Page:Marvin, Legal Bibliography, 1847.djvu/590

POT deal of useful practical information, on the different subjects of maritime and commercial law. Redd. Mar. Com. 432 ; 1 A. J. 322. POTIER, R. J. A Treatise on tlie Law of Obligations or Contracts, translated from the French, with an Introduction, Appendix and Notes, illustrative of the English Law on the Subject. By Wil- liam David Evans. 2 vols. 8vo. Philadelphia. 1840. The first English translation of the above work was made by F. X. Martin, 2 vols. 8vo., Newbern, 1802, and then followed the second, by Mr. Evans, in 1806, which has been several times reprinted in this country. The latter translation, though generally correct, is not always to be relied upon, since several errors that Mr. Evans has fallen into, show that he had not a perfect knowledge of all the technicalities of the French law. His notes are comprehensive and learned, and deserve a careful perusal in connexion with the text, and he is entitled to considerable praise for having furnished Potliier on Oblis^ations to the profession in so good and accurate an English garb. Sir William Jones first presented the claims of Pothier's writings to the attention of the bar in England as follows — I seize with pleasure an opportunity of recommending Pothier's admi- rable treatise on all the different species of express or implied contracts, to the English lawyer; exhorting him to read them again and again; for if his great master, Littleton, has given him, as it must be presumed, a taste for luminous method, opposite examples, and a clear manly style, in which nothing is redundant, nothing deficient, he will surely be de- lighted with works in which all these advantages are combined, and the greatest portion of which is law at Westminster, as well as at Orleans. For my ovi-n part, I am so charmed with them, that if my undissembled fondness for the study of jurisprudence, were never to produce any greater benefit to the public, than barely the introduction of Pothier to the acquaintance of my countrymen, I should think that I had, in some measure, discharged the debt which every man, according to Lord Coke {^Lord Bacon?) owes to his profession." The treatise on obligations is eminently a book of principles, derived from the Civil law, and adapted to the circumstances and the practice of modern times. A large class of legal writers of the present day compose their works of abstracts of de- cisions merely, rather than lay down principles which will dispose of whole classes of cases, arising under dissimilar circumstances. Pothier on Obligations belongs to the latter sort of works, and " is not only a good book of law, but an excellent book of morals; a work of all countries, of all nations; a book, to which antiquity can present no rival but the Offices if Cicero.^' Intro. Park's Ins. 81 ; 8 A. J. 322; (12) 378 ; 34 L. M. 341 ; Redd. Mar. Com. 357 ; Pref. Abbott on Ship.; 5 Barn. & Aid. 474. 578