contract of sale only so far as it requires attention as one of the contracts which the court enforces. If the object of those learned treatises had not been thus distinct from that of the following pages, I should never have thought of committing them to the press. The connection of the different branches of law is, like the connection of the sciences, so close as often to embarrass the writer who attempts to treat of one subject by itself. I have found this difficulty continually recurring, as I have been engaged in composing this book, because it is by no means easy to decide how much of the law on many questions ought to find place in a treatise on the principles and practice of the courts in specific performance, and how much ought to be referred to a discussion of the particular species of contract to which the point may relate. I have endeavored on each occasion to solve this question with a view to the practical utility of the following pages, and to what I suppose a lawyer would reasonably expect to find in a treatise bearing the title of this volume. Several important decisions on the subject of specific performance have appeared during the progress of these pages through the press, which I have found it impracticable to embody in the text some of these cases have been referred to in the notes, and others only in the table of addenda, to which the reader is referred. My friend Mr. J. P. Green, of the Middle Temple, has obligingly read the proof-sheets of this book: I gratefully acknowledge his kindness in so doing. 5, NEW SQUARE, LINCOLN'S INN, 24th May, 1858. E. F. TABLE OF CONTENTS. Contracts differently regarded at Common Law and in Equity. Common Law remedy lost by default of plaintiff .... Common Law remedy unavailable from something in the contract. 4. Where the contract is such as the court cannot perform. Incapacity of court to execute contract. Breaches frequent........ Goodwill of a business.. a. Where the work is defined and essential to the plaintiff....... b. Where the defendants have also obtained possession under the 48 |