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 FRE FREE. Exercises in the Inns of Court, preparatory to the Study of the Law. 12mo. London. 1784. FREEMAN, RICHARD. Reports of Cases argued and deter- mined in the Courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas, from 1G70 to 1704. 2d ed. with Notes and References, by Edward Smirke. 8vo. London. 1826. The Common Law and Chancery Reports were first revised and pub- lished in one volume, Parts I. & II., by T. Dixon, 1742. It is said the MSS. were stolen by a servant, and printed after the Reporter's death, without the privity of his family. The fraudulent manner in which they were obtained and ushered into the world, cast a suspicion upon their accuracy, and they were for some time almost totally neglected. Comyns did not cite them in his Digest, nor Bacon in his Abridgment, except in the latter titles. . Mr. Smirke very judiciously annotated and published, in a separate volume, the Common Law Cases, which are generally as well reported and as valuable as any contemporary Reports. " Although not characterized by fulness, they are by no means deficient in perspi- cuity ; and, as far as a judgment can be formed from a comparison with contemporary Reports, or with the established doctrines of the law at the present day, they seem, for the most part, to be free from material error or mis-statement. Pref. to the vol. ; 3 Ves., Jr. 580. . Reports of Cases argued and determined in the High Court of Chancery, principally between the years 16G0 and 1706, but including some earlier decrees of that Court, and a few Cases decided on the Equity side of tiie Court of Exchequer. 2d ed. Revised by J. E. Hovenden. 8vo. London. 1823. The value of Freeman's Reports has been several times mooted by the Bench and the Bar. Upon their authority being questioned before Lord Mansfield, he remarked, " that some of the Cases in Freeman were very well reported ;" Lord Loughborough in aftertimes said, " that Freeman's notes were generally good." Since then the Chancery Cases have been compared with, and corrected by, the original Record in the Register's Office, and very carefully annotated by Mr. Hovenden. This editor also published, in an Appendix to the volume, the Chancery Cases scat- tered through the K. B. Reports. Thus improved, the volume forms an important and valuable link in the series of Chancery Reports, which no equity lawyer can well dispense with. Cowper, 13, 16; 1 Ball. & Beat. 307 ; Pref. to vol. FREEMAN, SAMUEL. The Town Officer, with a Variety of Forms. 4th ed. 12mo. Boston. 1799. 323