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The Green Bag

and contra where the law is in doubt, but no indication of the opinion of the

editor to relieve the student of the whole some difficulty of making up his own mind. In his ﬁrst work as a law writer, Pro

fessor Williston took the safe course of

Williston did a most valuable workina rather obscure way, eﬁacing himself so that he might thereby preserve the integ rity of the original work. Professor Williston's work was not conﬁned, how ever, to his elaborate annotation of Sir ters Frederick were Pollock's inserted text. upon subjects Whole chap not

doing the apprentice work of an editor.

The eighth edition of Parsons on Contract was annotated by him in a most accept

treated in the original work at all, but ment necessary of thetogeneral make principles it a complete of contratt state

able manner (1893), the work being con

ﬁned conservatively to supplementary notes collecting the later authorities. There were, however, many editorial notes, dealing with matters not dreamt

of in Parsons‘ philosophy, which showed the real powers of the modest editor. About tion of this Stephen time, on also, Pleading he made which an edi~ has proved useful to many students of that diﬁicult subject. Professor Williston's contributions to legal periodicals cover

law. In these chapters, such as that upon the place of the third party in a contrac tual arrangement, Professor Williston displayed that originality in the explana tion of a situation which is characterisnt of the greatest jurists.

fessor The Williston most important has written book which is his L8" PW governing the Sale of Goods at Comm‘m

Law and under the Uniform sales A“ tated (1909).by The the progression form of thisof book the was sectwfl5 filc'

the whole time of his teaching and the

whole range of his work. So many of these are now incorporated in his later treatises that it is not necessary to recite

their titles. There have been some his toric controversies which Professor Wil liston has carried on in legal periodicals with other distinguished professors in which the course of his reasoning and the

force of his argument have been especially noteworthy.

Anyone

who has read

anything which Professor Williston has written must have felt the charm of his style, but the ﬂow of his language is so appropriate to the subject that one hardly gives it a thought. Professor Williston has produced with in the last few years two treatises of the highest value to the legal profession. It is to be feared that the great worth of the ﬁrst of these has not been as generally appreciated by the profession at large as it deserves to be. In the making of the third American edition of Pollock's Principles of Contracts (1906), Professor

in the Sales Act; and it is highly 9'5‘ niﬁcant of the character of his work 111

drafting that act that this arrangement makes so logical a development of the subject. In the elaborate statement of the panies common the successive law rules,. sections which 86mm’ of the

statute, one may see also what statute making can be in the hands of a master The statute is only codiﬁcation where the

common law rules can be defended 0” sound principle; but Professor Williswn is unusually catholic in recognizing that theretoare ing established many sound rules,reasons which for arebold‘ not

ordinarily given due consideration by a mere scholar. Moreover, where the common law had not yet develo sufficiently to deal with modern business as it actually is, Professor WillistOfl has the no hesitation situation in which making upon that a broad the lawView for of the situation ought to bethelaw- A5 for the execution of the work, it is gene"

gl