ry of the English Law,"
says Chancellor Kent, "contains the best account that we have of the
progress of the law, from the time of the Saxons to the reign of
Elizabeth. It covers the whole ground of the law included in the old
abridgments, and it is a work deserving of the highest commendation. I
am at a loss which most to admire, the full and accurate learning, which
it contains, or the neat, perspicuous, and sometimes elegant style, in
which that learning is conveyed." 1 Comm. 508.

Dalrymple's Essay towards a general History of Feudal Property in Great
Britain, is a brief but learned and philosophical treatise, which may be
followed by Sullivan's Lectures on Feudal Law, a work copious in detail
and exhibiting ably, among other topics, the influence of the feudal
system upon the Modern Law of Tenures. Sir Martin Wright's Introduction
to the Law of Tenures is one of the most accurate and profound of the
essays on this topic; and is worthy of the most attentive study. Craig
de Feudis was thought by Lord Mansfield much preferable to any judicial
work which England had then produced. With these legal treatises on the
feudal system may be read with great advantage, simultaneously,
Robertson's History of Charles V, and Hallam's History of the Middle
Ages.

Sir Henry Finch's Law, or Nomotechnia, as he entitled it, may be taken
up in this connection. It is said that until the publication of
Blackstone's Commentaries, it was regarded as the best elementary book
to be placed in the hands of law students; and we have the authority of
Sir William Blackstone for saying that his method was greatly superior
to that in all the treatises that were then extant: Blackstone's
Analysis, Preface, 6. "His text," says Chancellor Kent, "was weighty,
concise, and nervous, and his illustrations apposite, clear, and
authentic;" though he adds, "But the abolition of the feudal tenures and
the disuse of real actions, have rendered half of his work obsolete," 1
Comm. 509; an objection, in the view we take of legal education, which
should rather recommend the work than otherwise.

At the same time with Finch take Doctor and Student by St. Germain--a
little book which is replete with sound law, and has always been cited
with approbation as an authority.

The Prefaces to the several volumes of Lord Coke's Reports may be read
now with great advantage. They contain much interesting information, and
strongly impregnated as they are with Lord Coke's a