THE ENGLISH REPORTS.
The English Reports, 1300.1865. Vol. L, " House of Lords." (William Green and Son, Edinburgh ; Stevens and Sons, London ; £1 ls. and .£1 10s. net per vol.)—This handsome volume marks the beginning of what promises to be the most important series in the history of English law. The old decisions up to 1866, when the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting began their series, were enshrined in the works of about three hundred different reporters and over one thousand volumes, which the ordinary barrister can acquire only at a great price. The new reprint will be completed in about one hundred and fifty volumes, the paging and wording of the original reports will be retained, and the paper and printing will be exceptionally good. The whole set will occupy less room than the reports from 1866 onward, and so it will be possible for the practising barrister to have in his chambers a complete treasury of English decisions. But the work will be interesting to others than the professional lawyer. In these reports will be found the decisions of all the great Judges who have also been great figures in English political life. The luminous reasoned judgments of Mansfield, the immense learning of Eldon, the a priori law of Erskine and Brougham, and the caustic wit of Westbury, will all be here ; and the decisions on great national and international questions, reported in the highly technical phraseology of the reports, are as valuable for the historian as for the lawyer. The first volume contains Shower, Cones, and the first three books of Brown's reports from 1693 to 1783.
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