EDITOR'S THE high reputation which the Touchstone has so long maintained, renders it an almost indispensible part of a Lawyer's Library. As a systematic body of Law relating to Real Property, it is a Work particularly valuable to the Student. It may, perhaps, be expected that some notice should be taken of what has been done to the present Edition. To say any thing about the quantity of the additional matter contained in it, would be quite superfluous; the number of the notes and the copiousness of many of them, rendering it evident, that the additional matter is very considerable; and, from the smallness of the type in which the notes are printed, still more considerable than, from a cursory view, might be supposed.-How far indeed, the Editor's labours may be useful to the Profession, is not for him to determine. It may be proper to observe, that he has taken a new, and it is hoped a more correct view, of several important points on the subject of Fines. The same may be observed with respect to Leases. He has fully noticed the subject of Agreements or Con tracts for Leases; a subject on which little information, in an embodied shape, is to be met with in the professed treatises on Leases; yet a subject of great importance, from the circumstance of tenants frequently holding their farms, &c. under Agreements, and not under actual Leases. He has taken a view differing from any hitherto taken, of the subject of Protection against Judgments, &c. by means of assignments of terms of years and Conveyances of outstanding legal Estates; and he has endeavoured to elucidate the doctrine relative to Debts due to the Crown. He has entered fully into the important subject of voluntary and fraudulent Settlements, as they affect purchasers and creditors. The doctrine of Equity relating to deeds of confirmation, where their object is to confirm transactions tainted with fraud, undue influence, &c.; is fully entered into; as is the doctrine of Equity relative to releases of right:-Upon both these subjects, though important, the Editor believes there is not much information, in a collected shape, to be met with in any other publication. The notes on the chapters of Wills and Uses are numerous, and many of them copious; and some of them, it is hoped, will be found to throw additional light on the subjects to which they relate. An Appendix is added; in which recent decisions on subjects treated of in the earlier chapters of the work are noticed; and the usefulness of the work is greatly enhanced by a copious Index. In the compilation of the Index, the Editor has to acknowledge the assistance he received from some of his pupils the assiduity and ability with which Mr. R. Wilson rendered his assistance, entitle him to the Editor's best thanks. In a Preface to the Second Part of the present Edition of the Touchstone, the Editor noticed the charge of plagiarism preferred against him by Mr. Preston; and replied to it in a way which, he has every reason to believe, convinced that gentleman, that the charge was unfounded. This slight notice of the subject the Editor cannot well avoid taking; but he contents himself with this; as it ill accords with his principles and disposition to keep alive unfriendly feelings. GRAY'S INN Square, July 1, 1826. |