in the body of laws compiled by Howell Dhu in Wales, in the tenth century, which is clearly founded on the Roman system and must be taken to represent the laws which prevailed in Britain during the period between the departure of the Roman legionaries and the Saxon invasion.

The Saxon invasion itself was a slow and gradual process, extending over some centuries, and accompanied by a gradual fusion of the conquering and conquered races, and of their respective laws and customs. The adoption of the laws and institutions of the Romanized Britons by the Saxons necessarily arose from the circumstance, that the latter had no laws and institutions of their own, fitted for a settled condition of society. The Saxon conquest of this country did not result in the extermination or expulsion of the natives, but in making them tributaries, without destroying the social system which had been long established. The laws suitable to this system were of course allowed to remain, and thus a very large portion of the Roman law, as it existed in Western Europe under the empire, was recognised by the Saxons, and incorporated into the general body of their laws. Mr. Finlason has endeavoured to point out those parts of our law which are of Roman origin, however subsequently modified some of them may have been; and these comprehend the whole of our municipal system, our manorial system, the rules of inheritance, our civil procedure, and the whole substance of our law, so far as it relates to civil matters. It is true that there are scarcely any allusions to all these matters in the written laws of the Saxons, but these written laws only represented that portion of their law which was of their own growth, and did not relate to that much more important portion which was unwritten, and was embodied in customs and traditions.

It was this part of the Saxon laws, together with the system of free popular tribunals, to which the people clung so closely after the Norman conquest. The Saxon laws were repeatedly confirmed by charter, and remained the

basis of the law of England. But the jurisdiction of the popular assemblies was gradually superseded. It was impossible with a variety of local tribunals, constituted as the County Courts were, that justice could be administered in a regular and uniform manner. The curia regis does not appear to have had any original jurisdiction, but was rather a council in which the king sat to hear complaints of the administration of justice. The course at first adopted was, when occasion required, to send down king's justices into the counties, which ultimately led to the institution, in the reign of Henry I., of itinerant justices, and afterwards to the establishment of the courts at Westminster. The object of all this was to give certainty and uniformity to the law, and this could only be done by men who had some knowledge of the Roman law, as from no other source could the requisite qualifications be derived. Accordingly the "Treatise of Bracton," which was written in the reign of Henry III., shows how large a portion of the English law had been derived from the Roman. The whole character of the work proves its author to have been one whose mind had been thoroughly disciplined by the study of the Roman law, as evinced by his attention to the great principle of the Roman system of separating fact from law, and reducing the question for decision to a few points. Of the influence of Bracton in forming our own legal system, and giving it accuracy and logical symmetry, there can be no question.

Speaking of this important stage in the history of English Law, Mr. Finlason expresses himself as follows, in his introductory dissertation :—

"Arrived at this great era in our legal history, and at the era of the great reign of Edward I., which marks a still greater, it is natural to take at such a standing point a retrospective view of our progress; and it is impossible not to be struck at this era with the fact that the main and distinctive features of the Saxon and Norman systems had already died out, or were declining and becoming obsolete, while all that was of Roman character or origin

survived and endured. Trial by ordeal was gone; the turbulent county court, as a tribunal, was superseded; and trial by battle was disappearing; but the Roman systems of law and justice were established. The best and most practical test of the Roman origin of our institutions, or how much we owe comparatively to Roman as compared with Norman or Saxon laws, is this; to see what are the institutions, either undoubtedly Saxon or undoubtedly Roman, which remain to this day. The institutions undoubtedly Roman-municipal and other corporations, certainly manors, and probably hundreds and counties; a regular judicature, and regular judicial tribunals, with skilled judges for the law, and juries or sworn judges-judices facti-for the matters of fact; all these, and more, were Roman institutions, and they remain. The institutions undoubtedly Saxon had gone, although the Saxon spirit which had been embodied in the old turbulent popular assemblies still survived, infused into Roman institutions, and inspiring them with fresh vigour. So of the Normans all that was distinctive in their system, which seems reduced to trial by battle-since all the rest was derived from the Roman system-was already disappearing, and was doomed to vanish away, although it is true that the principle of the supremacy of royal authority was developed and applied by them, and formed a solid basis for all the improvements in our law which were afterwards obtained. But this was a slow and gradual progression. So far as our law, however, in any material degree was altered after the Conquest, it was without any sudden change; and it was gradually and insensibly, and almost unobservedly, and chiefly by means of legal decisions, developing the principles of law, which was indeed the custom of the nation."-Vol. I., p. xciii.

The above extract may be considered as a summary of the views brought forward by Mr. Finlason in his introductory dissertation and in his notes to Reeves. There can be no doubt that he has not unduly magnified the influence of the Roman law in the formation of our own in its earlier stages. After the reign of Edward I., however, that influence declined. The law of England had then become a tolerably complete and consistent system, and prejudices began to arise in the minds of Englishmen against the Roman law

as the instrument of civil and ecclesiastical despotism. We may have lost something on account of these prejudices, but it is impossible to say that on the whole we have not gained. Mr. Finlason's sympathies are with the Romans, rather than with the Saxons or Normans. With all admiration, however, for the Roman law, we must take the liberty of questioning whether, if that system had been more closely adhered to, our constitutional liberties would ever have been developed in the manner they have been. The jealousy entertained by English lawyers of the Roman system may have arisen from prejudice, but the prejudice sprang from a regard for constitutional liberty and the rights of Englishmen, and if the feeling thus produced had been less fixed and uncompromising, English freedom might not have fared so well as it did. When, at a later period, all danger from this source had passed away, full justice was done by English lawyers to the Roman law, and from the time of Lord Holt to the present day there has been no indisposition on the part of our judges to borrow light from that system whenever it was available.

The misfortune is however that the accessions to our law from the Roman in modern times have been merely casual and occasional. The Roman law was not studied systematically by the equity or common law lawyers of England, and they have failed therefore to obtain from it all the aids which it might have supplied in the development and consolidation of our own. It cannot be doubted that the law of England has lost much in scientific accuracy and comprehensiveness from this cause. The great object ought now to be to combine the elasticity and practical character of the common law with the method and precision of the Roman. Of late years a new stimulus has been given to the study of the latter both at the Universities and the Inns of Court, and it is certainly to be hoped that what has been so well begun will be carried still further, and will in the end produce sensible effects on

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English jurisprudence. Meanwhile it is well to have pointed out, as has been so ably done by Mr. Finlason, the influence exercised by the Roman law on our own in its inception and early progress. We do not care to criticise the views which he has stated on particular questions, because we are convinced that his general theory is sound, and will be fully sanctioned in all its leading features on further investigation. He must, at any rate, be allowed the credit of having propounded a reasonable and consistent view on the influence of the Roman law in the formation of our own, in place of the conventional and unsatisfactory notions on this subject which have hitherto prevailed.

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ART. IV. AN OLD CIRCUIT LEADER.

T is difficult to believe how short-lived is the fame of a favourite barrister on circuit. Such a man usually attains early the summit of success, and during a brilliant career is vastly esteemed, and admired, and courted, not only by the counsel and attorneys, and by the magistrates and country gentlemen, and other residents in the different counties which form his circuit, but also by such of their wives and daughters as have had the good fortune obtain admission into the Assize Courts, and have there been delighted by the wit and eloquence of the favourite "counsellor." Such a man, within the limits of his circuit, is as famous as a man can well be.

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But should it happen that he never attained a judgeship or other signal official dignity, but "died a Nisi Prius leader," it is marvellous how rapidly and completely the recollection of him fades from the memory of the public, and how soon his name is utterly forgotten, even in the fields of his former glory.