tion. The different courts of England, and of the several States of the union, will pronounce their decisions upon the points that require them, and these decisions will be reported, and added, in part or in whole, to the library of the lawyer. Can any measure, private or public, prevent all this from existing? As easily might the press be muzzled at once, and men be restricted from all freedom of thought and of action. But suppose the legislature of any State were, by one fulminating decree, to prohibit all reference in the courts, to every English work of law; and, to extend the measure somewhat farther, to proscribe the Reports of all the other States. What words could adequately describe the folly and ignorance which should originate such a statute, or the confusion and obscurity that would settle over the labors of the bench and the bar, posterior to its enactment? The terms employed to characterize the destruction of the Alexandrian library, or the devastations of the Vandals, would be feeble and imperfect; for in the case supposed, the ignorance would be willful, the eye would be resolutely shut against the light which had previously been its guide. Where also would be the comity, the decent respect to the sister republics, in such an exclusion? But if this proceeding is to be adopted by one State, let it be the course of all the States: and then we shall have the spectacle of twenty-four kindred governments, the same in origin, institutions, laws, language and character, each stamping, by solemn legislative acts, disgrace and exile from their tribunals, upon the counterpart to all that was valuable among themselves. Since then the evil so far as it exists, is unavoidable, let it be treated as such: to attempt its extirpation is as idle, as that of arresting the current of intellectual effort. But the evil is far less, in fact, than is represented. No decisions of the English courts, pronounced since 1776, have any authority in our own tribunals. As soon as our country became independent, so soon, of course, did our judges cease to acknowledge the obligatory nature of English precedents. The consequence is, that no English law books which have been since published, and none of the doctrines which they contain, (and these form more than a moiety of the whole number ever published,) have the least binding influence upon an American judge. Their usefulness is indeed great, but it depends upon other considerations. as the subsequent decisions have followed those which are anterior, so far as they are sound expositions of new cases, so far as they throw light upon similar points arising in our courts; so far may they, and elementary treatises for the same reasons, be consulted with advantage. Still their influence is addressed solely to judicial reason and discretion: where these receive conviction, it is admitted; where they do not, it is rejected. But as a farther answer we remark, that there are now in the libraries of the profession, works of a similar nature to that of the contemplated code, VOL. II.

8

So far

and works, which without question, are far more valuable. We allude to the Abridgments of Viner and Bacon, and to the Digest of Comyn. The first of these works is distinguished for its extraordinary fullness and accuracy; and the other two are the productions of Gilbert and Comyn, judges of pre-eminent ability and learning. All of them contain an immense mass of legal knowledge, arranged in a logical and perspicuous manner, and signally marked by its richness and precision. Such is the analysis, and such the execution, especially of the Digest of Comyn, that any well read lawyer can in a few moments direct his eye to the full, yet condensed statement of the law, upon the point in question. It is no doubt true, that some of the titles in these great works are of trifling importance to the American lawyer, and that various principles there specified, have been modified or overruled; but a competent share of learning and discrimination will enable him to avoid most of these difficulties-difficulties, which are to some extent inseparable from the nature of the works themselves, and of the science of which they treat. Taking them as they are however we appeal to the profession at large, whether any code could furnish the same assistance to their investigations; or, to put the question in another form, could contain so faithful and complete a condensation of the law? As a concluding answer, we observe, that the course to be pursued, as the least obnoxious to all the embarrassments which have been noticed, is the course described in a preceding page, as adopted by the student and the lawyer, in acquiring the requisite knowledge of his profession, and as that which is adopted in every other branch of study. Standard works are to be selected as the proper guides, which shall tend to fix the knowledge of elementary doctrines in the mind; and when these have been sufficiently digested, the Reports most valuable for their fidelity and authority are to be read. Pursuing this plan, and applying, as soon as his professional duties demand, his acquisitions to practice; the young lawyer, if possessed of sound sense and industrious habits, may safely trust himself to his own direction, without the fear of meeting any difficulties, too formidable to be overcome. He will at times be perplexed by apparent contradictions and inconsistencies, be occasionally at a loss for some principle or case to regulate the one under examination, and not always feel convinced of the reasonableness of the law, as he finds it settled. Still more will he feel inconvenience from the faint impressions, which the study of so complex and abstract a science, leaves upon his memory. Yet amid all this perplexity and embarrassment, he may find sufficient encouragement, from considerations similar to those suggested in the advice of Coke and Blackstone: "Albeit the student shall not at any one day, do what he can, reach to the full meaning of all that is here laid down, yet let him no way discourage himself,

but proceed; for on some other day, in some other place, or perhaps upon a second perusal of the same, his doubts will be probably removed."

Should the reasonings and facts, which have formed the basis of the preceding argument against the adoption of a written code, be admitted to possess the force which has been here ascribed to them, the question will require no farther discussion. But there still remains unnoticed a consideration, upon which much stress has been laid. It is asserted that codes, substantially the same with the one proposed, have been actually framed; and we are referred to the Civil Law as compiled by the order of Justinian, to the Code Napoleon, and to the Constitution of the United States; and it is strenuously contended, that what has been accomplished "elsewhere, may be done in our own country. A moment's inquiry, however, will suffice to show, that, so far from finding an example in these cases, we are not furnished with the remotest analogy. The Civil Law, as digested by Tribonian and his associates, it is well known, consists of the Institutes, the Pandects, the Code, and the Novels. Of these, the Code and the Novels are merely a succession of imperial constitutions or edicts, arranged in their proper order, and which are precisely similar, as a collection of laws, to the English Statutes at large. The Pandects are a compilation of the opinions of eminent Roman lawyers, in fifty books; and not differing in substance from a collection of opinions, given by English or American lawyers, (supposing such to be made,) upon hypothetical or controverted points. The Institutes have some resemblance to the work of Littleton on Tenures, and upon which Lord Coke has written his voluminous commentary. What analogy exists between this heterogeneous body of laws and the code proposed? The selection of the Code Napoleon is equally unfortunate, as an illustration. Before the French revolution, the provinces, into which France was divided, were governed each by its respective written code, so that from eighty to a hundred different systems of laws, each founded upon the peculiar local usages and customs of the province where it prevailed, were in force in that kingdom. When the Revolution had first thrown off this intolerable burden, and all these provinces and petty spheres of jurisdiction, bad been afterwards merged in one immense national domain; the resistless power of Napoleon carried into universal adoption and operation, the code, which his sound policy had previously caused to be compiled. The total diversity and contrast of circumstances between the two cases, is perceivable at a single glance. In England, and in the United States, there is but one uniform and harmonious body of laws; in France, the number of the codes, of codes too producing confusion, and doubt, and inconsistency, without measure and without end, was scarcely equaled

by that of the provinces: in our own country, the measure is to be the result of peaceful legislation; in France, the horrors of its revolution prepared the way, for what the iron despotism of Napoleon only could accomplish. But this justly celebrated production has been followed by far less precision and certainty in its exposition, and has given far less satisfaction throughout the nation, than are generally ascribed to it. We have received information, from a source to which great credit is due, that much complaint exists in France, respecting the effects of its operation; and in an edition of the Code Civil, one of the five divisions of the Code Napoleon, with the annotations of J. B. Sirey, published at Paris, in 1821-a period of not seventeen years from its first promulgation,― the decisions of the higher tribunals, and the decrees, both explanatory of its successive provisions, already amount to a mass of matter, which is five times as great as that of the text itself. Such results afford but little recommendation to the policy of codification in the United States. Still less support is derivable from the Constitution of the United States. What possible resemblance can be traced, between the proposed code and this instrument? It is simply a collection of political provisions and principles, a part of which are also common to the British constitution, while a part are peculiar to our own institutions and polity. To call such a collection a code, is a gross misapplication of language. As well might the term be applied to a bill of rights, or a manual of parliamentary practice.

Before dismissing the subject, it will be necessary briefly to examine, how far the preceding considerations bear upon the expediency of framing a code of penal law. This important branch of our jurisprudence, derives its existence and character from the common law. Its doctrines respecting crimes and punishments, the legal proceedings with which they are connected, and its rules of evidence, all flow from the same great fountain. Its history is the same in its nature with that, which has been concisely sketched in our preceding pages. Its essential principles are remarkably precise and explicit, its rules of procedure are simple and impartial, and all its precedents and details may be comprised within a moderate number of volumes. Like the other branches of English law, it has received a general recognition in the United States, but its list of crimes and punishments has been essentially changed, or modified, by the humane policy which regulates our State legislatures. The sanguinary spirit, which has given birth to so many unequal and oppressive statutes in Great Britain from her age of despotic monarchy till the present time, has never crossed the Atlantic; and the citizens of this country prize too highly their rights. of "life and limb," ever to bid it welcome. The legislative acts by which this change has been effected, have been passed at diffe

rent periods. Many of them, although treating of the same crime or penalty, are scattered through different volumes of printed laws; some of them are incautiously or inaccurately worded, and some of them are susceptible of alteration and amendment. So far then as a written penal code aims at an incorporation of different penal statutes into a single volume; so far as it proposes to arrange all acts in pari materia into order and system, by reducing them, where it may be necessary, into one statute; so far as it substitutes explicit and exact phraseology, for that which is now loose and obscure; so far as it recommends the few amendments, which may now be advisable: so far, we think, it would be a benefit to the community. But if it is to be a Legislative Digest of penal law, one which is to be framed on the same principles and adopted in the same manner, as the Code of which we have already treated at length, we think it will be liable to the same unanswerable objections. It will be radically defective in its plan, and in its execution it will create obscurity, where it was designed to illuminate it will increase the burden, which it professes to take away.

ART. IV.-REVIEW OF WILSON'S LECTURES ON THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

The Evidences of Christianity: stated in a popular and practical manner, in a Course of Lectures on the Authenticity, Credibility, Divine authority, and Inspiration of the New Testament, delivered in the Parish Church of St. Mary, Islington. BY DANIEL WILSON, A. M. Vicar. Boston: Crocker & Brewster. New York: J. Leavitt. 1829.

THE excellent author of these Lectures is not, we believe very extensively known to the public on this side of the Atlantic. His laborious and exemplary discharge of pastoral duty, in one of the most populous neighborhoods in the vicinity of London, has left him but little time to send his fame abroad, by the productions of his pen. His Travels on the Continent of Europe, which passed through three editions within a few months after their appearance in England, have not been republished in this country. His papers in the Christian Observer, a part of which appeared under the signature of D. W., cannot fail to have attracted the notice of every attentive reader of that work, for the soundness of judgment, accuracy of discrimination, and warmth of feeling, which they uniformly exhibit. Two articles especially, in the thirteen and fourteenth volumes, the one directed against the Antinomian, and the other against the Arminian errors, created no little sensation at the time of their publication in England, and have often been spoken of in this country. Mr. Wilson may now be considered, perhaps, as standing at the head of the Evangelical clergy of the English