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Bacon's

for the variety of the matter, its lucid order, the precision and brevity of the expression, and the accuracy and felicity of the execution. Bacon's Abridgment was composed chiefly from materials left by Lord Chief Baron Gilbert. It has more of the character of an elementary work than Comyn's Digest. The first edition appeared in 1736, and was much admired, and the abridgment has maintained its great influence down to the present time, as being *a very convenient *511 and valuable collection of principles, arising under the various titles in the immense system of the English law. And in connection with this branch of the subject, it will be most convenient, though a little out of the order of time, to take notice of Cruise's recent and very valuable Digest of the Cruises Dilaws of England respecting real property. It is by far the most perfect elementary work of the kind which we have on the doctrine of real property, and it is distinguished for its methodical, accurate, perspicuous and comprehensive view of the subject. All his principles are supported and illustrated by the most judicious selection of adjudged cases. They are arranged with great skill, and applied in confirmation of his doctrines with the utmost perspicuity and force.

gest.

bert.

The various treatises of Lord Chief Baron Gilbert are of Baron Gilhigh value and character, and they contributed much to advance the science of law in the former part of the last century. His treatise on Tenures deserves particular notice, as having explained, upon feudal principles, several of the leading doctrines in Littleton and Coke; and it is a very elementary and instructive essay upon that abstruse branch of learning. His Essay on the Law of Evidence is an excellent performance, and the groundwork of all the subsequent collections on that subject; and it still maintains its character, notwithstanding the law of evidence, like most other branches of the law, and particularly the law of commercial contracts, has expanded with the progress and exigencies of society. His treatise on the law of Uses and Trusts is another work of high authority, and it has been rendered peculiarly valuable, by the revision and copious notes of Mr. Sugden.

The treatises on the Pleas of the Crown, by Sir Matthew Hale and Sergeant Hawkins, appeared early in the last century, and they contributed to give precision and certainty to that most deeply interesting part of jurisprudence. They are VOL. I.

36

Hale and Hawkins

Sir Martin

Wright.

both of them works of authority, and have had great sanction, and been uniformly and strongly recommended *512 *to the profession. Sir Martin Wright's Introduction

to the Law of Tenures is an excellent work, and the value of it cannot be better recommended than by the fact, that Sir William Blackstone has interwoven the substance of that treatise into the second volume of his Commentaries. Dr. Wood published, in 1722, his Institutes of the Laws of England. His object was to digest the law, and to bring it into better order and system. By the year 1754, his work had passed through eight folio editions, and thereby afforded a decisive proof of its value and popularity. It was greatly esteemed by the lawyers of that age; and an American judge,a (himself a learned lawyer of the old school,) has spoken of Wood as a great authority, and of weight and respect in Westminster Hall.

But it was the fate of Wood's Institutes to be entirely superseded by more enlarged, more critical, and more attractive publications, and especially by the Commentaries of Sir Blackstone. William Blackstone, who is justly placed at the head of all the modern writers who treat of the general elementary principles of the law. By the excellence of his arrangement, the variety of his learning, the justness of his taste, and the purity and elegance of his style, he communicated to those subjects which were harsh and forbidding in the pages of Coke, the attractions of a liberal science, and the embellishments of polite literature. The second and third volumes of the Commentaries are to be thoroughly studied and accurately understood. What is obsolete is necessary to illustrate that which remains in use, and the greater part of the matter in those volumes is law at this day, and on this side of the Atlantic.

I have necessarily been obliged to omit the mention of many valuable works upon law, as my object in the present lecture was merely to select those which were the most useful or distinguished. With respect to the modern diModern *513 dactic treatises on various heads of the law, and which have multiplied exceedingly within the period

treatises.

M'Kean, Ch. J., 1 Dallas, p. 357.

of the present generation, I can only take notice of a few of those which relate to the law of real property, and are deemed the most important. The numerous works, both foreign and domestic, on various branches of the law of personal rights and commercial contracts, I may have occasion to refer to hereafter, as the subjects of which they treat pass under consideration, in the course of these lectures. Any critical notice of them at present, would lead us too far from the general purpose of this inquiry, and many of them are not sufficiently matured by time to become of much authority.

Sander's Essay on Uses and Trusts is a comprehensive and systematic treatise, but it wants that fulness of illustration, and neat and orderly arrangement, requisite in the discussion of so abstruse and complicated a branch of the law. The learned Mr. Butler has given a very elaborate note on the same subject; and there is an excellent summary of the law of uses and trusts in Cruise's Digest, arranged with his customary skill, and supported by an accurate analysis of adjudged cases, which are apposite and pertinent to the inquiry.

Sudgen's Practical Treatise on Powers is the best book we have on that very abstruse title in the law. It was regarded by the author as his favourite performance, and he is entitled to the gratitude of the student for his masterly execution of the work. It is perspicuous, methodical and accurate. Mr. Sugden's Treatise on the Law of Vendors and Purchasers, is also a correct and useful collection of equity principles on a subject extremely interesting, and of constant forensic discussion. Roberts, on Fraudulent Conveyances, covers a very important head in the jurisprudence of the courts of equity. He has collected the cases arising under the statutes of 13 and 27 Elizabeth, respecting conveyances that are deemed fraudulent in respect to creditors *and purchasers; and *514 though the treatise is written in bad taste, it is a useful digest of the law on that subject. Powell's Essay upon

the

Note 231 to lib. 3 Co. Litt.

In 2 Molloy, 561, Lord Ch. Hart, as late as 1829, spoke very disparagingly of Sugden's Treatise on Vendors and Purchasers, by saying that it was not to be cited as an authority per se. This was going quite as far as decorum would warrant, considering that Mr. Sugden had been his immediate predecessor on the Irish Chancery Bench.

learning of devises contains a systematical and valuable view of an important branch of the law concerning title to real property, and it is enlivened with some spirited discussions; but neither that essay, nor the one of his upon mortgages, are to be compared to the clear, succinct and masterly analysis of the cases under similar titles, in the great work of Mr. Cruise. Fearne's Essay on Contingent Remainders and Executory Devises, is a performance of a very superior character. It is eminently distinguished for the ability and perspicuity with which it unfolds and explains the principles of the most intricate parts of the law. Mr. Preston's recent Essays on Estates and Abstracts of Title, contain sound and clear views of the law of real property, and they have already attained the authority of works of established reputation.

I have thus attempted, for the assistance of the student, to unfold, in this and the preceding lecture, the principal sources from which we derive the evidence and rules of the common law. There is another source still untouched, from which a great accession of sound principles, particularly on the subject of personal contract, has been received, to enlarge, improve and adorn our municipal codes. I allude to the body of the civil law, contained in the Institutes, Digest and code of Justinian; and our attention will be directed to that subject in the next lecture.

LECTURE XXIII.

OF THE CIVIL LAW.

THE great body of the Roman or civil law was collected and digested by order of the Emperor Justinian, in the former part of the sixth century. That compilation has come down to modern times, and the institutions of every part of Europe have felt its influence, and it has contributed largely, by the richness of its materials, to their character and improvement. With most of the European nations, and in the new states in Spanish America, in the province of Lower Canada,a and in one of the United States, it constitutes the principal basis of their unwritten or common law. It exerts a very considerable influence upon our own municipal law, and particularly on those branches of it which are of equity and admiralty jurisdiction, or fall within the cognizance of the surrogate's or consistorial courts.c

The history of the venerable system of the civil law is peculiarly interesting. It was created and gradually matured on the banks of the Tiber, by the successive wisdom of Roman statesmen, magistrates and sages; and after governing the greatest people in the ancient world, for *516 the space of thirteen or fourteen centuries, and under

Real property law in Canada, under French grants, was established upon the basis of the Coutume de Paris, with feudal burdens. The French civil law, as it existed in Canada at the time of the conquest of the province, still prevails, without any of the meliorations of the code Napoleon.

See the Civil Code of the State of Louisiana, as adopted in 1824.

The Roman law is blended with that of the Dutch, and carried into their Asiatic possessions; and when the island of Ceylon passed into the hands of the English, justice was directed to be administered according to the former system of laws in the Dutch courts; and Van Leeuwen's Commentaries on the Roman Dutch law were translated into English in 1820, expressly for the benefit of the English judiciary in that island.

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