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KEN performing his judicial duties, and to the existence of that provision we are probably indebted for the work. England has only furnished one Blackstone, and the American rival equals him in classic purity and elegance of style, and surpasses him in extent and copiousness of learn- ing. What do Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries contain, of Equity Jurisprudence, of the Law of Nations, and the several tides of Com- mercial Law, which are discussed with such richness and accuracy by Chancellor Kent 1 Scarcely nothing, and a comparison of other titles in the two works shows the American author to have surpassed his rival in comprehensiveness of research, and fulness of illustration, and to have equalled him in clearness and cogency of reasoning. He does not scruple to use the learning of other writers when to his purpose, which reappears with the additional outpourings of his own well stored mind, and his criticisms upon their merits are judi- cious and highly instructive, as denoting the sources and value of the information to be derived from them. Several titles of the law which properly require distinct treatises to unfold, or are so pecu- liarly local as not to be adapted to the plan of his Commentaries, such as Practice of the Courts, Criminal Law, Evidence, Actions and Plead- ings, the author omits. It is scarcely necessary to add, what is so well known, that the American Commentaries is a text book of the highest character for accuracy, that it is a work which no lawyer thinks of doing without, and that its reputation and usefulness is not wholly confined to the United States. Mr. Johnes, an English author, in alluding to the Commentaries, says: "They may be recommended to the English law student of the present day, as a substitute for Blackstone. They contain not only a clear statement of the English law, with all the alterations that have taken place since the time of Blackstone, but a full account of the main principles of Equity, (a topic on which the English Commen- tator is confessedly deficient;) also, a review of the modifications engrafted on the English law by the different States of the Union — and on all important questions, an instructive parallel between the English, American, Modern Continental, and Civil Laws." Mr. Manning also remarks of the Commentaries, that "They are fine examples of lucid and manly reasoning, and the style in which they are written is perspi- cuous and forcible. From the nature of the work, Chancellor Kent was only able to devote a small portion of his treatise to the Law of Nations ; but their brevity is the only thing that is objectionable in these lectures, for all that the author does give us is valuable." And Professor White- side, in his Lecture before the Dublin Law Institute, observes of the Commentaries, that the subjects are discussed with the greatest ability and learning. " We have never, in any English work, met with a more full and satisfactory account of the rights and liabilities of infants, than is contained in the work before us. Before quitting this book we wish to say a few words as to its style, and of this we can scarcely speak in 438