ANTIQUITIES.

unders of their brevity of the Twee Table the

to the pre- Hindoo Code has no resp pto any but with respect to the nonber va- variety of points it considen in bear a comparison with the rated digest of Justinianerwith ps of jurisprudence in natio cinized. The article

Hindoo Code is c d in natural oc

rections to

Dits of intercourse in ch I have lived with your joined to the regard which I tain for yourself, makes me sotous, in compliance with your request, to give you some hints concerning the study of the law.

I imagine that a considerable degree of learning is absolutely necessary. The elder authors frequently wrote in Latin, and the foreign jurists continue the practice to this day. Besides this, classical attainments contribute much to the refinement of the understanding, and the embellishment of the style. The utility of grammar, rhetoric, and logic, are known and felt by every one. Geometry will afford the most apposite examples of close and pointed reasoning; and geography is so very necessary in common life, that there is less credit in knowing, than dishonour in being unacquainted with it. But it is history, and more particularly that of his own country, which will occupy the attention and attract the regard of the great lawyer. A minute knowledge of the political revolutions and judical decisions of our predecessors, whether in the more ancient or modern æras of our government, is equally useful and interesting. This will include a narrative of all the material alterations in the Com

Our profession is generally ridiculed as being dry and uninterest. ing; but a mind anxious for the discovery of truth and information will be amply gratified for the toil, in investigating the origin and progress of a jurisprudence which has the good of the people for its basis, and the accumulated wisdom and experience of ages for its improvement. Nor is the study itself so intricate as has been imagined; more especially since the labours of some modern writers have given it a more regular and scientific form. Without industry, however, it is impossible to arrive at any eminence in practice; and the man who shall be bold enough to attempt excellence by abilities alone, will soon find himself foiled by many who have inferior understandings, but better attainments. On the other hand, the

mon

Copy of a letter from John Dunning, esq. to a gentleman of the Inner Temple; containing directions to the student.

Lincoln's Inn, March 3, 1779, Dear sir,

THE

HE habits of intercourse in which I have lived with your family, joined to the regard which I entertain for yourself, makes me solicitous, in compliance with your request, to give you some hints concerning the study of the law.

Our profession is generally ridiculed as being dry and uninteresting; but a mind anxious for the discovery of truth and information will be amply gratified for the toil, in investigating the origin and progress of a jurisprudence which has the good of the people for its basis, and the accumulated wisdom and experience of ages for its improvement. Nor is the study itself so intricate as has been imagined; more especially since the labours of some modern writers have given it a more regular and scientific form. Without in dustry, however, it is impossible to arrive at any eminence in practice; and the man who shall be bold enough to attempt excellence by abilities alone, will soon find himself foiled by many who have inferior understandings, but better attainments. On the other hand, the

most painful plodder can never arrive at celebrity by mere reading; a man calculated for success, must add to native genius an instinctive faculty in the discovery and retention of that knowledge only, which can be at once useful and productive.

I imagine that a considerable degree of learning is absolutely necessary. The elder authors frequently wrote in Latin, and the foreign jurists continue the practice to this day. Besides this, classical attainments contribute much to the refinement of the understanding, and the embellishment of the style. The utility of grammar, rhetoric, and logic, are known and felt by every one. Geometry will afford the most apposite examples of close and pointed reasoning; and geography is so very necessary in common life, that there is less credit in knowing, than dishonour in being unacquainted with it. But it is history, and more particularly that of his own country, which will occupy the attention and attract the regard of the great lawyer. A minute knowledge ofthe political revolutions and judical decisions of our predecessors, whether in the more ancient or modern æras of our government, is equally useful and interesting. This will include a narrative of all the material alterations in the Com

mon

have supposed the Caspian Sea to be connected with the Euxine. Quintus Curtius, whose ignorance of geography is notorious, has adopted this error, lib. vii. c. 7. edit. 3. Arrian, though a much more judicious writer, and who, by residing for some time in the Roman province of Cappadocia, of which he was governor, might have obtained more accurate information, declares, in one place, the origin of the Caspian Sea to be still unknown, and is doubtful whether it was connected with the Euxine, or with the great eastern ocean, which surrounds India; lib. vii. c. 16. In another place, he asserts, that there was a communication between the Caspian and the Eastern ocean, lib. v. c. 26. These errors appear more extraordinary, as a just description had been given of the Caspian by Herodotus, near five hundred years before the age of Strabo. "The Caspian," says he," is a sea by itself, unconnected with any other. Its length is as much as a vessel with oars can sail in fifteen days; its greatest breadth as much as it can sail in eight days; " lib. i. c. 203. Aristotle describes it in the same manner, and, with his usual precision, contends, that it ought to be called a greatlake, not a sea; Meteorolog. lib. ii. Diodorus Siculus concurs with them in opinion, vol. ii. lib. xviii. p. 261. None of those authors determine whether the greatest length of the Caspian was from north to south, or from east to west.

trate the geography of Ptolemy, it is delineated, as if its greatest length extended from east to west. In modern times, the first information, concerning the true form of the Caspian, which the people of Europe

received, was given by Anthony Jenkinson, an English merchant, who, with a caravan from Russia, travelled along a considerable part of its coast in the year 1558; Hakluyt Collect. vol. i. p. 334. The accuracy of Jenkinson's description was confirmed by an actual survey of that sea, made by order of Peter the Great, A. D. 1718, and it is now ascertained not only that the Caspian is unconnected with any other sea, but that its length from north to south is considerably more than its greatest breadth from east to west. From this detail, however, we learn how the ill-founded ideas concerning it, which were generally adopted, gave rise to various wild schemes of conveying Indian commodities to Europe by means of its supposed communication with the Euxine sea, or with the northern ocean. It is an additional proof of the attention of Alexander the Great, to every thing conducive to the improvement of commerce, that a short time before his death, he gave directions to fit out a squadron in the Caspian, in order to survey that sea, and to discover whether it was connected either with the Euxine or Indian ocean; Arrian. lib. vii. c. 16.

ROM the most ancient accounts of

tinction of ranks and separation of professions were completely etablished there. This is one of the most undoubted proofs of a society considerably advanced in its progress. Arts in the early stages of

social life are so few, and so simple, that each man is sufficiently master of them all, to gratify every demand of his own limited desires. A savage can form his bow, point his arrows, rear his hut, and hollow his canoe, without calling in the aid of any hand more skilful than his own.* But when time has augmented the wants of men, the productions of art become so complicated in their structure, or so curious in their fabric, that particular course of education is requisite towards forming the artist to ingenuity in contrivance and expertness in execution. In proportion as refinement spreads, the distinction of professions increases, and they branch out into more numerous and minute subdivisions. Prior to the records of authentic history, and even before the most remote æra to which their own traditions pretend to reach, this separation of professions had not only taken place among the natives of India, but the perpetuity of it was secured by an institution which must be considered as the fundamental article in the system of their policy. The whole body of the people was divided into four orders or casts. The members of the first, deemed the most sacred, had it for their province, to study the principles of religion; to perform its functions; and to cultivate the sciences. They were the priests, the instructors, and philosophers, of the nation. The members of the second order were entrusted with the government and defence of the state. In peace they were its rulers and magistrates, in war they were the soldiers who fought its battles. The third was

Hist. of Amer. vol. iii. 165.

composed of husbandmen and merchants; and the fourth of artisans, labourers, and servants. None of these can ever quit his own cast, or be admitted into another.t The station of every individual is unalterably fixed; his destiny is irrevocable; and the walk of life is marked out, from which he must never deviate. This line of separation is not only established by civil authority, but confirmed and sanctioned by religion; and each order or cast is said to have proceeded from the Divinity in such a different manner, that to mingle and confound them would be deemed an act of most daring impiety. Nor is it between the four different tribes alone that such insuperable barriers are fixed; the members of each cast adhere invariably to the profession of their forefathers. From generation to generation, the same families have followed, and will always continue to follow, one uniform line of life.

Such arbitrary arrangements of the various members which compose a community, seems, at first view, to be adverse to improvement either in science or in arts; and by forming around the different orders of men artificial barriers, which it would be impious to pass, tends to circumscribe the operations of the human mind within a narrower sphere than nature has allotted to them. When every man is at full liberty to direct his efforts towards those objects, and that end which the impulse of his own mind prompts him to prefer, he may be expected to attain that high degree of eminence to which the uncontrolled exertion of genius and industry