The Press. — London, England, 1856-12-27 00:00:00

works. However, to dismiss that point of view, we will examine them on their own pre tensions. Dr. Maine, the Examiner in Civil Law for the Inns of Court, contributes a highly in teresting article upon " Roman Law and Legal Education." If the partiality of a civilian for his own branch of study is some times too manifest in this essay, we believe, nevertheless, that the view put forward is sub stantially correct. He points out the universal prevalence of the Roman legal phraseology, and the spirit of Roman law, in " the ethical " systems of the Continent," and the superior accuracy and closeness they are thereby enabled to attain in throwing their concep tio-,s into words. But when he speaks of "the inferiority of England in philosophical " speculation" as due to our laxity of lan guage, Dr. Maine is evidently forcing facts to *he support of his own theory. His re marks on the influence of Roman law upon international relations, and the disadvantage at which our diplomatists Ere placed by their ignorance of the former, are probably better founded. He shows that the principles of Roman law were virtually established by Napoleon over three parts of Europe ; and that even in America, where we fondly imagined the English common law was flou rishing in its integrity, it is gradually giving place to the civilians: — Daring many years after the severance of the United States from the mother-country, the new States succes sively formed out of the unoccupied territory of the Fede ration did all of them assume as the standard of decision for the courts in cases not provided for by legislation, either the common law of England, or the common law as transformed by early New England statutes into some thing closely resembling the Custom of London. But this adherence to a single model ceased about 1825. The State of Louisiana, for a considerable period after it had passed under the dominion of the United States, observed a set of civil rules strangely compounded of English ease law, French code law, and Spanish usages. The consoli dation of this mass of incongruous jurisprudence was determined upon, and after more than one unsuccessful experiment, it was confided to the first legal genius of modern times—Mr. Livingston. Almost unassisted, he produced the Code of Louisiana, of all republications of Roman law the one which appears to us the clearest, the fullest, the most philosophical, and the best adapted to the exigencies of modern society. Now it is this code, and not the common law of England, which the newest American States are taking for the substratum of their Jaws- The diffusion of the Code of Louisiana does, in feat, exactly keep step with the extension of the territory of the Federation. And, r_toreover, it is producing sensi ble effects on the older American States. But for its amens and popularity, we should not probably have had the advantage of watching the greatest experiment which has ever been tried on English jurisprudence—the still proceeding codification and consolidation of the entire law of New York. Dr. Maine's panegyric upon Roman law from ci priori grounds does not seem quite so satisfactory. Granting that the highest intel lect in Rome was for many centuries exclu sively devoted to this study, and granting, as we do willingly, that the Romans of the Em pire were not inferior to their predecessors in intellectual capacity, it still remains a pies tion whether this very exclusiveness might not produce evil as well as good. Where lawyers were freed from the wholesome in fluences of general literature and the opera tion of that free political life which imparts broader views and sympathies to the profes sional man, they would probably fall into an overweening admiration of their own pursuits, and be in danger of counteracting the advan tages of a complete and symmetrical system, by a disregard of personal rights and neglect of individual liberty. Dr. Donaldson's essay upon "English Eth nography " is at once learned and popular. Our readers will probably be satisfied to hear his conclusions. They are that the bulk of the English population, gentle and simple, are in the main Saxons, and the infusion of Danish and Norman elements very much smaller than is commonly supposed. But he divides the Saxon into two branches, the Frisians and the Angliaus, the latter of whom had more in common with the Scandinavian race, the for mer with the present Germans. The southern countries, he tells us, are mainly peopled by the latter, blended to some extent with the Normans ; the Eastern, Midland, and Northern counties by the former, blended very consider ably with tie Celt. With regard to the DIIIIIOi of places, on which so much speculation bus NSA romp4,.p.r. DoualtAeo.n says; THE PRESS. But while there is good reason for the supposition that the names of towns in -by, and the many supposed Danish words, may have been Anglian also, we entirely miss in English any traces of the dis►inctive peculiarities of the Danish language. We do not find the article posttixrd, there are great differences in the numerals, the substan tive verb follows a different form in the plural, and the peculiar negative particle, ikke, is never used in this island. From this last circumstance alone, we feel con vinced that the Danes exerted only a transitory and limited influence on the language and national character istics of our ancestors. On the names of persons : No one can say how many crossings of Anglian, Saxon, Norman, or even foreign blood may have qualified the descent to which the names give a prima fade approxima tion ; and besides this, names are so corrupted that it very difficult, in many eases, to determine their origin or meaning. This last passage strikes us as especially im portant. Mr. Grote's essay, entitled " Old Studie s and New," is valuable and closely reasoned; yet throughout we fancy we detect the influ ence of that system of classical education peculiar to his own university. We do not think the essay could have been written by one accus tomed to regard the classics from the Oxford point of view. Such, however, is but a minor defect, and would probably not be apparent to the majority of his readers. Warning our own readers, therefore, that the essay is but a defence of classical studies as pursued in the University of Cambridge, we recommend it to their most careful perusal. Mr. Grote divides the objectors to classics into two classes, the patriots and the modernists,—the first believing that our own literature should claim the first place in our studies, the second that the modern world and contemporary events are alone worthy the general attention of mankind. To the former, his answer may be generally stated to be that it is expedient to permit the study of English literature to be voluntary, and that, as a preparative for this, a large majority of all sorts of men would be in favour of the classics. To the second, that what is ancient is not necessarily obso lete ; and that we must distinguish, for in stance, between the substance of history and its circumstances. On this point his views are so singularly well stated, that we must not mutilate them by extraction. They deserve the most attentive study. On the whole, however, we must say that Mr. Grote seems to have missed the most im portant argument in favour of Greek and Latin as vehicles of education. This is to be found in the fact that the standard of these languages is fixed, and can be understood only by long study of books. That it is which furnishes the teacher with the most valuable in strument lie can possess—namely, unques tionable authority. A student of classics has a faith in his teacher which no student of modern languages could ever possess in his. The latter may be constantly referring to the results of his own experience, and tempted to reply to the professor that his opinions are a matter of taste. But the tradi tions of scholarship are sacred. The learner knows what toil must be undergone before any sensible roan will listen to his private opinions. And hence arises that surrender of self to authority, without which nothing can be fairly learned ; and that thoroughness and love of the genuine which is characteristic of English education. The next essay is on one of the most interest• ing questions in all literature—" The Taste for the Picturesque among the Greeks." Mr. Copo has given us an elegant and pleasing dissertation, but not one that adds materially to our stock of ideas upon the subject. He notices the opinions of Bishop Copleatone, Mr. Coleridge (in his " Introduction to the Classics "), Humboldt, Colonel Mure, Mr. Ruskin, and other authorities on the subject, and comes to the conclusion that the Greeks had no taste for the picturesque at all. But most of his observations, or at least the pith of them, have been a n ti c ip a t e d by Twilling in his edition of the " Poetics "—who there tells us that the Greeks " described rural objects " not as beautiful, but as pleasant " ; and that they did not " describe scenery picturesquely, " because they did not regard it w ith th e eye " of a painter"--in which two sentences the results of all inquiry into this matter are buiumea up, W4eR wag aro uooastotaod:to SATURDAY, look upon mountains and forests and crags as their natural enemies to be dug through and cut down, it is not likely they will have much sense of their pictorial effect. It is only when science has robbed them of their terrors that taste can appreciate their beauties. The reader may compare the famous passage in Macaulay 'a last volumes upon Goldsmith and the High lands. The poet's eulogies of the Dutch landscape seem to spring from exactly the same conditions as Homer's praise of deep crops, rich valleys, awl cool rivers. At the same time, we should be sorry to admit that there was nothing whatever in the Greeks' feeling towards nature but love of utility We do not agree with Mr. Cope that Pope's " useful light " is by any means an adequate expression of the feeling with which the shepherd regards the moon in the celebrated passage of the Bth Iliad. The word ylyn9; we have always taken to mean that deep and silent joy which comes over a man on a per fectly still and clear moonlight night, and which is so prettily expressed in Mr. Tenny son's poem of " Audley Court," in which he concludes a very beautiful description of moonlight with the simple words, " And we were glad at heart." There are many other passages in Homer which show by their de tail that the poet was not insensible to that " beauty of roughness" which is sometimes given as a definition of the picturesque. Among many others, the simile of the bees in the 2nd Iliad, and the watercourse in the 21st, may be mentioned as examples. On the landscape painting of the Romans some va luable information is to be found in Heyne's " Opuscula," vol. v , which contains his disser tation on the pictures of Philostratus. It is possible that the progress of the art, even within such very narrow limits, may have had some effect on that partiality for na tural descriptions which is to be found in the later Latin poets. At all events, the total absence of anything of the kind among the Greeks is obviously onrr, cause of the lack of the picturesque in their writings. The in fluence of Christianity upon taste is a subject discussed by Humboldt, commencing at page 26 of his second volume. We must be satisfied, however, with directing the attention of our readers to this interesting passage. The ex ccption it presents to some of our foregoing remarks are rather apparent than real. Of the four remainingiessa3s, Mr. Ellicot's on "The Apocryphal Gospels" is curiously learned, and gives full and concise informa tion on a topic but little known beyond a ve►;y narrow circle. Mr Waddington's account of the Protestant Church in France is entitled to this hitter praise also. Mr. Francis's essay on fly fishing is genial and amusing ; but Mr. Hort on Coleridge is almost too brief for such a theme : it is, however, both thoughtful and learned. Shakesperian critics will read with interest Mr. Badhatn's collection of emenda tions, to which we may perhaps recur on a future occasion. 1. The Household Manager. By Charles Pierce, Maitre d'Hotel. London : Routledge. 2 A Manual of Domestic Economy. By J. H. Walsh. London Routledge. THESE books, though both on the economy of households, are distinct in character. The first shows how domestic affairs are managed in families of the highest rank ; the second, how they may be managed in families whose expenditure ranges from 1001. to 1,0001 a year. The author of the first, a Maitre d'Hotel, has lived many years in that capacity with Baron Brunnow, and is now still attached to the Rus sian Embassy. Hence the reader may repose confidence in his experience ; and though the detail of great part, of this volume is suited only to wealthy households, yet much of the information —as, for example, on the art of dinner-giving, on the best method of brew. ing, on the management of servants, and on the economy of a well-regulated household — is suited to that great middle-class which of late years has expanded so wonderfully through the country, awl especially in Lonlen. The most elaborate chapter in the book is that beaded "How to give 4 diuuev." The not 140 :----- --~.~=--