802 EMORY WASHBURN. 



law. Most of the law of personal property, on the contrary, is the 

 growth of modern times, suited to the wants of the present ; or, in 

 fact, but an adoption into the law of the life of the age. Its ideas 

 become action ; its action becomes the law. The law follows the fact ; 

 becomes its transcript and record. Not so with our law of real property. 

 Some law of real property is everywhere essential : decisions upon it 

 following the ancient pi*ecedents, bending to the emergencies or legisla- 

 tion of recent times, are issued in scores of volumes with every year. 

 The labor which will carefully study and collate them all ; which will 

 sever the essential from the incidental part of each of these decisions ; 

 which will collect, in two or three volumes, the substance of all of 

 them ; which will endeavor to mould them into a harmonious system, 

 for the guidance and instruction of the profession, the courts, and 

 the community, — such labor, indeed, requires, in the first instance, a 

 most faithful conscience in him who has undertaken such a work. 

 That faithful conscience Professor Washburn had ; that immense labor 

 was conscientiously performed. And the result is contained in his 

 work upon the " Law of Real Property," now in three volumes ; and 

 in the supplementary work on " Easements and Servitudes." It is 

 one of the most useful works on that subject, both for the bar and for the 

 public; the most useful practical work upon this subject which exists 

 in the En£;lish lansuaste. The faithfulness of its citations saves an 

 amount of time for those engaged in the administration of justice, and 

 for those whose interests are involved in such administration, which 

 exceeds any estimate. 



A more forcible and less conscientious hand might mould the mass 

 into more symmetrical form. Professor Washburn's duty was not to 

 make the law, but honestly to report it as others declared it to be. 

 " Blackstone's Commentaries" were written for students. The clear 

 and easy flow of their style is yet unexcelled among expositions of the 

 law ; for the law deals not with the graceful sentiments of life. It has 

 no eesthetic side. It is devoted to the stern demands of justice, and 

 to practical interests. Professor Washburn's style in recording its 

 decisions was, like that of most law-writei's, — 



" Subdued 

 " To tliat it works in, like the dyer's hand." 



Professor Washburn's influence upon the young men who com- 

 menced with him the manly study of the law, and who are yet as- 

 cending the paths of life ; the great tribute, rather than debt, which he 

 paid to his profession and to the cause of justice, which is the first inter- 



