"the true emotion of sublimity prompted him to explore every 'thing about that wonderful fountain; but that had fear ope'rated, he would have kept at a distance." Sir George does not inform us in what this "true emotion of sublimity" consisted; we may remark, therefore, that he probably overlooked at the time, an emotion of which his admiration must have partaken, on viewing that celebrated wonder. Fear, to a certain degree, must have been awakened. Dr. Clarke, in speaking of the Pyramids, assures us that "no one ever approached them under other emotions than those of terror.” He further tells us, that both his companions and himself were impressed with a strong feeling of dread, on approaching those stupendous monuments. Terror, we shall have it said, is privation-and privation constitutes a source of the sublime, but there is not a sufficiently clear solution of the apparent contradiction involved in the terms we employ, when we speak of privation as being a source of the sublime. Fear, in the degree of terror; Jealousy, or any other passion or sensation, might each, or either of them, upon this principle, become a source of the sublime; but no one about to be precipitated from a precipice, or tortured upon the rack of horrible suspicion, was ever conscious of sublime emotion. The error appears to us to lie, first, in supposing an extreme degree of privation to be essential to sublimity; and, next, that every species of privation is sublime. Darkness, which is privation of all light, is sublime, provided it does not invest objects of which we stand in dread, or rather, the privation in itself, is, under all circumstances, sublime, but if it be connected with objects calculated to produce an extreme degree of terror, the attention, from being directed to the objects of our apprehension, is not at liberty to analize the emotion which darkness in itself and by itself, is calculated to produce. Terror, if experienced in the degree of darkness, would deprive the mind of that attention to its own emotions, which is essential to the operations of sublimity; and which, indeed, seems to be the condition on which alone the emotion can be felt. The true emotion of sublimity appears to us, to be of a compound nature-made up of that degree of veneration for the object which, perhaps, necessarily partakes of some portion of dread, united to that wonder with which we contemplate great power, whether moral, intellectual or physical. And this constitutes, properly, the feeling of awe, which is the true emotion of that higher sublimity that arises from the contemplation of vast power concentrated and absorbed, as it were, within itself. Added to all this, there must be a consciousness about the mind of that comparative security from danger, without which, we

The man

venture to pronounce, there can be no sublimity. who, with a rope about his body, was let down a precipice for the purpose of procuring a bird's nest, cannot be supposed to have been sensible of any sublime emotion at the moment when the rope, having untwisted itself, was upon the point of giving way, and he remained suspended, as it were, between heaven and earth. The situation, however, would have been sublime, had he been in a state of comparative security from danger. We do not know that we can better conclude this article, than in the words of the late Professor Dugald Stewart. "As in 'the material world," says this admirable writer, "there are 'general facts beyond which philosophy is unable to proceed; so, in the constitution of man, there is an inexplicable adap'tation of the mind to the objects with which his faculties are 'conversant, in consequence of which, these objects are fitted to produce agreeable or disagreeable emotions. In both cases," 'he proceeds to observe, "reasoning may be employed with ' propriety to refer particular phenomena to general principles, 'but in both cases, we must, at last, arrive at principles of which no account can be given, but that such is the will of our Ma'ker." Discouraging as may prove the above observations to all inquirers into the phenomena of mind, they are, nevertheless, strongly recommended to their attention, emanating, as they do, from the very high authority of Mr. Stewart.

ART. V.-A History of English Law, or an attempt to trace the rise, progress and successive changes of the Common Law; from the earliest period to the present time. By GEORGE CRABB, Esq. (of the Inner Temple) Barrister at Law, author of English Synonymes Explained, &c. First American edition with Definitions and Translations of Law Terms and Phrases, additional references, dates of successive changes, &c. BURLINGTON CHAUNCEY GOODRICH. 1831.

WE avail ourselves of the appearance of this History of the Common Law-a mere abridgment of no great mark or like

lihood to say a few words upon a subject which has recently attracted a good deal of attention in this country-Codification.

Reform, it is said, is the order of the day. It has shaken down thrones and convulsed empires. It has smitten and shivered to pieces the idols of the nations on the other side of the Atlantic-broken up their "shrines, abominations"-let in daylight upon their most awful and, therefore, most profitable mysteries--and turned their mummery into a mountebank's farce for popular amusement. The same aspiring and overruling spirit of improvement, we are told, pervades every art of life and every department of knowledge-why should not the great scientia civilis-the science of sciences-that which is not a mere episode, but the history-not an embellishment, but the very foundation of society itself-viz: legislation and judicature—why should that alone be stationary amidst this universal progress, and affront, with its uncouth darkness and its antiquated and barbarous deformities, the light of the nineteenth century?

They, who recommend the turning of the whole body of our jurisprudence into written law, ask this question as triumphantly as if it were quite unanswerable. And so it would doubtless be, if the fact assumed in it were conceded. But who that is at all versed in the common law-who that has read the volume before us, or any other history of the origin and progress of that venerable body of jurisprudence-does not know that the picture which Jeremy Bentham and his followers have drawn of it, even as it stands at this day in England, is a broader caricature, by far, than the "Clouds of Aristophanes ?" And yet the advocates of Codification scruple not to repeat the same language in reference to its condition in this country, in spite of all the changes that have been made in it. They talk of it as a mere heap of feudal abuses, long after tenures, with all their fruits, have been abolished, and when, of our corpus juris, what relates to the doctrine of real estate, is so far from being the whole, that it constitutes but a small, and even a subordinate part of the multifarious mass. They tell us that it is a tissue of lies and gravely quote the innocent forms of the action of ejectment, and the pledges of Doe and Roe, to prove it. The theory of its pleadings they denounce as a system of paltry quibbling and chicanery, and its practice, as a vast scheme of extortion and fraud. It is in vain to urge the necessity of this form of statement to the making up of a single issue, and the necessity of such an issue to the perfection of our justly preferred mode of trial by jury. It is enough that no man can be well versed in this branch of the law, without profound study, and that the inequalities created among men, by talent and per

severance, savour of privilege and monopoly. By way, therefore, of relieving us from abuses, which do not exist here, and exist only to a certain extent even in the less commendable practice of Westminster Hall, and, we suppose, of restoring things to the simplicity which is the perfection of art, they would substitute for the precision, directness and brevity of the declaration and the plea, the loose, vague and cumbersome generalities of the bill or the libel!

It is obvious to observe, that even if all this were admitted, it would not help the cause of Codification in this country. That the law of England is susceptible of great improvements, and, indeed, in certain branches of it, calls loudly for unsparing reform, nobody of our acquaintance has ever pretended to deny, and is admitted by the very changes which have been universally made in it throughout these States. The expense of litigation is so great there as to amount to a denial of justice to all but the rich or the adventurous. The forms of conveyancing are too verbose and complicated. The mere subtleties of pleading-such as go not to the merits, but to immaterial allegations, and are (generally) confined by the statute of Elizabeth to special demurrers-are too much encouraged. The record being paid for, and most extravagantly paid for, according to its extent, is the excuse for this, but it were better that no necessity for such an excuse existed, as none exists here, where, to borrow a phrase of our own courts, "the law mechanic" is paid a lumping price by the job. Some technical rules, too, there are in different branches of the law, which might be profitably replaced by others more rational, at least more consonant to the common understanding of mankind. In short, it would be well for England, if she would copy after most of our judicial reforms, so far as they may not be inconsistent with the frame and policy of her constitution; and it is, no doubt, a very great compliment to the wisdom of our predecessors that there is a marvellous coincidence between the reforms projected in that country by her ablest men, and those which have been so generally adopted among us. But how very uncandid or absurd it is in those who recommend to us the transferring, or rather the transformation, of our whole law into one great statute, to argue from the abuses, redundancies and imperfections of the English system. Yet this is a topic of declamation, for argument it cannot be called, perpetually insisted on by the advocates of Codification. They express themselves upon the subject of our law, precisely as if they were holding forth to a rad

* Bristow vs. Wright, Douglas (or Cowper)-a case which is not law here cessante ratione, &c.

ical meeting in London. Feudal barbarism, especially, is forever in their mouths, just as if every word of Littleton were as much the law now, as when he wrote-just as if the learning of the year-books were not almost entirely obsolete among usjust as if the whole law of contracts-beyond all comparison the most important part of our jurisprudence as of every other— covering such an immense field, and branching out into such infinite ramifications, were not either derived through Bracton and the old writers, and since, through Lord Mansfield, and other great judges from the Justinian collection, or from the enlightened commercial policy and opinions of an advanced state of society, and were not, strictly speaking, a part of the jus gentium of eultivated nations!

The truth is, that the only department of the law in which the least trace of feudal doctrine is visible, is the learning of remainders, escheats and a few other the like subjects. Even with these, its connexion is slight and indirect. It is not at all necessary that one should be a profound feodist to understand them perfectly well for most practical purposes; as is proved by the admitted fact, that Lord Coke was very little versed in the book of Fiefs. To be sure, to know the grounds and reasons of the law-to feel strong in a new case, and to be able to go, with a firm tread, beyond the footsteps of our technical predecessors, it is an advantage to have meditated upon this old learning-to have drunk at its fountain-head, and have traced its course through the different doctrines with which it has mingled. And, furthermore, we venture to affirm, that the branch of our law, which is, of all others, the best settled and most systematic-in which there is least excuse for being wrong, and a counsellor ought to be able to advise his client with the greatest confidence-in a word, in which jurisprudence most displays its boasted approach to the exactness and certainty of demonstrative science, is precisely this. Fearne's book is the most satisfactory volume, and one of the clearest, in a lawyer's library. We may not always think the policy of a given rule good or reasonable-but about the rules themselves nobody, who will be at the pains of following him through his masterly criticisms upon cases, can entertain any doubts. We speak now more particularly in reference to deeds, as to which we see principles applied in all their rigour-because in the case of wills, the English judges, by endeavouring to reconcile the inflexible rules of a feodal conveyance, with the principle that the intention of the testator should be the law of the testament, did involve themselves in much confusion and perplexity. The statute of 1824, restored our law to its primitive simpli