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 lvery Department of the Legal
Profession. By Samuel Warren, D.C.L., Q.C.
R-corder of Hull, and Master of Lunacy. Thirc
Edition. T wo 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 earliei
period, has here expanded, ring by ring, during the
last six years, has struck deeper root, and spread
forth wider branches, in all directions. It it
umbrageous now to the extent of seven hundrec
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 regarc
to the symmetry and lucidity of their arrangement,
the work, if viewed merely as a repertory of pro
fessional information, is not only very remarkable
but is, beyond that, entitled to our most cordial tine
earnest admiration. It is remarkable, however, fat
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 it,
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 of his " Law Studies" that, whet.
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" th(
impressive advice conveyed to all thoughtful
readers, in a passage contained in Another Preface—
that penned by Lord Bacon as an introduction ti
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- s
debtor to his profession." It furnishes us at one(
with a key to what might otherwise have remain et'
an almost inscrutable mystery, meaning by that Mi
Warren's spontaneous acceptance of the responsi
bi!ities devolving upon one adventuring upon so ver3
laborious and complicated an enterprize. Conscien
tiously he hies held himself, as Lord Bacon saith hi
holds every man, to be—" a debtor to his pro
fession." If it were solely by the production o
this one comprehensive and substantial work—nobly
has %Ir. Warren acquitted himself of that deb
of his to his profession. But, by other works o'
a remarkable, though of a lesser, -value than that
attaching to the present, he had already
in this sense (it may have been unconsciously, Sc
to speak, instinctively) acted in accordance with the
suggestion of the philosophic Lord Chancello. His
admirably well digested epitome of " Blackstone's
Commentaries," now one of the recognised text-
books at our two ancient Universiiies—his masterly
series of discourses addressed 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 be 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 yn e
in thrilling chords, the whole gamut ofhuman
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 tend Tittlebat Titmouse,
this pathetic celebrant of the victim of a " Slight
Cold," of the " Cancer," and of " Consumption,"

penning meanwhile, in rapid succession, though at
uncertain intervals, some of the most striking
papers that have appeared in Maga since the
Golden Age of the "Noctes Ambrosianm." In-
stance this, his charming biographic commemoration
of men like Sir William Follett, in his time all but

Lord High Chancellor of England, and of that
wonderful Jehn William Smith, who, had he lived,
might have been almost anything, in spite of his
ungainly ways and his singularly unprepos-

sessing appearance. Instance this—an enthral-

ling logical web to disentangle, a mysterious
literary nut to crack, call it what you
will, entitled interrogatively " Who was the
Murderer ?" Finally, instance this—in a lighter
vein, yet one that we should almost be tempted to
designate his forte, that comical poking of fun at men
and things, after the fashion of Gresset, laughing out
radiantly at us among the motley " Tales from
Blackwood" under the fantastic title of " Tickler
among the Thieves." Ocher miscellaneous writings
of Mr. Warren, there are, that—let us frankly con-
fess it—we don't in the least admire. Eccen-

,ricities of authorship, for example, like " The
Lily and the Bee," writings that aro for us
as if they had been penned it some unknown
tongue, that are about as comprehensible to
us, let us say, for that matter, as the signifi-
cation of the awful word abracadabra. As to the
merits of the work, now more particularly, how-
ever, under consideration, there could hardly, one
might suppose, be two opinions. The hinting of a
fault, or rather of a whole multitude of faults, in
regard to these " Law Studies"—perhaps we ought
rather to say in reference to the captious and snarl-
ing criticism we are about, just for one moment, in
passing, to particularise, the hesitation of a dislike,
of a bitter personal dislike, derived from some name-
less source, in regard to the learners author of these
pages, could alone be accounted for, very recently,
by the fact that the cynicism resulting in those two
Amiable achievements, the hinting of those faults,
the hesitation of that dislike, came to view in the
columns of that clever, sneering, brilliant, offen-
iive, delightful, intolerable, weekly journal, dubbed
some time since by Mr. Thackeray in a moment of
Grandisonian irritation the Superfine Review !
That Mr. Warren's " Law Studies" are not perfect
—well, cela va sane dire. Errors of fact inevitably
creep into these widely ranging surveys of a
learned profession, a profession, moreover, which is
perpetually undergoing changes of all kinds in,the
way of modification or development. All the time
that Mr. Warren, during these last six years, has
been laboriously occupied in writing these pages
and revising the prootsheets with an evidently
scrupulous and cautions exactitude, the laws of
{he realm in respect to several most important
departments have been undergoing a series of
remarkable transformations. The task here under-
aken to be accomplished by him has, therefore,
been all the while one of extraordinary difficulty
And delicacy. It has been something equivalent to
taking a photograph of a dissolving view. The

survey of every department of the legal profession
has, however, in this comprehensive " Introduction
to Law Studies" not only been steadily pursued
throughout those six years, but has at length at the
end of them been most happily accomplished. That
here and there, in exceptional cases, Mr. Warren's
revision of 1568 octavo pages has not been tho-
roughly completed, even in the leaf devoted
to the errata, is hardly to' be wondered
t. Those oversights of the kind, however,
which have alone caught our attention, upon
careful examination of the two volumes, are of
uch microscopical minuteness, are of such utter in-
lignificance, intrinsically, that to particularise them
as substantial objections to the value of the work
would be the veriest inanity of hypercriticism.
Omissions of such vital importance, for example,
from that page already reverted to (xxxi.), set
►part for the corrigenda—as that Sir George

o wyer is mentioned at p. 351 as Mr.
Bowyer, where allusion is made by the author

o the learned baronet's " Commentaries on the

Jonstitational Law of England." Or, again, as that
iir Edward Creasy, upon the very next page (p.
352) is spoken of as Mr. Creasy, in reference
o that Indian Judge's book on the •` Rise and Pro-

tress of the English Constitution." Objections
lave been raised—in the same petty spirit of fault-
finding for the mere love of that cynical
uastime—by reason of Mr. Warren's gravely
enforcing upon the attention of the more
youthful, and we will presume also more in-
differently-educated, law students, the enorir.ity of
inch vulgar slips of the tongue, ai the ellision of
their H's, or the interchange of v and W, or, direst
outrage of all, in this way, upon our sense of hear-
ing, the insertion of an R between a final and
initial vowel. Atrabilious, indeed, must have
been the temperament, or, at any rate, the mood, of
he reviewer who could seriously direct this pre-
posterous charge (viz, that of giving superfluous
idvice) against Mr. Warren—seeing that at p. 226
there was ample reason under the critic's gaze,
for having his ill-humour laughed away by
whimsical little illustration in respect
to the interpolated R—to wit " Amelia Anne,
masquerading as Amelia Racine." 0 ojections of so
very frivolous a kind, in truth, as those already

indicated, are as completely beneath the learned
-►uther's consideration, as might be exceptions

-aken in the hearing of a Gothic architect to
iome casual flaw or stain upon the nose of a gur-
-I,oyle. Fail to coincide with the conclusions ar-
rived at by Mr. Warren in the course of his elabo-
ate treatise, we cannot but to do repeatedly, as is
hat natural, indeed, in regard to a work so elaborate
ind comprehensive in its character. His opinions,
for example, as to the absolute unans werableness
Chillingworth's argument in that famous divine's
reply to Matthias Wilson, otherwise Ed ward Knott,
we take to be an utterly extravagant exaggeration.
Imagine yourself, (he says, to the Student Reader),
n the place of that unhappy opponent of Chilling-
worth—" Can you find an instant's opening ? Is
your opponent ever off his guard ? Does he ever
make a false thrust P Or fail of parrying the best
if his antagonists ? Can you discover, in a word,
t defect, or a redundancy, in either thought or ex-
jression ?" The mere extravagance, this, of ejacu-
,atory, we will even say, of adulatory and hyper-
oolical admiration ! Again, we cannot but deem it to
either a very reprehensible reticence, or a very
singular forgetfulness, the omission of any reference
whatever to William Cobbett's wonderful" History
)f the Protestant Reformation," where reference is
made to the annals of that extraordinary move
went : although due attention is directed to " the
Romish view of it" obtainable from Dr. Lingard's
flistory of England, and to "the Protestant, or
Church of England view of it," to be found in

" Palmer's Treatise on the Church of Christ."
Cobbett's masterpiece being in reality one of
the most powerful and notable histories—to our
thinking incomparably the most powerful and
notable history—of that period and that movement,
anywhere discoverable. Hardly, moreover (speaking
now upon a totally different subject), can we do
otherwise than avow our unwillingness to assent
to the accuracy and validity of the astounding con-
clusion arrived at by, Mr. Warren, at the close of his
very able and remarkable definition of the differ-
ence between the strictly legal and the strictly con-
stitutional. It. seems to us, in truth, little less than
lezi tnqeste to dream for one moment of averring
as an incontrovertible and irrefragable truth
that—lf the spirit of Englishmen had degene-
rated so far as to tolerate and approve an Act
abolishing trial by jury, prohibiting public
meetings, and repealinthe Habeas Corpus Act,
g
the Bill of Rights, and the Great Charter,
then it would be both legal and constitutional,
Legal ?__Yes! Constitutional ?—a thousand times
No! Constitutional?—why, the whole Constitution,
passingswet o
of any
ofexistence, any such act as that,wou lwdoubeld be, ipso
facto,
e thetoswept
annihilated. The application of the word to
:tinaynstuheeh
mAoostt, therefore,
of
,womuilsdnornbeerns. othingless
Fright-
fully legal such a proceeding would be on the part
of a degenerate Parliament, but never Const-
itutional. Widely divergent at times, however,
though our opinions, our cacvictions, our sentiments
may be—" wide as the poles asunder"--nay,
leg though we may do, toto cioc,,lunpnoont oe!drliftewr:
vital matters of discussion—ape possibly,
th .a t
any time or under any circumstances, d
than respect the arguments put forth byNolro,WeLwreinse,

even where we are the least disposed to recognis
their validity. For he writes upon all serious
matters, as we have already remarked, in an elevated
and philosophical spirit. He writes, moreover upon
all the loftier themes that naturally come here, in
sequence, under his consideration, with what we
are ever eager to respect, a profound conecien-
tiousness. Reading his book thus, as we have done,
with a ready sense of the seriousness with which
it has been penned throughout, we would aPPI9
to it, now that it is completed, the very words
in which Mr. Warren himself comments upon Dr.
Arnold's " Inireductory Lectures on Modern His-
tory." No words, in fact, that we ourselves
might put together could be more strictly applicable
to these two goodly volumes of Mr. Warren's Law
Studies. "They abound in fruitful and practical
suggestions, which.caonot be entered into here, and
all of them it is not to be expected that every in-
dependent inquirer will adopt, however great hie
deference to manifest worth and ability." Th°
panoramic view here unrolled with so much
effect before the aspiring Law Student by this
ripe scholar, this practised lawyer, this
gifted man of letters—is certainly calculated
to fill the student-reader's heart, at one time, With
a highly inspiriting sense of encouragement, et
another with the liveliest feelings cf despair'
Educated according to Mr. Warren's system, tutored
ander the wonderfully elaborate directions here s°
minutely and categorically defined, the Law Stu;
dent need have the eyes at once of a house-fly o°'
of an eagle, the frame of an athlete, the digestion
of an ostrich, the learning of a Scaliger, and the
accomplishments of a Crichton. He is told franhil
that, if he expects to make anything like a figure
in his profession, he must needs take within his view
(and that not superficially, but searchingly) the
whole range of human knowledge. Proficiency, t°
him, is essential, in logic, rhetoric, and elocution, ill
philology and classical literature, in chronologt
history, geography, and political philosophy. It
will be well for him, he is here told impres'
sively by his Mentor, if he has tried the vigour
of his intellectual pinions by soaring into the etnpr
rean of the high mathematics. Political econoraY,
he must be master of; ditto of medical jurispru-
cence. If he has a taste for anatomy, chemistrlf
botany, mechanics, zoology, geology, and the science
of navigation, it will be so much the better for hill',
as a wrestler for place and for advancement among
a crowd of gifted competitors. Mercantile and
agricultural knowledge, he must needs acquit'
betimes, no less than a certain intimacy with all
the tuts and all the sciences. Added to which'
in legal lore alone, he has to work his way (heaven
knows how laboriously!) through a whole vast li'
brary of sombre law books, dating from old dead
and gone Bracton down to living authorities like
Broom, and Mayne, andWarrea himself, and poll'
more, The mere enumeration of these legal autho'
rities which the student, by the way, is requited
to tackle, not to skim over lightly like on'
of those charming naughty little primrose
livraisons of M. Charles Paul de Kock,
thinkingly to conn, steadily to devour, and iry
wardly to digest—the mere enumeration of these
names seems as suggestive of despair, as to an intend'
ing reader at the British Museum might be the first
crossing the threshold of that noblest walhalla
of literature in the world, the circular library °
reading room down in Bloomsbury. Let not the
eager but momentarily discouraged student be 0°
discouraged. If Mr. Warren, in thus uncompron3iati
ingly opening up before his gaze the long a°
arduous path he is required to traverse, pitilessli
seems to suggest only visions of dismay—let the
student still follow out his Mentor's argument con'
fidingly, and he will soon discover that these same
pages have a heartening influence as well. It is
not only that in a wonderful little footnote at Page
397 he will hear how Edmund Saunders, origi'
natty an errand boy in one of the Inns of Courts
rose at length,from that humble station,ia life to be
an attorney, to be a barrister, to be one of the
most able and learned of practitioners, finally, to
be the Lord Chief Justice of England ! Neither i 5
it merely that the golden apples of the Hesperidesa
garden of the law are here hung forth in tempting
array for the student's contemplation, not as a Rhada'
manthian punishment before the lips of Tantalus, but
as fruits of toil to be culled by the more adventurous
—golden apples here displayed by Mr. Warren in 11,if
appendix, singly an I in clusters, from great Br"
dignagian lumps of deliciousness like the £l.o,°o°
of
year of the Lord Chancellor, tie £B,OOO a year
the Chief Justices, the £6,000 a year of the Iklastej:,
of the Rolls, and so forth, down to such wretched
little wizzened russettings or erabs(sour grapes some'
pertaps, might whisßer) like the four guinea Per
annum salary of the Durham, or even the tic°
guinea per annum salary of the Wareham
Recordetship! Incentives, though the enume-
ration of these numerous, and many of therri
costly, prizes which are to be won at the har
of England, may be, doubtless are, to those con'
fident in their own powers, and seriously ambitions
of winning success—the heartening influence her°
spoken of, as exercised over the enerieies of the,
earnest law :student, by Mr. Warren's bracing and
invigorating treatise, is rather to our mind discern'
able' in the manly tone in which the whole hooX
itself is written, in the reverent spirit i°
which it is conceived throughout, a spirit
so reverential of its kind that the last sentence
of the work closes quite natural'y, quite unaffeet-
edly, with a passage from Holy Writ. Mr. Warren'
in regard to this important Practical Intro-
duction to Law Studies and to Every Department
of the Legal Profession, has at length completed
his labours, and completed teem most successfully.
Having, quite frankly, in our foregoing remarks
taken exception to whatever app eared to us in any
way seriously to require it, in a viork so peculiarly
comprehensive and various, we ma. now all th°,
more unhesitatingly offer to the learned author of
it, our congratulations upon the general excellence
of this his latest achievement. For, it is oily fair t:
Mr. Warren that we should speak of the book Vita
plainly, as nothing less than an achievement.
it comes to us fittingly enough from one vele° hag
already earned for himself among his eon:ten:lP?'
raries a conspicuous position both in law and 111
literature.

THE KING OF PRUSSIA ;9 DETERMINATION.'°.
At the celebration of the anniversary of the fotiV
dation of the Cathedral of Magdeburg, the King of Prussit/
made use of the following language, in an,wer to the ell;
dress presented to him :—" I feel the owerwhelming weigh
of the struggle which God has imposed on us, but I 014°
know *hat I owe to my people and to the crown of Rota"'
zollern, which has been transmitted to me by inhe done°
to maintain it courageously to the end. Come what JOY?
I shall inflexibly persevere in what I consider to be fe,
quisite for the good and for the independence of the counti
I shall not turn aside from the path into which I 101:
entered, and if you continue faithful to the oath you 113:,,-
sworn, we shall be victorious in the end.' According '-
the Madgebury Gazette, these words made a profound 11"/'
pression. Prince Charles was the first to cry, "Long Si::
the King!" which was responded to by those present
enthusiasm. be
THE YELVERTON CAUSE, it is believed, will
ready for the House of Lords in Febr tif.ry, the case for
respondent, the Hon. Mrs. Theresa Lou, gworth or Yelvtef..
ton, being in an advanced state of preparation,
~1101 as
appellant's having been lodged before the House of
rose.

SALES OF WORKS OF ART FROM TM?, Exalßall
or THE ROYAL ACADEMY.—In 1858, 199 ea mules
£s,os6—in 1659, 96 items brought Z 1,60- —in 1860,.183
productions realised £7,435—in 1861, 196 sales obtaii3
£7,33B—in 1862, 114 specimens procured for their But
•
£5,806.
OFFICIAL VANDALISM, OR CRASS SrursDlTc(pt,
The Builder buttes that the Board of Works,
`
applied to for permission to place a marble tablet
on1e;
front of the house in Maiden-lane, Covent. garcloa, /I,)iih
Turner was born and lived, refused to grant it•
applicants were artists who had subscribed money f°,l:ely
purpose. As artists had this work in hand, it is nOt -•
ga
to have been open to the criticism of the Board of Woreyx
on aesthetic grounds, nor is the design likely to have beto
such as would endanger the building or interfere WO ter
circulation of air in the neighbourhood. Surely this
in3',ll-0
must be re-considered. The Board, while sanctionin g
can"
Waterworks and Napier statue in Trafalgar• square,
hardly style itself an authority in art.
DE QUINCEY wrote an essay, on murder 0:1:
sidered as one of the Fine Arts; without a joke Fr.oie_.
Fighting may be considered as a Commercial Spectilatlea,iiinn
There are two forthcoming fights which form the
iu
topics interest in the sporting papers at the present,
One is for £lOO and the ' 4 ChaUlPiOnBhiF ;"
the other 1$
£l,OOO. for

3
3

o reeognis
all serious

an elevated

.eover upon

me her(, in

what we

I conEcien.

have done►
s,ith which
•ould aPPIY
very words
is upon Dr.
odern "lis-
p ourselves
applicable
rren,s Law
id practical
:o here, and

t every in-
:r great his
lily." Vic
k so much
et by this
ryer, this
cAleuloted
time, with

_ .
'gement, at
of despair'
:em, tutored
ons here a°

Law Stu"
use-fly and
ko digestios
.r, and the
old frankii
.ke a fig'llo

lin his view
singly) the
Ificiencyf t°
locutio,l3

thronoingt
)sophy. IG
Id Impves"
the vigour
o the etopr
d econoccY?
d jurispru-
chemistrYi
I the science
ter for him,
vent among
pantile acci
eds acquire
ey with ell
I to which'
lay (heaven
tole vast li•
in old dead
torities like
and phut'.
egal sluthe'
is required
r like one

primrose
Koch, but
Lir, and in"
In of these
o an intend'
t be the first
t walbulla
iibrazy or
,et not the
ident be 0°
compronli
3 long 1113
pitilessli
-3,
ay—let the
;ument col°

these Bartle
well. It 15
ote at page
lers, origl-
-3 of Court,
in life to be
one of the
finally, t°
Neither 15
lespetideall
n tempting
as aßhadte
ant alus, but
Ldventuroi?el

Laren in his
;rea
t Brob-
e XlO,OOO a
10 a Sear °f
the Mastef
wretched

;rapes sone,
guinea Per
,11 the two
Wareham
the eneroe'
y of the°
at the bar
those Oa'
y ambitious
,uence here
•i'es of the
v•aciog and
nd. discorry
whole bo°
spirit in
a spirit
it sentence

to unaffect"
[r. Warreilp

ical Intro'
Jeparttneot
completed
accefistully.

g remarks
o us in any
) peculiarly
ow all the,
author 01,
[ excellence
only fair to
book got°
ne.tit. .04
ie Nolo ball
con:temp?'
tw and 111

:NATION•'''

the foe 0:
ig of Pruso
r to the aa:
ming Weight
bu t I all°
of Hobeir.
hale ritanee
e what 101'
er to be
the county e'
hich I b'v.;
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According t
Irolound ;
" Long' j 1
present

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wfII be
, i
case for ',„
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ase of 140

iples
in 1866),,01
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