”—“

The celebrated phrase attributed to Francis I. after the battle of Pavia, Tout est perdue hors l'honneur, turns out to have been l'honneur et la vie qui est saulvé, which deprives it of all its point. As to the story of the chivalrous interchange of courtesies between the English and French guards at the battle of Fontenoy, "Monsieur, bid your men fire "—" No, sir, we never fire first "-Carlyle says, in his Life of Frederick the Great (vol. iv. p. 119), “It is almost a pity to disturb an elegant historical passage of this kind circulating round the world in some glory for a century past; but there has a small irrefragable document come to me which modifies it a good deal, and reduces matters to the business form." This document is a letter from Lord Charles Hay, lieutenantcolonel of the Guards, written or dictated about three weeks after the battle, and giving an account of what happened. In this no mention is made of the occurrence, and we may confidently believe with Carlyle, that "the French mess-rooms (with their eloquent talent that way) had rounded off the thing into the current epigrammatic reduction."

We all know how French historians, including M. Thiers, repeat the story of Le Vengeur refusing to strike her flag in the action of the 1st of June, 1794, and going down into the depths of the ocean while her crew shouted Vive la République ! This has been shown by Admiral Griffiths, who was living in 1838, one of the few survivors of the engagement, and who wrote a letter on the subject, to be, as he calls it, "a ridiculous piece of nonsense." When the Vengeur sank the action had ceased for some time. She had been taken possession of by the boats of the Culloden; and as to the crew, Admiral Griffiths says, 66 never were men in distress more ready to save themselves." There was "not one shout beyond that of horror and despair." And yet the lie will live in the annals of French heroism, and will perhaps be believed to the end of time.*

Before I conclude I will, with reference to the special objects of this Institute, state in as terse a form as possible the

*See Carlyle's Essays, vol. v., p. 356-359.

reason why we are justified in believing on historical grounds the truth of the narratives in the New Testament, excluding all considerations of its doctrines :

(1.) The contemporary nature of the testimony.

(2.) The artlessness and apparent truthfulness of the writers. (3.) The Substantial agreement, together with the circumstantial variety of the statements, of four different contemporary eye-witnesses.

(4.) The undesigned coincidences which exist between the Gospels and Acts, on the one hand and the Epistles on the other.

(5.) The absence of any conceivable motive for fraud or falsehood.

(6.) The difficulty, if not the absurdity, of supposing that the teachers of the purest morality should be engaged in the immoral work of propagating an imposture and foreign docu

ments.

(7.) The utter absence of any contradiction to their statements during the first four centuries.

(8.) The frequent reference to the words of the four Evangelists by writers who lived in the first two centuries, showing that their narratives were then current and well known.

(9.) The adequacy of the cause for miraculous interposition, if we believe in a benevolent Creator and in the immortality

of the soul.

(10.) The sufficiency of the accounts to explain the phonomenon of Christianity as a religion which now exists in the world, whereas no other theory has explained or can explain it.

If these are not sufficient grounds for believing the truth of the accounts that have come down to us, I know not any historical fact which we are justified in believing.

II. THE WORKS OF EDWARD LIVINGSTON.

THE Works of Livingston are more valuable than any others for the light they throw on the improvement of criminal law and procedure and prison discipline; and the "National Prison Association of the United States" have done a great service not only to America, but England, and all English speaking communities, in issuing a new and handsome edition of the works of the great American jurist on Criminal Jurisprudence.* America has reason to be proud of her lawyers and her jurists; she has still greater reason to be proud of her having produced the only legist of the age. The character of a legist is as distinct from that of a jurist, as that of a jurist from that of the lawyer. The lawyer is the man skilled in municipal law; the jurist is the man learned in the general principles of jurisprudence; the legist is the man who, having the skill of one and the learning of the other, is enabled to apply the principles of jurisprudence to the improvement of municipal law; and to cast them into the form fit for actual legislation. Hence, a man may be a great lawyer who is neither jurist nor legist; there can be no legist who is not both a lawyer and a jurist. Coke was a mere lawyer, and nothing more. Bacon was a lawyer, a jurist, and a legist; and so perhaps was Hale. In modern times, this country has had great lawyers, as Blackstone, Eldon, Mansfield, but one great jurist such as Stowell, and, partly from the practical character of the profession, and—partly from the defect of legal education-it has had no one deserving the name of a legist. The reason is obvious; we had few jurists, and none who were not practising lawyers, and these had no leisure to become legists. Nor would all jurists have the ability, for it requires a certain capacity for The Complete Works of Edward Livingston on Criminal Jurisprudence. 2 Vols., New York.

the expression of legal ideas in practical legislation, which is not always united even to great juristical learning. We have had a great legal theorist-Bentham-but he was far from being either a lawyer or a jurist; he knew, in fact, scarcely anything of law, and hence it was that his speculations were so diffuse and unpractical.

It has been the glory of America, from the union of the practical character of the Anglo-Saxon race with better provision for legal education and a greater desire for expansion and development of legal principles natural in a new country, to produce at once greater jurists, and also to produce the great legist, at once philosophical and practical, enlightened in conception, and skilful and wise in execution. In a word, America has not only produced Story, Wheaton, and Kent, but has the greater glory of producing Livingston.

These works were composed by Livingston half-a-century ago, not as a volunteer, or as a mere private writer, but at the desire and request of the legislature of Louisiana, where he was well known and highly respected as a learned and able lawyer, and they consist of several codes of law, of procedure, of evidence, and of discipline, framed in a practical form for actual legislation, accompanied by introductory dissertations, fully expounding the principles on which they were framed. They embody all that the most enlightened principles could dictate upon all these subjects, which are discussed, said the late Chief Justice Chase, "with a keenness of insight, clearness of statement, and a force of logic which mark the highest genius." We entirely concur in this opinion of the late American Chief Justice. And we heartily agree with the Association to whom we owe this fine edition, who declare themselves happy in being enabled to give to the world a new edition of the writings of an American jurist and philanthropist who has done so much to illustrate and advance his age in one of the highest and noblest departments of civilization."

We so highly appreciate the merits of Livingston's works that we are anxious to claim for authors of our own country some

share in the credit of having originated the ideas and principles which he so ably carried out and embodied. The late Chief Justice Chase ascribed Livinston's labours to the impulse given to the progress of ideas at the latter end of the last century, and especially by the French Revolution, and the publication of the Code Napoleon. This, we think, is a very erroneous notion, and one which is far from the truth of history. The Chief Justice falls into the common error of dating a great movement at some particular time, or tracing it to some particular person, as to Napoleon and Bentham. But all great movements are gradual and progressive, and this is one of the most interesting studies in history. In the middle of the 17th century the celebrated Ordonances of Law XIV., effected vast improvements in the law and judicial system of France, which were carried still further under the auspices of the great Chancellor D'Aguesseau, and before the fall of the monarchy, as regards the criminal jurisprudence, the advancing spirit of humanity and intelligence found expression in France in the great work of Montesquieu. His chapter directed to show that penalties should be proportioned to crimes, "que les lois criminelles tirent chaque peine de la nature particuliere du crime") Liv. xii., c. 4), embodied the first principles of a good penal code: and the framers of the Code Penal had evidently studied that chapter, for they often quoted it in their exposition of the principles of this code, as, for instance, with reference to the penalty of death. In the middle of the last century, Frederic of Prussia, following the example of France, codified the law and procedure of his country. Thirty years later Austria also codified her law; and in the meantime great French jurists, like Dumat and Pothier developed and systematized French law. In the middle of the last century a code penal was published in France, and Beccaria inculcated humanity in the punishments of crimes; and in our own country nearly a century ago, Mr. Eden published his enlightened Essay on the Principles of Penal Law, which was based on principles and