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Pontiff. The question, how far Roman Law had in Bracton's time become a part of English Law, is one of considerable scientific interest, and will we hope receive further elucidation in future volumes of the present Text. It is practically virgin soil which Sir Travers has here broken, and it is much to be hoped that he may be aided in his necessary investigations by the progress of discovery of ancient stores of knowledge under the Historical MSS. Commission. That Bracton was, as Sir Travers thinks, an Ecclesiastic, we do not feel convinced. Rather, to our mind, does the language quoted in support of this opinion tend in a contrary direction. It is of course quite possible that he may have been tonsured. But we can much better understand one who was, in the ecclesiastical sense of the word, a layman emphasising the sacerdotal position of lawyers, so as to stand on equal ground with Churchmen, than we could understand such words in the mouth of a sub-deacon. And the employment of the term "laici" for persons not versed in the practice of the Law might surely find confirmation from existing usage. Quotations from St. Augustine and the Old Testament, and reverential expressions with reference to the Virgin Mary, we should incline to regard simply as part of the natural language of the Thirteenth Century. In an age when Peter de Vinea quoted Ezekiel and Jeremiah in praise of that Emperor the two keys of whose heart he is said to have held, and when Frederick, "the Godless," could himself speak of his some-time favourite as "this Peter whom I thought a rock," and who in fact was commonly called the "Rock and Doorkeeper of the Imperial Church,” it seems quite unnecessary to take Scriptural citations or pious language as connoting either Sacred or Minor Orders. Moreover, there is the very highest Mediæval authority for the claim to a priestly character for what we should now consider essentially lay offices. The Emperors themselves, both in East and West, constantly asserted their own priestly and Episcopal character, though they were neither priests nor bishops by imposition of hands. It may be sufficient to recall Constantine the Great styling himself "Bishop in things external;" Leo the Isaurian" Imperator et Sacerdos;" Frederick II., at war with the Papacy, losing no opportunity of exalting the "sacred" character of his Imperial position, and his true Vicarship of Christ, attesting the miracles wrought by the body of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, and claiming for himself the revival within him of "the Spirit of Elias." At the same time it was claimed for

Frederick, whom his enemies called the "Godless," and hist partizans the "holy," that he was "Legis Antistes," the Bishop of the Law, and the Defender of Justice. We cannot here pursue this subject further; we can only indicate it as one of the many interesting questions in Mediæval Law and History, which a careful perusal of Sir Travers's edition of Bracton cannot fail to suggest to the student. That Bracton's classical work should have remained so long in the condition described in our pages by Mr. H. S. Millman, "closely printed, repulsive: index, marginal abstract, every kind of grammatical and historical light wanting," is certainly far from creditable to us when we reflect upon the excellent work which Continental scholars have done to render Mediæval Jurisprudence accessible to the student. That the edition which we now welcome will be the one edition for the jurist and the scholar there can be no question. We should ourselves have inclined to go further in the way of setting out contractions at full length than Sir Travers Twiss has gone in his first volume. If he is not compelled to a certain determinate amount of reproduction of contractions by the terms under which the Rolls publications are issued, we would certainly suggest the absence in future volumes of the marks for "m," "er," "que," "us," and others which, although plain enough to those who have been accustomed to read medieval writing, must needs create a certain amount of difficulty to those many readers, unacquainted with MSS., who will now, we hope, be induced to commence the study of Bracton.

The Institutes of Justinian, with English Introduction, Translation, and Notes. By THOMAS COLLETT SANDARS, M.A., Barrister-at-Law, late Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. Sixth Edition. Longmans and Co. 1878.

This new edition of Mr. Sandars's well-known text of the Institutes ought to supersede all previous issues, for the titlepage scarcely does justice to the extent of the changes by which the possessor of the Sixth Edition benefits over the owner of of the earlier ones. any The text itself has undergone changes, being now taken from Huschke, Leipzig, 1868, instead of from the edition of the Brothers Kriegel. Whether the latter is not still the best known and most generally used text is a different question, with which we have not space here to deal. Not only is the Latin text thus to some extent altered, but the English

translation has been compared throughout with that provided in Professor Hunter's elaborate work, which we noticed some time ago. And, in addition, Mr. Sandars has now, for the first time, offered to his readers what many of them have doubtless endeavoured, more or less successfully, to make for themselves, a Summary of the contents of the Institutes. We do not suppose that Mr. Sandars in doing this desires for a moment to discourage the wholesome practice of each student making his analysis for himself; but to have a norm, or general rule, set before one as a guide and standard is unquestionably useful, and the circumstance that such a norm is provided in the present edition of Mr. Sandars's work cannot fail to give it a preference over its predecessors. We should have been better pleased, indeed, if this new feature had been written with more evidence of general scholarship, such as Mr. Sandars could well insert, at least in the shape of reference to modern writers on Roman Law at home and abroad, in whose pages the questions briefly noticed in the Summary would be found more fully treated. But taking, as we must, the goods the Gods provide, we can with pleasure recommend to all students for the Bar Examinations a diligent perusal of the Sixth Edition of Mr. Sandars's version of the Institutes of Justinian.

The Law of Negligence. Second Edition. By ROBERT CAMPBELL, M.A., of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at-Law, Advocate of the Scotch Bar, and late Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Stevens & Haynes. 1878.

No less an authority than the late Mr. Justice Willes, in his judgment in Oppenheim v. White Lion Co., characterised Mr. Campbell's "Law of Negligence" as " a very good book," and since. very good books are by no means plentiful when compared with the numbers of indifferent ones which annually issue from the press, we think the Profession will be thankful to the author for this new edition, revised and brought down to date. It is indeed an able and scholarly treatise on a somewhat difficult branch of law, in the treatment of which the author's knowledge of Roman and Scottish jurisprudence has stood him in good stead. We can confidently recommend it alike to the student and the practitioner. The references to cases are full, and yet judiciously selected, and comprise not only English and Scotch, but also American, decisions. The Index is remarkably full, occupying no less than 83 out of a total of 273 pages.

The Magisterial Law of British Guiana. By ALFRED John Pound, M.A., Oxon., Barrister-at-Law, and ex-Stipendiary Justice of the Peace in the Colony. Demerara: Royal Gazette Establishment. London: J. Haddon and Co. 1877.

Mr. Pound has done a work for which his former brother Justices cannot fail to be grateful to him. He has brought together, in the compass of one portable volume, the law which is administered by our paid and unpaid magistracy in British Guiana. The ordinances, whether relating to Criminal or Civil Jurisdiction, are first set forth, with their respective numbers and dates in the margin, while illustrative decisions, or apposite queries, are appended, in smaller type, but still in the body of the page, thus avoiding foot notes altogether. The subject matter of the ordinances is given in the margin, so that every help is afforded to those consulting the work, whether at home or in Court. Did space admit, we might note many curious features of Colonial life, which relieve the severity of even a work on so dry a subject as Magisterial Law. The Obeah system, for instance, has an entire ordinance to itself, by which its practice is made a misdemeanor, and a similar penalty attaches to the mere consultation of an Obeah. The marriage of "heathen immigrants," a subject which probably gives no little trouble to the magistracy of Guiana, appears to be carefully regulated, and two separate registers are ordered, one of the immigrants who arrive married, and another of marriages contracted by immigrants while in the Colony. There seems to be no fear that members of the bar will not magnify their office in British Guiana as elsewhere, but the palm may probably be given to our South American colony, for the singularity of the claim, recorded by Mr Pound at p. 11, where a barrister, who had applied in his client's name for a tavern license, refused, on the ground of privilege, to give certain evidence. We can scarcely wonder that Snagg, C.J., should have pronounced this advocate not entitled to privilege, "for an application for a license to keep a tavern cannot be said to come within the scope of the employment of a barrister." We observe that, at p. 153, Mr. Pound speaks of the "United Church of England and Ireland," in his definition of a "clerk." Possibly news takes a long time in travelling out to Guiana, and longer still in exercising any influence on the language of the ordinances of the Colonial Government. But ordinances must be taken as they stand, and for those which constitute the local portion of the law of British Guiana, no better guide can be had than Mr. Pound's excellent compendium.

A Course of Lectures on the Government, Constitution, and Laws of Scotland. By ALEXANDER ROBERTSON, M.A., Barrister-at-Law. Stevens and Haynes. 1878.

It is something upon which an author should be congratulated in these days when he has found an almost virgin corner of the fertile soil of legal literature, as is the case with Mr. Alexander Robertson in the volume now before us. We think, indeed, that his original idea of expanding the course of lectures which he delivered at the Albert Institute, Dundee, some three years ago, into an elaborate work on Scottish Constitutional History was most in accordance with the requirements of the subject. But if art be long, life is short, and Mr. Robertson has thought it best to make the most of the present day by publishing his Lectures almost verbatim as they were delivered. In this, as in other similar cases, the smoothness of the narrative is, to our mind, somewhat impeded by the recurrence of language only suited to oral delivery, and which might with advantage be omitted or altered in a future edition. There are, of course, many points of general interest to the constitutional lawyer touched upon in the course of Mr. Robertson's book which we have not space here to dwell upon. And we fear we must pass over many passages which we had marked for citation or discussion, contenting ourselves with a few salient points. The identity of order of the greater and lesser barons in Scotland has not, we think, been quite so accurately appreciated by Mr. Robertson as we should have expected. We believe that it is, in part at least, due to this cause that the Act of 1427, allowing the lesser barons to appear in Parliament by representation, remained for a century and a half a dead letter; and the feeling of such an identity was clearly at the bottom of the strenuous resistance, opposed by the territorial baronage, to the claims of precedence over them set up by the new-fangled order of baronets, of which resistance Mr. Robertson will find an amusing instance related by Sir Andrew Agnew, in his "Sheriffs of Galloway." With regard to the Mediaval Scottish Church, it would have been better, perhaps, to have expressed the relation between Rome and Scotland by saying, as the Popes themselves said, that the Scottish Church was the "special daughter of the Holy See." Medieval churchmen and laymen, in fact, played off the Pope against the Archbishop of York, who was constantly trying to increase his ecclesiastical dignity by claiming metropolitan privileges over Scotland. We should have been glad if Mr. Robertson had gone at somewhat greater detail into the Peerage

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