Introduction; 1. ‘Perpetuall Reformation’ in Book V of The Faerie Queene; Part I: Perfection; 2. Snaring Statutes and the General Pardon in the Gesta Grayorum; 3. Legal Excess in John Donne’s ‘Satyre V’; Part II: Execution; 4. The Assize Circuitry of Measure for Measure; 5. The Winter’s Tale and the Oracle of the Law; Bibliography.