532 Rrc'iczc's of Books Part I. deals with the laws of several ancient states : Babylon, Egypt, Phoenicia, Israel, India and Greece. In each case after a few words about the history of the country, there is a summary of portions of its law, and in one or two cases a brief statement of the influence of the law upon other systems. The discussion of the law is too short to do more than indicate the nature of the system. To put the whole law of India into thirty pages, for instance, is like drawing a completed landscape in thirty lines. All the fine discriminations, all the peculiar conceptions, all the individual atmosphere, in short, is lacking ; and it is this peculiar atmosphere of the law which for the purpose of comparative study is of most importance. The few pages which Dr. Lee devotes to a discussion of the influence of these systems upon more modern systems of law form the most suggestive and valuable portion of this part of the book. In a few pages we are told that the Babylonian law passed to the Phoenicians, and although we are warned that we have " No direct knowledge of Phoenician law " we are informed that through the Phoenicians the Baby- lonian law was carried to Greece and to Rome. The dogmatic method of Dr. Lee's discussion and the lack of constant reference to authorities detract from the value of these suggestions ; but such as they are, they seem to constitute the sole reason for being of Part I. "The Development of Jurisprudence" is almost entirely devoted to a very good discussion of the history of the Roman law. In this portion of his work Dr. Lee appears to have combined the results of the best modern scholarship with his own study and thought. He states clearly, and with sufficient fullness for his purpose, the beginnings, the develop- ment, and the content of Roman law and its final codification in the Corpus Juris. This is followed by a brief but luminous description of the origin and growth of the canon law and a quite inadequate one of the barbarian codes. " The Beginnings of modern Jurisprudence" is less satisfactory be- cause it is more fragmentary. Dr. Lee has here traced the renewal of in- terest in the Roman law from the thirteenth century, and its reception in the modern European states. Here, if anywhere, was his opportunity to fulfill the promises of his preface. The Roman law, gradually per- meating the Gothic jurisprudence of Spain, has been carried into the western and the eastern world ; the Roman-Dutch law, planted in the col- onies of the Netherlands, absorbed into the English empire, has reacted strongly on English law and colonial institutions ; and in our own time Egypt and Japan attest the debt of the modern world to Papinian. Dr. Lee, however, passes all this by and instead of it gives a rather full sketch of the reception of the Roman law into Germany and France. The last chapter in the book is devoted to a history of English law to the time of Bracton ; the ground, in fact, covered by Pollock and Maitland. In forty pages Dr. Lee cannot hope to do much with a subject illuminated by the two large volumes of these authorities ; but, as was to be expected from him, he has given an enlightened, though brief, statement of the main points in the early history of English law.
