It only remains to add, that Sir James Moncrieff is succeeded in his baronetcy and the family estate by his eldest son, now the Reverend Sir Henry Moncrieff, baronet, one of the ablest ministers of the Free Church. A younger son, the Reverend George Moncrieff, is a clergyman of the Church of England, and we believe rector of a parish in the diocese of Chester. The second son of the deceased judge, a lawyer by profession, was called to the Scotch bar in 1833, appointed Solicitor-General of Scotland last year, and has just been advanced to the higher office of Lord Advocate, vacated by the promotion of Mr. Rutherford to the bench of the Court of Session, in room of the lamented subject of this notice.

ART. X.-READINGS AT THE MIDDLE TEMPLE.

Readings delivered before the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, in the Year 1850. By George Bowyer, Esq., D.C.L., &c. &c. Stevens and Norton. London. 1851.

An Inaugural Lecture on Jurisprudence, and on the Influence of the Canon Law, delivered in the Hall of the Middle Temple, Hilary Term, 1851. By John George Phillimore. Benning and Co. London. 1851.

R. BOWYER says that his principal object was

DR.

"to show the connection of the branches of Jurisprudence one with another, and their place in the general system of Moral Science, and at the same time to teach leading principles and classifications, important not only to lawyers, but also to all who are concerned in legislation and government. With these things I have combined a good deal of historical matter and legal learning, which is scattered about in various books, some of them not easily obtained nor usually read.

"In the execution of this task, I have been careful to keep in view what is practical, avoiding vague generalities and mere hypothetical theories, and always citing authorities in support of the chief propositions and principles, so as to enable the reader to test what I have said, and pursue his researches further on any point that he may desire to investigate. And I have endeavoured to illustrate and explain our own national law by means of the greatest legal writers of other conntries."

"The course of Readings concludes with a general view of the

whole system of the Canon Law, which did not previously exist in the English language."-Pref. p. v.

He seems to have achieved this purpose with admirable success. In a plain, intelligible style he has expounded the branches of law he professed to elucidate, in such a manner as to give the utmost amount of useful present knowledge and guidance to future researches of which the limits of his Lectures admitted. Starting with the well-matured design we have sketched, he appears to have pursued its execution, systematically and scientifically, to its accomplishment.

His First Lecture develops the uses of the Science of Jurisprudence, and the Classification of Laws. Then follow these subjects consecutively :-Roman Law, its uses and relation to Common Law: Municipal Law: The Construction of Statutes, which occupies nearly four whole readings; and this is the only part of the course which might have been beneficially abridged: The Boundaries of Judicial Power and Legislative Interpretation: The Criminal Jurisprudence of the Civilians: The Reasons of Laws: A Sketch of Public Law and the Nature of Penal Law. The Course then closes with four very learned and able Lectures on Canon Law. This part of the Readings has the most interest for these times; and as Dr. Bowyer has naturally turned his attention very earnestly to this subject, the result of his researches is the more likely to be valuable. His remarks on that celebrated and important book of the Corpus Juris Canonici termed "The Decretals" are so interesting that we extract a portion of them; and of which Dr. Bowyer justly observes:-

"The book of Decretals is superior in authority to the Decree of Gratian, for it is the statute law of the Catholic Church, except so far as it has been altered by subsequent legislation. But we must observe, that many things in the Decretals are not received and admitted by the temporal law of particular countries-such, for instance, as legitimation by subsequent marriage, which was never admitted in England. And the Decretals, as well as the other books composing the Corpus Juris Canonici, contain passages, decisions and principles tending to establish the authority of the popes over the temporal civil rights of kings and states; a doctrine contrary to the public law of Europe, and indeed not maintained by the Roman Church, though it has been asserted by individual doctors. There are, moreover, special canons and other ecclesiastical constitutions, customs and privileges belonging to particular churches and places, which differ from the Decretals in matters of discipline. And this code of canons should not be used without reference to the modern text-books, which show how its contents have been modified, amended and repealed, and what portions are still in force."-p. 164.

On the general character of the Canon Law Dr. Bowyer expatiates in his Fourteenth Reading, with reference only to its legal aspect; studiously avoiding any mention of its theological spirit. He treats it as an historical fact in the civil policy of the times, rather than as a component part of a vast ecclesiastical fabric; and in so doing he treats it necessarily in a defective manner; and makes the great mistake of supposing that in so doing he is following the maxim of Savigny, to " regard a system of law in the same point of view in which it was regarded by those who made it." Portions of the Reading, however, trench on a wider and more pertinent field. In speaking of what he terms the "Hierarchy of Jurisdiction," he says:

"That hierarchy regards the polity and regimen of the Church, which, being a society of men, must have its magistrates and officers for due order and good government, and the fulfilment of its own purpose, as civil societies have. This is evident, for the Church is a society, not of souls only but of men; and it therefore requires an outward and visible polity or constitution.

"The Canon Law regards the Church as a monarchical body, or a body politic in the nature of a monarchy, of which the supreme Pontiff is the head. This body politic, thus fashioned in a monarchical form, has a supreme Parliament called an Ecumenical or General Council, of which the Pope is the head, and a necessary part, as the Crown is of the Parliament in the civil constitution of this kingdom. The Church of the Canon Law unites a federal to a monarchical constitution. It is composed of a variety of ecclesiastical bodies or churches, each of which has its superior bishop, its synod or church parliament, and its peculiar laws, customs and privileges. All these bodies are represented in the Ecumenical Council by their bishops. And they stand respectively in divers relations to the civil communities wherein they exist, and are affected in divers ways by the temporal laws, customs and institutions of those communities. But notwithstanding these local peculiarities, they are all bound together into one universal body by identity of faith, by similarity of constitution, by community of laws, and by their submission to the one supreme power-the Holy See, which is the centre of their unity and the summit of the hierarchy of jurisdiction.

"Under that supreme power the hierarchy of jurisdiction is continued by a regular gradation of magistrates and officers, the nature of whose functions, and the extent of whose authority, are defined by the Canon Law.

"Thus, patriarchs have the ecclesiastical government of several nations or countries; primates, that of one nation or country; metropolitans, that of a province; and diocesan bishops of a diocese, All these are equal in point of order, for they are all bishops; but one is superior to the other in the hierarchy of jurisdiction. And so the Pope has no order distinct from the Episcopate. But he is su

preme head of them all in the hierarchy of jurisdiction, of which he alone has the plenitude.

"The remainder of the magistrates of the Church are created to assist the bishop. Such are coadjutors, the diocesan's deputies and assistants; vicars, who are the bishop's vicegerents for certain purposes as Vicars Apostolic are to the Pope; archdeacons, who are the bishop's vicars in their archdeaconry, and are called oculi Episcopi; and archpriests, or rural deans. The most numerous and necessary of these inferior magistrates are the parochial clergy, who preside over and have the cure of souls in parishes, which are the smallest territorial divisions of the Church. They have a jurisdiction proprio jure, on institution to their cures, by the bishop.

"There are also various offices to which belongs administration without jurisdiction or pre-eminence. Some offices also have a certain pre-eminence or rank assigned to them, and then they are called dignities. Such are different offices belonging to Cathedral and Collegiate Churches."-pp. 177-179.

These extracts, though less copious than we had wished to make them, will suffice to give specimens of Dr. Bowyer's style. They who listen to or read him must not expect amusement, or any interest which does not arise from the intrinsic value of the facts he states. His forte is not that of lightening a dry subject; but they who seek for solid and reliable information, carefully collated, methodically arranged, and plainly stated, will be amply recompensed by a perusal of these Readings.

As dissimilar as light from darkness is the character of the Readings delivered by Dr. Bowyer's successor to the chair.

The entirely different tone as well as style in which the selfsame subject is treated by Mr. Phillimore is most striking. We shall only do justice to the fervid and earnest spirit in which he deals with his subject, and to his remarkable eloquence and fluency of expression, by citing the following passages from his Lecture on Canon Law.

"The first guide of the early Christians I am expressing no opinion as to points of faith, but merely as to matters of internal discipline and regulation-was undoubtedly tradition.

"It would of course be most improbable that written rules should find their way soon into a society constituted like the early Christian Church, without the sanction, nay, in direct defiance to the authority of the State. Reason and experience show that such a body would adhere with punctilious tenacity, even in things the most indifferent, to habits consecrated in their eyes by many dear and precious associations. The rights and usages practised by those who had been the props and ornaments of the Church in its days of tribulation and adversity, who had instructed their disciples, always at the hazard of their lives, and sometimes at the cost of a torturing and

ignominious death, would be cherished with passionate enthusiasm by their followers, and in some minds be confounded with the substance of Christianity itself. It is also clear that the places where men eminent for sanctity, whether as martyrs or as apostles, had preached and worshipped, would acquire great consideration, and that the successors of such men would be looked upon with no ordinary degree of reverence. Again, the wealth and importance of particular communities, of places like Antioch, or Rome, or Constantinople, would enhance the dignity of the teachers to whom, in these places, the Christian community looked for spiritual advice and consolation. Such, accordingly, was the tenour of Christian societies, and such the principle of self-goverment which they adopted until Christianity became the religion of the State. The Ecumenical councils were summoned to decide upon controverted points of faith and discipline, and the determination of those councils became the rule of discipline and interpretation to the Christian world."—pp. 45, 46.

After giving a succinct account of the Ecumenical Councils and the Canons which succeeded them (with frequent mention of the "gross imposture" of the Decretals of Isidore, and the Edict of Gratian), the picture is thus filled up which was left imperfect and untouched by Dr. Bowyer:

"Thus the Church, at first persecuted, and afterwards encouraged by the State, had at last absorbed it. It was successively the foe, the ally, the sharer, and the engrosser of temporal authority. The Canon Law established a theocracy; but when the machine, constructed with such prodigious art and perseverance, was wound to its utmost stretch, and only the last turn was wanting to it, its springs gave way. The reason and feelings of men shrank from the consummation of the work, which, either as passive spectators or as active instruments, different motives had so long induced them to abet. This was owing mainly to the immutable essence of Christianity, which, founded on persuasion and appealing to the moral nature of man, can never safely rest on violence and persecution: it was owing also, as you will not fail to observe, to the celibacy of the clergy. Frightful and revolting as were the abuses to which this institution led in the dark ages, it undoubtedly saved Europe from the government of a caste. Look at ancient Egypt, look at modern India, you will see the effect of another state of things. The Church was open to all: it was represented everywhere, in the hut of the serf, in the castle of the noble, and in the palace of the sovereign. Though the priest was separated from the State, he bound the members of it together, like the cement which, though different from the stones of the edifice, keeps every one of them in its right position.

"Politically considered, the effect of ecclesiastical codification was to give system and unity to the encroachments and authority of the Church. By the Canon Law and its doctrines, so clearly and distinctly opposed to those of the feudal system, every ecclesiastic be