new law books. Studies in History and Jurisprudence. By James Bryce, D. C.L. New York : Oxford University Press, American Branch. 1901. Cloth : $3.50. (xxiii -f- 926 pp.) This is a revision of lectures and magazine articles representing the occasional labors of many years. The titles are : — The Roman Empire and the British Empire in India; The Extension of Roman and English Law throughout the World; Flexible and Rigid Constitutions; The Action of Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces on Political Constitutions; Primitive Iceland; The Constitution of the United States as seen in the Past; Two South African Constitutions; The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia; Obedience; The Nature of Sovereignty; The Law of Nature; The Methods of Legal Science; The Relations of Law and Religion; Methods of Law-making in Rome and in England; The History of Le gal Development at Rome and in England; Marriage and Divorce in Roman and in English Law; The Academical Study of the Civil Law ary Regius (Inaugural 25, 1871, Professorship Lecture, on entering delivered of on Civil the at Oxford, Law) duties; FebruofLegal the I
Studies in the University of Oxford (Valedic tory Lecture, delivered on resigning the Regius Professorship of Civil Law at Oxford, June 20, 1893)The book was not made for professional readers exclusively. Indeed, the absence of technical language indicates clearly that the lay reader was chiefly in the author's mind. This is natural enough, in view of the fact that the pieces of work here revised were originally addressed to popular audiences, and not to bodies of lawyers or of law students. Yet the professional reader, though noticing that the style is diffuse, and that the information con veyed is consequently considerably less than one is accustomed to find in so many pages, may well enjoy these discussions as, in effect, a series of leisurely by-paths, starting from the law — though not too obviously — and return ing to the law — though not too swiftly. We find here, in fact, the suggestive and entertain ing discourses of a man who is acquainted with law, but not fatally attached to it, and who is consciously most at home when dealing with
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questions of statesmanship and with broad generalizations of history. The author's taste for statesmanship is clearly the thread that binds together most of these studies; and since the appearance of the author's masterpiece, "The American Commonwealth," no one need say that whatever Mr. Bryce writes upon the history and theory of government is well worth reading. To the American interested in constitutional questions, the most attractive of the essays are those on Flexible and Rigid Constitutions, The Action of Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces on Political Constitutions, and The Constitution of the United States as seen in the Past. To such Americans, however, as are lawyers rather than statesmen, the chief interest and timeliness of the book must seem to be found in the essays on The Extension of Roman and English Law throughout the World, Methods of Law-making in Rome and in England, The History of Legal Development at Rome and in England, and Marriage and Divorce in Roman and in Eng lish Law. Nothing but the French and Indian War and the Louisiana Purchase prevented the Roman Law from being the mother system for the greater part of North America; and by the approaching centennial celebration of the Louisiana Purchase this fact is just now brought home to American lawyers. Further, the insular possessions recently acquired by the United States, as well as the increasingly intimate rela tions of this nation with the business and politics of Cuba, Central America, and South America, bring to the American lawyer's mind in a very prac tical way the fact that the Anglo-American Law andthe Roman Lawhavenot yet divided the earth between them with such clearness and finality as to render it practicable for the person skilled in one system to ignore the existence of the other. From this same point of view it is interesting to read the two lectures with which the books ends, and in which the author discusses the value of Roman Law to the English lawyer. A Manual of the Principles of Equitv. By John GeorgeIndermaur. Barber. 1902. Fifth (xxxii Edition. + 574 London pp.) : This treatise is written for students; therefore, the author strives to give plain and definite statements so that the student may grasp the
