Difference between revisions of "Love against Donelson"

Revision as of 16:00, 24 March 2015

by George Wythe

Love against Donelson
Title not held by The Wolf Law Library at the College of William & Mary.
Author	George Wythe
Editor
Translator
Published	n.p. (Richmond, VA?): n.p. (Thomas Nicolson?)
Date	n.d. (1801?)
Edition
Language	English
Volumes	volume set
Pages	34
Desc.	8vo (21 cm.)

Love, against Donelson and Hodgson is a published opinion by George Wythe, for the case Love v. Donelson in Virginia's High Court of Chancery.^[1] The report was published in pamphlet form in 1801 or later—almost certainly printed by Thomas Nicholson of Richmond, Virginia, who had published Wythe's Reports in 1795, and at least seven other supplements for Wythe, in 1796 and later.^[2] Love v. Donelson was not reported in the second edition of Wythe's Reports, in 1852.^[3][4]

Evidence for Inclusion in Wythe's Library

Upon his death, Wythe's personal copy of this pamphlet was bequeathed with his books to Thomas Jefferson, and subsequently became part of the collection at the Library of Congress. This copy has been bound in a volume with six other Chancery decisions published in pamphlet form. On the spine, the volume is titled: Wythe's Reports. Supplement. Virginia. 1796-99 (despite this case taking place in 1801). The pamphlet for Love against Donelson has a handwritten notation, "no. 7," on the first page.^[5]

Several pages of the pamphlet contain manuscript corrections by Wythe in his hand, including a footnote in Greek, apparently scraped off and corrected to 'Κάλχας Θεστορίδης οἰωνοπόλων': "Calchas, son of Thestor, far the best of augurs" (bird-diviners).^[6] On another page Wythe made a notation in the margin referring to Taylor's Elements of the Civil Law (1769).

• 

  Page one from Wythe's pamphlet, "Love, Against Donelson and Hodgson" (1801?). Copy at the Library of Congress.

• 

  Page 13 from Wythe's pamphlet, "Love, Against Donelson and Hodgson" (1801?). Copy at the Library of Congress.

• 

  Page 14 from Wythe's pamphlet, "Love, Against Donelson and Hodgson" (1801?), with Wythe's correction for the footnote: Κάλχας Θεστορίδης οἰωνοπόλων. Copy at the Library of Congress.

• 

  Page 32 from Wythe's pamphlet, "Love, Against Donelson and Hodgson" (1801?). Copy at the Library of Congress.

• 

  Page 482 of the third edition of John Taylor's Elements of the Civil Law (London: Charles Bathurst, 1769), with Wythe's reference to the "Norma Lesbia, which shapes itself to every thing."

References

1. ↑ George Wythe, Love, against Donelson and Hodgson (Richmond, VA: Thomas Nicolson, 1801?).
2. ↑ Charles Evans, in his American Bibliography, vol. 11 (1942), mistakenly gives the date of publication as 1796. Wythe states that the case took place in the "first year of the nineteenth centurie"; it is the opinion of the editors that the Chancellor would have understood that the new century began January 1, 1801, and therefore Love against Donelson must have been published sometime between 1801 and the year of Wythe's death, in 1806.
3. ↑ George Wythe, Decisions of Cases In Virginia, By the High Court Chancery, with Remarks Upon Decrees By the Court of Appeals, Reversing Some of Those Decisions, ed. Benjamin Blake Minor (Richmond, Virginia: J.W. Randolph, 1852).
4. ↑ Minor had access to a bound volume of pamphlets which had belonged to James Madison, and was then in the possession of William Green of Culpeper, Virginia. The Catalogue of the Choice and Extensive Law and Miscellaneous Library of the late Hon. William Green, LL.D.,... to be sold by Auction, January 18th, 1881, at Richmond, VA. (Richmond: John E. Laughton, Jr., 1881), lists the volume as (p. 200):

   2325. WYTHE'S REPORTS. Aylett & Aylett, Richmond: 1796; Field & Harrison, Richmond: 1796. WYTHE (GEO.). Case upon the Statute for Distribution, Richmond: 1796. Wilkins & John Taylor, et als.; Fowler & Saunders. In one vol., 12mo. Auto. of President James Madison. Ms. notes. A rare collection of the Original Imprints, supposed by the late possessor to be unique.

   Mysteriously missing from the catalogue, however, is an entry for Between Yates and Salle, specifically mentioned by Minor to have been issued as a pamphlet presumably provided by Green.

5. ↑ Library of Congress catalog record. This volume contains pamphlets for: Case upon the Statute for Distribution (1796); Field v. Harrison (1794); Fowler v. Saunders and Goodall v. Bullock (1798, together in the same pamphlet); Wilkins v. Taylor (1799); Yates v. Salle (1792); and Love v. Donelson (1801).
6. ↑ Calchas was the prophet of Troy. Homer, Iliad 1.69.

See also

• American Bibliography
• Between Fowler and Saunders
• Between Wilkins and Taylor
• Between Yates and Salle
• The Case of Overtons Mill: Prolegomena
• Case upon the Statute for Distribution (pamphlet)
• Love v. Donelson
• Report of the Case between Aylett and Aylett
• Report of the Case between Field and Harrison

External links

• Library of Congress catalog record.