its name. Mr. Guild has well performed his honorable task, and the book is a very pleasing addition to the literary and religious history, not only of the great denomination to which its subject specially belonged, but of our common country.

The History of the Romans Under the Empire. By CHARLES MERIVALE, B. D., late Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, Vols. V, VI. 12mo., pp. 473, 475. New York: Appleton. 1865.

These volumes embrace the history of the empire from the commencement of the reign of Tiberius to the destruction of Jerusalem under Titus. It embraces the era of our Saviour's life, and the earliest period of the New Testament Church. The scholar, the theologian, and the popular reader will find the hand of a great master in the production of the work.

History of the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States of America. By ABEL STEVENS, LL. D. 12mo., pp. 423, 511. New York: Carlton & Porter. 1864.

These two volumes cover the ground from the first appearance of Methodism in America to the first regular General Conference in 1792. It is the "planting and training of American Methodism." Though lacking the grandeur of the first "movement" in England, the work will possess a peculiar interest from its home character. The Church will rejoice in possessing such a history. We withhold further remark in expectation of a full review by an able hand.

Memoirs of Lieutenant-General Scott, LL.D. Written by himself. In two volumes. 12mo., pp. 653. New York: Sheldon & Co. 1864.

The great captain has, it seems, been occupying the evening hours of his life in narrating the events of his day. Though hardly equal to the commentaries of Cesar, his memoirs will be read with interest, especially the personal details of his earlier days. We were somewhat struck with the following passage, containing admonitory words to our present administration, deeply suggesting whether there is not an individual lenity which may prove a public cruelty:

To Congress, at the next meeting, the President [Jefferson] submitted the case, that it might be seen, as he said, whether the acquittal of Colonel Burr of high treason was the result of a "defect in the testimony, in the law, or in the administration of the law." The latter was understood to be his opinion. The calm judgment of the bar, however, has now long been that though the crime had been committed, the prosecution broke down in its legal proofs. This is to be regretted; not that the thirst for blood was not slaked on the occasion, but because, there never having been an execution in the United States for the highest of crimes, our people were in 1832 and 1861 still untaught a most needful lesson—that playing at treason is a dangerous game!

FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XVII.-10

Politics, Law, and General Morals.

Ancient Law; its Connection with the Early History of Society, and Relation to Modern Ideas. By HENRY SUMNER MAINE, Member of the Supreme Council of India; formerly Reader on Jurisprudence and the Civil Law at the Middle Temple, and Regius Professor of the Civil Law in the University of Cambridge. With an Introduction by THEODORE W. DWIGHT, LL.D., Professor of Municipal Law, Columbia College, New York. First American, from Second London Edition. 8vo., pp. 400. New York: Charles Scribner. 1864.

Here are genuine nuggets of rich historic ore. Good paper, fair type, and liberal margins make the book outwardly inviting. After a suitable introduction by Professor Dwight to the author, we are welcomed with graceful dignity. In a place where there seemed every reason to expect dry frigidity and tedious technicality, we are surprised to find ourselves not only at ease and at home in a moment, but delightfully entertained. The author possesses a style pure, precise, perspicuous; an easy and complete command of language, which dispenses with technicalities, yet never labors for the lack of them. His generalizations, ransacking dusty corners of historic chronicle, shaking out a golden grain from a chaffy pile of legal formulas, stringing together on the same thread a Mosaic ordinance, Christian creed, Hindoo rite, Slavonic custom, and Homeric epithet, compelling facts to own relationship and shake hands across historic chasms centuries or chiliads in width, sometimes startle, and often surprise, yet, on reflection and study, commend themselves as wise and true. He overthrows some widelyspread and long-established opinions, which master-builders of legal architecture, like Grotius and Blackstone, have laid among their foundation stones. Yet he is never intrusive and dogmatic. He surveys a time-honored theory with respectful scrutiny, then quietly knocks out an underlying assumption, and passes on, leaving it to settle and fall.

Touching the importance and vitality of the theme, we remark that our author shows, in his chapter on the Law of Contract, how Roman Jurisprudence has left broad and indelible marks on the philosophy, politics, and theology of the Western nations. For several centuries Law was the main outlet for the intellectual activity of these nations. Law Latin retained its classic purity after the vernacular of the masses had sunk into a barbarous jargon, and for ages this was to them the vehicle of all philosophical thought. In fact, Roman Jurisprudence is styled by our author "the one intellectual result of Roman civilization." It is most interesting to see how Roman Law has cut the channels and tinged the streams of theological speculation for all the nations

which arose from the debris of the Western Empire. For example, the Greek Church was never entangled in the famous Freewill controversy which for fifteen centuries has resounded through the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches. What is the reason of this? The long training of the best mind of the West in Roman Jurisprudence furnishes the reply. This question arose among a people who had been trained to analyze obligation, or, as our author happily puts it, the controversy "arises when we contemplate a metaphysical problem under a legal aspect." Greek philosophy suggested to the Eastern Church their manifold problems concerning the Divine Nature, throwing up to the surface such names as Arius, Athanasius, and Socinus; but the Latin Church, having no real genius for such speculations on these topics, could only passively accept the Greek conclusions. But after the division of the empire, as soon as the Latin Church begins to possess an independent life, its long legal training displays its fruits in the manifold controversies concerning moral obligation, sin and atonement, the nature of man's debt and of Christ's payment, satisfaction and forgiveness, and manifold kindred topics. As we turn the leaves of Church history, and pass from the earlier to the later great Christian controversies, we really pass from the sphere of Greek metaphysics to that of Roman Law.*

But it is, by this time, well to take a look at our author's plan. Surveying the history of Ancient Law, he discusses in the first

* From such statements, made even by so high authority as Mr. Maine, we record our frank dissent. The notion that the Greek mind was less metaphysical than the Roman is unhistorical. Upon the doctrines both of Free-will and the Trinity the Greek Church went through a profound and satisfactory discussion; and having fundamentally based herself upon them, there was no room left for dispute. The earlier discussion, that upon Free-will and Predestination, was waged against the Gnostic Fatalists, in which Irenæus and Justin Martyr used the same arguments as we use at this day against Edwards. The Chrysostomean theology denounced Predestination as of the devil. That theology was not merely Arminian, but "Arminio Arminior;" it was more anti-Calvinian than Arminius himself. The first great systematic Theology ever written, that by the celebrated Greek, John of Damascus, constituting an epoch in Theological history, was as systematically anti-Predestinarian as the works of John Wesley. The entire fact is, that the Greek Church having settled her doctrines, both of Free-will and the Trinity, very wisely gave no listening ear to any advocate of either the Socinian or Predestinarian heresies. Her grand title was, "The Holy Orthodox Church;" why should she adopt the pestilent little heterodoxies of Hippo and Geneva? So on a smaller scale our own Church, having adopted a similar theology, has had, in a great judaical age, a history of internal theological quietism. Divisions and secession we have had in plenty; but never one upon a point of theodicy. In regard to what follows, would it not be more accurate to say that as the mind of any nation matures its sense of public right and mutual justice, the study of both the

five chapters its philosophy, origin of Law, principles that govern its progress, helps and hinderances. In the last five he unfolds, illustrates, and applies these principles in the discussion of the origin and development of several classes of laws, that is, those concerning Inheritance, Wills and Testamentary Succession, Property, Contract, and Crime. These are the bones which the author's learning and eloquence make to live.

I. Law is older than legislation, older than government as we use the word, older than lawgivers themselves. Primarily it is simply a habit, "it is in the air." It is first outwardly enunciated when this habit is disregarded in some specific instance, and then not in a general but in a specific form. The family head, or patriarch, (no lawgiver as yet,) declares the given act a violation of Law. Thus the first laws are specific judgments, the Oéuotes and dikaι of Homer. Precedents now become established, and then custom is Law. Aristocracy succeed the patriarchal monarchy, and the privileged caste are simply those who monopolize a knowledge of these customs. With writing comes publication of these customs, that is, codification. Now the spontaneous growth of Law is arrested, for "litera scripta manet." The era of this codification has great if not decisive influence in determining whether the Society shall henceforth be stationary or progressive. Progress in society, we do not generally realize, is the exception; the larger part of mankind have made no effort to change their codes from almost immemorial time. But in progressive society this modification proceeds in three modes: (1.) By Legal Fiction; (2.) By Equity; (3.) By Legislation. In the Roman Jurisprudence the influence of Legal Fiction is seen in the effect of the opinions of the leading lawyers of the Republic upon the interpretation of the Twelve Tables. The Equity Jurisprudence is seen in the effect of the annual Pretorian Edict upon the same celebrated code, from Augustus to Hadrian, and the commentaries thereon from Hadrian to Severus. With Severus the Roman Equity Jurisprudence ceases, as the English Equity and Jurisprudence exhausted itself under the chancellorship of Lord Eldon.

II. But the second portion of the work brings us among wider and still more fruitful generalizations. Most writers on legal history, following the à priori method, have really guessed out the human and divine government becomes prominent? Jurisprudence and Theodicy are always likely to grow together. They are both based upon our innate sense of equity; but some nations, as the Greek, arrive at ultimate and settled because just results much earlier than others. It was the stupendous genius of Augustine which disturbed and unsettled the western Theodicy.-ED.

past by the use of modern principles. Thus arose the "compact theories" of the origin of government, made so famous by the names of Locke and Hobbes, the utilitarian theory of Bentham, the Natural Society theory, borrowed from the Roman lawyers by Grotius, and then by Blackstone, whose introductory chapters have sown it over the whole field of modern civilization. Note now how one historic fact, extracted from archaic Law, scatters all these theories like a puff of vapor. Modern Law deals with Individuals, Ancient Law recognized only Families.

In the eye of Ancient Law, the father of the family is absolute ruler of his household; he represents it for the time, but has only this representative value. Individually he is nothing in, the commonwealth; he dies, but the family-the real and only person that the Law recognizes-is perpetual. Archaic Law recognizes only family action and responsibility, and dispenses family punishment. We would that we had space to show how this fact sends a broad beam of sunshine far back through the haze of primeval society; how it puts into our hand the key that unlocks manifold mysteries of ancient customs, jurisprudence, theology, and religion. We comprehend, for the first time, ancient and modern legislation and opinion upon the status of woman, of children, and slaves; we understand the apparent deficiencies of the Mosaic legislation, the blessing and the curse of the Second Commandment, the extermination of the Canaanites, the hopeless misery of Edipus, the strange blending of contradictory qualities in Achilles and Ulysses. And more, the light, pouring from this principle upon the past, is reflected back upon the present, and Ancient Law unriddles what to our Western understanding are the strange social anomalies, the hopeless, soulless inertia, the stereotyped barbarism, or semi-civilization, of those Eastern races which constitute the great majority of the human family.

N.

The Negro Problem Solved; Or, Africa as She Was, as She Is, and as She Shall Be. Her Curse and Her Cure. By Rev. HOLLIS READ, author of "God in History," "India and Its People," "Palace of the Great King," etc. 12mo., pp. 418. New York: A. A. Constantine. 1864. In spite of its assuming title this is a valuable book. Mr. Read finds the solution of what he calls the "negro problem" in African colonization. And a very valuable collection of facts upon that subject it is, expressed in a clear and attractive style, animated with a philanthropic spirit. Mr. Read is an earnest friend and defender of the Afric-American in America. But we have nevertheless one very serious issue with his book.

So far as the improvement of Africa is concerned, we have both