name become a reality, and 'Insperata floruit' be written in its history, or will the dismal saying be verified, that 'the dry wood will not sprout?' What are the forces that have caused its rise? Has France made it, and can France undo it, or is there, at length, after so tame and so protracted a submission to foreign masters, a revival of the ancient hardihood that made Rome the mistress of Italy and of the world? We know that Piedmont is being drained of men, but we do not hear of any great levies in other parts of Italy. And if the men of Italy have the right qualities, is there any common ground upon which they can meet, and, with all the wisdom and resolution of which they are capable, take counsel together for the whole of Italy? Will that which has never existed as a really homogeneous and consentient nation become such now? Piedmont, we fear, will look down upon Naples, and Naples consider the Piedmontese as foreign invaders indeed, the Government of Naples (even if France should cease to intervene at Gaëta) will be the great difficulty. Lombardy, again, will grudge the heavy taxes of Piedmont. and Tuscany may be disposed to look back upon the quiet days of the Grand Dukes. If all these states can be permanently connected as one nation, in that nation will many elements of greatness be combined. It will have the fine genius of the Italians, endless physical advantages of climate, soil, and situation, and the ennobling memory of great deeds. But the process of amalgamation, to be successful, must be conducted in a cautious and conservative spirit; not by insisting upon centralisation and uniformity in all things-which is opposed to the spirit and habits of the Italian people, and hostile to true liberty everywhere - but by maintaining and extending the admirable municipal institutions which most of the Italian States already possess, and of which they are justly proud, and by taking care that the hand of the government shall not be too much felt in details. Everything that is done by a government for a people which the people are ready and willing to do for themselves, hurts their self-love, injures their capacity for exertion, and tends to alienate them from the ruling power. There are certain functions which Piedmont can best perform for Italy. The army and the diplomacy and the national policy of Italy must be governed

and conducted by the central authority, but all the domestic institutions of the different States need not be mechanically remodelled after the fashion of Piedmont. The more haste that is made to effect a fusion, the less chance there is of a firm and lasting combination. Such a combination of the different Italian States, if not wholly impossible, can only be accomplished very gradually, and by the most patient and skilful statesmanship. For the happiness of the human race we wish that such statesmanship may be found. Our hopes would be stronger than they are, if recent events would permit us to attribute to the new rulers of Italy that high sense of honour and of public morality, which affords a better qualification for command than the most consummate adroitness in council or courage in the field. Assuredly our hopes will become faint indeed, if the new nation, instead of entering the circle of the European Powers in peace and goodwill, shall employ itself in extending agitation and conspiracy, and strive, in subservience to the ambition of France, to effect its own immediate object to kindling a general war, from which, whoever may be her new masters, Italy will certainly not emerge independent. We earnestly trust that those to whom the safety of England is committed will henceforth carefully avoid compromising the name and credit of this country, by giving a sanction to enterprises with which we have no concern, and the ultimate results of which it is impossible to forsee; and that our course will be one of even and impartial amity towards all who desire our friendship, but of firm and vigilant defensive preparation against those who may seek to injure us, either by direct attack or by breaking up the great European system, which, while it was respected, secured so many years of peace and prosperity to all.1

It will be observed that in this article, written in 1861, I took in some respects too gloomy a view of the prospects of Italian unity. Now, in 1874,

I can only express my joy that my forebodings have been gloriously falsified by the event.

THE JUDGES OF ENGLAND.

'Quarterly Review,' 1866.

WE congratulate Mr. Foss on the completion of his long and arduous task, which he has performed with the accuracy of an historian and the conscientious industry of an antiquary. He has produced a work which is a biographical dictionary in itself, containing not less than 1589 lives. We confess that when we first saw the announcement of his intention to write the lives of all the Judges, we had some misgivings as to the success of his plan. Lord Chancellors and Chief Justices are men who occupy so prominent a position that their career is often interwoven with the history of their country; and some of them, like Glanville, Bacon, Coke, Clarendon, Hale, Somers, Holt, Hardwicke, Mansfield, Erskine, Eldon, have left behind them an imperishable name. But of the puisnes the great mass were mere lawyers, whose lives, even if there were materials for writing them, must be as dull and unevent. ful as those of town-clerks or aldermen. What could be said that would be worth the telling? Immersed in the routine of their daily duties-oracles of the common law, but untinctured by scholarship and unilluminated by genius-they impressed no mark on their day and generation, and passed noiselessly away; with nothing to commemorate their existence except perhaps a pompous epitaph in some village church, which attests how learned a lawyer and how forgotten

11. The Judges of England; with Miscellaneons Notices connected with the Courts at Westminster, from the time of the Conquest to the Present Time. By Edward Foss, F.S.A., of the Inner Temple. 9 vols. 8vo. London, 1864.

2. Tabula Curiales; or, Tables of the Superior Courts of Westminster Hall. Showing the Judges who sat in them from 1066 to 1864; with the Attorney

and Solicitor Generals of each reign from the Institution of those Offices. To which is prefixed an Alphabetical List of all the Judges during the same period, distinguishing the Reigns in which they flourished, and the Courts in which they sat. By Edward Foss, F.S.A., Author of The Judges of England.' London, 1864.

an individual sleeps below. Still, however, there is a natural curiosity to know all that can be told of our fellow men. It has been said that no man's life is so insignificant as not to be interesting in some degree to others; and we agree with Mr. Foss, when, speaking of the description given by Fortescue, in the reign of Henry VI., of the mode of appointing the Judges, he says:—

When we recollect that this is not the description of a new institution, but one which at the time it was written had already existed more than two centuries; and when we see, after the lapse of an additional four hundred years, that the old practice prevails at the present hour without any essential alteration; it is impossible not to be interested in the account thus given by an eye-witness; and the reader can scarcely be chargeable with romantic feelings if he acknowledges a degree of veneration towards a body with so ancient a pedigree, and the learning, integrity, and firmness of which have been rendered even brighter and more apparent by contrast with the failings of a few of its members, who at intervals during the course of ages have disgraced their position.

But the difficulty was how to get the materials for an account of these ordinary men, when the records even of the greatest events that happened during the earlier reigns of the Norman and Plantagenet Kings are so scanty. And a great number of the old Judges no doubt must be and are dismissed with the briefest and driest mention of their names and the offices they held, with the dates of their appointment. But even with regard to these, it is interesting to see the mode in which Mr. Foss has been able to fix and verify dates. Nearly one hundred and fifty charters are collected in the Monasticon, to which the names of Chancellors are attached. 'Some of these,' says Mr. Foss, are dated; and the dates of the others may be discovered with sufficient nearness from the witnesses who attest them; so that a diligent inquirer, even without other aid, may make a considerable advance in ascertaining the order of their succession, and in connection with other known facts, almost the date of their appointments.'

It must indeed have been a task of no ordinary difficulty to obtain correct information as to the career of men so many of whom are now utterly unknown. But we are bound to say that Mr. Foss seems to have left no stone unturned in his patient and exhaustive search. Every possible source of information has been laid under contribution. Charters and deeds, and rolls and fines, family archives and monuments and tombstones, have all been ransacked by him with as much

diligence as if he were investigating great problems of history; and sometimes we are disposed to regret that such industry and acuteness have been lavished upon subjects where the value of the result bears so little proportion to the zeal of the inquiry. But whatever is worth doing is worth doing well; and accuracy in small matters is a guarantee for accuracy in things of greater moment. The man who hunts out a date in the nooks and corners of obscure records and mouldering parchments with as much eagerness as a Dutch burgomaster, according to Sydney Smith, hunts out a rat in a dyke lest it should flood a province, is not likely to take facts on trust, and make scissors and paste supply the place of a critical examination of original authorities.

The plan adopted is, we think, judicious and convenient, Each reign is kept separate and distinct, and the lives of the Judges who flourished under each monarch are arranged alphabetically; but where Judges sat on the bench during more than one reign, their lives are given in the last; while the office they severally held, and the year of their appointment, appear in due order in each reign of their career. To the commencement of each reign there is prefixed a 'survey of the reign,' containing a description of the nature and progress of each court, and of the officers of the various departments, with short accounts of the Inns of Court and Chancery, and their origin; of the serjeants and other advocates; and of the reporters and legal writers; adding whatever appeared interesting in the history of the time as connected with the judicature of the country, and collecting such illustrative anecdotes of Westminster Hall as seemed to demand a place.' Mr. Foss modestly disclaims any attempt to record the history of the law itself, and pleads his incapacity for such a task: but we think he has underrated his powers. His work contains a great deal of valuable matter, which elucidates the history of the law; and he pursues the inquiries in such an intelligent and searching spirit, with such a resolute determination to spare no trouble in arriving at the truth, and with such a competent knowledge of the subject, that we believe few writers are better qualified to trace the progress of English law through all its mazy channels from the Norman Conquest to the present day.