that the manners and habits, the military affairs, and the remarkable exploits of a great nation offer abundant materials for the gratification of a very natural curiosity; but still they are, in most instances, an object of curiosity only. If the importance of every study were to be computed by its utility alone, this would have but slender pretensions, in comparison with that of laws and of political institutions which may be, and often actually are, reproduced in our own times, and even in our own country. Indeed, it is a fact so well known as scarcely to require mention, that the jurisprudence of Rome has formed the groundwork of the jurisprudence which to this day governs almost every nation of Europe. England is less indebted to it than many of the continental nations; but even the English law owes it many and deep obligations, and the neglect into which the study of it has fallen in this country must be imputed to motives very different from its want of connection with our own system of jurisprudence. This is not the place for enquiring into the real amount of what we have borrowed from the civil law, or the advantages that every English lawyer might derive from an

intimate acquaintance with the institutes and the pandects. But it must be remarked that there is one class of persons, to whom some knowledge of the Roman jurisprudence is absolutely indispensable: those who have a desire not only to catch the spirit, but even merely to understand the literal meaning, of the Roman classics. In those writings, an acquaintance with which the unanimous consent of ages has agreed to consider as essential to a liberal education, allusion is as frequently and as familiarly made to the prætor's tribunal, or to a vocatio in jus, as in the works of our own popular authors we find casual mention of a grand jury or a writ of habeas corpus. Of course, in both instances, the Author supposed his allusion to be perfectly intelligible to those who were likely to read his works; and as the lapse of time, and change of language, place us in a very different situation from the contemporaries of the writer, we must, if we aspire to place ourselves on any thing like an equal footing with them in this respect, endeavour to overcome as far as we are able the obstacles which our situation puts in

the way.

However, it is not therefore meant to be asserted that every good classical scholar should necessarily be a learned civilian. We all willingly overrate the importance of any department of knowledge which we have for a length of time made our particular study; and it is not surprising that the very few authors of this country who have written on civil law, should have somewhat exaggerated the necessity for being intimately acquainted with it. But putting aside, so far as it may be done, all partial feeling arising from this source, and even omitting to mention all the different arguments by which a knowledge of the civil law is proved to be of equal importance to the lawyer, the scholar, the statesman, and the divine, there can be no hesitation in affirming that a general idea of the constitution and the legislation of Rome is not less essential to the man of classical acquirement, than an acquaintance with her history, of which, indeed, they form a very important part. As to the intrinsic merits of the civil law itself, they are not to be enumerated within the limits of a preface. The following passage of Gravina is not an exaggerated eulogium:

"Si quam habet philosophia dignitatem (habet autèm hominum opinione maximam) ea omnis translata fuit in jurisprudentiam Romanorum, qui partum armis imperium, juris commercio, legumque majestate, continuerunt. Quidquid enìm à Græcis philosophis de honesto et justo, de finibus bonorum et malorum, de regendis populorum moribus, de legibus et republicâ, quæstionibus infinitè propositis, et ambitiosis magis quàm utilibus disputationibus effundebantur, totum collectum fuit à jurisconsultis nostris, atque, nugis excussis, traductum in urbem: ut quod apud Græcos exercitatio erat ingenii, longiorisque otii levamen, Romæ, in corpus juris civilis conversum, publicæ et privatæ semen esset utilitatis. Itàque contemplatio Græcorum, otiosa et iners, a nostris operosa reddita est atque frugifera. Cumque deinceps philosophia in honorum et opum vile mercimonium converteretur, potestas omnis illius, atque dignitas, in jurisconsultorum scholis, atque in Romano foro, consedit."

In the course of the following Essay, the Author has studiously avoided entering into minute details, and has endeavoured merely to exhibit the leading features of the Roman government and jurisprudence. He is well aware that he has but very imperfectly attained the object he has had in view; and it is probable that no criticism, which the defects of this work may call forth, will be more severe than the judgment he is inclined to pass on it himself. If the vocabulary could have afforded him a more humble appellation than that of "Essay," it should have been placed on the title page. Still he willingly indulges the belief

that he has contributed something towards the cultivation of a branch of knowledge which deserves a much greater share of attention than has hitherto been bestowed on it in this country; and he persuades himself that an attempt to do so, even if unsuccessful, will be looked on with indulgent eye by every real friend to lite

rature.

September, 1827.

If the corrections and alterations in the present edition be not so numerous as the many imperfections of the original work would doubtless render necessary, the Author hopes he shall not therefore incur the imputation of neglecting to correct whatever errors may have been pointed out to his notice. The simple fact is that, having chosen for his theme a subject which has always been singularly neglected in English education, he has been compelled to forego, both in the first composition