have arisen since his death. The representatives of Mr. Wheaton were
singularly fortunate in obtaining the aid of so prominent and so busy a
man as Mr. Dana,--one who is himself a high authority on many branches
of international law; for it is not an easy matter to prevail upon a
leader of the bar, and especially one immersed in the cares of official
as well as of professional duties, to undertake a laborious literary
work, even if it be of a legal character. Of the editor it is a delicate
matter to speak; but we can say without violating good taste, that few
members of his profession unite at once, and to an equal degree with
him, high professional acquirements, an enviable reputation as an orator
and advocate, and the accomplishments of a varied and extensive
scholarship, so that the words with which the President of Harvard
College, at the recent Commencement, conferred upon him the degree of
Doctor of Laws, _Virum eloquentium jurisperitissimum, jurisperitorum
eloquentissimum_, could be applied to him with far less disregard of
strict truth than university dignitaries consider allowable on such
occasions. A large practice for more than twenty years in the maritime
courts has given Mr. Dana an extensive and intimate acquaintance with
one part of the subject he has here undertaken; and his duties as United
States District Attorney for Massachusetts, throughout the late war,
obliged him to examine most carefully the whole law of prize, of neutral
and contraband trade, and of blockade. The results of his labors
comprise nearly half of the volume before us, and deserve some higher
appellation than notes. Nowhere, however, does Mr. Dana push himself
before his author. He never seems to forget that his duty is to prepare
a new edition of Wheaton's Commentaries, not to write a book of his own;
and he is content modestly to illustrate the text, and to supply the
omissions needed to bring the book down to the present day.

It is not necessary to say that, in a literary point of view, Mr. Dana
has done his work well. His style is a model of terseness, vigor, and
perspicuity, and yet the reader is constantly charmed by its chaste
purity and grace. We can say of him what Macaulay said of Bacon, that he
has a wonderful talent of packing thought close and rendering it
portable. It is a long time since we have read a book in which so much
matter was compressed into so small a space. The good taste and polished
courtesy with which Mr