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GRE GREENING, II. A Selection of Leading Statutes, with Notes thereon, intended principally for the use of Students. 8vo, Lon- don. 1845. This selection is arranged upon the plan of Coke's II. Institute, but the notes are unfreqiicnt and do not evince much research. G Jurist, 51. GREENLEAF, SIMON. A Treatise on the Law of Evidence. 2 vols. Svo. Boston. 1844-46. vol. L 3d ed. vol. IT. Isted. Until the appearance of Professor Greenleaf's Treatise upon Kvidence, the Bar in the United States were wholly dependent upon English works for information in this department of the law. The principles of Evi- dence, established by American Cases, though generally, but not always coincident with the English decisions, could only be found collected, as tail-pieces to English reprints of works on Evidence, or in the Digests; and the want of some complete treatise which should combine the Law of Evidence of the two countries, had long been felt, before a writer of sufTicient learning and leisure came forward to supply the desideratum. Happily for the profession, one whose long practice at the Bar, and whose study of the subject for several years, under peculiar circumstances, com- bined with great facilities for the undertaking, assumed the labor, in the person of Prof. Greenleaf, and right worthily and acceptably has he per- formed the task. The pages of the volumes arc not disfigured by any ram- bling dissertations upon collateral subjects, though all that is pertinent, by way of illustration, is introduced. It is a Treatise upon Evidence and nothing else. The work is characterized by a logical distribution of subjects, by a clear and forcible statement of principles, clothed in a perspicuous anglo-Saxon style. The reader is never at a loss to com- prehend the author's meaning, whose ideas are as clearly expressed as forcibly conceived. The authorities referred to in support of the doc- trines of the text, are not all that could have been adduced, but the best. The aid of the feeble, inconclusive, and doubtful authorities, is not invoked, and the labor of weighing, selecting, and extracting the govern- ing principles, from the bad and the good, the conflicting and irrecon- cilable Cases, was the work, and herein consists the chief excellency and distinctive character of Professor Greenleaf's Evidence, in contradistinc- tion to all other books upon this subject. The first volume is devoted to the consideration of the general princi- ples of Evidence; the second, to tbe exposition of the Evidence appli- cable to particular issues, with brief forms. It is understood that the Professor intends adding a third volume of Criminal Evidence and Pleading, which, it is to be hoped, he may find time to accomplish. It may not be generally known, that this admirable work was written dur- ing the author's active duties as Professor of Law, which necessarily engrossed a large share of his attention, and subjected him to continued 347