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194 194 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. REVIEWS. A First Book of Jurisprudence. By Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart. New York : The Macmillan Co, 1896. pp. xvi, 348. " To readers who have laid the foundation of a liberal education and are beginning the special study of law," this latest work of Sir Frederick Pollock is addressed. That those whose law studies began many years ago will derive fully as much benefit from it as beginners is certain. It is one of those books that open up to a lawyer a broader view of the dignity of his profession. Written by the keenest of legal thinkers, and enlivened by illustrations drawn from history and literature, it makes delightful reading from beginning to end. Sir Frederick's well known literary style is unsurpassed for work of this sort. In fully as marked a degree as the kindred treatises of Sir Henry Maine and Professors Holland and Markby, the First Book of Jurisprudence is no less an addition to Eng- lish literature than to the science of the law. The first part of the book deals with general legal notions, including the nature, meaning, subject matter, and divisions of law, and the legal significance of such general terms as Thing, Event, and Act. " We find in all human sciences that those ideas which seem to be the most simple are really the most difficult to grasp with certainty and express with accuracy." So speaks the author and contrasts the ease with which the student defines a fee simple, for example, with the difficulties that beset the greatest jurist " in face of the apparently simple question, What is Law?" To the solution of these apparently simple, but far-reaching and fundamental problems Sir Frederick devotes the larger portion of the book. Part II., on Legal Authorities and their Use, entirely different in character, as its name indicates, is not a whit less interesting. Especially valuable are the analysis of sovereignty as distinguished from ultimate political power, and the discussion of the authority of precedents in the various courts of England and America. To readers of the Harvard Law Review, certain parts of the book will be familiar. The chapters on Justice according to Law, Divisions of Law, and Sovereignty in English Law, have already appeared as articles in these pages. r. g. d. A Treatise on the Law of Real Property, as applied between Vendor and Purchaser in Modern Conveyancing, or Estates in Fee and their Transfer by Deed. By Leonard A. Jones. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1896. 2 vols., 8vo, pp. clxxiv, 783, viii, 853. For a single author, in a single treatise, even of sixteen hundred pages, to treat thoroughly the whole law of Real Property would be too heavy a task. Mr. Jones has not attempted so much as that; though what he has undertaken is no small matter. To quote his own words : " These volumes do not profess to cover the entire field of Real Property law. It is impossible in two or even three volumes to state the law and give the authorities relating to the entire subject. It is only possible in such compass to state general principles with a meagre citation of authorities. I write now, as I have written heretofore, with the purpose to state with considerable fulness the law of the topics of which I treat,