is used in different senses; as, 1. Suit of court, or suit-service, which is an attendance the tenant owes to his lord's court. 2. Suit-covenant, where a person has covenanted to do service in the court of the lord. 3. Suit-custom, which is where one and his ancestors have owed suit time out of mind. 4. It is used for a petition to the king or any person of dignity, where a lord distrains his tenant for suit, and none is due. In this case, the party may have an attachment against him to appear in the king's court.

in Law, the same with action. The Romans introduced pretty early set forms for actions and suits into their law, after the example of the Greeks; and made it a rule, that each injury should be redressed by its proper remedy only. "Actionem, (say the Pandects) compositae sunt quibus inter se hominum disceptarent, quas actiones ne populus prout velit institueret, certas solenni-que esse voluerunt." The forms of these actions were originally preferred in the books of the pontifical college as choice and inestimable secrets, till one Cneius Flavius, the secretary of Appius Claudius, stole a copy and published them to the people. The concealment was ridiculous: but the establishment of some standard was undoubtedly necessary to fix the true state of a question of right; lest, in a long and arbitrary process, it might be shifted continually, and be at length no longer discernible. Or, as Cicero expresses it, "sunt jura, sunt formulae, de omnibus rubus constitute, ne quis aut in genere injurie, aut in ratione actionis, errare posset. Expressae enim sunt ex uniuscujusque damno, dolore, in- commodo, calamitate, injuria, publica a pretore formulae, ad quas privata lis accommodatur." And in the same manner Braston, speaking of the original writs upon which all our actions are founded, declares them to be fixed and immutable, unless by authority of parliament. And all the modern legislators of Europe have found it expedient, from the same reasons, to fall into the same or a similar method. In England, the several suits, or remedial instruments of justice, are, from the subject of them, distinguished into three kinds; actions personal, real, and mixed.

Personal actions are such whereby a man claims a debt, or personal duty or damages, in lieu thereof; and likewise whereby a man claims a satisfaction in damages for some injury done to his person or property. The former are said to be founded upon contracts, the latter upon torts or wrongs: and they are the same which the civil law calls, "actiones in personam, quae adversus eum intenduntur qui ex contractu vel delicto obligatus est ulli- quid dare vel concedere." Of the former nature are all actions upon debt or promises; of the latter are all actions of trespasses, nuisances, assaults, defamatory words, and the like.

Real actions (or, as they are called in the Mirror, feudal actions), which concern real property only, are such whereby the plaintiff, here called the demandant, claims title to have any lands or tenements, rents, commons, or other hereditaments, in fee-simple, fee-tail, or for term of life. By these actions formerly all disputes concerning real estates were decided; but they are now pretty generally laid aside in practice, upon account of the great nicety required in their management, and the inconvenient length of their process; a much more expeditious method of trying titles being since introduced, by other actions personal and mixed.

Mixed actions are suits partaking of the mixture of the other two, wherein some real property is demanded, and also personal damages for a wrong sustained. As for instance, an action of waste; which is brought by him who hath the inheritance, in remainder or reversion, against the tenant for life, who hath committed waste therein, therein, to recover not only the land wasted, which would make it merely a real action; but also treble damages, in pursuance of the statute of Gloucester, which is a personal recompense; and so both, being joined together, denominate it a mixed action.

The orderly parts of a suit are these: 1. The original writ. 2. The process. 3. The pleadings. 4. The issue or demurrer. 5. The trial. 6. The judgment and its incidents. 7. The proceedings in nature of appeals. 8. The execution. See these articles.