III. 8.. Course of Study of the Law of Real Property recom mended. HERE the Reminiscent begs leave to mention the best mode of acquiring the knowledge of the law of England respecting property, which his experience suggests. The student should begin by reading " Littleton's "Tenures," with extreme attention, meditating many provisoes as there can be combinations of the number 6; - Now, 1x2×3×4×5×6=720. Consequently, to give complete effect to the intention of the testator, 720 provisoes were necessary. By a similar calculation, if a deed, which the Reminiscent was instructed to prepare, had been executed, the expense of the necessary stamps would have amounted to ninety millions seven hundred and twenty-two thousand pounds. Ten persons, each of whom was possessed of landed property, having engaged in a mining adventure, a deed of partnership was to be prepared, which was to contain a stipulation that, if any one or more of the intended partners should advance money to any other or others of them, the money lent should be a charge, in the nature of a mortgage, upon the share or respective shares of the borrower, or respective borrowers, and overreach all subsequent charges,-thus the charges were to be considered, in effect, as mortgages actually made by the deed. Thus, in the contemplation of equity, the estate was actually to be subjected by the deed to as many possible mortgages as there can be combinations of the number 10. Each of these possible mortgages being for an indefinite sum, would require the £. 25 stamp: Now, 25×2×3×4×5×6×7×8×9×10—90,720,000. on every word, and framing every section into a diagram; abstaining altogether from the commentary, but perusing "Gilbert's Tenures."-After this, he should peruse "Sir Martin Wright's "Tenures, and Mr. Watkins's Treatise on De"scents;" and then give Littleton's Tenures a second perusal. After this second perusal of the text, he should peruse it a third time, with " the Com"mentary of Lord Coke," and afterwards peruse "Sheppard's Touchstone," in Mr. Preston's invaluable edition of that work. The Reminiscent presumes to suggest, that the student may then usefully peruse "the notes on feuds, on uses, and on 36 trusts," in the last edition of Coke upon Littleton; and then read Littleton and Coke, and the notes of the last editors. The Reminiscent may appear to recommend too much attention to Littleton and Coke: but he never yet has met with a person, thoroughly conversant in the law of real property, who did not think with him,--that he is the best lawyer, and will succeed best in his profession, who best understands Coke upon Littleton. Against one error, he begs leave particularly to caution the student :--not to suspect, for a moment, that, because he himself does not see the utility of what he reads in this work, or the application of the part of it which he is reading, to any practical purpose, it is therefore useless. There is not in the whole of the golden book, a single line, which the student will not, in his professional career, find, on more than one occasion, eminently useful. Being thus saturated with the venerable black letter, he should peruse, but with the most profound attention," Mr. Saunders's Treatise on Uses and "Trusts, and Mr. Preston's Treatises on Fines and "Recoveries," and then proceed to "Mr. Fearne's Essay on Contingent Remainders, and Mr. Sug"den's on Powers."-After this, he should read for law, "Plowden's Commentaries;" for equity, the article " Chancery, in Comyns's Abridgment;" comparing it throughout with "Mr. Peere Wil"liams's Reports," in Mr. Cor's edition, and reading all the cases to which these refer.-His own experience and feelings will then direct his future studies. But, in the outset of his study, he should place himself with some professional gentleman engaged in drawing conveyances or forensic proceedings; and, as far as it is compatible with this engagement, should attend the courts of justice. The whole course of study suggested by the Reminiscent may be achieved in four years, if they are employed in the manner described in the wellknown verses of lord Coke, Sex horas somno, totidem des legibus æquis, Quod superest, sacris ultro largire camœnis *. *When the jesuits settled the plan of education to be observed in the Collège de Clermont, the physicians were consulted on the portion of time, which the students should be allowed for sleep; they declared that five hours were a sufficient, six an abundant allowance, and seven as much as a youthful constitution would bear without injury. The If the student cannot bestow the whole of this period on legal reading, he should "Mr. peruse "Cruise's Digest," an able abridgment, but not without original matter, of the most useful parts of all the works, which we have recommended to the student's perusal. It remains for the Reminiscent to enter his protest against the general opinion, that the law is a dry and unpleasant study: such, he never found it, and such, he believes, it has never been found by any person, who has applied himself to it with sufficient natural and acquired endowments and a determined resolution not to be disheartened by its first difficulties. "I am not afraid to affirm," says Cicero, with honest or affected prejudice, "that the brief compositions of the Decemvirs surpass in genuine 66 The college falling into decay, it was re-edified by Louis the fourteenth, and received the appellation of the Collège de Louis le Grand. Grand. Upon this occasion, a poetical exercise alluding to it was required from the students.-The city of Nola had recently given them the Collegio del Arco, and they were in possession of the Collège de la Flêche, in France. Alluding to these, a saucy boy wrote the following verses, and the professor good humouredly assigned him the prize : "Arcum Nola dedit patribus, dedit alma Sagittam "Gallia, quis FUNEM quam meruêre, dabit." The saucy boy was afterwards the cardinal de Polignac. It is observable that lord Coke, by his verses in the text, recommends to his students, just twice as much time for prayer, and twice as much for their meals, as the jesuits prescribed t their students. "value, the libraries of Grecian philosophers." Gray, with more moderation and justness, says in one of his letters to Mr. West, "Laws have been "the result of long deliberation; and that, not of "dull men, but the contrary; and have so close "a connection with history, nay with philosophy "itself, that they must partake of what they are "related to, so nearly*." * How greatly is it to be lamented, that a person with the mind of Gray, and his talents for composition, both in poetry and prose, should have consumed so much of his time in framing tables of botany and chronology! F |