the fair expansion of all the virtues and talents of so populous a State, under peaceful forms, and without making encroachments upon others.

From this cause arose the anxiety of the Roman plebs for the possession of the Ager Romanus,-the rights which landed property could alone confer, and which embraced the most important privileges of a Roman citizen.* This gave their peculiar violence and acrimony to the perpetual struggles and turbulent attempts for the passage of the Agrarian laws, as landed property furnished the only doorway to the attainment of office in the State, or of military command. It was also the principal instrument in the attainment of wealth; and after gold the Roman lusted with a feverish avidity, which ever cried, "more--more." Hence, too, the litigiousness of the forum,-the bitter disputes about property,-and that frequent recurrence to the Courts, which produced in the end the finished, systematic and scientific elegance of the indestructible Roman Law.t

But the early jurisprudence of Rome was as far from meriting the praises justly bestowed upon its maturity, as it was from possessing the same character and spirit. Law, like every thing else, was entwined with some of the infinite ramifications of the religious system. The appointment of the decemvirs was an effort to have the laws of the country rendered public, by substituting a written code for the lex non scripta, which alone prevailed before. The Twelve Tables form the basis of all the subsequent jurisprudence, but they did not have the full effect anticipated, for, by leaving the determination of the dies fasti and the actiones to the priestly colleges, the laws were under their exclusive jurisdiction, as late as the day of Cn. Flavius, A. U. C. 440. Down to the same period, their knowledge was confined to the aristocracy; and their execution remained in the hands

"Tous les droits étaient compris sous un seul mot: Ager Romanus.” Michelet, Hist. Rép. Rom. liv. 1, c. 2; but on this subject and the Agrarian Laws, see the whole chapter. Niebuhr. Hist. Rom.; Boyd. App. Adams' Rom. Ant.; Anthon's Arch. Dict. Tit. "Agr. Leges."

"Romanos injustos, profunda avaritia,"-speech of Jugurtha to Bocchus. Sall. Bell. Jug. c. lxxxi. "Romæ omnia venalia esse," c. viii., cf. c. xxxv. "Sapientia jubet augere opes, amplificare divitias, proferre fines," Cic. De Rep. lib. iii., c. xii., cf. c. xiii. See the avarice of Cato, depicted in Michelet, cited above; of Brutus-the fancied Puritan-in Cicero's Letters.

F. C. de Savigny. Hist. du Droit Romain, etc., and the magnificent article of the lamented Hugh S. Legaré on the Civil Law, in the New-York Review.

of the patricians until the passage of the Lex Sempronia of C. Gracchus, A. U. C. 631, which gave it to the Equites. Thus, the patricians had another rod of authority for perpetuating the subjection of the commons:* and the privilege of acquainting themselves with the laws was accordingly demanded by the plebeians, from the times of Canuleiust to those of Flavius.

As the early Roman law was aristocratic and sacerdotal, it partook of the incidents which characterized the dominant political and religious systems. From a purely formal superstition, it borrowed its precise and symbolical ceremonies, its sacred and inviolate character, and the oracular sanctityt of its prescriptions. From the patricians it received its highly aristocratic complexion,-its fixed and permanent decrees, (lex ita scripta est,)-its despotic tyranny over all,-though in the earlier periods, the aristocracy might be regarded as exempted from its oppressions, for the execution of the laws being in their hands, their principal aim was to grind the faces of the people therewith, and not to turn them against each other.

The marked features of the jurisprudence of the Republic were these: its empirical and practical character,-its symbolical form,—its inflexible rigidity,--the strict obedience to the letter, and exclusion of the spirit or equity,-its oracular expression-its imperative air-its tyranny over the plebsits sanctity and inviolability,—and, above all, its marked subservience to the religious system of Rome.

We are here again induced by the phenomena of the Roman polity, to turn our eyes to the Papal government, that we may trace in it a similar connexion of religion and law, attended with a similar subjection of the private affairs of men, to the irresponsible despotism of an hierarchical tribunal. The thirst for universal empire has never abandoned Rome, the means employed for its acquisition have been modified rather than changed.

*Cic. De Orat. lib. i., c. xli. § 186. Pro L. Murena, c. xi. § 25.

† A. U. C. 310, Liv. lib. iv., c. iii. $9. Eighteen years before, the same attempt had been made by Terentillus Arsa. Liv. lib. iii., c. ix. § 5. Michelet, Hist. Rép. Rom. lib. i., c. iii.

The Twelve Tables are learnt "ut carmen necessarium." Cic. De Legg. lib. ii,, c. xxiii. § 59. cf. Liv. i., c. xxvi. § 6, x., c. xli., § 3, xxxi., c. xvii. § 9, xxxix. c. xv. § 1, c. xviii. § 3.

ᾗ ἐνθουσιασμὸς ἐν θεός. Vide Platon. Jo. c. v.

God in man.

Hitherto we have not discovered, in our examination of the Roman character, a single element whose point d'appui was beyond the sphere of a selfish humanity. Even the Roman mythology is of deliberate human composition,-an anomalous monster of State machinery,—it is wholly devoid of any irradiation, any enthusiasm* from above. The law is strict and practical, but it is eminently human,-it has but one measure, which never bends to circumstances, and cannot be altered in any particular by the application of a general equity. The political system is admirably compacted for the purposes of conquest, exaction and continual aggrandizement, but not for the development of the social virtues. It was capable of producing statesmen, orators, soldiers, but it gave birth to nothing that could be dignified with the name of chivalry. It is a very significant fact, that the Romans alone, of all people, never had an heroic age. The story of Eneas is Greek throughout,-the legends of Coriolanus and Cincinnatus, the fictions of a later day :† and as for Romulus and Numa, thoroughly prosaic as were their exploits, they were far surpassed by the deeds of the Scipios, and the legislation of a countless tribe of nameless citizens. There is nothing in Roman history to remind you of that singular affinity to a spiritual world, which gives the greatest beauty to our frail humanity: but every thing at Rome manifests man as man, and as nothing more than man. The virtues of practical and political life may there be found finely developed and in colossal proportions; but this affects the size and not the character of the figure. The tenderness of the heart, the poetry of existence,-the soul of humanity,— was entirely wanting in Rome.

But not only in the external developments of the active world, or the character of the inner man, was this deficiency observable. The Romans were utterly unable to create the works of the spirit,-poetry, literature, the arts. The absence of all enthusiasm excluded, at the same time, all ideal creation. The architectural remains of Rome, which have elicited the wonder or admiration of all succeeding ages, were of Pelasgian, Etruscant or Greek origin. The Cloaca

"Romanos injustos, profunda avaritia, communis omnium hostis esse: eamdem illis caussam belli cum Boccho habere quam secum et cum aliis gentibus uti quisque opulentissimus videatur, ita Romanis hostem fore." Sall. Bell. Jug. c. lxxxi.

+ Niebuhr's History of Rome.

The Etruscan was, perhaps, in reality Pelasgian.

Maxima was Pelasgian: the Pantheon, the Tomb of Hadrian, the Columns of Trajan and of Antonine were Greek. Not that they were built by Greek artists, but their spirit refers them to the creation or imitation of those styles. For the three hundred and ten Grecian artists, enumerated in the Tables of Sillig,* as having flourished between the foundation of Rome and the birth of Christ, the Romans can exhibit only sixteen in the same period, and most of these were of foreign birth.

But the Romans were fully as deficient in a national literature. The circumstances under which they lived were unfavorable to its growth. That the foundations were laid previous to Ennius and the Scipios, there can be no doubt: but the spurious progeny, hatched by a servile imitation of Greek models, completely overlaid and obliterated all that had preceded that pernicious era. The earlier poets and historians were scarcely read, and were certainly slighted by Cicero, Horace, and the later Romans. But of their literature we shall say no more, in this place, than that what has come down to us was, in no respect, original. We have not space left for its detailed examination: we have already expressed our own views upon it; and shall, therefore, pass over it, to make a few remarks upon the language of Rome.

The Romans borrowed every thing from abroad,—rites, ceremonies, religion, offices, amusements, implements of war, and even their language.** The Lingua Latina was as syncretistic as their mythology: and did not receive its per

* Prefixed to his Catalogus Artificum.

+ The decemvirs even passed laws against poets, which were partially revived by Sylla. Montesquieu. Espr. des Lois. liv. vi., c. xv.

We possess only fragments or names of the authors of the true Roman literature. A full historical commentary upon Horace's Epistle to Augustus, (Hor. ii., Epist. 1.) would elucidate this whole subject. Anthon, in his larger edition of Horace, is able but not sufficient.

§ "Cicero despised the ancient literature of his country, and knew it only from hearsay." Niebuhr. Int. Rom. Hist. vol. 4, p. 23. Horace is unjust and injudicious in the Epistle to Augustus, and that to the Pisos. "Servius seems to have never seen the work of Nævius." Niebuhr. sup. cit. p. 25; Hor. 2, Ep. 1, 53, requires correction. Neither Bentley's reading, nor the common one, is satisfactory.

As early as Fabius Pictor and Cincius Alimentus, "the literature of Rome was essentially a Greek one." Niebuhr. Int. Rom. Hist. Lect. 5, vol. 4, p. 25.

TS. Q. R. vol. ii., pp. 504-16.

** Taylor's Nat. Hist. Soc. vol. 2, p. 128, note. His information is obtained from Athenæus. lib. 6, § 106-lib. 10, § 24.

fect form until polished by the labours of Cicero. The Latin spoken and written at the end of the second Punic war, was as different from that of the Ciceronian and Augustan ages, as the French of Rabelais from that of the siècle de Louis XIV., or the antique dialect of Chaucer from the English of Addison and Pope.* And, if we go back further, the earlier annals of the Pontiffs, the old treaties of the Republic, the language of the statutes, and the remnants of antiquated songs, were almost unintelligible to the contemporaries of Livy and Virgil. The classic Latin was more than half Greek it derived its form, its features, its sentiment, and the greater part of its vocabulary, from Greece. Ennius boasted that he had fed the Romans on Greek and thought to pay a compliment to the countrymen of the Scipios by calling them Greeks. But the Romans drew the component parts of their tongue, not from this one source, but from all the many races which had been settled in Italy from the advent of Evander,-Pelasgians, Oscans, Sabines, Etruscans, and, perhaps, even Celts. According to the times when these were intermixed, and the proportions in which the amalgamation were the dissimilarities of their tongue. Morhofius divides the eras of the Latin language into Prisca, Latina, Romana, Mixta.* The last of these is the one employed by the classic writers. The Twelve Tables, the old Fœdera, the ancient laws, the senatus-consultum de Bacchanalibus, may be referred to the Romana: the hymn of the Fratres Arvales to the Latina. It would be hazardous to assert that we have any remains of the Lingua Prisca. It should be observed, however, that as early as A. D. 1440, Leonardo Arretino maintained against Franciscus Floridus Sabinus, that the Latin of the poets, orators, historians, etc.,

**

* Compare Niebuhr. Int. Hist. Rom. Lect. 6, vol. 4, p. 42.

+ The hymn of the Fratres Arvales has baffled the skill of scholars. The senatus consultum against the Bacchanalians, A. U. C. 568, shows the variance from classic Latin at that period.

+ Quintil. Inst. Or. lib. 1, c. 5, § 58. Dionys. Hal. Ant. lib. i. Varro De L. L. lib. 9. Morhof, De Pat. Liv. c. 6. Michelet, Hist. Rép. Rom. liv. 2, c. 6. Niebuhr. Int. Hist. Rom. Lect. 6, vol. 4, p. 42.

"Ennius gloriatur se pavisse Romanos Græca lingua." Apud Festum, lib. x. "Antiquissimi Poetæ et Oratores semi-Græci erant." Suetonius. cit. Morhofius.

Festus quoted by Michelet. Hist. Rép. Rom. liv. 2, c. 6, note.

An expression in Servius, on Virg. Æn. lib. 7. Sundry passages in Quintillian, and many Latin words, lead us to this inference.

** Morhofius De Pat. Liv. c. 6. The whole chapter is a tractatus luculentissimus.