Introduction.
ccxiii
judicial decisions, they calculated that the judicial decisions
were included in thirteen hundred volumes, exclusive
hundred and
of a
and they calThey culated the number of cases at a hundred thousand. recommended a digest, which they defined as a condensed
summary
of the
under proper
volumes
fifty
law as
of Irish reports,
exists arranged in systematic order
it
and subdivisions, and divided into
titles
definite
statements or propositions, which should be supported by the law
references to the sources of
and might be
severally derived,
whence they were
illustrated
by
citations of
the principal instances in which the rules stated have been
discussed or applied.
The commission very
remarkable
first
report,
and took some evidence
sat
the
only one
but
made no
allusion
that
appeared,
they
that
ever
in to
it
is
their
the
exhaustive and complete Index to the Statutes, and the edition of them down to the reign of Queen Anne, which was prepared by very distinguished commissioners in answer to addresses of the House of Commons. Both the index and
the edition of the statutes are a marvellous exhibition of
painstaking labour and
The various
profound learning.
volumes when published were deposited in the Parliament
and received
Ofiice,
this inscription
This book
perpetually preserved in, and for the use
of,
is
to be
the Parliament
Office."
It
may be
truly said that so great a
both legal and archaBological,
where
and
it
is
is
monument of
learning,
hardly to be found else-
most unfortunate that the edition
of
the statutes does not go beyond the reign of Anne, and
does
not,
Eaithby's
own death
indeed,
reach
the
end
of
that
reign.
Mr.
index goes down nearly to the period of his in 1826, but
and continued since
many
his
indices have been completed
time.
Nevertheless,
both for
design and execution, Mr. Eaithby's index deserves to be
remembered.
