of another century, Arago discovered that part, at least, of cometary light was polarised by reflection. This last discovery has been fully borne out by the recent spectrum investigations of Huggins, Donati, Secchi, Vogel, and others. Unfortunately, no comet of any size, with the exception of Coggia's, which was badly situated for observation, has appeared since the introduction of the spectroscope as a useful, and now indispensable, instrument in astronomical research; and, accordingly, spectroscopists have had to content themselves as yet with Brorsen's, These all show one or Winnecke's, and other telescopic C. more bright lines, accompanied by a more or less faint continuous spectrum. It is thus apparent that C. shine partly by reflection, partly by their own light. The characteristic bright lines in Winnecke's comet coincide very closely with the bright lines in the spectrum of carbon taken in olefiant gas; but, in the majority of cases hitherto observed, there is no similarity in constitution to any such hydrocarbon. At the present stage of our knowledge, we cannot reason further concerning the composition of the gaseous portion of C.; but this at least is made out, that probably a comet consists of a cloud of solid particles, held together more because their individual orbits are somewhat similar, than because of their own mutual gravitation, and that therefore as it approaches the sun it shrinks in bulk, the orbits of the component meteorites rapidly converging, and the particles themselves coming into frequent collisions, thus generating sufficient heat to volatilise a part of the matter, and giving rise to all the varied changes observable in a comet's head by telescopic aid. This theory is supported by the coincidence, first noticed by Ochiaparelli, which seems to exist between the orbit of the August meteors and that of the second comet of 1862, and the further seemingly similar connection between the November meteors and the comet discovered by Klinkerfues and Pogson, and believed by them to be Biela's. When the meteor-cloud is sufficiently dense, it is visible as a comet; and the extremely eccentric orbits which these bodies describe round the sun, the sometimes great inclinations to the ecliptic, and their frequently retrograde motions, show that, if the nebular hypothesis be granted, C. and meteors did not belong originally to the solar system, but are later importations caught up from surrounding space by the attraction of the sun and planets. All this is an evident inference; but when we come to the consideration of the tail, a new and greater difficulty meets us. It is scarcely possible that this tail can be one and the same material appendage, for that matter should be translated with a velocity of more than 30,000 miles per second-the velocity of the extremity of the tail of the comet of 1843 during its perihelion passage-is inconceivable. To meet this difficulty, Sir John Herschel has speculated on the possibility of a negative shadow, a momentary impression made on the luminiferous æther behind the comet.

Pro

fessor Tyndall has worked upon this idea, and has explained the momentary impression as due to the decomposition by the concentrated rays of the sun of some chemical compound surrounding the comet-the head acting in some mysterious way as a lens. But if it act as a lens to sunlight, why not to starlight also? Further, whence comes the necessary organic compound? By assumptions of such a nature, any curious phenomenon could be plausibly explained; but no simplicity or better comprehension of the facts is gained. Professor Tait, however, merely discarding the once prevalent idea that C. must have extremely small mass-an idea taken for granted upon the ground that one comet in 1779 became entangled among Jupiter's satellites, which were not perceptibly perturbed by the encounter-has explained the whole mystery as an optical condition. He likens a comet to a swarm of sea-larks, viewed at such a distance that the birds are not individually visible; and in the remarkable changes of form which such a swarm seems to undergo, a consequence of the relative changes of position of the line of sight and the surface in which the birds are situated, he discovers an explanation for all the varied transformations observ. able in a comet's tail. Thus (see Cosmical Astronomy, Good Words, December 1875) 'the gigantic motions of the tail in sweeping round the sun may be merely the running along of the optical condition of visibility among a swarm of separate objects, each of which is moving with a velocity neither extravagantly greater nor extravagantly less than would characterise a planet or other portion of matter at the same distance from the sun. There is no limit to the size of the component meteorites, but the smaller we suppose the integral fragments to be, the greater must be the average distance between contiguous ones in order to secure transparency to starlight--the less therefore the mass. Upon this hypothesis, the passage of the earth through the head of a comet would be fraught with great danger; but the probability of such an occurrence is evidently extremely small, if we assume that C. may approach the sun from any direction. This assumption, however, may require modification, if future research bear out the discovery of M. Houzeau, that of 209 C. considered by him, the major axes show a tendency to arrange themselves parallel to the double heliocentric meridian 102° 20' and 282° 20′, being only 28° long. from the point towards which the solar system is moving.

Com'frey (Symphytum), a genus of plants of the natural order Boraginaceae (q. v.), natives of Europe and the N. of Asia. There are only a few species known. C. officinale and C. tuberosum are natives of Britain, not uncommon in moist shady places. The former was at one time greatly valued as an application to wounds, and the young blanched shoots are sometimes used as a potherb, or as a substitute for spinach. The root contains a good deal of starch and mucilage; accordingly, when finely scraped 'and laid on calico to the thickness of a crown-piece, it forms an excellent bandage for broken limbs,' &c. (Bentley). A large-sized species-C. asperrimum of the Caucasus-may yet become of some value as a fodder plant for pigs and cattle, analysis showing it to be rich in flesh-forming principles: it contains much gum and mucilage and but little sugar, It was introduced into this country in 1811, but is as yet only cultivated as a garden plant.

Comines' or Comynes, Philippe de, Sieur d'Argenton, a famous French chronicler, was born near Lille in 1445. In 1464 he entered the service of Charles, Comte de Charolais, afterwards Charles the Rash of Burgundy, but in 1472 he attached himself to Charles's rival, Louis XI., who, within five years, made him one of the richest nobles of France. Louis found in C. an astute and unscrupulous agent of his cruel and perfidious policy. After the death of Louis, Anne of Beaujeu banished C. from the court; but though a decree of Parliament of 24th March 1488 had condemned him to lose a fourth of his estates, and to ten years' banishment, we find him as early as 1493 again engaged in important missions. He was employed both by Charles VIII. and Louis XII., the latter of whom restored his pensions, but withheld his confidence from the minister of Louis XI. He died, 17th October 1509, at his castle of Argenton. C.'s Mémoires show him to have been a sagacious, clear-headed statesman; but, though admirably written, they offend modern feeling by the cold-bloodedness with which they detail the most iniquitous and revolting transactions, the sole merit of each of which seems to be its success. The 102

first edition, which is imperfect, was published at Paris in 1523, in folio. The best is that of Mlle. Dupont (3 vols. Par. 1850). C. plays an important part in Scott's Quentin Durward.

Comi'so, a town of Sicily, province of Notto, 43 miles W.S.W. of Syracuse, with manufactures of paper. Pop. about

10,000.

Com'itas or Com'ity of Nations, a term of international law, signifying the effect given in one country to the laws and institutions of another in questions arising between the natives of both. of both. See INTERNATIONAL Law.

Comi'tia (Lat. cum, ‘together;' eo, 'I go'), were the great constitutional assemblies of the Roman citizens, duly summoned by a magistrate for the election of magistrates, the enactment of law, the declaration of war, and the trial of citizens on criminal charges. The Comitium was the part of the Forum where the C. met in early times, though afterwards their meetings were usually held in the Campus Martius. The C. were of three kinds, C. Curiata, C. Centuriata, and C. Tributa, in which the people voted respectively in curia, centuries, and tribes, according to the three modes of their political organisation. Each citizen voted in his own curia, century, or tribe; but each curia, century, and tribe had only one vote on the question submitted, and its vote was determined by the majority of voters within it. Thus, as some centuries, for example, contained a much larger number of voters than others, the decision might not be the opinion of the gross majority of the assembly. The C. Curiata were the most ancient, and were composed entirely of patricians. The C. Centuriata, instituted by Servius Tullius, were truly national assemblies, comprehending all citizens, whether patricians or plebeians, who had property to a certain amount. The C. Tributa were originally confined to the plebeians, and were convened for the first time in the trial of Coriolanus, B.C. 491. The word C. often means elections, as the C. were yearly convened under the republic to elect magistrates. The C. Calata were assemblies convened by the college of pontiffs, at which the people, sometimes in curia, at others in centuries, did not vote, but listened to and witnessed the proceedings, which consisted chiefly of the proclamation of the nones, the consecration of priests and kings, and the making of wills. Comm'a. See PUNCTUATION.

Comma, in music, a small interval (generally corresponding to a vibration-ratio of 81 : 80) occurring between the true pitches of two notes, which are represented by one only in the organ, pianoforte, and other tempered instruments. See TEMPERA

MENT.

Commandant' is an officer of the army in merely temporary command. The designation is more frequently applied in foreign armies than in the British.

tain.

Command'er, in the British navy, is an officer next in rank above a lieutenant and under a post-captain. He ranks with a lieutenant-colonel in the army, and is unofficially addressed CapThe full pay of a C. is £1 per day; when in command of a sea-going ship, 3s. 9d. additional. The half-pay of the first hundred commanders on the active list is Ios. per day, of the remainder, 8s. 6d. A C. may either serve as second in command, or command independently, according to the rate of the ship.

Commander-in-Chief is the highest appointment in the British army. There is not, however, necessarily an officer of this rank in command of the home army, there having been no C.-in-C. since the death of the Duke of Wellington in 1852. At present the administration of the army is, by the War Office Act of 1870, vested, under the Secretary of State for War, in three officers, one of whom has the title of Commanding-in-Chief.' bridge, his department being that of command and discipline. The office is presently held by Field-Marshal the Duke of Camby the crown, on the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Though in theory all appointments and promotions are made War, the officer commanding-in-chief has practically the control of all these, except, perhaps, the very highest. He is respontroops. The commander of the forces in India has the title sible for recruiting operations, and for the allocation of the

of C.-in-C.

Comm'andite, Société en, is the French equivalent term for what we call a 'sleeping partner.' By the common law of 209

occasions on which the C. is very useful, especially to those who do not speak the language of the country in which they are travelling. Commissionaires can nearly always speak English, and generally French also. For a day's attendance they usually expect about seven francs; for looking after the registering of luggage, taking tickets, &c., in starting on a railway journey, or for meeting one on arrival, and looking after the luggage, &c., five francs is the proper fee of a C.

Commission del Crederé is an Italian expression, used to denote the extra premium charged by an agent or factor for guaranteeing the solvency of a purchaser, and so making himself personally liable for the value of the goods which he has sold for his principal. See AGENT.

Commission Merchant is a merchant who sells goods on account of some one else. The C. M. is paid by a percentage, ·called commission, on the value sold.

Commission of Assembly. See GENERAL ASsembly. Commissioner in Scotch Bankruptcy. Under the Scotch Bankruptcy Act, three commissioners are chosen at the meeting for election of trustee. Their duty is to superintend, to advise, and assist the trustee, and to fix his remuneration. They are not themselves entitled to any remuneration. No one can be a C. who is disqualified to be a trustee. See BANK

RUPTCY.

Commissioners of Teinds. See TEIND Court.

Commissioners of the Jury Court. See JURY TRIAL. Commit'ment for Trial. When a supposed offender is arrested, the justice before whom he is brought is bound immediately to inquire into the circumstances of the alleged crime, and to take the examination of the prisoner, and the evidence of those who bring him, in writing. If the charge appear groundless, the prisoner must forthwith be discharged; otherwise he must be committed, or give Bail (q. v.) for his appearance to answer the accusation at next sessions or assize, and the prosecutor or person injured by the crime charged is bound over to prosecute. In Scotland the information is generally at the instance of the Procurator-Fiscal (q. v.), and C. for T. or discharge is given after the declaration of the accused and the Precognition (q. v.) have been taken before a magistrate. See IMPRI

SONMENT.

Commitment of a Bill. See PARLIAMENT.

Committ'ee. When an assembly or body of men appoints a few of its members to do special acts, or to make special inquiry, those so appointed form what is called a C. It may, however, consist of only one member; or it may be formed of the whole body making the appointment by its assuming the functions usually discharged by a C. Thus, in Parliament, when the various clauses of a measure which has been passed on second reading—and thus been virtually adopted in its leading principle-come to be considered, a 'C. of the whole House' is formed for doing so. The Speaker leaves the chair, which is taken by the Chairman of Committees. (See PARLIAMENT.) Select committees are also appointed in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords for the consideration of private bills. Committee of Parliament. See PARLIAMENT. Commix'tion, a term of Scotch law, indicating the mingling of two or more substances. C. may produce a new subject, as where wine is mixed; or it may not alter the nature of either substance, as where grain is mixed. This distinction is of some legal weight in questions which sometimes arise as to right of property.

Comm'odate, in Scotch law, is a gratuitous loan, the bor-. rower being bound to restore the subject lent in the condition in which he received it. See BORROWING.

Comm'odore. A captain in the navy, when in command, has this title. He hoists a pennant indicative of his rank. Red indicates a C. of the first class, blue a C. of the second. He ranks with a brigadier-general in the army. The pay of a C. of the first class is £3 per day; of a C. of the second class, in addition to pay as a captain, if C.-in-chief, £1 per day; if not, IOS. per day.

Comm'odus, Lucius Aurelius, a Roman emperor, born 161 A.D., the son of M. Aurelius Antoninus, who educated him with unavailing care. On his father's death in March 180, C. concluded an inglorious peace with the Marcomanni, and repaired to the capital to share in its dissipations. His character immediately exhibited itself as one of boundless licentiousness, cruelty, cowardice, meanness, and perfidy; and distinguished virtue, or conspicuous excellence of any kind, soon proved fatal to its possessor. Resigning the government into the hands of a succession of worthless favourites, he rioted in debauchery, and gratified a childish vanity by exhibiting himself as a dancer, a charioteer, a buffoon, and especially as a gladiator. He even claimed divine honours as Hercules. Marcia, a favourite mistress, with Lætus and Eclectus, two officers of rank, learning that they were marked down on the tyrant's tablets for instant death, administered poison to him; but this operating slowly, they introduced Narcissus, a famous athlete, into his chamber, and he was strangled on the night of December 31, 192 A.D.

Comm'on. This is a term of English and Scotch law, but the meaning in the former differs from that in the latter. In England, C. is the privilege of use which one man, or the public, has of the property of another; such as the right to walk over or to fish from the land of another; hence lands over which such rights exist are called commons. The 8 and 9 Vict. is an Act whose objects are described to be to facilitate the enclosure and improvement of commons of certain descriptions, and held under certain rights, which obstruct cultivation and the productive employment of labour.

The expediency of this measure has been much questioned. "We look with the utmost jealousy,' says Mr J. S. Mill, upon any further enclosure of commons. In the greater part of this island, exclusive of the mountain and moor district, there is certainly not more land remaining in a state of natural wildness The C. is the peasant's park.'

than is desirable.

Under the Act a Board of Commissioners, called the Enclosure Commissioners, is appointed to inquire into the expediency of any proposed enclosure, and to report to Parliament regarding it.

In Scotland, where the legal nomenclature is that of the Roman law, C. rights are called Servitudes (q. v.), while a C. or commontry is a piece of ground belonging to several persons, frequently to the inhabitants of a district or village, the right of each usually amounting to nothing more than a servitude. The C. is divisible by an action in the Court of Session, at the instance of any one having an interest. Nice questions, however, sometimes arise as to whether a right be of C. property or of servitude merely.

Common Agent is, in Scotch legal practice, an agent or solicitor before the Court of Session, employed to conduct a case in which several parties have a common interest. The two most important occasions for the appointment of a C. A. are in the process of Ranking and Sale (q. v.), and in the process of augmentation and locality. (See AUGMENTATION.) But a C. A. is also sometimes appointed in a process of Multiplepoinding (q. v.)∞,

Common Debtor.-When the effects of a debtor have been arrested, and several creditors claim a share of them, the debtor is, in Scotch law, called the C. D.

Common Forms.-By this term is meant, in English law, the technical forms of expression used in legal writings. Statutes have been passed to substitute simpler and more generally intelligible expressions for many of these. But the fact that conveyancers were paid for the length of their work, not according to its value or difficulty, has rendered difficult the substitution of intelligible brevity for unintelligible prolixity.

Common Good.-In law this term is used to denote the property

of a corporation, over which the magistrates have a right of administration solely for behoof of the corporation.

Common Interest. This term is used in Scotch law to denote the interest which one person sometimes has in the preservation of that which is otherwise absolutely the property of another. Thus, the proprietor of a house may have a C. I. with the proprietor of a contiguous house in a chimney-can which is the property of the latter, if the falling of the can would injure the property of the former.

Common Property, in Scotch law, is property, whether heritable or movable, belonging to two or more proprietors pro indiviso. (See INDIVISIBLE.) The proprietors share the profit or loss according to their respective interests, and the consent of all is required in the management and disposal of the subject. Each joint-owner may sell his right, the purchaser taking his place; and the right may be adjudged (see ADJUDICATION) by the creditors of the C. proprietors, or of any of them.

Common, Tenancy in, or Joint - Tenancy. This term of English law corresponds to that of C. Property (q. v.) in Scotch law. It denotes the rights of property vested in two or more persons, no division having been made of the property. The owners may agree to a division, or any one of them may under equity compel a division to be made. Šee COPARCENARY.

Common Bench. See BENCH and COMMON LAW, Courts of. Common Counts, short statements of the cause of an action made in a Declaration (q. v.).

A

Common House, or Common Room, was an apartment in a monastery, presided over by a monk, called the master. fire was constantly kept in it for the benefit of the monks, who were not usually allowed to have one anywhere else.

Common Law. The laws of England, like those of most countries, are largely regulated by customs resulting from experience, and confirmed by judicial decisions. Law so constituted is called C. L. It is to be distinguished from law created by statute (see ACT OF PARLIAMENT, STATUTE), and also from law as created or modified by Equity (q. v.). C. L. is overruled by statute law, and may be set aside or modified by equity, except in matters criminal. These involving public security, no judge can be allowed to administer them otherwise than according to the letter and to established authority. 'Immemorial usage' in C. L. does not refer to a period so remote as to be beyond historical record. The bounds of legal memory are limited by 3 Edward I. to the beginning of the reign of Richard I., from which time an uninterrupted custom acquires legal validity. But as this rule has often been productive of injustice, it has been provided by statute that thirty years' enjoyment shall constitute a right of Common (see COMMON), and that after sixty years the right is absolute. In claims of right of way, the periods are twenty (See PRESCRIPTION IN LAW.) The civil and canon laws form, branches of the unwritten or C. L. which, under different restrictions, have been adopted in the Ecclesiastical Courts, the Courts of Admiralty, and the Chancellor's Court of the University of Cambridge. Decisions of courts being the best evidence of what the C. L. is, are held in high regard, and are preserved as authentic records in the several courts. Scotland, the term C. L. is used by many of the writers, and in some of the Acts of the Scotch Parliament, to signify the Roman law. But in Scotland, as in England, the proper meaning is the consuetudinary law, from whatever source derived.

and forty years.

In

Common Law, Courts of The Court of Queen's Bench is the Supreme Court of the C. L. in England. It consists of a chief justice and of four Puisne judges. It keeps all inferior jurisdictions within bounds of their authority, and may remove the subject of their proceedings so as to be determined by itself. It controls all civil corporations in the kingdom. It takes cognisance of both criminal and civil cases. It is a court of appeal, to which may be removed determinations of the Court of Common Pleas, and of inferior courts of record in England. Indictments removed into this court may be tried either at bar, that is, at the bar of the court, during term, or at Nisi Prius (q. v.) by a jury of the county out of which the indictment is. brought, the court itself being the principal court of criminal jurisdiction in the kingdom. Indictments moved into the Queen's Bench the court may order to be tried at the Central Criminal Court.

The Court of Common Pleas, like the other courts of West

minster, has jurisdiction throughout England; but it has no cognisance of crimes, or of matters of a public nature. There is one chief judge and four petty judges. They sit every day during the four terms to hear and determine all matters of law arising in civil causes. These the court takes cognisance of originally as

well as on removal from inferior courts.

The Court of Exchequer is held before the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Chief Baron, and four puisne Barons. The chief business of the court was formerly to take cognisance of matters connected with the public revenue, though by a fiction of law, common to this court with the Court of Queen's Bench, all personal suits may be prosecuted in the Court of Exchequer. It was at one time a court of equity, but by 5 Vict. c. 5, its jurisdiction in equity was transferred to the Court of Chancery. But it retains all other powers which it previously possessed.

The above constitute the superior courts of common law. They sit at Westminster, and are commonly called The Courts at Westminster. They have been consolidated by the Acts of 1873 and 1875. 1873 and 1875. (See COURT OF JUDICATURE, SUPREME, ACTS.) There are also inferior courts of common law, the only important one of which is the County Court (q. v.), to which the corresponding court in Scotland is the Sheriff Court (q. v.). There are the Borough Courts under the presidency of the Recorder (q. v.). See MAYOR'S COURT OF LONDON, STANARIES.

Common-Law Bar.-That portion of the English bar which devotes itself to practice before the Common Law Courts is so termed.

Common Prayer, the Book of, is the liturgy of the Church of England and Ireland. Till the time of the Reformation there was no such book in the vernacular, the only thing of the kind being the Latin liturgy, originally derived from the Gallican (see LITURGY), and revised by the Bishop of Salisbury, 1085. During the reign of Henry VIII., in 1537, Convocation published a book entitled The Godly and Pious Institution of a Christian Man, and containing the Lord's Prayer, Ave Maria, Of this Creed, Ten Commandments, Seven Sacraments, &c. a second edition was published in 1540, under the title of A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man. These, however, were more of the nature of a confession of faith than a liturgy; but the same year a commission was appointed to reform the rituals and offices of the Church, and the next year the prayers for processions and litanies were ordered to be translated into English and publicly used. In 1545 the King's Primer was published, containing the whole morning and evening prayer very nearly the same as in the present B. of C. P. In 1547, under Edward VI., a committee of divines was appointed, who composed, first, a liturgy proper, or order for the Communion (1547), and then public offices for Sundays and holy-days, and for Baptism, Confession, Matrimony, Burial, &c. This liturgy was approved by Convocation, and confirmed by Parliament and the King, 1548. To obviate certain objections, the book was revised under Archbishop Cranmer, when the Sentences, Exhortation, Confession, and Absolution were added at the beginning of the morning and evening services, the Commandments were added at the beginning of the Communion office, and some rites and ceremonies considered idolatrous were removed; and thus revised, it was again confirmed by Parliament, 1550. Interdicted under Mary, it was again introduced, with slight alterations, under Elizabeth. Nothing more was done till after the Hampton Court conference under James I., when some trifling alterations were made, such as the adding of some forms of thanksgiving at the end of the Litany, and an addition to the Catechism regarding the sacraments. After the Restoration, at the instance of the Presbyterians, another revisal was made, the chief alterations then made being that the Epistles and and Gospels were taken out of the authorised version of the Bible, and that the office of Baptism for those of riper years the forms of prayer at sea were added. The B. of C. P. as it now stands was then approved by Convocation, 1661, and confirmed by Parliament next year. See Blunt's Dict. of Doct. and Hist. Theol. (1875), and Annotated Book of Common Prayer (1875).

Commons. The dinner of members in colleges and inns of court is so called. court is so called. There are separate tables for the Benchers (q. v.), for the barristers, and for the students and other members.