might perhaps with equal propriety describe them, three messengers were sent to Greece, with instructions to procure a copy of the laws of Solon, and to acquaint themselves with the laws and institutions of other states of Greece besides Athens. In the commission for compiling a body of laws, these three individuals were included, in order that this honour might compensate them for their former labours, and that the knowledge which they had acquired of foreign jurisprudence might be rendered useful in the compilation of a new body of laws.The expression ad condenda nova jura certainly does not suggest the idea of transferring laws already made. If therefore the learned professor could prove, what it will however be very difficult to prove, that there is not a single coincidence between any existing fragment of the twelve Tables, and any existing fragment of the laws of Athens or any other state of Greece, no argument could thence be deduced against Livy's account of the mission. The Romans, at that period a rude and simple nation, were anxious to obtain some knowledge of the laws, customs, and institutions of a kindred people, before they attempted to reduce their own laws into something approaching to a systematic form; and in order to procure this knowledge, they adopted an expedient which must strike every person, who reflects on the state of society at that remote era, as the most obvious and practicable that could have been devised. But of the new laws with which they thus became acquainted, it is evident that many were utterly to be rejected, some to be abhorred; and they might learn what to avoid as well as what to imitate. We might as rationally expect one nation to adopt the entire language as the entire laws of another nation. When the decemvirs were employed in their important task, the city of Rome had seen three centuries of years, and during that period had partly been regulated by written, and partly by unwritten law. It is therefore to be supposed that the twelve Tables chiefly consisted of a digest of what was regarded as the best portion of their municipal enactments and customs: customary law, which acquires its vigour and consistency in the early stages of society, was doubtless a very essential part; and some modifications, perhaps various regulations entirely new, might be derived from a foreign source. This we conceive to be the authentic history, and these the genuine effects, of the famous mission into Greece; and in the general texture of this story we find nothing that exceeds the limits of rational belief. "The Romans, while yet a rude people," says Dr. Dunbar, "disdained not to appoint an embassy to enquire into the juris prudence prudence of the Greeks, and to supply, from that fountain, the deficiencies in their civil code. This embassy seems to have been suggested by Hermodorus, an exiled citizen of Ephesus, who afterwards eminently assisted in interpreting the collec tion of laws brought from Greece. His public services met with a public reward. A statue was erected to him in the Comitia at the public expense: an honour which the jealousy of Rome would have denied to a stranger in a less generous age. But, at this period, she acted from a nobler impulse; and the statue erected to Hermodorus was erected, in reality, to her own honour. Yet the name of this Ephesian, which casts a lustre upon Rome, seemed to cast a shade upon his native city; and that people, according to Heraclitus, deserved to have been extirpated, to a man, who had condemned such a citizen to exile."-This agency of Hermodorus is not mentioned by Livy but the erection of his statue is recorded by the elder Pliny; and his connexion with the decemvirs is likewise stated by Pomponius: "Et ita ex accidentia appellatae sunt Leges duodecim Tabularum: quarum ferendarum auctorem fuisse decemviris Hermodorum quendam Ephesium, exulantem in Italia, quidam retulerunt." By the word auctor, as used in this passage, we are evidently to understand a person who advised or influenced the decemvirs; and, according to Pliny, his services were those of a translator or expounder. It is therefore highly probable that he was chiefly employed in expounding to them the Greek laws, of which they had obtained a transcript. As he appears to have been a person of superior talents,§ his own comments might be useful and important; but we are by no means inclined to estimate his services so highly as Professor Gratama, who represents him as the real author of the laws of the twelve Tables.|| Before we dismiss the history of the twelve Tables, we are tempted to notice an opinion which another modern author has "Ancient hisdelivered respecting one of their enactments. tories," says Lord Kames, " are full of incredible facts that passed current during the infancy of reason, which at present would be rejected with contempt. Every one who is conversant in the history of ancient nations, can recall instances without *Dunbar's Essays on the History of Mankind in rude and cultivated Ages, p. 161. Lond. 1780, 8vo. "Fuit et Hermodori Ephesii in Comitio, legum quas decemviri scribebant interpretis, [statua] publice dicata." (Plinii Natur. Hist. lib. xxxiv. cap. xi.) Digest. lib. i. tit. ii. fr. 2. § 4. See Menagii Observationes in Diogenem Laertium, p. 393. Serpii Gratama Oratio de Hermodoro Ephesio vero XII. Tabularum Auctore. Groningae, 1817, 4to. end. end. Does any person believe at present, though gravely reported by historians, that in old Rome there was a law for cutting into pieces the body of a bankrupt, and distributing the parts among his creditors?"* This is the too confident speculation of an ingenious man, who was not sufficiently acquainted with ancient jurisprudence and ancient manners. Annaeus Robertus and Heraldust have each proposed a mitigating interpretation of this law of the twelve Tables: Bynkershoek was solicitous to prove that the creditors were entitled to divide, not the body, but the price of the insolvent debtor ;§ and his opinion has been adopted by the learned Dr. Taylor, and by some other civilians. But this opinion can neither be reconciled with the obvious meaning of the words, nor with the ancient mode of understanding them. Those who consider such an enactment as altogether incredible, ought at the same time to consider the real character of the Roman people at that early period of their history. They certainly were not distinguished by the gentler virtues; and if their laws were altogether silent as to the treatment of debtors, we ascertain from other sources of information that it was extremely harsh and cruel. In more rude communities, where commerce is almost entirely unknown, and where the poor are in a great measure subjected to the rich, the insolvent debtor is very apt to be treated as a criminal. In ancient Rome, we know from historical records, not merely from the letter of the law, that he might be reduced to the condition of a slave; and it is obvious to every person acquainted with Roman history, that the unrelenting treatment of debtors was a ground of open dissension between the different orders of the people. The same laws which conferred on the father of a family the power of life and death over his wife and children, and which awarded capital punishment against the author of a satirical poem, may without much difficulty be conceived to have disposed of a poor debtor's person in the most summary manner. To his history of the Roman law Macieiowski has subjoined an appendix, "De fatis Juris Romani, deque vicissitudinibus quas res litteraria hujus Juris, inde ab Justiniano usque ad * Kames's Sketches of the History of Man, vol. iii. p. 253. + Roberti Rerum Judicatarum, libri iv. f. 137. b. edit. Paris. 1597, 4to. Heraldi de Rerum Judicatarum Auctoritate, libri ii. p. 518. Paris. 1640, 8vo. Bynkershoek Observationes Juris Romani, lib. i. cap. i. Taylori Commentarius ad L. Decemviralem de inope Debitore in partis dissecando. Cantabrigiae, 1742, 4to. ¶ Dr. Valpy, a learned divine, has confuted the opinion of Bynkershoek and Taylor, in a long note subjoined to his Sermons preached on public occasions, vol, ii, p. 1. Lond. 1811, 2 vols. 8vo. nostra The nostra tempora, subiit." A considerable portion of this appendix relates to the study and influence of the civil law in Poland. He mentions Jo. Sarius Zamoscius, or Zamoyski, as the author of the treatise De Senatu Romano, without any hint that it was actually written by Sigonius, whose property in the work is not commonly regarded as doubtful. Simon Starovolscius, or Starowolski, is commemorated as the first Polish writer who published a commentary on the Institutes of Justinian.* catalogue of Polish civilians is neither ample nor imposing; and we scarcely recognize any other names with which we were previously acquainted. But we have no doubt that such able professors as Macieiowski will inspire the students with new ardour; nor can we refrain from expressing our regret that, in most of the learned countries of Europe, the study of historical jurisprudence is pursued with more zeal than in our own. "Perhaps," says Professor Wilde, "one of the great reasons of the civil law having fallen into such disrepute among us, has been an ignorance of its rise, progress, and authority, in this, and the other countries of modern Europe. The student is introduced, all at once, to the study of a system, in itself exceedingly deep and comprehensive, without any of that previous training which is necessary to give him proper ideas of the subject to which he is to apply his mind. It appears before him as a vast and confused object, of which his perceptions are exceedingly indistinct and uncertain. On the other hand, when he is led up to it through the avenue of historical knowledge, and when the prospect opens upon him easily and by degrees, his after acquaintance with it will be both more accurate, and more lasting. Accordingly, this of itself is a great and a powerful reason for introducing the study of the principles of the civil law by the study of its history."t *This work was published at Cracow in the year 1638. (Macieiowski, p. 243.) The present writer has a copy of a subsequent edition, which bears this title: "Simonis Starovolscii Commentarius in IV. libros Institutionum Juris Civilis." Romae, 1646, 16to. + Wilde's Preliminary Lecture to the Course of Lectures on the Institutions of Justian p. 64. Edinb. 1794, 8vo. ART. VI.-Mémoires sur Voltaire, et sur ses Ouvrages, par LONGCHAMP et WAGNIÈRE, ses Secrétaires; suivis de divers Ecrits inédits de la Marquise du Châtelet, du Président Hénault, &c. tous relatifs à Voltaire (Memoirs concerning Voltaire and his works, by Longchamp and Wagnière, his Secretaries; with various unpublished pieces by the Marquise du Châtelet, &c., all relating to Voltaire). 2 Tomes. Paris, 1826. COULD NOULD ambition always chuse its own path, and were will in human undertakings synonymous with faculty, all truly ambitious men would be men of letters. Certainly, if we examine that love of power, which enters so largely into most practical calculations, nay which our Utilitarian friends have recognized as the sole end and origin, both motive and reward, of all earthly enterprises, animating alike the philanthropist, the conqueror, the money-changer and the missionary, we shall find that alĺ other arenas of ambition, compared with this rich and boundless one of Literature, meaning thereby whatever respects the promulgation of Thought, are poor, limited and ineffectual. For dull, unreflective, merely instinctive as the ordinary man may seem, he has nevertheless, as a quite indispensable appendage, a head that in some degree considers and computes; a lamp or rushlight of understanding has been given him, which through whatever dim, besmoked, and strangely diffractive media it may shine, is the ultimate guiding light of his whole path: and, here as well as there, now as at all times in man's history, Opinion rules the world. Curious it is, moreover, to consider, in this respect, how different appearance is from reality, and under what singular shape and circumstances the truly most important man of any given period might be found. Could some Asmodeus, by simply waving his arm, open asunder the meaning of the Present, even so far as the Future will disclose it, what a much more marvellous sight should we have, than that mere bodily one through the roofs of Madrid! For we know not what we are, any more than what we shall be. It is a high, solemn, almost awful thought for every individual man, that his earthly influence, which has had a commencement, will never through all ages, were he the very meanest of us, have an end! What is done is done; has already blended itself with the boundless, ever-living, ever-working Universe, and will also work there, for good or for evil, openly or secretly, throughout all time. But the life of every man is as the well-spring of a stream, whose small beginnings are indeed plain to all, but whose ulterior course and destination, as it winds through the expanses of infinite years, only |