literature. He undertook, in fact, to produce a comprehensive practical
treatise, within an exceedingly moderate compass, on "Mercantile Law:"
and he succeeded to admiration--did this neglected young man of scarce
twenty-five years old--in producing, entirely unassisted, a work
signally calculated to attain the proposed object; condensing into a
very small space, and with almost unerring accuracy, a great amount of
exceedingly difficult law, beautifully and perspicuously arranged, so as
that even laymen might read as they ran, and receive guidance in the
most perplexing exigencies of business, while the ablest lawyers, might
safely refer to the pages of the "Compendium" for a terse and true
statement of the result of many conflicting decisions, and a luminous
exposition of the _principles_ which ought to govern the administration
of commercial law. The calm, practised skill with which this young
unknown jurist moved about in these regions of subtle intricacy--_inter
apices juris_--excited the cordial admiration and respect of all
competent judges. He was manifestly a master of his subject; and having
quietly detected important but unoccupied ground, had possessed himself
of it with skill and resolution:--and this he did within little more
than two years after he had quitted the scene of his solitary year's
pupilage. Within six years this book has passed through three large
editions; and a fourth is, it is believed, in preparation, which will
comprise a great number of its departed author's own additions and
emendations, continued up to within two or three months of his decease.
Not only in this country, but in the United States of America, is this
valuable work deservedly held, at this moment, in the highest
estimation, as practically the only book of its kind. A glance at the
brief Preface will suffice to show to a competent judge, whether lay or
professional, at once the real and peculiar difficulty of the
undertaking, the author's exact and happy illustration of the sources of
that difficulty, and the simplicity and accuracy of his style.