Direction or Preparative to the Study of the Law; Wherein Is Shewed, What Things Ought to Be Observed and Used of Them That Are Addicted to the Study

Reprint of the 1829 London edition. Published in 1600, Fulbeck s Direction or
Preparative was intended as a vade mecum for aspiring law students.
The first book of its kind, it offers a mix of practical information
and advice on personal conduct. (For example, he advises students not
to study at night “for when the stomach is full and stuffed with meat,
the abundance of humours is carried to the head, where it sticketh for
a time and layeth as it were a lump of lead upon the brain.”) For the
most part Fulbeck restricts his thoughts to rhetorical techniques,
methods for preparing a case, recommended readings and other topics.
Though often read for amusement, this treatise remains an incomparable
guide to English legal education and the legal culture of the Inns of
Court during the Elizabethan era.