Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 9.djvu/392

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HARVARD LAW REVIEW.
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364 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. a depositor opens an acconnt in trust for a third party without notifying the benefi- ciary and dies having the book in his possession, and leaving the account unexplained, a trust arises in favor of the third party. Where no real trust is intended, and the depositor simply uses another's name for purposes of his own, his intent may always be shown, and will be controlling. See Ames's Cases on Trusts, Ch. I. § 13. Wills — Destruction of Subsequent Instrument. — A statute declared that " no will nor any part thereof shall be revoked except ... by some other will or codicil in writing " duly executed. Testator destroyed a second will, which did not contain an express clause revoking his first. Held, first will was valid. Cheever v. North, 64 N. W. Rep. 455 (Mich.). The court says the statute merely declared the common law rule, and that the former will was not revoked by the subsequent one by that rule. It also says the destruc- tion of the second instrument revives the first will. Revival is making good something hitherto void. But the court had declared that the first will never was void. So the doctrine of revival is hardly applicable, but the decision that the first will had never been revoked was sufticient to dispose of the case. At common law a subsequent will did not revoke a previous one, Hntchins v. Bassett, 2 Salk. 592, even if the subsequent one contained the words, " this is my last will." Letuage v. Good/an, L. R. i P. & D. 57. The case o{ Peck's Appeal, 50 Conn. 562, is in accord with the principal case under a similar statute, and cites various authorities. Wills — Issue Living — Child en Ventre sa Mti.-E. — Held, ihz.t a child en ventre sa mere is to be deemed living not only for his own benefit, but also for that of others. In re Burrows, [1895] 2 Ch. 497. See Notes. REVIEWS. The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I. By Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart., M.A., LL.D., Corpus Professor of Jurisprudence in the University of Oxford, and Frederic William Maitland, LL.D., Downing Professor of the Laws of England in the University of Cambridge. Cambridge: At the University Press, 1895. 2 vols. 8vo, pp. xxxviii, 678, and xiii, 684. Here, truly, one finds " the gladsome light of jurisprudence " ! It is good to have lived to see the day when such a book can be printed, a book in which technical learning is presented accurately and exactly, and yet in a manner so engaging. The literary gift which has shaped these volumes is remarkable ; but the combination of this quality with a strong intellectual grasp and easy mastery of all the recondite learning which finds expression here is far more remarkable. This is not only a learned and valuable book, but a delightful one. The space allowable in these columns does not permit any review of the work at all worthy of its merits. Let us, however, make sure that the scope of the work is understood. In a short Introduction the authors point out that they are not under- taking any philosophical discussion of the nature of law. Law they conceive of as " the sum of the rules administered by courts of justice." They declare that the law prevailing in England before the Norman invasion "was, in the main, pure Germanic law," not Celtic or Roman. Of that period of the early law they are to speak very briefly. They are to stop at the reign of Edward I., because the period since that date is intimately linked in with our modern law; "the law of the later middle ages . . . has never passed utterly outside the cognizance of our courts and our practising lawyers." Constitutional history and law, and eccle- siastical matters they are to leave one side. " We have thought less," they say " of symmetry than of the advancement of knowledge. The time for