"I consider your work among the most valuable additions to judicial literature which have appeared for many years. The 'Notes' are excellent, and set forth the leading principles of the various cases in the most satisfactory form, with an accuracy and nicety of discrimination equally honourable to yourself and to our common profession. I know not, indeed, if any work can be found which more perfectly accomplishes the purpose of the author.... I hope that your life may long be spared, so that you may be able to devote yourself to similar labours for the advancement of the learning and honour of the profession." Alas! both Mr. Justice Story and Mr. Smith, each a great ornament to his country, died within a few months of each other. When I congratulated my friend on this encomium, from so competent and eminent a judge, he replied modestly—"Laudari à laudato viro is certainly pleasing."
So great was the demand for this work, that Mr. Smith's publisher urged him to proceed as quickly as possible with the second volume, which he had, in his preface to the former one, announced his intention of doing, in the event of the first portion of his labours meeting with the approbation of the profession. He accordingly at once set to work upon the second volume; and although he was beginning to have serious calls upon his time, owing principally to his having accepted the appointment, in November 1837, of Common Law Lecturer to the Law Institution, such were his energy and industry, that by the 12th of May, 1838, he had succeeded in bringing out the first part of the second volume, which was fully equal in execution to the first. While, however, he was receiving with his usual modesty the congratulations of his friends on this solid addition to his reputation, he received a sort of checkmate, which embarrassed and utterly confounded him; occasioning him infinitely greater annoyance and mortification than he ever experienced in his life. A highly respectable firm of law booksellers, the publishers of his "Compendium of Mercantile Law," and to whom he had also offered the publication of his "Leading Cases," which they had declined, without the slightest intimation of any objection to the principle of selecting the "Cases," which he had explained fully to them, suddenly took it into their heads, that in thus selecting some few cases from "Reports" published by them, as mere texts for his masterly legal discussions, he had been guilty of Piracy! and actually filed a bill in Equity against him and his publisher, to restrain them "from printing, selling, or publishing any copies of the first part of the second volume." I never saw Mr. Smith exhibit such intense vexation as that occasioned him by this proceeding: he felt at once his own honour impugned, and that he might have seriously compromised the character and interests of his publisher. Such, however, was the confidence in the justice of his case felt by the latter, that he resolved to resist this attack upon his own rights and those of Mr. Smith to the very last; and he did so, at his own expense, and with triumphant success. The Vice-Chancellor of England, (Sir Launcelot Shadwell,) after an elaborate argument, refused to grant the desired injunction—expressing his very decided opinion "that on the substance of the case, and on the conduct of the plaintiffs, (the publishers in question,) they were not entitled to the injunction which they had asked." Against this decision the plaintiffs immediately appealed to the present Lord Chancellor, Lord Cottenham, who, after another very elaborate argument, and taking time to consider, delivered a luminous judgment confirming the decision of the Vice-Chancellor, triumphantly vindicating the propriety of both author and publisher's conduct, and supporting the right which Mr. Smith had thought proper to exercise; and his lordship dismissed the appeal with costs.5 Thus ended, what has always appeared to me a very absurd, and as the event proved, expensive experiment, on the part of the plaintiffs. Only one of them now carries on the business, and is a gentleman of such high respectability, and also liberality in his dealings with the profession, that I feel satisfied he had really very little part in this most unsatisfactory proceeding. Mr. Smith's right to continue his selections from the Reports, for the purpose of annotation, having been thus established, and the excellence and importance of his labours conspicuously made known (had that, indeed, been necessary) to the entire profession, he at once proceeded with, and in due time completed the remaining portion of the second volume; and for the sake of legal science, it is to be lamented that there this admirable work ended. Mr. Smith felt no exultation at the defeat of this most thoughtless and unjustifiable attack upon him, nor evinced any pleasure in the friendly congratulations showered upon him. His sensitive mind had, indeed, been thoroughly shocked by the imputation which had been sought to be fixed upon him; and the only feeling on the subject which he ever expressed to me, or appeared to entertain, was one of calm indignation. I must say that in this I think he was abundantly justified. He repeatedly told me that he should never write another book, for "that he had had quite enough of it." As it happened, he never did; nor do I think that he would ever have done so, even had his career not been cut short by death. Whenever works of solid interest and importance in general literature appeared, Mr. Smith was very eager to peruse them, and seldom failed in doing so. I recollect him one day borrowing from me the first volume of Mr. Hallam's, "Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries," which was published alone early in 1837. He read it with great interest, and reviewed it very ably in this Magazine—his only contribution to its pages, in the No. for May, 1837.
He was about the same time reading largely in the State Trials, and frequently conversed with me upon their interesting character, wondering that they had so seldom been made really available for the purposes of amusing literature. He himself selected one of the trials as one possessed of peculiar capabilities, and intended to have completed it for this Magazine, but was prevented by his other labours. These lighter occupations, however, were soon interfered with by his appointment, as already intimated, to be Common Law Lecturer to the Law Institution in Chancery Lane, in November, 1837. This he owed entirely to his own merit, and the reputation which his writings had already gained him in the profession. I knew that fears were entertained by the directors of that important institution, lest his unpopular manner should stand in the way of his usefulness as a lecturer; but aware of his rare intellectual and legal qualifications, they wisely resolved to try an experiment, which completely succeeded. I recollect accompanying him, at his own request, to deliver his first lecture, at the close of 1837. He was somewhat fluttered when he made his appearance before his audience, but at once commenced reading with apparent calmness, a very able introductory lecture, which soon arrested attention, and caused the committee who sat before him to congratulate themselves on their selection. He held this appointment till March, 1843, during which time he delivered a great number of lectures to increasingly attentive auditories; and as he read over several portions of them to me, I am able to say that, in my humble judgment, they were of the highest value, for their clear, close, and correct exposition of some of the most difficult branches of the law. He had a great talent for communicating elementary information; and even the most ignorant and stolid of his listeners could scarce avoid understanding his simple and lucid explanations of legal principles. One series of his lectures on "The Law of Contracts," has just (1846,) been published6 verbatim from his MSS. as they were delivered, and fully justifies the opinion here expressed. He never designed them for publication, but solely for delivery to the attorneys' and solicitors' clerks, for whom the lectureship was founded; yet it is doubtful whether there be any book extant in which the difficult and extensive subject of contracts is, and that within the space of ten short lectures, comparably treated. The most youthful student, with only moderate attention, can acquire from it, in a short time, correct general notions calculated to be of infinite service to him, while able practitioners will regard it as at once concise, accurate, and practical, and evincing a thorough mastery of the subject in all its branches. In the words of his editor, "The lectures embody the chief principles of that branch of the law, and will be found equal to any of the former productions of the author for that clear, concise, and comprehensive exposition of his subject, which has characterised his works, and ensured the vitality of his reputation; popularising a branch of law which peculiarly affects the ordinary business of life; divesting it of the superfluities with which it is often encumbered; educing the great maxims, and broad rules by which it is moulded, and unravelling the perplexity in which an occasional conflict of judgments had from time to time involved it." I am not aware that Mr. Symonds had any personal knowledge of Mr. Smith, so that the more valuable is his concluding eulogium,—"That the profession already ranks him as among the most gifted of its writers, and most learned of modern lawyers." As an example of the ease and precision with which he elucidated the most difficult subjects, and brought them to the level of youthful capacities, I select the following brief passage on a most practically important subject, that of the "consideration" essential to support a valid simple contract, according to the civil law and that of England.7 After explaining the doctrine of "Nudum pactum," he thus proceeds:—