exhausting research and overwhelming authority. Our jurisprudence was probably on the whole improved by it. The judges were Republicans, kindly disposed to everything French; and this enabled me, without exciting alarm or jealousy, to make free use of such [French] authorities, and thereby enrich our commercial law." From 1814 to 1823, he presided over the court of chancery in the State of New York. The seven volumes of Johnson's Chancery Reports contain his decisions for that period, and present an extended and learned exposition of equity jurisprudence. "For the nine years I was in that office," he further wrote, "there was not a single decision or dictum of either of my predecessors - Livingston, and Lansing, 1777 to 1814-cited or even suggested to me. I took the court as if it were an institution never before known in the United States. I had nothing to guide me, and was left at liberty to assume all such English chancery practice and jurisdiction as I thought applicable under I was only checked by the our constitution. senate as a court of errors." He left no aspect of a case unexamined and undecided. His dicta have furnished the basis of countless adjudications. In 1823, being in his sixty-first year, and, under the constitution, no longer qualified for judicial office, he resumed residence in New York city, and was reelected to the chair in Columbia law school which had been vacant since he left it in 1795. Here he delivered the lectures which constituted the substance of his "Commentaries on American Law," as first published. "Having got heartily tired of lecturing, I abandoned it, and it was my son that pressed me to prepare a volume of lectures for the press. I had no idea of publishing them when I delivered them. I wrote a new volume and published it. This led me to remodel and enlarge, and now the third volume will be out in a few days; and I am obliged to write a fourth to complete my plan." The first volume of the Commentaries was published in 1826, the second in 1827, the third in 1829, and the fourth in 1830. Up to the time of his death, in 1847, he had revised five other editions. His son Judge William Kent superintended the preparation of the seventh edition in 1852, the eighth in 1854, the ninth in 1858, and the tenth in 1860. The eleventh edition was prepared by Judge George F. Comstock, in 1866, the twelfth by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., in 1873, and the thirteenth by C. M. Barnes, in 1884. Of part of Kent's judicial labors Story said that "to unfold the doctrines of chancery in our country and to settle them upon immovable foundations, it required such a man with such a mind, at once liberal, comprehensive, exact, and methodical; always reverencing authorities and bound by decisions; true to the spirit yet more true to the letter of the law; proving principles with a severe and scrupulous logic, yet blending with them the most persuasive equity." Story also wrote that the Commentaries were new proof of the author's accurate learning, extensive research, and unwearied diligence.1 1 See autobiographical letter of 1828, first published in 1872, in 1 South. Law Rev. 382; re-published in 6 Alb. Originally, race, kin; now, genus, generic class. Law J. 40. See also 13 Alb. Law J. 206-10 (1876); American Cyclopaedia. Orig., to steal a child: kid, slang for child; nap, to nab. Formerly spelled kidnapping. 2 [4 Bl. Com. 219. Act 23 June, 1874: 1 Sup. R. S. 103. 4 See Moody v. People, 20 III. 318-19 (1858); State v. Rollins, 8 N. Η. 565-67 (1837); Click v. State, 3 Tex. 285 (1848); 2 Bish. Cr. L. §§ 750-56. 5 McCord v. Smith, 1 Black, 470 (1861); 62 Ga. 145; 11 Cush. 25; 72 N. Y. 315; 16 Wis. 635. Swasey v. Jaques, 144 Mass. 138, 137 (1887), cases, Field, J. Haraden v. Larrabee, 113 Mass. 431 (1873), cases; Wetter v. Walker, 62 Ga. 145 (1878). * Keteltas v. Keteltas, 72 N. Y. 315 (1878), cases. Steel v. Kurtz, 28 Ohio St. 196 (1876). See also 1 Bradf. 495; 28 Md. 412; 67 N. Y. 389; 24 Hun, 15; 32 Barb. 28; 34 id. 410; 43 id. 162; 63 N. C. 242; 17 Ohio St. 367; 4 R. I. 4; 62 Wis. 135.