Essays on Anglo-Saxon Law. (Macmillan and Co., London ; Little,
Brown, and Co., Boston.)—This volume is made up out of four essays written in America, where it is satisfactory to find that the obscurest corners of early history are diligently explored. It is a work solely suited for advanced historical students, presuming, as it does, a considerable knowledge of Anglo-Saxon and of its technical phrases. When wo see the diversity of opinion among competent authorities, we may be satis- fied of the difficulty and obscurity of the subject. As might be expected, we continually meet with the names of Mr. Freeman and Professor Stubbs, whom researches into this branch of inquiry are well known, and have yielded substantial results. The authors of these essays, if we may judge from the titles of the works quoted, are thorough students, and they genetally impress us as having dealt skilfully with their materials. The Anglo-Saxon mind, it seems, was very obtuse in all questions of law, and had no sort of grasp of the subject. It could only work in a very clumsy, piecemeal fashion, and could not construct or organim scientific- ally, as Charlemagne did for the Franks. Even Alfred, though he had the advantage of Charlemagne's example, could not reform thoroughly and efficaciously. It must be remembered that rulers oven in those times were constitutional kings, and were controlled by the Witan. Here is, perhaps, an explanation of the defective and un- scientific character of their legislation. Still our country was all this time making a strong, if slow, progress, and a connection may be traced between modern English law and the primitive institutes of the early, barbarous period of summary execution. In fact, tho principles of Anglo-Saxon law have survived in the English Common Law. There must, indeed, have been merit in a system which, as one of these essayists points out, could resist both the power of the Church and the shock of the Norman invasion, and was not destroyed, but merely modified, by the foreign influences brought in at that groat crisis. These four essays deal with the Courts of Law, the Land Law, the Family Law, and the Legal Procedure, and should be studied by those who aim at a thorough acquaintance with the history of our law.
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