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voluntarily to adopt them. Adrian's edict was called perpetual because it was not left to the will of any prætor to adopt or reject it, but was neceflarily transferred together with the office, and was regarded by each fucceeding magiftrate as a code of invariable and perpetual authority *."

The next object of attention is the high priesthood, which was an office of too much importance to be trufted in any other than imperial hands. One of its numerous privileges was the prefidency of the facred college, the repofitory of the jus pontificium, whofe bufinefs related principally to adoptions, marriages, teftaments, burials, oaths, vows, confecrations, digefting the annals, regulating the calendar, appointing the dies fafti and nefafti, and adjusting the forms of juridical proceedings.

The lex regia, which was firft employed as a term in the age of the Antonines, but in reality was exercifed without any appropriated title many years before, induces our author to fpeak of Auguftus, and the means by which he acquired the various powers, ufually lodged in the hands of the fenate. The following remarks fhow the judgment of the author, and his political knowlege of that period.

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Perhaps the government of Rome, during the last years of Auguftus, may be confidered as fomething analogous to that of England, at the beginning of the feventeenth century, a fimple and unmixed monarchy, whofe popular affemblies were thought to form only the ornament of the fabric without being in any degree effential to its exiftence. At least this feems to have been a prevailing idea among the beft writers of those times, who defcribe it as a prerogative government, where book law in moft cafes yielded to lex loquens, and where whatever was done by the king, with the advice of his privy council, was looked upons done in fact by the king's abfolute power." A very ftriking defcription of the principal features of Roman polity, particularly of thofe new arrangements which had taken place under Auguftus, between the fenate, the emperor, and the council. There is therefore a manifeft inconfistency in thofe writers who attempt to defcribe the conftitution of the Roman ftate as immaterially affected by this revolution. They tell us that the image of the old republic is very discernible in the perfon of the emperor; that as he did not profefs to be,

* De Ortu, &c. cap. 38. The ufe of the word perpetuum in the fenfe in which it is here applied in the former cafe is not uncommon in the best writers. Cicero, more than once, has oratio perpetua. Cæfar, De Bello Gallico. lib. 7. cap. 57. Palus perpetua. And Terence in, the Hecyra, act 1. fcen. 2. v. 12. makes Philotus fay

"Biennium ibi perpetuum mifera illum tuli." In all these instances it fignifiés uninterrupted continuation, within certain bounds,'

neither

neither in fact ought he to be, confidered as abfolute fovereign of that mighty empire; that he held only a temporary, delegated power, which could be at pleasure refumed by thofe from whom he had received it, and that his power did not, confist in his fingle will and authority as fupreme, but was compofed of the various fpecies of duties and prerogatives annexed to the different offices in the republic, which inftead of being feparately exercifed as formerly, were then united in the perfon of the emperor. But furely this very circumftance is fufficient to prove to us what was the nature and extent of his authority, and to convince us that (however artfully gloffed over). the power of Auguftus was as abfolute and extenfive as any which the most ambitious of his fucceffors ever enjoyed. The following remark of lord Shaftesbury places this fubject in fo true a light, and is expreffed with fo much elegance, that I fhall make no apology for fubjoining it at length. It was the friendship of Mæcenas, which turned a prince, naturally cruel and barbarous, to the love and courtship of the Mufes. These tutoreffes formed in their royal pupil a new nature. They taught him how te charm mankind. They were more to him than his arms or military virtue; and, more than Fortune herfelf, affifted him in his greatnefs, and made his ufurped dominion fo enchanting to the world that it could fee without regret its chains of bondage firmly rivetted. The corrupting fweets of fuch a poisonous government were not indeed long lived. The bitter foon fucceeded and in the iffue, the world was forced to bear with patience those natural and genuine tyrants who fucceeded to this fpacious machine of arbitrary and univérfal power."

The next note is chiefly on the difference between the laws of the eastern and western empire. Thofe of the latter, in the most diffolute reigns, are founded on equity, and expreffed with an elegant precifion. This was owing to the emperor's trufting the legislative power to the civilians and council, who happily were either lefs fubject to temptation, or better enabled 'to refift the general depravity.

The eighth note is a learned account of the different feminaries for teaching legal knowlege, and the disciplines obferved in them. A great part of this note is new, and the whole is clear and well arranged. It has afforded us much inAtruction; and we think that the author might enlarge this outline with great advantage.

The ninth is on the language of the law about, and after, the age of the Antonines, when it was refined with fingular care; for it ftill retained fome of its stiffness, and the ruft of antiquity. This note contains alfo fome account of thofe celebrated civilians Papinian, Paulus, and Ulpian.

The next fubject is on the fate of the civil law after the Gothic conqueft. Our author fuppofes that it neither pre

vailed in its original purity, nor was quite loft: it more pro bably was gradually intermixed with the laws of the victors, and loft its value in proportion as it was contaminated by bar, barous cuftoms.

From the whole of what has been advanced, the following conclufions may, I think, be drawn with a tolerable degree of certainty. That during the fifth century, and prior to the exe iftence of any written code among the barbarians, the Roman laws were generally admitted and confidered by them as of very high authority that they differed from the national inftitutions which the invaders brought with them into their new fettlements, in having an abfolute and univerfal influence, whereas the Gothic laws were merely conditional, and confined to fome particular diftricts that in confequence of those revolutions which happened in the fixth century, particularly the introduction of the Salic, Ripuarian, and Vifigothic codes, the laws of Theodofius loft much of their authority, though the use of them was ftill permitted to the fubjects of the empire dwelling in the provinces; and even the Goths themselves would frequently appeal to them, in preference to all other foreign laws, on points where their own were filent or indecifive and that, notwithstanding the ftrong prohibitions under which they latterly appear to have laboured, it can fcarcely be afferted that they were ever thoroughly extinguished; fince the Gothicegiflators, aware of their extraordinary excellence, transferred to large a portion of them into their own compilations, that they effectually preserved the spirit of the Roman law, thought they debased its form, and nominally denied its authority.'

The next note is on the temporary reftitution of law and letters under Theodoric, and includes a flight sketch of his life. The two laft contain fome account of the decline of the Juftinian code, its lofs, and fubfequent recovery; but our article is too far extended to enable us to enlarge on the fubject.

We need scarcely add, that we think this a valuable compendium of the Roman law; it difplays the elegance of the scholar, with the accuracy of the lawyer: we shall receive with pleasure the second part of the work.

Letters on the Elements of Botany. Addreffed to a Lady. By the celebrated F. J. Rouffeau. Tranflated into English, with Notes, and Twenty-four additional Letters, fully explaining the Syftem of Linnæus. By Thomas Martyn, B. D. 8vo. 75. in Boards. White.

EVERY one who teaches, and every one who endeavours to ftudy botany, will feel the want of an elementary treatise. The common elements are little more than nomenclatures, and

the

the learner, who wishes to attain a fcience, finds himself in a labyrinth of words, of which he cannot fee the end, or difcern the ufe: Rouffeau followed a different plan; and many lecturers purfue one, which resembles it. They begin with fhowing and examining the great families, or those natural claffes, which the untutored obferver could not fail of forming from the most fuperficial view.

• What books can you recommend, that inay enable me to acquire a competent knowledge of botany? is a question that has frequently been asked me. To the learned I can readily anfwer, the works of Linnæus alone will furnish you with all the knowledge you have occafion for, or if they are deficient in any point, will refer you to other authors, where you may have every fatisfaction that books can give you. But I am not very folicitous to relieve thefe learned gentlemen from their embarraffment; they have refources enough, and know how to help themfelves. As to the unlearned, if I were to fend them to the translations of Linnæus's works, they would only find themfelves bewildered in an inextricable labyrinth of unintelligible terms, and would only reap difgust from a study that is perhaps more capable of affording pleafure than any other. If I were to bid them fit down, and ftudy their grammar regularly; fo dry and forbidding an outfet might difcourage the greater number; and few would enter the temple through a veftibule of fo unpromifing an appearance. A language however must be acquired; but then it may be done gradually; and the tedium of it may in fome meafure be relieved by carrying on at the fame time a study of facts, and the philofophy of nature. This feems to have been Rouffeau's idea, and I have endeavoured not to lofe fight of it, in my continuation of his eight ingenious letters."

These were the objects of Rouffeau and his continuator, and they have attained them with great fuccefs. The elements of the fcience are explained with clearness and fimplicity; the terms are fo judiciously scattered, that they are learned with ease, while the ftudent acquires information in the science itself; and the language, free and unembarrassed by affected or injudicious ornament, is raised above didactic dulnefs, by the addition of pleafing circumstances, not foreign to the fubject. The fyftem of Linnæus is confidered as floral only, and we have not the flightest hint of the fexual diftinétions: the words andria, and gynia, are fuppofed to refer to the parts of a flower, not to the organs of an animated being. We need not add, that this mode of explanation meets with our fulleft approbation; not that we oppose the sexual fyftem, but because it has no connection with the elements, and cannot always be explained with propriety.

The

The tranflation from Rouffeau is executed with peculiar neatness, and the notes are intended to correct some mistakes, or to explain what may not appear clear. The eight Letters of this author extend only to the great families, with an Introduction, containing an exact, and, with the affiftance of Mr. Martyn's notes, a correct history of botany. We shall felect a part from Mr. Rouffeau, which gives a proper view of his own plan.

I comprehend, (comprehend is not the beft word in this fituation) that you may not be pleafed at taking fo much pains, without knowing the names of the plants which you examine. But I own fairly, that it did not enter into my plan, to fpare you that little chagrin. It is pretended that botany is merely a fcience of words, which only exercifes the memory, and teaches the names of plants. For my part, I know not any reasonable study, which is a mere fcience of words; and to which of thefe fhall we give the name of botanift, to him who has a name or a phrafe ready when he fees a plant, but without knowing any thing of its ftructure; or to him, who being well acquainted with this fructure, is ignorant nevertheless of the arbitrary name which the plant has in this or that country? If we give our children nothing but an amufing employment, we lofe the beft half of our defign, which is, at the fame time that we amufe them, to exercife their understandings, and to accuftom them to attention. Before we teach them to name what they fee, let us begin by teaching them how to fee. This fcience, which is forgot in all forts of education, should make the most important part of it. I can never repeat it often enough, teach them not to pay themfelves in words, nor to think they know any thing of what is merely laid up in their memory.

However, not to play the rogue with you too much, I give 'you the names of fome plants, with which you may easily verify my defcriptions, by caufing them to be shown you. For inftance, if you cannot find a white dead-nettle, when you are reading the analysis of the labiate or ringent flowers; you have nothing to do but to fend to an herborilt for it fresh gathered, to apply my defcription to the flower, and then having examined the other parts of the plant, in the manner which I fhall hereafter point out, you will be infinitely better acquainted with the white dead-nettle, than the herborist who furnished you with it will ever be during his whole life; in a little time however we thall learn how to do without the herborist: but firft we must finish the examination of our tribes; and now I come to the fifth, which at this time is in full fructification.'

The tribes of plants, examined by Rouffeau, are the Liliaceous, the Cruciform, Papilionaceous, Labiate, Ringent, Perfonate, and Umbellate, the compound, the fruit-trees, or the

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