366 HARVARD LAW REVIEW, Again, we shall be primarily concerned with the evolution of legal doctrines, but shall try to illustrate by real examples some of the political and eco- nomic causes and effects of those rules that are under our examination." As to the manner in which all this well planned work is done, we would gladly illustrate it by quotations, but there is no more room for that. One remarks everywhere a mastery of the subject, a knowledge of the sources, a temperate judgment in using them, and an unrivalled skill and felicity in exposition and statement. For a good specimen of all these qualities let us commend the reader to the pages, at the beginning of Chapter IX. in the second volume, which deal with the Forms of Action. Never was learned legal discourse so delightfully or more profitably carried on. Always the style is that of a master ; for, with all its subtle stimulus of pleasure, it is a mere handmaid to the thought. We are glad to hear that the book is having a wide sale in this country. j. b. t. Handbook of the Law of Torts. By Edwin A. Jaggard. St. Paul : West Publishing Co. 1895. (Hornbook Series.) 2 vols. 8vo, pp. xvi, V, and 1307. The merits of this work are very considerable, and far outweigh its defects. The author leaves the impression of a very able lawyer, who has personally investigated the authorities with great care and judgment, but who has put his book together in haste, and who has been hampered by a defect in the plan adopted by the publishers. Hence there is, to a certain extent, a lack of proportion ; in some cases, over-fulness for an elementary work ; in other cases, a want of definiteness, and occasional passages which are liable to be misinterpreted. The prospectus of "The Hornbook Series" names as one of its features, notes "contain- ing a copious citation of authorities." This seems a mistake in a work intended largely for students. It would be better to follow, in this regard, those model books, Anson on Contracts and Pollock on Torts, wherein the learned authors merely cite cases enough to illustrate the text, without any attempt to make an exhaustive collection of authorities. No doubt an American author labors under especial difficulties in com- pressing his citations within narrow limits; inasmuch as "the American law " (to use the words of Professor Huffcut) " is the law of upwards of fifty jurisdictions, while the English law is the law of but one." Still the American writer can take Anson and Pollock for his standard, ana lol- low their example as far as the changed circumstances will permit. A copious citation of cases is likely to react, as it were, upon the text, and is almost sure to mar " the simplicity and conciseness of the author's treatment." To put the criticism in the form of a paradox, it is, in a cer- tain sense, true, that the success of an elementary law book depends on what is left out. But, after making all deductions for defect of plan and rapidity of exe- cution, the book is a good one. The writer has ideas of his own, and is also familiar with the best ideas of other people, notably the recent Eng- lish authors who have done so much to elucidate the law of torts, and who are as yet so little known on this side of the Atlantic. Undoubt- edly, Sir Frederick Pollock's book, which Professor Jaggard justly places at the head, has been largely used in the United States ; but it is prob- able that comparatively few American lawyers have even heard the names of Clerk and Lindsell, Pigott or Innes. Professor Jaggard has
