business to vindicate the courts of equity from aspersions and doubts, once as intemperately as unwisely cast upon, or raised concerning them;" he, nevertheless, does go on to tell us of those very courts which he elsewhere says are "unfitted for enforcing the observance of social duties and obligations," that "their extensive utility is "imrecognised," and that there are portant and multitudinous avocations which these courts must fulfil, by reason that no others can." He undertakes to shew, that there are "some points which cannot be decided according to rules of law, whilst such points can be decided by rules distinct from law;" and he justly concludes that, if this is made to appear, "the enumeration of those points will, of itself, assist to form a barrier between the two jurisdictions, the merely legal and the merely equitable." He adds, "it is not a mere difference of modes of exercising their functions that marks the distinction; the things about which such exercise takes place, are in themselves so different, that they demand a separate and distinct exercise of judicial functions, quite independently of forms and modes, for the decision of the right." He instances the power which the superior courts of equity possess, of preventing future contemplated injustice, by means of an injunction, in many cases where the interference of a court of law would come too late to remedy the injury; this, he adds, "is the great discriminating function of a court of equity, peculiar and appropriate to the possible and prospective occasion of wrong, and not like the limited power of a court of common law, which no machinery, no practice, could mould to meet and obviate the mere future possibilities of delinquency." If this be so; if, as the writer in question tells us, courts of

equity perform "discriminate, peculiar, and appropriate functions," of which "the extensive utility is recognised," and which courts of common law could not possibly be moulded to perform; what becomes of the alleged "absurdity" of saying that, between the systems of two courts, one which possesses "high, most beneficial, but superadded powers," that the other neither does nor can "by any machinery or practice be moulded to execute," there is some distinction? Does it, indeed "require the subtlety of a Loyola to understand" so broad a distinction? or-sheer, honest ignorance apart, which it would not be courteous to impute-does it not require all the subtlety, not only of the founder of the order of Jesuits, but of all his very able followers, to confound such distinct subjects? To a denial, however, of any distinction, the writer alluded to shews a disposition to cling, even after he has offered a demonstration of its existence; for, in the very same paragraph in which he enumerates several of the peculiar functions of courts of equity, he goes on to say, "such cases are not otherwise distinguished from law, than as they are distinguished in point of accident and substance" and he seems to think he has contrived a loop-hole whereby to creep out of the charge of inconsistency, by asking, "whether courts of equity and courts of law do not owe their institution to the same authority." Now, as to the first of these remarks, it surely would puzzle "the subtlety of a Loyola to unfold" the nature of any distinction which was not marked by a difference "in point of accident or substance;" but, where two things differ in both these respects, it requires no very keen vision to discern their dissimilarity. As to the second observation, it may be very true that the two systems of law

and of equity derive their institution from the same ultimate source; still, is it difficult to comprehend that, if one of those systems embraces peculiar functions, which "the frame of the other is not constructed" to reach, they are essentially different?

The writer in question closes the note already alluded to, by charging himself with an omission of which he had not

been guilty. After having just previously alluded to " violations of trust,' (which sound very like frauds), and having before told us that, "in the case of meditated waste, or transfer, for their own purposes, of funds over which trustees, or guardians, or executors, have a temporary control, against which abuses a court of common law cannot even suggest a power of prevention, an appeal to the august courts" (of equity) 'puts the property beyond the embezzlement of the fraudulent:" he finishes by saying, "I have not yet adverted to fraud, or fraudulent transactions, over which it has been said that equity has a peculiar jurisdiction; but it has not." And the notable proof finally offered (to shew that courts of equity have not that peculiar jurisdiction which the same writer had previously contended that they do possess, and which, he had asserted, it would be impossible for a court of law to exercise) is, to point out that there are cases in which, provided a plaintiff be able at once to prove fraud actually committed, a court of law is competent to inflict penalty or punishment. The business of an annotator is of a humble nature, but whoever undertakes it ought, at least, to be able to distinguish between a peculiar jurisdiction, applicable to certain branches of a subject, and an exclusive jurisdiction, admitting no concurrent authority over any portion thereof: and if it would be too much to expect that an editor should

make all his notes, throughout a long work, consistent with each other, it can hardly be unreasonable to think that, the different parts of one and the same note ought not to be directly at variance.

It had been desired, throughout this note, to keep in mind the precept, rather than the too frequent example, of the writer animadverted upon, against the inconclusiveness, as well as the coarseness of "railing:" it is impossible, indeed, to preserve a tone of compliment, whilst one is employed on the distasteful task of unravelling (what is sincerely thought to be) a tissue of inconsistency; but it is not necessary to involve oneself in (what a fine writer might call) the 'lurid clouds" of dull invective. The inconsistencies, indeed, above pointed out, though they have been widely disseminated by the sale of a very large impression, would not have been at all noticed here, had there not been occasional sentences in Blackstone's text, which might lead the reader to believe that the jurisdictions of law and equity are never in opposition to each other: that they are generally concurrent is, fortunately, most true; but (not to multiply instances) when a party is prohibited, by injunction of the Court of Chancery, from setting up claims which a court of law would at once acknowledge; or, when equity even forbids a plaintiff to take the fruits of a judgment actually obtained at law, would it not be a departure from the common meaning of words to deny that these are cases of opposition? Such opposition implies nothing offensive, when it is only employed for the furtherance of justice; which must ever be equally the wish of both jurisdictions, though the forms of one may not, in every instance, enable it to effect that desirable consummation.