Varying language of the fourth and seventeenth sections of the English statue.............

525

Language of American statutes..........

526

Effect on noncompliance with the statue...........

527

The statue does not affect fully executed agreements...........

528

Illustrations of the effect of unenforceable contracts as against the original parties or their successors.........

529

Third persons cannot take advantage of the statue...............

530

Effect of the work "void" or a similar word in statues...........

531

Divisible contracts..................................................

532

The doctrine of part performance applies exclusively to contracts for the sale of land..............

533

Quasi-contractual recovery for part performance of a contract within the statute............

534

Restoration or recovery in specie of what has been given or received......

535

Measure of damages..............

536

Recovery of the value of improvements................................

537

The statute as a defence to recovery by a plaintiff in default.............

538

Sec. 626. Varying language of the fourth and seventeenth sections of the English statute. The fourth section of the English Statute of Frauds provides that "no action shall be brought," to charge the promisor upon any of the contracts therein enumerated unless a memorandum is made and signed. Section seventeen of the original statute provides that no contract for the sale of goods "shall be allowed to be good" unless the statute is complied with. These words of the latter section have been changed by the English Sale of Goods Act to "shall not be enforceable by action." The new words are supposed to reproduce accurately the legal effect of the earlier language1 and they have been copied in the American Uniform Sales Act. No distinction is made by the English courts in the effect of the fourth and seventeenth sections based on the difference of language herein alluded to.2

1 See, however, Morris v. Baron, [1918] A. C. 1.

2 It was indeed said by Parke, B., in Carrington v. Roots, 2 M. & W. 248,