The Sun.
London, England, 1863-11-13 00:00:00

MR. WARREN'S LAW STUDIES.

A Popular and Practical Introduction to Law
Studies, and to .Every Department of the Legal
Profession. By Samuel Warren, D.C.L., Q.C.,
Recorder of Hull, and Master of Lunacy. Third

Edition. Two Volumes. William Maxwell.

Although that unmistakeable stamp of success,
" Third Edition,', is conspicuously visible on the
title page of this, in every sense, weighty treatise,
the work is essentially a new work altogether. The
fruits of the learned author's labours since they were
first put forth have ripened : or, rather, to adopt an
apter metaphor—the sturdy and apparently ample
bole, already familiar to the law students of an earlier
period, has here expanded, ring by ring, during the
last six years, has struck deeper ruot, and spread
forth wider branches, in all directions. It is
umbrageous now to the extent of seven hundred
and eighty-four leaves. As the result of re-
searches at once the most minute and the most
comprehensive, of a scrupulous attention to details
throughout, and of assiduous application in regard
to the symmetry and lucidity of their arrangement,
the work, if viewed merely as a reprtory of pro.
fessional information, is not only very remarkable,
but is, beyond that, entitled to our most cordial and
earnest admiration. It is remarkable, however, far
more than for the value of the materials out of
which, or for the merits of the design upon which,
it has been constructed. It is peculiarly and espe-
cially remarkable for the philosophical spirit in
which the whole of it has been conceived, and with
which every particle of it may be said to have been
more or less animated. Mr. Warren, we observe,
frankly acknowledges in his elaborate preface to
this third edition ot his "Law Studies" that, when
occupied in entirely re-writing the work and, while
thus rewriting it, enlarging it so very con-
siderably, he throughout his labours " en-
deavoured to keep steadily in view" the
impressive advice conveyed to all thoughtful
readers, in a passage contained in Another Preface--
that penned by Lord Bacon as an introduction to
his "Elements of the Common Law of England."
The passage may be found here at page viii, in
its entirety—beginning, "I hold every man a
debtor to his profession." It furnishes us at once
with a key to-what might otherwise have remair.ed
an almost inscrutable mystery, meaning by that Mr.
Warren's spontaneous acceptance of the responsi-
bEities devolving upon one adventuring upon so very
laborious and complicated an enterprize. Conscien-
tiously he has held himself, as Lord Bacon saith he
holds every man, to be—" a debtor to his pro-
fession." If it were solely by the production ot
this one comprehensive and substantial work—nobly
has. telr. Warren acquitted himself of that debt
of his to his profession. Bat, by other works of
a remarkable, though of a lesser, value than that
attaching to the present, he had already,
in this sense (it may have been unconsciously, so
to speak, instinctively) acted in accordance with the
suggestion of the philosophic Lord Chancellor. His
admirably well digested epitome of " Blackstone's
Commentaries," now one of the recognised text-
books at our two ancient Universities—his masterly
series of discourses eddressed to intending Attorneys
and Solicitors, discourses orally delivered by Mr.
Warren, some few years back, at the Law Institu-
tion, in Chancery-lane, prior to the date of their
original publication—an occasional digest of im•
portant subjects relating to especial divisions of
our legal administration, as, for example, one in
reference to Parliamentary Law or the Law of
Elections : professional works of this kind Mr.
Warren has at intervals contributed to the
book shelves of his professional brethren, as one
readily and eagerly holding with Lord Bacon, that
every man is a debtor to his profession.. This, more-
over, it should also bs especially remembered, in his
instance, while he himself, throughout these thirty
years, has been actively engaged in his profession as
an advocate, without the bar and within it, in the
stuff gown and in the silk. The man who has thus,
during very nearly the lifetime of one entire genera.
tion, been toiling energetically in his profession,
both at the desk and at the bar—having, quite apart
from his profession, in very despite of the proverbial
jealousy of that most jealous mistress the Law, as-
sumed and held a very high and brilliant position as
one of the chief contributors to the popular and
imaginative literature of the age. The author, in
his youth, of " The Diary of a Late Physician !"
The author, in his early manhood, of " Ten
Thousand a Year !" The former of these two
celebrated works sounding, prematurely, and
in thrilling chords, the whole gamut of human
suffering from the treble to the diapason. The latter
of the two constituting, what
might be called par
excellence, and without an atom of exaggeration,
the typical prose satire of the day. This sarcastic,
creator of Oily Gammon and Tittlebat. Titmouse,
this pathetic celebrant of the victim of a ' Slight.
Cold," of the Cancer," and of " Consumption,"