(iv)

law has been such as to command universal

respect, and the law itself has been carried forward in a steady and temperate course of reform, nearer and nearer towards perfection.

I remain, Madam,

with profound respect,

Your Majesty's

loyal Subject and Servant,

THE AUTHOR.

OF THE

FIRST VOLUME (a).

It is now many years ago that I first conceived and communicated to my friends in private society, the design of composing a work on the Laws of England, to which the text of Blackstone should be in a great measure contributory; and in 1836 I announced that design to the public. Since this period, several works have issued from the press, purporting to be treatises either on the English Law in general, or on detached portions of it, and containing republications of Blackstone's text, in forms more or less entire, with the intermixture of new matter by the respective editors. While this circumstance affords some testimony to the value of the original conception (b), there is, at the same time, no collision between any of these works and my own. With the exception of the general resemblance above pointed out, they will be found to pursue methods entirely remote from that which I have adopted.

(a) This work was originally published volume by volume.

(b) I do not mean by this expression to suggest that the works in question are indebted to me for the design on which they are founded. With respect, indeed, to that which first made its appearance, I became apprised, very shortly after my advertisement, that it was in contemplation, and that one of the volumes was far advanced towards completion.

Of the plan and principle of my own work, and of the views on which it was undertaken, it may be right here to give some farther explanation. Though the celebrated Treatise of Blackstone still remains without a rival, as an introductory and popular work on the Laws of England, the positions which it contains have been nevertheless so trenched upon by recent alterations in the law itself, that if the student were to rely upon its text, as containing an accurate account of our present system of jurisprudence, he would be led continually astray. The later editions have consequently comprised a copious accompaniment of corrective and supplementary notes at the bottom of the page: but it is not in the nature of such a method (with whatever ability pursued) to give entire satisfaction, because it obliges the reader to transfer his attention, incessantly, from the text to the commentary, and augments also, to a considerable degree, the bulk and consequent expense of the volumes. These considerations led me to conceive that a work might prove acceptable, which should be framed upon the plan of introducing the necessary alterations into the text itself; but the question then arose, whether it would be better to confine my effort to the reparation of those defects which new legislation and new decisions had occasioned, or to take a bolder course, and, discarding all solicitude about the measure of my adherence to the original work, to interweave my own composition with it, as freely as the purpose of

general improvement might seem to require. It was upon the latter plan that I fixed, though with some hesitation, my choice.

It may be thought, perhaps, that the confidence which carried me thus far, might naturally have tempted me farther, and taught me to aspire to the construction of an entirely new treatise. But if I had been conscious of faculties adequate to such an enterprize, I should still have declined it, as founded, in my judgment, on a wrong principle. The unimpaired portion of Blackstone's Commentaries comprises many passages, which (free in other respects from objection) are so far valuable at least, that they bear the stamp of his authority, and many others whose merit is of the highest order, being distinguished by all the grace and spirit of diction, the justness of thought, and the affluence of various learning, to which he owes his fame. These relics, which are in considerable danger of perishing by their incorporation in a work now falling into decay, may be lawfully converted, by any new Commentator on the Laws, to his own purposes; and it is manifestly not less his duty than his interest, to make the appropriation. He cannot reasonably hope to rival their excellence; and to attempt to displace them for original matter of his own, is consequently an injury to the public, and to the science of which

he treats.

All passages, then, which appeared to me to fall under either of the descriptions above given, I have made it my principle to retain; but my deviations from the original work have, nevertheless, been frequent and extensive. Independently of certain objections to its arrangement (to which I shall presently revert), its exposition of particular subjects appeared to me to be often deficient in depth, in fulness, or in precision, and in some instances to be even chargeable with positive inaccuracy; so that, as I had prescribed to myself the rule of departing from Blackstone wherever I felt dissatisfied with his performance as well as where any change in the law had made a departure indispensable, it is seldom that I have been able to pursue the text for several pages in succession, without the introduction (more or less extensively) of matter from my own pen (c). Large portions, indeed, of original composition will be found frequently to occur in a continuous form; and even where the text of my predecessor is pursued with shorter interruption, yet it will be often apparent that fundamental alterations have been made in the manner of treating the particular subject under discussion. There is no part of the present volume, perhaps, in which the innovation is so important, as in that which regards the law of Descent, where I have endeavoured to lay down new

(c) Such matter has of course copiously increased since this Preface was written, owing to the vast additions since then made to the Statute Book.