_how_, that he may know _why_, the law was settled on its present
footing. The fitness of this subject for compression is, therefore,
hardly questionable. The difficulty of compressing it is, however,
extreme. The author who attempts to do so, must continually keep in
view a triple object, must aspire at once to clearness, brevity,
and accuracy; a combination so difficult, that its difficulty may,
it is hoped, be fairly pleaded in excuse for some of the
deficiencies and imperfections which the reader may discover in the
following pages."

After a luminous and elegant introductory account of the rapid growth
and development of mercantile law, the author thus announces the
convenient and comprehensive plan of his work:--

"This treatise will be divided into four books. The first,
concerning Mercantile _Persons_; the second, Mercantile _Property_;
the third, Mercantile _Contracts_; the fourth and last, Mercantile
_Remedies_; a method which appears the simplest and most
comprehensive; since it includes, under a few heads, the
description of those by whose intervention trade is carried on; of
that which they seek to acquire by so employing themselves; of the
arrangements which they are in the habit of adopting, in order to
do so effectually; and of the mode in which the proper execution of
those arrangements is enforced."

A striking evidence of the value of this work, the soundness of his
opinions, and the importance attached to them in the highest judicial
quarters, was afforded by the very first number of the Reports of the
Court of Exchequer, published after his death, where (in _Tanner_ v.
_Scovell_, 14 _Meeson and Welshy_, 37,) the Lord Chief Baron, after time