few memorials remain of his public or private life. The most laborious and faithful services of the ablest lawyer may be appreciated by his client or the counsel opposed to him, and the most brilliant forensic effort of a cultivated and powerful mind may be listened to with delight by the few who may witness it, yet the sphere of a lawyer's fame is almost necessarily circumscribed, and the memory of his intellectual efforts ordinarily fades away with the few who personally know and appreciate his character. Immortality seems to have but little affinity with a lawyer's profession or his individual fame.

The case of judge Sargeant is by no means a solitary one, where the history of a most useful life may be told in a single paragraph.

He was born in Methuen in 1731, and was the son of the Rev. Christopher Sargeant. His mother's family name was Peaselee.

He was graduated at Cambridge in 1750, and commenced his profession as a lawyer in Haverhill. At the bar he was distinguished for his integrity, sound learning, and laborious research, far more than for eloquence or power as an advocate.

He does not seem to have taken a prominent part in politics, though he was a decided opposer of the aggressions of the mother country, and held a pretty conspicuous place in the provincial congresses of 1774 and 1775, of which he was a member.

At the organization of the courts in 1775, he was appointed a judge of the superior court, but declined then to accept the office. However, when, in the following year, 1776, he was again appointed to the place, he accepted it, and retained the office until he was made chief justice of the court, in 1790, upon judge Cushing's being transferred to the bench of the United States court. He held the place of chief justice for a short time only, as he died in October,

1791, at Haverhill, at the age of sixty years. His character as a judge was that of an able, faithful, and impartial magistrate, and the few specimens that remain of his legal opinions indicate the possession of a good share of legal knowledge, as well as of sound judgment and just discrimination.

E. W.

ART. VII. REMEDY ON COVENANTS IN THE REALTY.

[We lately received a letter from one of our correspondents, containing the following statement and request:

"I find that judge Green, in 2 Randolph's Reports, 141, says, that chief justice Parsons was mistaken in 3 Mass. Rep. 545, and the Virginian' seems disposed to brag a little over the Yankee.' I suppose that judge Green must be right, yet you know that sometimes mistakes happen even south of Mason and Dixon.' You will do me a great kindness to inform me of the truth.”

Not feeling quite sure of our ability to inform our correspondent of the truth in the premises, we handed his letter to a learned friend, who shortly afterwards returned it with the following characteristic note.

"A negro, who wore a watch, but could not tell the time of day by it, on being asked what was the hour, pulled out his timepiece, and, thrusting it into the inquirer's face, said, 'See for yousef, and not trouble gemmen.'— See 10 American Jurist, 117; Williams's Hobart, 46, note to Pincombe v. Rudge."

Having ourselves forgotten the existence in our journal of any article on the subject referred to, it is to be presumed that some of our readers may be equally oblivious; and we have therefore concluded to republish it for the benefit of our readers in general, and for the satisfaction of our correspondent in particular.]

QUESTIONS. 1. Whether there is now in England any personal remedy on real covenants of warranty touching the freehold, where the freehold is ousted by title paramount? 2. What is now the rule of damages in England upon covenants for quiet enjoyment?

As to the first question, it was held in Pincombe v. Rudge, Hobart's R. 3, by all the judges in the exchequer chamber,

(where the question was, whether upon a clause of warranty real, annexed to a freehold, an action of covenant to recover damages would lie,) as follows:-"That this action of covenant will lie, because that though the warranty be annexed to a freehold, yet the breach and impeaching was not (in that case) of a freehold, but of a chattel, that is, of a lease for years, for which there could neither be voucher, rebutter, nor warrantia charta; so that though there had been a judgment of a warrantia chartæ in this case, yet neither upon entry nor upon recovery in ejectione firma upon this lease, there could be neither voucher, nor rebutter, nor value upon the warrantia charta; and therefore a real warranty is a covenant real, when the freehold is brought in question. But when a lease is in question, or any other loss that doth not draw away the freehold, it may be used as a personal covenant, whereupon damages may be recovered, so it is both a real and personal covenant to several ends and respects."

It will be perceived, that the breach in this case was merely of an antecedent lease for years created by the warrantor, under which the lessee entered, and therefore the tenant was not ousted of the freehold [for life] which was granted to him, and to which the warranty was annexed. And the opinion of the court turned on this point. But it may be inferred, that if the whole freehold had been gone by a superior title, that then the covenant would have been held a real covenant by the court, upon which he could not have had a personal remedy. But chief justice Parsons, in Gore v. Brazier, 3 Mass. R. 523, 545, held that a personal action would have lain in England upon a covenant of warranty annexed to a fee, and where the ouster was of the freehold by title paramount. And he cited 1 Brownl. 21; 2 Brownl. 164, 165, as in point. The case cited, I suppose, is Waters v. Dean, &c., of Norwich, 1 Brownl. 21; S. C. 2 Brownl. 158, &c. But there the plaintiff sued on a cove

nant to save harmless, &c., during the term, which was for life, and the breach assigned was a disturbance by an antecedent lease to one T. for years. So that the case was not different from that in Hobart, the freehold not being brought in question. It is true, that lord Coke, who was chief justice, in giving his opinion, said, among other things, "that covenant in law extends to lawful evictions, and to estates in being, and not where an estate is determined." "So also he supposed to express real covenants, which extend to freehold or inheritance, as warrant and defend, upon which a man cannot have an action if he be not ousted by one which hath title." This last sentence is that upon which chief justice Parsons seems to have relied; but it is manifest that lord Coke was referring to the difference between a covenant in law and an express covenant, and not to the cases in which covenant would lie on a warranty. According to the case of Pincombe v. Rudge (Hob. 3), there is no doubt that covenant would lie, if the ouster by title paramount was not of the freehold, but for a term of years only. For is it to be presumed that lord Coke had any notion in his mind, that, if the ouster was in fee, covenant would lie on a warranty? And the covenant in the case before the court was not a warranty, but a covenant to save harmless and acquit; in short, equivalent to a covenant for quiet enjoyment. Besides, the case in Brownlow was decided in 10 Jac. 1; and that of Pincombe v. Rudge was finally decided in the exchequer chamber by all the judges, in 11 Jac. 1. And, therefore, if there be any discrepancy between them, the principle established by all the judges in the last case is the true one. And it seems to me that there is a necessary implication in this last case against the doctrine of chief justice Parsons. At all events, the authority he relies on, does not support his dictum.

Pincombe v. Rudge is also reported in Noy, 131, and Yelverton, 139.

S.

ART. VIII.-NEW COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS OF
ENGLAND.

The Rights of Persons, according to the text of Blackstone, incorporating the alterations down to the present time. By JAMES STEWART, of Lincoln's Inn, Esq., Barrister at Law. M. P. London, 1839. 1 vol. 8vo. The Principles of the Law of Real and Personal Property, being the second book of Blackstone's Commentaries; incorporating the alterations down to the present time. Second edition, revised and greatly enlarged. By JAMES STEWART, of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister at Law. London, 1841. 1 vol. 8vo.

New Commentaries on the Laws of England, (partly founded on Blackstone.) By HENRY JOHN STEPHEN, Sergeant at Law, author of the Treatise on Pleading, &c. First American edition. Vol. I. New York: Halstead & Voorhies, 1841. 8vo.

A CHRONOLOGICAL account, combined with a full and accurate criticism, of the several editions of Blackstone's Commentaries, would not only constitute a history of the law itself but also of its state and culture as a science, in England, since the first publication of that most popular and successful of legal works. When the Commentaries first appeared, they were deemed altogether too elegant to be made the basis of a professional education, and were subjected to criticism only for their supposed political character and tendency. After some time, however, they began to be more used like other law books, for the law they contained, and then they began to be edited, as other law books were, with copious notes and references. The first, we believe, who published Blackstone, with notes, was sergeant Wil