SIR FREDERICK POLLOCK, BART., D.C.L., LL.D., OF LINCOLN'S INN, ASSISTED BY O. A. SAUNDERS, J. G. PEASE, AND ARTHUR B. CANE, SWEET AND MAXWELL, LIMITED, 3, CHANCERY LANE. BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN & CO. 1907. PREFACE TO VOL. XCII. THE late Mr. Beavan's reports occupy and will continue to occupy much of our space. Only the most omnivorous of reporters would nowadays think a good many of the cases worth preserving: but we do not think we should be justified in omitting decisions which are not overruled or manifestly obsolete merely because they might not be deemed reportable if they were now given for the first time. Lord Romilly (to anticipate his later description) had one or two singular equitable doctrines. In Cockell v. Taylor, p. 328, he is sound enough on the effect of inadequate value when a sale is impeached. But in Cooke v. Lamotte and Hoghton v. Hoghton (pp. 397, 421) it is said without qualification that whoever takes a benefit by way of voluntary gift is bound to prove, if challenged, that the gift was made freely and with full knowledge. It is needless to tell any one moderately familiar with equity practice that these dicta have never been accepted by the profession. I have heard Sir George Jessel brush them aside as not worth serious argument. But they have never been formally overruled by higher authority, though the whole current of authority is inconsistent with them; and students must therefore still be warned against taking them for anything but the expression of an individual and on this point eccentric opinion. Moorhouse v. Colvin, p. 452, is an interesting example of words of promise being too vague to produce any definite and enforceable obligation. It will be observed that the case was thought too clear to raise any question on which the Court of Chancery might properly take the opinion of a court of law. Jones v. Foxall, p. 473, is instructive on the liability |