tore down all the partitions which ages had built up between the Jews and other nations by a couple of declarations. It fared with these rabbis as with other people they were intoxicated at the sight of the power of Napoleon, and at his favour; and Judaism had celebrated its bloodless, and, if I mistake not, its ludicrous 4th of August. The farce was not acted quite to the end, because Napoleon soon had more important matters to attend to. But the flood of opinions, raised at that time and earlier, still continues. A mighty ferment has seized the minds of the younger Jewish literati in particular.* They bear with impatience the pressure imposed upon their nation by our former barbarous legislation, but they feel, at the same time, that it is chiefly the rabbinical fence raised around their law that forms the partition between them and us, between the reality and their wishes. Hence the most hostile disposition against the Talmud prevails among them. Many may certainly perceive to what this must ultimately lead, and are only anxious to get rid with honour of an ancient yoke. Others, perhaps, may not see this; but necessity drives all forward. We need but to meet them in a fitting manner, in order to accomplish the object alike desirable for them and for us. Never was there a more favourable occasion, and, therefore, now, while it is yet time, humanity seems imperatively to require something permanent to be done for the unfortunate and so long maltreated people, otherwise I much fear that fresh storms may burst over them at no very distant period.

"The wars of the Revolution, during which we grew up, were carried on with the money of the nobility and the church, And behold! now, after a long peace, those estates, which once belonged to barons and to priests, are mostly in the hands of wealthy Jews. Scowling envy besets their palaces. With whose money will the next wars be carried on? Much do I fear that those wealthy Jews will be obliged to pay the score, and, with their fall, a persecution of the whole Jewish community will break out. When I have passed the house of a rich Jew, the idea has often involuntarily forced itself upon me: There is something hollow underneath.' Against these dangers there is but one sure protection: the Jews must be blended with the rest of the population. It is in the power of the government to take care that this shall be effected honourably and gradually. The happy smaller German states, which have long effaced all traces of the long war, paid off debt upon debt, and have no need to spare victims for the future, may be the first to set the good example, and they are partially ready to do so. Most certainly the Jews, in their present condition, which dates from ancient times, are alike annoying and pernicious to us. But who is to blame that they are what they are? What else but those cruel laws, which denied them the dignity of men, closed every honourable profession against them, and thereby forced them into the track of usury. have treated them like slaves; they, as the oppressed always do, have revenged themselves upon us by cunning. How much innocent Jewish blood was spilt by our forefathers in the middle ages, and even still later! How contemptuously are they yet treated by our populace, who I am far from alluding to the so-called Young Germany, composed chiefly of the scum of the Jewish Bürschenschaft, but to men of sound understanding and erudition, many of whom already hold offices, and are entitled to respect."-Note by the Author.

*

We

would at any time be ready to rush upon them, were it not deterred by the sword of authority! Can we wonder if they hate us? This system must be changed; we must treat them as fellow-citizens; they must do the like by us. This result is to be obtained, not by sending forth missionaries to convert the Jews, as experience has sufficiently demonstrated, but much more surely by the way of administration.* How to set about this business is a question which has been already solved by our recent law relative to the Jews, which is one of the best juridical productions of modern times." The law of Würtemburg is that to which this remark refers.

The author concludes his learned investigations with a practical remark on Protestantism :-" Through the triumph of the Reformation, the Protestant princes became the heads of the church in their own dominions. But, as they felt no inclination to meddle with theological matters, they transferred the newly-acquired spiritual authority to the universities of the country, which, of course, were dependent on their will and pleasure. Hence arose the danger that Protestant theology, especially in times when it still operated powerfully upon the multitude, might become a tool of princely policy. And such it did actually become, but in no very high degree. More pernicious to the Protestant church were the incessant quarrels of ambitious divines, who, no longer checked by a papal rein, gave free vent to their odious sentiments. This state of things had, nevertheless, its good side; the world by degrees learned from it that the Christian religion and theology are two very different things - a discovery which again reacted on the universities. Theology gradually lost its importance in the high schools; a new wisdom, independent of religion, sprang up there."

The author, after following the usurpatory intermixture of philosophy with theology down to Schleiermacher and Hegel, thus concludes: "That metaphysical jargon which it has been attempted to smuggle into church and science, turns only to the advantage of a few simpletons, who assume by means of it the appearance of superior knowledge, exposes German learning more and more to the scorn of foreigners, and our own nation, too, gradually turns with disgust from those absurd speculations. If, then, the learned caste would avoid losing ground with the people, it is high time for it to abandon such chimeras."

It is perfectly true that Protestantism has as little benefit to expect from modern scholastic divinity as Catholicism derived from that of former times. The Catholic church was brought to the brink of ruin by those metaphysical babblers. The Protestant church will find itself in the same predicament, if the canker of speculative theology spreads much further.

We cannot forbear most earnestly recommending these observations of Professor Gfrörer, relative to the Jews, to the most serious attention of British legislators: for, though we are aware that there is not to be found in this country so inveterate a hatred against the Jews as prevails among the illiterate vulgar in many parts of continental Europe, still there yet exist here too many prejudices, which tend to keep alive ancient animosities, and to raise a barrier between them and our christian population.-Editor F. M. R.

TREATISE ON THE INSTITUTES.

Lehrbuch der Institutionen des Römischen Rechts. (Elementary Treatise on the Institutes.) By Dr. Theodore Marezoll. Leipzig, 1889. The principal object of the author of this work has been, as he informs us, the production of a book adapted, by the simplicity of its system, as well as the condensed form in which the subject matter is presented to the student, to meet the want, so often expressed, of a suitable elementary introduction for those who are just commencing their studies of the civil law. For the attainment of this object-undoubtedly one of the highest practical importance-he is content to incur the charge of "inartificial and unscientific arrangement and want of comprehensiveness in his plan, and too great brevity in treating on particular points."

The system upon which he has proceeded "makes but slight claim to novelty or originality." In its main characters it is the well-known method which was copied into the Institutes of Justinian from earlier existing treatises, and from thence has derived its name. Some slight modifications the author has presumed to make, with a view of removing objections to this system, which were urged on just grounds. This in some instances has been done in a manner contrary to that usually adopted, while, on other points, he has adhered to that Roman system with even greater exactness than jurists usually do. The principal deviation of this kind appears to be the treating separately the rights of persons and the rights of families.

Although, however, the author, in strict adherence to his original plan, excludes all those modern discussions which are more immediately connected with the Pandects, and, therefore, more likely to confuse than instruct those who are only just beginning the study of the civil law, so far from wishing the student to consider this elementary hand-book as comprising all that he ought to know of that elaborate system, he declares it to be his firm conviction, founded on experience in numerous instances, that the principal value of this historical introduction to the study of the Roman law is the fact of its close and intimate connexion with the Pandects, 66 for, without a familiar acquaintance with the principles of the Roman law, it is impossible to understand or derive improvement from any modern attempts to construct systems of jurisprudence.

"The fault of previous publications of this kind has consisted in their confusing together the branches of the law treated of in the Pandects and Institutes-under the plausible pretext of rendering the work more complete. To avoid falling into a similar error, the most important points alone are brought prominently forward, and supported by authorities from the text of the civil law not cited in the margin in sup port of each successive position to which they immediately relate, but incorporated into the text at the conclusion of each section, leaving it to the teacher, with the help of the citations here collected for his assistance, to explain and illustrate the doctrines there enunciated in the mode he may deem most suitable.

For the student himself these citations are meant to have the effect of a perpetual running commentary, thus familiarizing him with the

original language of the various sources of the Roman law, while it avoids the unnecessary difficulties imposed upon him by long extracts, the meaning of which is frequently obscure, and to one just entering on such a study, altogether unintelligible. The passages introduced into the text are taken indiscriminately from the Codex, the Institutes, the Digest, and the Novellæ; the sole objects in their selection being their connexion with the subject immediately preceding them, and the facility with which they can be understood. No doubt many even of the passages thus selected will require the interpretation of the teacher. It is his task to explain these, and thus take occasion to make such remarks as, though not immediately connected with the passage itself, serve to illustrate the principle which governs it, and prepare his hearers for the higher range of legal study to which this is but the introduction."

Devoid of pretension as is the statement of the author, it is impossible not to be struck with the sound discrimination displayed in all he says, and the validity of the answers suggested by him to the objections more likely to be made to his work in its present form the omission of so many leading authorities of the civil law, and the small space allotted to many of the most important doctrines, such as the law of possession, &c. It was impossible," he says, to enter more fully into these subjects without citing numerous passages altogether foreign to the end proposed, however interesting they may be in other points of view, and thus introducing a variety of technical phrases and discussions totally unconnected with the Institutes, and which would tend more to confusion than explanation."

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The execution of the work appears fully to correspond with the outline as above extracted from the preface. Plain, practical, and intelligible, it cannot fail to be of material advantage to those who are desirous of obtaining an acquaintance with the principles of the civil law, without seeking for a very profound knowledge of its more recondite doctrines; or, should they aspire to the mastery of the Pandects, they cannot have a more effectual aid to clear away the difficulties that beset their first entrance to the Roman law, and enable them to appreciate the excellence of the "divinarum atque humanarum rerum notitia justi atque injusti scientia."

The first portion of the work is devoted to an historical account of the rise and progress of the Roman law, from the earliest times to the framing of the laws of the 12 Tables, and from thence tracing the changes introduced by the successive emperors to the time of Justinian, and concluding with the "later destinies of Romish Justinian Law, and its reception into Germany "-a most interesting and instructive discussion-trite and familiar enough to continental jurists, but hardly to be met with in England, where the civil law is scarcely known, except by name. The remaining portion, which is further subdivided into five books, treats of the "Roman private law," briefly, of course, and by no means with sufficient fulness to give the student a comprehensive and satisfactory knowledge of the elaborate system, of which it is, in fact, little more than an outline; but it cannot fail to be of material service in assisting the beginner to master the first difficulties which beset the entrance to every new system of jurisprudence, and in enabling him to comprehend something of the plan and theory of what appears in its

collective form in the Digest as little better than a confused and unintelligible stringing together of the dicta of various learned pundits of the olden time—often succeeding each other without apparent connexion, and not unfrequently enunciating propositions directly at variance.

That a publication of this kind should obtain anything like an extensive circulation in England can hardly be hoped; but, should a better spirit obtain the mastery in our legal world, and induce both judges and authors to ascend from the mere technicalities of the common law to the more scientific doctrines of the civil law, an Elementary Treatise, such as Dr. Marezoll's, would, no doubt, be eagerly sought after, and amply repay the trouble of a translation: but we fear that with us there is but little chance of any thing like enlarged or scientific views in jurisprudence.

COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY.

Abhandlungen zur allgemeinen vergleichender Sprachlehre. (Dissertations on General Comparative Philology.) By Dr. Heinrich Ernst Bindseil. Svo. 1838.

The study of comparative philology has, in our days, assumed a character which bids fair to place it, ere long, among the number of the exact sciences. There are still too many, both among ourselves and our continental neighbours, disposed to substitute conjecture for accu. rate investigation, and who, instead of fixing upon real analogies, perversely run after mere casual similarities of sound. Not long since, a would-be Anglo-Saxonist translated big leofa (victus) by big loaf; and an etymologist of some reputation gravely told us that belief is, er vi termini, what people live by. A quarter of an hour's search in an Anglo-Saxon dictionary would have taught him that the compound expressing this idea does not denote belief, either religious or historical, but simply-victuals! Such follies are, however, deservedly laughed at by well-informed persons, and we hope the time will arrive when they will be universally scouted.

It would far exceed our limits to dilate upon the superiority of the improved system of philology, founded upon the study of the Sanscrit and its kindred tongues, or to dwell upon the merits of its founders → Rask, Grimm, Bopp, Pott, and their coadjutors. The principles laid down by them have, in a manner, become the etymologist's catechism, and every scientific work on the subject must, in some degree, be based upon their labours. It may, therefore, be alleged, as a recommendation of the work now before us, that Dr. Bindseil has diligently availed himself of the copious materials furnished by them. His plan, of which the present volume only forms a portion, is, indeed, much more comprehensive than their's, being meant to serve as a conspectus of the elementary sounds, formation, and inflections of nearly all known languages. The introductory part consists of an elaborate investigation of the nature of the vocal organs, of the sounds produced by them, and of the articulations peculiar to the different divisions and subdivisions of the human race, illustrated by copious examples. Much of this portion of the work is, perhaps, more immediately interesting to the physiologist than the grammarian; but it contains a mass of information of great value to the scientific inquirer. The next portion, or proper "Allgemeine Formenlehre," is devoted to an examination of the diffe