A TREATISE ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE STATUTE OF FRAUDS, AS IN FORCE IN ENGLAND AND THE UNITED STATES, WITH AN APPENDIX, CONTAINING THE EXISTING ENGLISH AND AMERICAN STATUTES. SECOND EDITION. CAREFULLY REVISED, WITH EXTENSIVE ADDITIONS. BY CAUSTEN BROWNE, Esq. COUNSELLOR AT LAW. BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY. 1863. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, By CAUSTEN BROWNE, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: In this edition, the cases which have been made public in the last five years have been introduced, and the whole work carefully revised. Several passages from the first edition have been rewritten, and occasional additions made, with a view to greater clearness; but the author has not found it necessary to change any material statement of law. On the other hand, it is proper to say, in more than one instance, conclusions, which were at the time of the publication of the first edition, against the apparent weight of judicial opinion, have been vindicated by later cases. PREFACE. Ir can scarcely be necessary to offer any apology for the appearance of what professes to be a practical treatise upon the Statute of Frauds. Perhaps it is not too much to say that there is no subject, apparently so simple in its nature as the requirement of certain kinds of evidence in certain cases, more confused and complicated by the number, variety, and apparent if not actual contradiction of the decisions. Nor has there been for many years any work to which the practitioner could resort as a safe and ready guide to the rules and modifications of rules which these decisions have established. There are, it is true, numerous text writers, of whose works we possess late editions, upon topics involving a more or less extended notice of the statute; but it is certainly no disparagement of their labors to say that they have been unable to give to it so full and thorough a treatment as its importance has come to demand; to do so was quite incompatible with the proper plans of their respective treatises. The work of Mr. Roberts, the only one in which this subject has been exclusively considered, has always been held in high esteem for the breadth and judiciousness of its commentary, its critical analysis of cases, and its lucid and elegant style. Such has been the profusion of decisions |