THEOPHILUS PARSONS. 413 



mon-]aw system of procedure. Indeed, the early common law of 

 England in general he regarded with little favor. On the other hand, 

 commercial law was his delight, but more especially commercial law 

 as resting upon the custom and practice of merchants, and as it exists 

 all over the commercial world ; for commercial law as administered 

 in the common-law courts of England and America had in it too 

 much of the leaven of common law to be altogether satisfactory 

 to him. It was for this reason, and because of the simplicity and 

 celerity of its procedure, that the Court of Admiralty was so great a 

 favorite with him. Nothing is known to the writer of his practice in 

 Taunton ; but it is impossible that he should have done much there, 

 for it was not a field in the least suited to his genius. Upon coming 

 to Boston, however, he must soon have made his mark as a commer- 

 cial lawyer, and particularly in the law of marine insurance ; for in 

 1838 he appears in three reported cases as counsel for as many differ- 

 ent marine insurance companies ; and one of these cases was the im- 

 portant one of Peters v. The Warren Insurance Company (14 Pet. 

 99), which he argued first against Mr. F. C. Loring, before Judge 

 Story, and afterwards against Webster before the Supreme Court at 

 Washington. It was after he I'etired from practice, however, that he 

 acquired his greatest professional reputation, partly as a professor in 

 the Law School and partly as an author. Before going to Cam- 

 bridge, his reputation was at best but local, while after that event 

 his name became familiar to every lawyer in the United States. Un- 

 doubtedly his books had the greatest agency in producing that result. 

 The first book which made him widely known was that upon Con- 

 tracts, one volume of which was published a little more than five 

 years after he had assumed the duties of his professorship. This was 

 one of the most successful law books ever published in this country. 

 The subject is as fundamental, as extensive, and as important as any 

 in the law, and this work immediately took its position as the stand- 

 ard American authority upon that topic, — a position which it has 

 maintained without question from that day to this. It has passed 

 through six editions; but this statement conveys no adequate idea of 

 the extent of its sale, for it has long been stereotyped, and the writer 

 has been informed that there were ten thousand copies of the fifth 

 edition sold. 



There is no occasion to speak of Professor Parsons separately as a 

 professor of law and as a writer of law books. In both capacities he 

 was a teacher, and in both he achieved his success by the same means: 

 namely, by his gifts as a teacher. In a teacher of law, whether his 



