Private Law among the Romans from the Pandects. By J.
G. Phil- more, Q.C. (Macmillan and Co.)—Mr. Phillimore has written a very clear and concise account of that part of the civil law which regulates the intercourse of private individuals. If there be a fault, it is that the book is too concise, and is often scarcely comprehensible by a reader who has no previous acquaintance with the subject. But this difficulty may be overcome by a little patience. Whether the result of perusal will be to inspire the reader with that admiration for "the grand manner in which the Roman jurist dealt with his subject," and that contempt for English jurisprudence as "a coacervation of absurdities under the name of law," which Mr. Phillimore is never tired of express- ing, we may be allowed to doubt. The Roman law has its defects as well as our own, and its study is sedulously to be promoted among English lawyers not because it is perfect, but because its strong points are just those in which English law is weak, and its weak points those in which English law is strong. In matters of taste Mr. Phillimore is of course incorrigible. The reader's attention is constantly drawn off from the subject by some irrelevant and one-sided diatribe, expressed with a violence which is meant to be overwhelming, and is only absurd. Nevertheless, if the preface, two-thirds of the preliminary chapter, and all the other irrelevant passages were struck out, the book would be a very valuable manual.
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