Hammond's Reports, (Supreme Court).......... 1813—1833, &c. There are but twenty volumes in all, the new series commencing with the eighteenth volume-being bound up with the other twelve volumes. John Marshall, Chief Justice. § The Hon. Joseph Story, Chief Justice. || Hon. Brockholst Livingston-Hon. Smith Thompson, Chief Justices. ** The Hon. Bushrod Washington, Chief Justice. FROM the foregoing list of American Reports of judicial decisions in the State and Federal Courts, and in the United States Senate, it appears that the total number of volumes published, with a few now in press, amount to FOUR HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-THREE, which are divided as follows. 2 34 Connecticut........ 18 South Carolina......... 25 Indiana.................... New York........... 78 Kentucky................... 31 Louisiana..................... 17 United States Courts..... 53 *The decisions of this court since the termination of the Reports of the late Mr. Justice Washington, are now in press, under the care, as we learn, of the Honourable Judges Baldwin and Hopkinson. † Appended to this volume are some of the Admiralty Decisions of the late Hon. Francis Hopkinson, in the Admiralty Court of Pennsylvania, from 1779 to 1785. § 3. CONTINENTAL LEGAL BIBLIOGRAPHY. [The jurisprudence, in common with the language of Europe, is miscellaneous in its origin and character. The Roman law, however, lies at the foundation of most of the systems of the various states of the Continent, to which have been added extensive usages, some positive enactments, a few codes or collections of laws on particular branches, a few general codes, numerous judicial expositions of the whole of these,— and finally, an almost infinite number of treatises of more or less authority-all of which constitute the various sources of continental law. To the statesmen, legislators, and scientific lawyers of our country, all of these have more or less interest; but they claim a more special regard from those who preside on the supreme bench; from those who practise their profession in Louisiana, or Florida,-from lawyers specially, called on to digest or codify the jurisprudence, or any branch thereof, of any of the American states, and finally, from all who cultivate law as a science, and whose legal philosophy goes much beyond the limits of the Common Law of England. The great extent of the legal bibliography of the Continent may be seen, in part by the lists we have given of many of their legal productions.* We need offer nothing more on this subject than an enumeration of the principal works which treat of the legal bibliography of the Continent, many of which, however, contain also a good deal of biographical information.] SOURCES OF CONTINENTAL LEGAL BIBLIOGRAPHY. STRUVIUS. Bibliotheca Juris Selecta. Jena, 1758, 2 vols. 8vo. FONTANA. Bibliotheca Legalis. Parma, 1694, 5 vols. fol. LIPENIUS. Bibliotheca Realis Juridica. Lipsia, 1730, 1757, 1789. Madihn's edition, 1817, 1823, 2 vols. fol. LABITTUS. Index Librorum omnium Juris. Francofurti, 1585, 4to. DUPIN. Bibliothéque choisie des livres de droit, par M. Camus, 5e. edition. Paris, 1822, 2 vols. 8vo. BRUNET. Le Manuel du Libraire. Paris, 1820, 4 vols. 8vo. BARBIER. Dictionnaire des Anonymes et Pseudonymes, 4 vols. 8vo. BEUCHOT. La Bibliographie de la France, 1811, 1830, Svo. There is also much information respecting the bibliography of the continent, down to the present day, in the following works. KLUBER'S Droit de Gens, Paris, 1831, 2 vols. 8vo.-In the 2d vol. p. 170, Bibliotheque choisie du droit des gens. WARNKOENIG'S Commentarii Juris Romain, Leodii, 1825, 2 vols. 8vo. passim. THEMIS, on Bibliothèque du jurisconsulte, Paris, 1829, 1831, 10 vols. passim. Manuel complet pour Les Aspirans, Paris, 1833, 12mo. Noveau Guide des Etudians en Droit, Paris, 1828, 12mo. The late bibliographical works, also of ERSCH, and of STEFF, in German, are well spoken of. * Vide ante p. 340, 370, 431, 454, 486 to 500, 544, 579. DIVISION IV. LEGAL REVIEWS, ESSAYS, JOURNALS, MAGAZINES, &c.-BRITISH, AMERICAN, AND CONTINENTAL. 'As St. Austin saith of short and holy ejaculations, that they pierce heaven as soon, if not quicker, than more tedious prayers; so I have reaped greater benefit from concise and casual essays on several topics, than from long and voluminous treatises, relating to one and the same thing.'-Osborn's Works. SUFFICIENT has been said and done, as we trust, in the course of our work, to exempt us from the imputation of giving the slightest encouragement to those who would draw their mental nourishment from other than solid and enduring sources. Nor are we to be understood, in adopting the foregoing motto, as placing much reliance on knowledge gained from such 'concise and casual essays,' but as auxiliary merely to previous solid attainments, acquired through the means of laborious and methodical study. If, however, there be those who, reposing on their natural inertness, regard reading (not as study) but as a 'dozing idleness,' an opiate to bring on pleasing slumbers with their eyes open-and abridgments, essays, and periodicals, as the living fountains of knowledge, and the truest repositories of the sweets distilled by others for their use, from the laboured volumes of the drones of the learned,— there are others who equally err, when they honestly or affectedly condemn en masse this 'reading by deputy' and to whom even the excellent journals and periodicals of our day, convey no other idea than that of mawkish distillation for superficial minds. We entertain a different opinion, and regard that plan of study as eminently profitable, which combines with our severer researches, the careful perusal of the legal essays, dissertations, reviews, and periodicals generally, which are dedicated to our science.' Such essays are often the elaborate distillations of great research-the condensed * Vide ante Note 30. p. 286. Note 17. p. 365, 366. Note 8, p. 569. Note 4. p. 576. Note 10. p. 590, in further illustration of the utility of this branch of our legal literature. expositions of difficult topics lurking in the half-forgotten pages of numerous authors-the speculative wisdom of independent minds-the novel but crude theories of untrammeled genius, which lead the way to greater and more solid improvements. Such lights should not be disregarded, and will not be, except by mere pretenders, who affect deep researches into original channels only, and thus lose the substance of learning for the vanity and euphony of a name. The two extremes we have mentioned must be carefully avoided. And though we believe it to be the tendency of our age, in respect to mental exertions at least, to repose too much on the numerous laboursaving means, almost daily devised or improved, we are by no means disposed to neglect the judicious use of such auxiliaries: with this limitation, we regard the character of our times as signally, and worthily distinguished; and we hail the introduction of journals and periodicals as a lustrous era, from which we may date much of that civil, political, moral, religious, and physical melioration of the condition of man, which marks our age above all that the world has ever known. This era of periodicals commenced in Paris, in 1664, with the Journal des Savants, by Denis de Sallo; the severity of whose criticisms did not suit the spirit of the age, and having turned the work over to the Abbé Gallois, it assumed a new character, dropped all criticism, and became a mere repository of the titles of books, of abridgments, extracts, &c. But this enterprise gave rise to many others-such as Les Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres, by M. Bayle; Le Journal de Trévoux, by Catrou; the German periodical in 1680, entitled ACTA Eruditorum; the Italian Giornale d'Litterati, the British Monthly Review, 1749, continued to the present time. These periodicals increased in number and value in nearly every part of christendom, so that scarce any department of the sciences, of the arts, or of literature is without them; some of which are specially dedicated to separate subjects; among which Law has taken a high rank, especially within the present century. These Journals, Reviews, and Repositories are often sustained |