Book excerpt: Reprint of the first American edition. Montagu was one of the most prolific legal writers of the first half of the nineteenth century. Of this work on liens, Holdsworth states that it is a short, well arranged book "with a long appendix of cases. The law is stated in short propositions based on the cases, and there is no attempt to state or discuss principles." As a basic guide for lawyers it offers an excellent overview of the law as it was practiced at that time. Holdsworth, History of English Law 491-92.