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Verona MS., we do not wonder that it should be so. It is wonderful that so connected a text should, on the whole, have been made out, rather than that so much should yet remain to be done in the way of textual restoration and illustration. But help may yet come, and that from remote quarters. It is but lately that a Græco-Latin fragment of a Law MS. has come to light in that Sinaitic storehouse, which has hitherto gained a fame chiefly in Biblical criticism. The new find, which is edited with the utmost care by M. Dareste, well known for his studies in Greek and Roman juridical epigraphy, in the number for Nov.-Dec., 1880, of our able contemporary the Nouvelle Revue Historique de Droit (Paris: Larose), contains extracts from a work which M. Dareste considers to be that of Gaius, "De Tutelis," besides other references probably to Gaius. We should have liked to find in Professor Muirhead's notes more matter bearing upon the illustration of Gaius generally. Thus, at the only passage in his Institutes where Delegation is mentioned (III., 130), that fact might have been brought out, as it was brought out, in the pages of the French Review we have just cited, by M. Gide, one of its editors, whose loss, like that of M. Machelard, from whom we have also cited thoughful passages in these pages, is a loss, not only to the French Bar and Professoriate, but to all students of Roman Law. We hope that Professor Muirhead will be encouraged soon to give us more of the fruit of his careful studies in the comparatively little worked field which he has here made his own. For in Great Britain, at least, Gaius has as yet attracted fewer workers than Justinian, and on this account, in part, as well as on account of the necessarily imperfect condition of the text, the study of Gaius has not kept pace with that of Justinian. If the workers in the field are fewer, however, they are certainly a select band While renewing the expression of our hope soon to greet a fresh appearance of Professor Muirhead's Gaius, we feel bound to say that we are encouraged therein by the singularly high standard which, in his case as in that of Professor Lorimer's Institutes of Law, we have been glad to find reached by the Law classes in the University of Edinburgh.

Proceedings in an Action in the Queen's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer Divisions of the High Court of Justice. Second

Edition. By SAMUEL PRENTICE, Esq., of the Middle Temple, one of Her Majesty's Counsel. Stevens and Sons, 1880.

The three Divisions of the High Court, of which this treatise sets forth the practice, will doubtless, under the recent Order in Council, soon become in name what they already are in fact, one Division only, that of the Common Law. Such a change, however, will in no way detract from the practical value of Mr. Prentice's work, which pressure on our space has prevented us from noticing in an earlier issue. But little alteration has been made in this edition, except that the Rules of Court and decided cases have been carefully noted and inserted in their proper places. We can safely recommed the book to students, for whose use it is primarily intended, and it will also, we think, be found a handy volume in the Solicitor's office.

Company Precedents for use in relating to Companies subject to the Companies Acts, 1862 to 1880. By FRANCIS BEAUfort PALMER, of the Inner Temple, Esq., Barrister-at-Law. Second Edition. Stevens and Sons. 1881.

The favourable opinion which we expressed of this work on its first issue, has been justified by the speedy demand for a second edition. Well designed and ably executed, it has proved of much practical utility to the draftsman. The present edition has been thoroughly revised, and while the notes have been carefully brought down to date as regards the references to decided cases and additions to the statute law, numerous fresh precedents have been added, more especially under the headings of Prospectuses," Winding-up," Arrangements" under the Act of 1870, "Private Acts," and "Orders" in actions by and against Companies. To make room for the new matter, without unduly increasing the bulk of the volume, the Provisional Orders of the Board of Trade, which were given in the first edition, have been judiciously omitted. Speaking from practical experience in the use of the volume, we can confidently recommend it to the profession.

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By DAVID

A Treatise on the Law of Merchant Shipping. MACLACHLAN, M.A., of the Middle Temple, Esq., Barrister-atLaw. Third Edition. W. Maxwell & Son. 1880.

A Treatise on the Law of Merchant Shipping and Freight. By JAMES T. FOARD, of the Inner Temple, Esq., Barrister-at-Law. Waterlow & Sons, Limited. Stevens & Sons, 1880.

The Law Maritime must always command a considerable amount of attention from the authors of works of reference for the practitioner in the various branches of English law. We are not surprised, therefore, that from time to time new writers should appear before us, as in the case of Mr. Foard, while the authors of well-established books, like Mr. Maclachlan, claim our notice for new and carefully revised issues of their texts. Under ordinary circumstances, we should scarcely have been able to do more than announce the publication of a third edition, but Mr. Maclachlan, besides the general work of revision, has taken advantage of the decision of the House of Lords in Lohre v. Aitchison to express his views at some length on the very important question involved. The nature of the argument on the interpretation of the "Sue and Labour Clause" in Lloyd's Policy, set out by Mr. Maclachlan by way of appendix to his chapter on Salvage, affords to our minds a good instance of the necessity, upon which we have before now insisted in these pages, of a wide general education for the Bar, such as is best represented by a University training. We find the learned author, in his dissent from the judgment of the House, as moved by Lord Blackburn, resting much upon the philological history of the words "sue, labour, and travel." His contention on this point appears to us to rest on a strong foundation, and we may perhaps offer it some further support by adducing the unconscious testimony of the late Mr. Herbert Coleridge. That distinguished philologist, in his valuable fragment, A Dictionary of the Oldest Words in the English Language (London, 1862), embracing "Every word found in the printed English Literature of the thirteenth century," gives references for each of the words in question. For the first of them, viz., "sue," and for "travail," as a substantive, his authority is Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle (edited by Hearne, 1810), while for the remaining one, "labour," he refers to the Life and Martyrdom of Thomas Beket (edited for the Percy Society). These instances, we think, may fairly be held to carry back the idiomatic catena in favour of Mr. Maclachlan's argument further than he has carried it himself, further by at least a century than the date which he assigns to what he has shown good cause for calling the "English" policy of maritime assurance.

Mr. Foard comes before us with an aim not less useful, though more modest than that of the larger text-books. His object was to provide a "practical synopsis " of that part of the Law Merchant regulating the employment of ships and the earning of freight. To comprise even this portion of the subject within the compass of a single really portable volume, was no easy task. On the whole, we think it has been carried out to a successful issue. The notes bristle with references to an extent which must always call for very careful revision, and it will scarcely surprise Mr. Foard if we say that we have found more errata than are accounted for in his list. Thus, Lord Tenterden, for whom, nevertheless, Mr. Foard has a very proper respect, appears in a note to p. 77 as "Tentenden," and under yet another disguise in a passage in the text, p. 224, as "Tenderden." There is, unfortunately, often apt to be a certain amount of hurry at the last, to bring out a book in time for the recurrence of the usual publishing" season," which, no doubt, is answerable for such slips. Even Mr. Maclachlan's very carefully revised issue is not free from antinomies of this kind. In his Table of Cases, he gives us the strange form "The Evangelissimos," which looks like a sort of bastard Grecised superlative of the "Evangelismos," correctly cited on p. 634. Mr. Foard's text, we think, is worth the close study which it requires, and in these days of pouring forth books upon books on the same branch of law, that is, we take it, no small praise. While the larger and fuller treatises, Arnould, Abbott, Maclachlan, &c., are calculated almost solely for chambers and Court, Mr. Foard's volume would also be a convenient and useful companion of the master mariner on his voyages over sea. Mr. Foard has made good use of the treasures of learning on the history of Maritime Law enshrined in the great collection of M. Pardessus, and in the very valuable Black Book of the Admiralty and other ancient texts, edited for the Master of the Rolls by Sir Travers Twiss. Among useful foreign sources of information, which do not as yet appear to have been consulted by Mr. Foard, our able French contemporary, the Revue Générale du Droit (Paris: E. Thorin), has published not a few articles, e.g., a series by M. Levillain,

on

"The Juridical character of Conventions made during the building of a ship, and the ownership of vessels during construction" (Revue Gén., Nov.-Dec., 1877, et seqq.), besides notices of Laurin's edition of Cresp's Droit Maritime, Paulmier's and Mallet's works on "Maritime Hypothec," and not least, an

essay on "Maritime Law" (Rev. Gén., March-April, 1879, et seqq.) by M. Boistel, himself the author of an esteemed Précis de Droit Commercial, which also forms the subject of a notice. M. Boistel's views tend, like those of the principal bodies of jurists and commercial men whom we have seen and heard in divers congresses assembled, towards consolidation and assimilation, if not unification, of the Law Maritime. This, of course, cannot but be a work of time, and requiring the greatest care and attention to the varieties of national character, which will always preserve certain differences. For some, however, it seems hard to find a readily intelligible reason. Why, for instance, should an expenditure for repairs, in a foreign country, at a rate of more than six francs per ton, entail the loss of French nationality, save in cases of necessity (Goirand's Code of Commerce, p. 246)? There may have once existed a reason for this singular limitation, but the penalty seems unduly severe. How such a vessel could, under the supposed circumstances, clear out of the port where she lost her status, is not very apparent, and her subsequent condition, whether on the high seas, or in jurisdictional waters, would scarcely be pleasant. We observe that Mr. Foard, at p. 102, gives "reasonable deliberation" as the equivalent of the phrase "délibération motivée" in the French law. It seems to us that it would be better rendered, both grammatically and juridically, as a deliberation or discussion of which the reasons are stated, and in this view we think we are supported by M. Goirand's excellent French Code of Commerce (London: Stevens & Sons, 1880), p. 294. It is there said: "a report of the deliberation [as to jettison] is drawn up, specifying the motives for the throwing overboard, and enumerating the articles thrown overboard or damaged." Mr. Foard gives some useful summaries of the existing English law, with its limitations, and its corollaries, and sometimes suggests points for amendment. He notices throughout American as well as English decisions. This is always a useful feature in a modern law-book. The American and Continental systems are, on the whole, more liberal in their tendency than our own. By studying each other's views, we may arrive some day at a greater uniformity in the "us et coutumes de la Mer" throughout the civilised world.

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