they will be found to pursue methods entirely remote from that which I have adopted.

Of the plan and principle of my own work, and of the views on which it was undertaken, it may be right here to give some farther explanation. Though the celebrated Treatise of Blackstone still remains without a rival, as an introductory and popular work on the Laws of England, the positions it contains have been nevertheless so trenched upon by recent alterations in the law itself, that if the student were to rely upon its text, as containing an accurate account of our present system of jurisprudence, he would be led continually astray. The later editions have consequently comprised a copious accompaniment of corrective and supplementary notes at the bottom of the page: but it is not in the nature of such a method (with whatever ability pursued) to give entire satisfaction, because it obliges the reader to transfer his attention incessantly, from the text to the commentary, and augments also, to a considerable degree, the bulk and consequent expense of the volumes. These considerations led me to conceive that a work might prove acceptable, which should be framed upon the plan of introducing the necessary alterations into the text itself; but the question then arose, whether it would be better to confine my effort to the reparation of those defects which new legis

lation and new decisions had occasioned, or to take a bolder course, and, discarding all solicitude about the measure of my adherence to the original work, to interweave my own composition with it, as freely as the purpose of general improvement might seem to require. It was upon the latter plan that I fixed, though with some hesitation, my choice.

It may be thought, perhaps, that the confidence which carried me thus far, might naturally have tempted me farther, and taught me to aspire to the construction of an entirely new treatise. But if I had been conscious of faculties adequate to such an enterprize, I should still have declined it, as founded, in my judgment, on a wrong principle. The unimpaired portion of Blackstone's Commentaries comprise many passages, which (free in other respects from objection) are so far valuable at least, that they bear the stamp of his authority, and many others whose merit is of the highest order, being distinguished by all the grace and spirit of diction, the justness of thought, and the affluence of various learning, to which he owes his fame. These relics, which are in considerable danger of perishing by their incorporation in a work now falling into decay, may be lawfully converted, by any new Commentator on the Laws, to his own purposes; and it is manifestly not less his duty than his interest, to make

the appropriation. He cannot reasonably hope to rival their excellence, and to attempt to displace them for original matter of his own, is consequently an injury to the public, and to the science of which he treats.

All passages, then, which appeared to me to fall under either of the descriptions above given, I have made it my principle to retain; but my deviations from the original work have, nevertheless, been frequent and extensive. Independently of certain objections to its arrangement (to which I shall presently revert), its exposition of particular subjects appeared to me to be often deficient in depth, in fulness, or in precision, and in some instances to be even chargeable with positive inaccuracy; so that as I had prescribed to myself the rule of departing from Blackstone wherever I felt dissatisfied with his performance, as well as where any change in the law had made a departure indispensable, it is seldom that I have been able to pursue the text for several pages in succession, without the introduction (more or less extensively) of matter from my own pen. Large portions, indeed, of original composition will be found frequently to occur in a continuous form; and even where the text of my predecessor is pursued with shorter interruption, yet it will be often apparent that fundamental alterations have been made in the manner

of treating the particular subject under discussion. There is no part of the present volume, perhaps, in which the innovation is so important, as in that which regards the law of Descent, where I have endeavoured to lay down new Rules of Inheritance, in lieu of the well known Canons of Blackstone, now superseded by the effect of a recent act of parliament a severe task-from which I should have been tempted to recoil, if, consistently with the general plan of my work, it had been possible to leave it unattempted.

But it is in that which regards the general arrangement, that the strongest claim of the present work to originality will be found. The order adopted by Blackstone is, in all its principal lineaments, derived from the Analysis of Hale ; but though rendered venerable by the combined authority of names like these, I have not felt myself able to accede to it, without alteration. The main division, indeed, by which the body of municipal law is severed into Rights and Wrongs, I have deemed it expedient to retain; for (though liable to the great disadvantage of precluding the entire or continuous discussion of some particular subjects, by making it necessary to recur to them under the aspect of Wrongs, after they have already once engaged our attention under that of Rights) it is founded nevertheless on a natural and

just distinction, and is interwoven besides with the whole fabric of our law, and rooted in the minds of our lawyers. The division also of Wrongs into those of a civil, and those of a criminal nature, I have, for similar reasons, thought it clearly essential to preserve. But as to the division of Rights, the case is widely different. These are distributed into Rights of Persons and Rights of Things; an arrangement which has been justly considered contrary both to grammatical and logical propriety. For the rights of things can only be understood as signifying the rights relating to things-a sense not correctly conveyed by the form of expression; and placed, besides, in false antithesis to the rights of persons; by which is evidently intended the rights belonging to persons. The meaning would have been better expressed by a division into the rights relating to persons, and the rights relating to things. This fault, indeed, is the more remarkable, because it might have been avoided by a closer adherence to the language of Justinian's Institutes, which apparently served in this instance as the model: Omne jus quo utimur (according to this authority) vel ad personas pertinet, vel ad res, vel ad actiones(b).

The arrangement in question, however, is not open merely to this kind of criticism, but to (b) Instit. lib. i. tit. 2.