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in private life he was most strictly honorable, sincere, kind hearted, generous and friendly. The public life which has been described could never have arisen out of the opposite disposition. It was the fruit of his prevailing temper of mind, of his constitution and habit of thinking.

In conclusion, it is gratifying to add, that Mr. Stuart was a sincere friend to religion. He spoke at all times with the highest respect of its ministers, its institution, and its code. He contemplated the truths which it teaches, with the deepest reverence; and looked forward to the closing scene of human existence, with mingled sentiments of reasonable anxiety and enlightened hope.

He died on the 21st February, 1840. His funeral was followed by a vast concourse of persons, who feelingly deplored the loss they now sustained.

Mittermaier's German Criminal Procedure. The first volume of a new (the third) edition of this valuable work, with additions, has just been published at Heidelberg. It contains references to all the recent statutory legislation of the states of this union, on subjects of criminal law.

To our Readers. We intended, in the present number, to have presented our readers with an article on the effect of drunkenness, as a ground of relief from criminal responsibility, and a review of the second part of Lieber's Political Ethics;-but we have been obliged to defer them both, for reasons beyond our control. We shall give them in our next ;—which will also contain articles on the law of contracts (continued),-on the rights of slaveholding states, &c. (continued),—and on mistakes of law (continued).

QUARTERLY LIST OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

ENGLAND.

A Treatise on the Law of Limitations, with an Appendix of statutes and forms. By G. B. Mansell, Esq., Barrister at Law. Commentaries on the Law of Nations. By W. Oke Manning, Jun., Esq.

:

The Statute Criminal Law of England, as regards indictable offences arranged in classes according to the degrees of punishment, (forming the Appendix to the Fourth Report of the Commissioners on Criminal Law). With notes. By John James Lonsdale, Esq., of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister at Law.

A Treatise upon the Law and Practice of the Court for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors, with an Appendix, &c. By Edward Cooke, Esq., of the Middle Temple, Barrister.

A new Law Dictionary, containing explanations of such technical terms and phrases as occur in the works of the various law writers of Great Britain. To which is added an outline of an action at law and of a suit in equity. Designed expressly for the use of Students. By Henry James Holthouse, Esq.

A Practical Guide to Executors and Administrators, &c. By Richard Matthews, of the Middle Temple, Esq., Barrister at Law. The Law of Parliamentary elections, Part I, &c. By B. Montagu, Esq., Q. C., & M. J. Neale, Esqrs., Barristers at Law. The Theory and Practice of Conveyancing. By Solomon Atkinson, Esq. Barrister at Law.

UNITED STATES.

Reports of Cases determined in the Supreme Judicial Court of the State of Maine. By John Shepley, Counsellor at Law. Volume III. Maine Reports. Vol. XV. Hallowell: Glazier, Masters and Smith, 1840.

Reports of Cases argued and determined in the several courts of Law and Equity, in England, during the year 1839. Jurist Edition. Vol. I. New York: Halsted & Voorhies, 1840.

A Treatise on the Law of Evidence. Fifth American from the eighth London edition, with considerable additions. By S. March Phillipps, Esq., and Andrew Amos, Esq., Barristers at Law. With notes and references to American Cases. Parts I and II. New York: Halsted & Voorhies, 1839.

Digest of the Decisions of the Courts of Common Law and Admiralty in the United States. By Thereon Metcalf and Jonathan C. Perkins. Vol. I. Boston: Hilliard, Gray, and Co., 1840. Letter to His Excellency Patrick Noble, Governor of South Carolina, on the Penitentiary System. By Francis Lieber.

Argument for the Plaintiffs, in the case of Wildes and others v. Parker and another, in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Massachusetts, January Term, 1840. By Ivers J. Austin, of counsel for the Plaintiffs.

A Treatise on the Law of Insurance. By Willard Phillips. In two volumes. Second Edition. Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1840.

[We shall notice this new and enlarged edition of a most valuable work in a future number.]

Reports of Cases argued and determined in the court of Chan-` cery of the State of New York. By Alonzo C. Paige, Counsellor

at Law. Vol. VII. New York: Gould, Banks & Co., 1839.

Digested Chancery Cases, contained in the Reports of the Court of Appeals of Maryland. By James Raymond, of the Maryland Bar. Baltimore: Cushing & Brother, 1839.

Commentaries on the Law of Bailments, with illustrations from the Civil and the Foreign Law. By Joseph Story, LL. D., Dane Professor of Law in Harvard University. Second Edition. Revised, corrected, and enlarged. Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1840.

IN PRESS.

By Charles C. Little and James Brown.

A Treatise on the Rights and Duties of Merchant Seamen, &c. By George T. Curtis.

Digest of the Massachusetts and Pickering's Reports. By J. C. Perkins and J. H. Ward.

A Treatise on the Common Law in relation to Water Courses. Second edition, much enlarged. By Joseph K. Angell.

AMERICAN JURIST.

NO. XLVI.

JULY, 1840.

ART. I.-LAW OF CONTRACTS.

No. 8.-Construction of Contracts.

As agreements derive their force from the mutual assent of the parties to certain terms, it follows that the operation and extent of every agreement is to be ascertained from the intention of the parties. This intention is to be collected from the expressions used by the contracting parties.

Mr. Fonblanque defines interpretation, or construction, to be the collection of the meaning of the contract from the most probable signs. Mr. Powell says construction is the drawing of an inference, by the aid of reason, as to the intent of a contract, from given circumstances, upon principles deduced from men's general motives, conduct and actions.1

1 Vattel's chapter on the interpretation of treaties contains an exposition, most of which is applicable to contracts between individuals, and deserves an attentive perusal. Sheppard's Touchstone, ch. v., on the exposition of deeds, should also be studied. And students should not fail to examine, with care, the twelve rules for the interpretation of agreements, which are laid down by Pothier in his treatise on the law of obligations. See also 1 Domat, 36, 37; Rutherforth, book ij. ch. 7.

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The necessity of rules of construction arises from the imperfection of language, and from the imperfect use of it in those instances in which language wholly unequivocal and explicit might be selected. "If," says Vattel, "the ideas of men were always distinct and perfectly determined-if, in order to make them known, they had only proper terms, and none but such expressions as were clear, precise, and susceptible of only one sense-there would never be any difficulty in discovering their meaning in the words by which they would express it. Nothing more would be necessary than to understand the language."

Even in this state of things, however, it is obvious to every one who has experience in the affairs of life, that rules of construction would be necessary. In contracts where more than one definite object is stipulated for at least wherever a general object is intended to be secured by a stipulation concerning a variety of particulars—it is hardly possible to foresee every case that will arise even under the course of events that is anticipated. Much less can the state of affairs be foreseen which new conjunctures and unexpected events will inevitably produce. Yet it would be highly injurious to both parties, if the exact literal stipulations of a complicated contract were to be performed, and nothing more; and therefore it is necessary to resort to construction that is, to inductions drawn from the general views of the parties (as expressed in their contract) with reference to the existing circumstances; in other wordsto collect, from the object, drift and spirit of their agreement, what their leading and paramount intentions were, and to carry those intentions into effect.

Thus it often happens that a contract evinces a general and also a particular intent. The particular intent, perhaps, cannot be carried into effect at all; or if it should be, it would wholly, or in a great measure, defeat the general intent. In such cases-though there is no doubt of the

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