a term used in common life as synonymous with complaisance or good-breeding.

Civility is justly inculcated by didactic writers as a duty of no slight consideration. Without civility, or good-breeding, a court would be the seat of violence and desolation.

It is allowed, that the civil law contains all the principles of natural equity; and that nothing can be better calculated to form good sense and found judgment. Hence, though in several countries it has no other authority but that of reason and justice, it is everywhere referred to for authority. It is not received at this day in any nation without some alterations; and sometimes the feudal law is mixed with it, or general and particular customs; and often ordinances and statutes cut off a great part of it.

In Turkey, the Basilics are only used. In Italy, the canon law and customs have excluded a good part of it. In Venice, custom hath almost an absolute government. In the Milanese, the feudal law, and particular customs, bear sway. In Naples and Sicily, the constitutions and laws of the Lombards are said to prevail. In Germany and Holland, the civil law is esteemed to be the municipal law; but yet many parts of it are there grown obsolete; and others are altered, either by the canon law or a different usage. In Friesland, it is observed with more strictness; but in the northern parts of Germany, the jus Saxonicum, Lubeckense, or Culmense, is preferred before it. In Denmark and Sweden, it hath scarce any authority at all. In France, only a part of it is received, and that part is in some places as a customary law; and in those provinces nearest to Italy it is received as a municipal written law. In criminal causes, the civil law is more regarded in France; but the manner of trial is regulated by ordinances and edicts. In Spain and Portugal, the civil law is connected with the jus regium and custom. In Scotland, the statutes of the federans, part of the regis majestatis, and their customs, control the civil law.

In England, it is used in the ecclesiastical courts, in the high court of admiralty, in the court of chivalry, in the two universities, and in the courts of equity; yet in all these it is restrained and directed by the common law.