display of many principles of equity since greatly considered and discussed; for even upon dry technical rules and points of law he shed the illuminations of his mighty mind. In West's Symboleography, a work published at the close of Elizabeth's reign, we have divers curious and authentic precedents of the process, and bills, and answers in chancery, prior to the time of Bacon. We have, also, in the same work, a brief digest of the powers and jurisdiction of the court, from which it would appear, that equity was regarded in that day as a matter of arbitrary conscience, unincumbered by any rules or principles of law. No cases are cited to show what the authority was, but such as were gleaned from the Year Books, and the treatises of the Doctor and Student, and of the Diversity of * 492 Courts. (a) It was not until after the restoration that any reports of adjudged cases in chancery were published. The volumes entitled "Reports of Cases taken and adjudged in the Court of Chancery, in the reigns of Charles I., Charles II., James II., William III., and Queen Anne," commence with the reign of Charles I., and contain the earliest adjudged cases in equity. But that work, and another contemporary work of the same character, entitled "Cases argued and adjudged in the High Court of Chancery," are both of them, in their general character, loose, meagre, and inaccurate reports, of not much weight or authority. The reports of some The reports of some cases decided by Lord Chancellor Cowper, in the third and last volume of the Reports in Chancery, and the great case of the Duke of Norfolk, and the case of Bath and Mountague, at the conclusion of the Cases in Chancery, are distinguished exceptions to this complaint, and those great cases are fully and very interestingly reported. In the latter part of the reign of Charles II., Lord Chancellor Nottingham raised the character of the court to high reputation, and established both its jurisprudence and its jurisdiction upon wide and rational foundations. We have but few reports of his decisions that are worthy of his fame. They are dispersed through several works of inferior authority. It is from (a) The Diversity of Courts and their Jurisdictions is a very brief treatise, compiled in law French, under Henry VIII., and translated into English by William Hughes, under Charles I. It stated that in chancery "a man shall have remedy for that for which he can have no remedy at the common law; and it is called by the com. mon people the court of conscience." It is printed at the end of the Mirror of Justices. his time, however, that equity became a regular and cultivated science, and the judicial decisions in chancery are to be carefully studied. Vernon's Reports are the best of the old reports in chancery. They were published from his manuscripts, after his death, by order of Chancellor King, and were found to be quite imperfect and inaccurate. In 1806, Mr. Raithby favored the profession with a new and excellent edition of Vernon, enriched by learned notes and accurate extracts from the register's books, so that the volumes assumed a new dress, and more unquestionable authenticity. Those reports include part of the judicial administration of Lord Nottingham, and the whole of the time of Lord *493 Somers; but they give us nothing equal to the reputation of those great men. They bring the series of equity decisions down to the conclusion of Lord Chancellor Cowper's judicial life. Precedents in Chancery is a collection of cases between 1689 and 1722; and the author of those reports, and of the first volume of Equity Cases Abridged, is generally supposed to be the same person. They are works which contain very brief cases, in comparison with the voluminous details of modern reports; but they are of respectable authority. (a) Peere Williams's Reports extend from the beginning of the last century to the year 1735, and they embrace the period of the decisions of a succession of eminent men, who presided in chancery in the former part of that century. The notes of Mr. Cox to the fourth edition of these reports gave to that edition the character of being the best edited book on the law. Even before his learning and industry had given new character and value to the reports of Peere Williams, they were regarded as one of the most perspicuous, useful, and interesting repositories of equity law to be found in the language. Moseley's reports of cases during the time of Lord King have received a various and contradictory character and treatment. Lord Mansfield said it was a book not to be quoted; but Lord Eldon, who is presumed to have been a better judge of the merits of the work, says that Moseley is a book of considerable accuracy. (b) It is fortunate that we have even so imperfect a view (a) 1 Vesey, 547; 3 Vesey, 285; 5 Vesey, 664. (b) 3 Anst. 861; 5 Burr. 2629; 1 Meriv. 92. of the decisions of Lord King, who was an eminent scholar, and to whom Mr. Locke bequeathed his papers and library. Lord Talbot presided in chancery but a very few years. He was a pure and exalted character, who died in the vigor of his age, and his loss was lamented as a great national calamity. The cases during his time, under the title of "Cases tempore Talbot," are well reported, and have a reputation for accuracy. *Lord Hardwicke, the successor of Lord Talbot, held *494 the great seal for upwards of twenty years, and the present wise and rational system of English equity jurisprudence owes more to him than perhaps to any of his predecessors. His decisions are reported in the elder Vesey and Atkyns, and partly in Ambler and Dickens; and though none of them are eminent reporters, either for accuracy or precision in the statements of the cases, or in giving the judgment of the court, (a) yet the value of his opinions, and the great extent of his learning, and the solidity of his judgment, have been sufficiently perceived and understood. There is no judge in the judicial annals of England whose judicial character has received greater and more constant homage. His knowledge of the law, said a very competent judge, was most extraordinary, and he was a consummate master of the profession. (b) His decisions, at this day, and in our own courts, do undoubtedly carry with them a more commanding weight of authority than those of any other judge; and the best editions of the elder Vesey and Atkyns will continue to fix the attention and study of succeeding ages. Eden's Reports of the decisions of Lord Northington, the successor to Lord Hardwicke, are very authentic and highly esteemed. They surpass in accuracy the reports either of Ambler or Dickens within the same period; and the authority of Lord Northington is very great, and it arose from the uncommon vigor and clearness of his understanding. The next book of reports of deserved celebrity is Brown, commencing with Lord Thurlow's appointment to the office of chancellor; and the high character of the court at that period gave to those reports a very extensive authority and circulation, for which they were indebted more to the reputation of the chancellor than to any merit in the execu(a) Buller, J., in 6 East, 28, n.; Sir J. Mansfield, in 5 Taunt. 64; 4 Vesey, 188, n. Preface to Eden's Rep.; 1 Sch. & Lef. 240. (b) Lord Kenyon, 7 T. R. 416. tion of the work. Cox's Cases in Chancery give us the * 495 * decisions of Lord Kenyon, while he was Master of the Rolls under Thurlow, as well as the decisions of the Lord Chancellor during the same period. They were intended as a supplement to the reports of Brown and the younger Vesey, so far as those reports covered the period embraced by the cases, and they are neat, brief, and perspicuous reports, of unquestionable accuracy. A new and greatly improved edition has lately been published in New York, under the superintendence of one of the masters in chancery. The reports of the younger Vesey extend over a large space of time, and contain the researches of Sir Richard Pepper Arden, as Master of the Rolls, and the whole of the decisions of Lord Loughborough, and carry us far into the time of Lord Eldon. These reports are distinguished for their copiousness and fidelity. The same character is due to the reports of his successors; and though great complaints have been made at the delay of causes, arising from the cautious and doubting mind of the present (a) venerable Lord Chancellor of England, it seems to be universally conceded, that he bestows extraordinary diligence in the investigation of immense details of business, and arrives in the end at a correct conclusion, and displays a most comprehensive and familiar acquaintance with equity principles. It must, nevertheless, be admitted that the reports of Lord Eldon's administration in equity, amounting to perhaps thirty volumes, and replete with attenuated discussion, and loose suggestions of doubts and difficulties, are enough to task very severely the patience of the profession. There are recent reports of decisions in other departments of equity which are deserving of great attention. The character of those branches of the equity jurisdiction is eminently sustained; and the reported decisions of Lord Redesdale and Lord Manners, in the Irish Court of Chancery, are also to be placed on a level, in point of authority, with the best productions of the English bench. (b) (a) 1826. (b) The Lives of the Lord Chancellors of England, from the earliest times till the reign of George IV., in 5 vols. 8vo, London, 1846, by Lord Campbell, is the most instructive and attractive work on legal biography that is extant, and equally distinguished for its truth, its candor, and its freedom. Upon our American equity reports I have only to observe, that, being decisions in cases arising under our domestic laws and systems, they cannot but excite a stronger * 496 interest in the mind of the student; and from their more entire application to our circumstances, they will carry with them the greater authority. 1 1 [The reports of judicial decisions, to which the attention of the American lawyer is directed, have become too numerous even to be designated in a limited note. The English reports still retain their high rank in the lawyer's library. The alterations of our forms of pleadings, and in the rules of procedure, and the differences of our political systems, indeed, render many of the English decisions inapplicable to our circumstances; but the mass of legal questions will always remain alike in both countries. The essential principles of civil liberty belong to both; the mode of legislation in each is the same; and the system of evidence, the rights of persons, and the great body of commercial law, are common to England and America. The reports of the courts of England seemed for a while to languish, after the retirement of Lord Ellenborough, but they never exhibited the science of the law in so high and cultivated a state as at the present time. If it be not presuming in an American annotator to pretend to discriminate among the contemporary decisions, he may point out to the student, among the common-law reports, the decisions of the Court of Exchequer, since Baron Parke and his very learned associates became the judges, as worthy of the brightest period of English jurisprudence. Since the last edition of the Commentaries appeared, the Court of Chancery of New York has ceased to exist, and with it has closed a series of equity reports which reflected lustre on the state, and the influence of which has pervaded the jurisprudence of the nation. The reports containing the decisions of the two most distinguished chancellors of New York, Johnson's Reports, Paige's Reports, and Barbour's Chancery Reports, comprise the whole system of equity law, and will always be the resort and study of the American lawyer. Of the first of those chancellors it is unnecessary to speak to the reader of his volumes. Most of his decisions have been transferred to his Commentaries. "Lector, si monumentum requiris circumspice!" But it may be permitted to the editor to render his tribute of homage to Chancellor Walworth. It has been his privilege to practise under the Chancellor during his whole term of office, and to observe those high judicial qualities which have rarely been equalled. If in his demeanor on the bench the Chancellor was sometimes open to criticism, it was that only which has been applied to kindred genius, that "he was prevented, by his inconceivable rapidity in apprehending the opinions of others, from judging accurately of their reasonableness." This criticism, however, never approached his matured decisions, embracing the whole circle of equity. Never, perhaps, were so many decisions made, where so few were inaccurate as to facts or erroneous in law. If it was destined that the Court of Chancery should fall under a reform which apparently designs to obliterate the history as well as the legal systems of the past, it is a consolation to reflect that it fell without imputation on its purity or usefulness, and that no court was ever under the guidance of a judge purer in character or more gifted in talent than the last chancellor of New York.-W. K.] |