Editorial Committee of the Cambridge Law Journal

The Pollock-Holmes Letters: Correspondence of Sir Frederick Pollock and Mr. Justice Holmes,1874-1932 by Frederick Pollock; Oliver Wendell Holmes,; M. De Wolfe HoweReview by: D. T. O.The Cambridge Law Journal, Vol. 8, No. 2 (1943), pp. 216-217Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of Editorial Committee of the Cambridge LawJournalStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4503422 .

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216 The Cambridge Law Journsl

BOOK REVIEWS

T1be Polloc7c-HolqBes LetSrs: Correspondence of Sir Frederick Pollock and Mr. Justice Holmes, 187W1932. Edited by M. DE WOLFE HOWE, Professor of Law, University of Buffalo School of Law. With aI1 Introduction by SLR JOHN POLLOCK, Bart. Cambridge: University Press. 1942. Two Vols. xxiii, 275 and 359 pp. (36s. net.)

Writing to Sir Frederick Pollock in March, 1921, ill acknowledgment of a telegram of congratulation on the attainment of his eightieth birthday, Mr. Justice Holmes says ' one of the greatest abiding happinesses of my life iB your friendship, as you know.' A correspondence, which had commenced in the year 1874 and was

confined at first to legal mvestigations in which the writers were mutually interested, had developed iIl the course of years into an mtimate friendship and a regular snterchango of news of personal activities and of idea6 on topics of intellectual illterest to the writers or BUgge8ted by culTent eventa. Naturally, matters affecting the study and administration of the Iaw continued to hold a prominent place in the correspondence, as clearly appears from the careful apparatus 6upplied by the editor m the form of an exhaustive Index and a Table of C&86 exinbg to six pages, but, as te went on, events and persons interesting to the orriten and a wide field of modern and claical literature are regularly discussed orcriticised, so that tbe material in the later correspondence may well rspay the attention cven of those who, like Theodore Roosevelt (according to the ondence of a member of the Senate), do not ' caro a damn for the lgw.'

The6e solumes will therefore be found a mine of information oll many things for which wo might look irl vain eI*where. Thus, we often hear the question aelied, what were the respective contributlons of Sir Fredenck Pollock and Professor Maitlarld to the great History of English Law which, since 1895, has domillated the etudy of English iLaw iD ite hi8torical aspectat The answer is to be found in a letter fronl Pollock to Sliolmes, dated 23rd August, 1895 (Vol. I, pp. 60-1).

In view of the extensive damage to the other Ilms of Court in recent air-raids, the letter of 2nd January, 1918, which gives an account of the attack on Lincolne Inn in December, 1917, will always be of some histoncal importance.

' I have been almost under fire m the basement of Lincoln's Inn. 'The last airraid, lSth December, surprised the Benchers just sittlng down to

dinller. A high explosive bomb fell in Stone Bidings, fortunately in the open, and did littie damage beyond sm&shing glass. IJ1timately we drank the King's health after the "all clear " sounded and 80 departed withcontent ' (Vol. II, p. 263). The phrasing at the end i8 evidently modelled on Pepys.

Neither of the writers is much impressed by modern attempts to construct systeme of Jllrisprudence. Pollock has ' no doubt that the late Prof. Hohfeld was a learned and ingenious man, and he seems to have at least the tnerit of not inventing new words,'' but evidently is of opinion tbat it I8 useless to attempt ' to redllce ultimate truths to the patterns on a bIackboard.' Holmes th}nks ' all those systematic schematisms rather bores.' The latter, in noticing the first solume of Vinogradoff's Outlincs of Historical Jurisprudence, delivers himself ns fOllOWB:

' I took another flying glimpse at your man, Vinogradoff's, new book. It gave me thc impression of the Cbinaman who ran three miles to jump over a hill but I just looled, yavrned and pan,ed on ' (5Jol. IT, E. 64).

Pollock's low opinion of Austin's work i8 cxpressed Ln no uncertain terms. ' 'The damnable heresies of Austin ' (Vol. I, p. 71): ' Thf3 truth i8 that his law i8 thotough}y amateurish ' (Vol! I, p. 94). ' Austin that clever but veIy narrow and gwssIy

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Book Revtews Book Revtews 217

overrated dirlecticzn.' ' One reason for his success in English law schools may be that a cocksure dogmatic theory, however bad, is good stuff to examine, £11iCi

cram for exaations, upon' (Vol. II, p. 263). The very useful Introduction by Sir John Pollock should be read before

proceeding to the Letters, as it throws much light on the characters of the writers and particuIarly of Mr Justice Holmes in hss social aspect.

D T. O.

Sir Johxl Fortescue, De Lat4dibus Legum Anyliae. Latin text) with Translation, Introduction and Notes by S. B. CHRIMES, M.A., Ph.D., Lecturer in Constitutional History in the University of Glasgow. Published by the Cambridge University Press in the series of Cambridge Studies m Funglish Legal History, with a General Preface by the Editor of the series, HAROLD DEXTER HAZELTINE, Litt.D., F.B.A. cviii and 235 pp. (25s. net.)

A}1 law students who have latent in them a spark of interest in the great figures of the common law will owe gratitude to Dr. Chrimes for his labour of love ill editing and traBlating Sir John Fortescue's De LaitSu4 Legt4m Angliae, and to Professor Hazeltine and the University Press for including the book in the series of Cambridge Stlldies iIl English Legal History. The editor's qualifications for his task are unexceptIonable, for he had alreafly lvon a place among the acknowledged experts in the political and coIsstitutional thought of the fifteenth century by his earlier volume of Studies, based uporl his work as a research stlldent in the Univenity under the directioll of Mr. GaiLlard LapBley.

Dr. Chrimes has reduced to commendable brenty the editorial matter, giving information about the manusetipts, about earlier editions and translatiolls, and about Fortescue's long and eventful life. In addition to hLs conci8e and readable account of the latter he has convemently set out its chronological details in tabulal form. In his section entitled i Estimates and ConcZusione,' after quoting Holdsworth's statement that De Laudzbtos was the first book about English lasr and the English legal proferion wnitten by a lawyer e2rpressly for the betlefit of his unleamed brethren, he adds that it was the fist deliberate attempt at an essay in comparative jurisprudence. Tl}e words ' deliberato attempt ' are perhaps somewhat misleading, for they suggest more conscious aims than Fortescue i8 likely to have entertained. But they are qualified by the next sentence: ' Fortescue's comparisons may not

be very profound, but they represent the beginnings of a less insular interest on the part of the common lawyers and foreshadow the rise of a new school of juristic thought.' Profecor Hazeltine concurs, writing in his General Preface that ' comparison is in truth the teitmotif of nearly all Fortescue's contributions to learning.' This general preface, a substantial essay full of erudite allusion, ranges over a de field. It will be found very helpful by those urho seek to relate Fortescue to earlier and later legal thought.

But it is not researchers in the field of comparative legal institutions who are most benefited by a new tranBlation of De L<ud«buz. When there exists matenal suitable for enabling an ordinaw law student to learn about a great lawyer from his own tings, and about legal institutions from contemporary sollrees, it iB not very ereditable to our national seholarship that the material should not be available. The most popular parts of De Leudxbus have, it is true, been ineluded in the Reiinss of Professors Pound and Plueknett, but this book is, unfortunately, not as well known in this eountry as it ought to be. Students ought now to be able to read in any law library Forteseues graphie aecount of trial by jury and of the inns of court Some, too, may be interested in what Forteseue has to say about the iFrench use of torture for obtaining evidence. It is startling that an English judge

217 overrated dirlecticzn.' ' One reason for his success in English law schools may be that a cocksure dogmatic theory, however bad, is good stuff to examine, £11iCi

cram for exaations, upon' (Vol. II, p. 263). The very useful Introduction by Sir John Pollock should be read before

proceeding to the Letters, as it throws much light on the characters of the writers and particuIarly of Mr Justice Holmes in hss social aspect.

D T. O.

Sir Johxl Fortescue, De Lat4dibus Legum Anyliae. Latin text) with Translation, Introduction and Notes by S. B. CHRIMES, M.A., Ph.D., Lecturer in Constitutional History in the University of Glasgow. Published by the Cambridge University Press in the series of Cambridge Studies m Funglish Legal History, with a General Preface by the Editor of the series, HAROLD DEXTER HAZELTINE, Litt.D., F.B.A. cviii and 235 pp. (25s. net.)

A}1 law students who have latent in them a spark of interest in the great figures of the common law will owe gratitude to Dr. Chrimes for his labour of love ill editing and traBlating Sir John Fortescue's De LaitSu4 Legt4m Angliae, and to Professor Hazeltine and the University Press for including the book in the series of Cambridge Stlldies iIl English Legal History. The editor's qualifications for his task are unexceptIonable, for he had alreafly lvon a place among the acknowledged experts in the political and coIsstitutional thought of the fifteenth century by his earlier volume of Studies, based uporl his work as a research stlldent in the Univenity under the directioll of Mr. GaiLlard LapBley.

Dr. Chrimes has reduced to commendable brenty the editorial matter, giving information about the manusetipts, about earlier editions and translatiolls, and about Fortescue's long and eventful life. In addition to hLs conci8e and readable account of the latter he has convemently set out its chronological details in tabulal form. In his section entitled i Estimates and ConcZusione,' after quoting Holdsworth's statement that De Laudzbtos was the first book about English lasr and the English legal proferion wnitten by a lawyer e2rpressly for the betlefit of his unleamed brethren, he adds that it was the fist deliberate attempt at an essay in comparative jurisprudence. Tl}e words ' deliberato attempt ' are perhaps somewhat misleading, for they suggest more conscious aims than Fortescue i8 likely to have entertained. But they are qualified by the next sentence: ' Fortescue's comparisons may not

be very profound, but they represent the beginnings of a less insular interest on the part of the common lawyers and foreshadow the rise of a new school of juristic thought.' Profecor Hazeltine concurs, writing in his General Preface that ' comparison is in truth the teitmotif of nearly all Fortescue's contributions to learning.' This general preface, a substantial essay full of erudite allusion, ranges over a de field. It will be found very helpful by those urho seek to relate Fortescue to earlier and later legal thought.

But it is not researchers in the field of comparative legal institutions who are most benefited by a new tranBlation of De L<ud«buz. When there exists matenal suitable for enabling an ordinaw law student to learn about a great lawyer from his own tings, and about legal institutions from contemporary sollrees, it iB not very ereditable to our national seholarship that the material should not be available. The most popular parts of De Leudxbus have, it is true, been ineluded in the Reiinss of Professors Pound and Plueknett, but this book is, unfortunately, not as well known in this eountry as it ought to be. Students ought now to be able to read in any law library Forteseues graphie aecount of trial by jury and of the inns of court Some, too, may be interested in what Forteseue has to say about the iFrench use of torture for obtaining evidence. It is startling that an English judge

This content downloaded from 185.44.79.149 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 15:17:24 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions