bundant learning and
love of the law as a science and profession, they form an admirable
introduction to The First Institute, or Lord Coke's Commentary upon
Littleton's Tenures. It would be advisable, I think, to read first in
order the sections of Littleton's Tenures, the original treatise upon
which The Institute was a commentary. After that, no time or pains
should be spared to master completely The First Institute. If the course
now prescribed has been followed, the student will not require to be
reminded, that even those parts, which seem to relate to obsolete heads
of the law, ought to be read and understood. "There is not," says Mr.
Butler, "in the whole of this golden book, a single line which the
student will not in his professional career, find on more than one
occasion eminently useful." There may be some extravagance in this
assertion; but we may nevertheless agree with Mr. Ritso that "there is
no knowledge of this kind, which may not, sooner or later, be in fresh
demand; there is no length of time or change of circumstances, that can
entirely defeat its operation or destroy its intrinsic authority. Like
the old specie withdrawn from circulation upon the introduction of a
new coinage, it has always its inherent value; the ore is still sterling
and may be moulded into modern currency." The opinions of American
lawyers confirm this conclusion. It is well known that C. J. Parsons was
distinguished for his familiarity with the pages of The Institute. It
was Mr. Pinkney's favorite law book; and "his arguments at the Bar,"
says his biographer, Mr. Wheaton, "abounded with perpetual recurrences
to the principles and analysis drawn from this rich mine of common law
learning." Mr. Hoffman, in his Course of Legal Study, has also borne his
testimony to its importance to the American practitioner. Chancellor
Kent seems, as I have intimated in the note, to lean rather against Coke
upon Littleton, as an Institute of Legal Education, although he
acknowledges its value and authority as a book of reference.

It appears to me that after Coke, Preston's Elementary Treatise on
Estates may be read with advantage. He is perhaps unnecessarily diffuse
and tautological; but he enters largely into the reasons of the abstruse
doctrines of which he treats, and his work is calculated to lead the
student to inquire more earnestly into the philosophy of the science.
Fearne's Essay on the Learning of Contingent Remainders, should then be
we