The greater part of this memoir consists of remarks upon the descriptions of the poet by the writer of the article; but they contain nothing either new or extraordinary, and but very little indeed which has not heretofore been advanced both by Froissart and the author of the Histoire générale de la Marine, and especially by De Vitri, in his Historia Orientalis.

VIII. On the Origin of Law, its Definition, its different Kinds, and the Language which appertains to it. By M. Baudin (des Ardennes).'

'One common will, founded upon a reciprocity of interests, binds every member of each political society mutually to promise and demand protection against violence; and this protection,' says M. Baudin, is the law,—anterior, at least in idea, to every authority which is charged with its execution:

"Jura magistratusque legunt, sanctumque senatum." In this verse of Virgil, continues he, we perceive the natural order by which the formation of the law precedes the choice of those who are to apply it; and these two operations successively emanate from the same source. It presents to us an infant colony, proceeding, in its collective capacity, first of all to discover what laws are best adapted to its well-being, and afterwards what men it shall invest with the possession of public powers."

This is the common mode of speculating, and ought unquestionably to be the common mode of practice. But if we refer to historical facts, we shall not find that this sort of social compact, which so fascinates us in the pages of Plato and Rousseau, has any degree of universal application. The origin of almost every nation is immersed in such inscrutable obscurity, that we can seldom acquire any certainty of information. That of the Romans is perhaps as well known to us as any. But when Romulus called to his vagrant standard the different hordes of banditti that infested the country around him, marshaled them into some degree of order, and promulged his laws for their obedience, we find but little of that general collection of the public will, so perpetually referred to by the present writer, and those of the same school. It is obvious that Romulus was endowed with talents far superior to any of his comrades. The axiom of the immortal Bacon, that knowledge is power, will stand as long as the world endures; and it was by the possession of this intrinsic power alone, and not by the consent of the brigandine hordes who flocked to his banners, that he seated himself in the possession of the supreme authority. Could we trace the origin of the first associations of mankind in different quarters of the earth, we should probably be able to resolve most of them into similar facts; we should see little or nothing of mickle-gemotes or wittena-gemotes of

the popular will, expressed either individually or representatively; but should trace the first cause of association to the superior craft or wisdom of some individual, who united his fellow barbarians into one class for the purpose of private ambition, or perhaps of private revenge.

M. Baudin considers the science of the law under the various branches of criminal, civil, military, fiscal, and political, strictly so called, or that which regulates the interior police of a state. Many of his observations under the fourth of these divisions, the fiscal or financial, are entitled to much attention, and especially those which relate to the principle of levying taxes. We agree with him also in another point, as to the advantage which would necessarily result from a uniformity of legislation, and the application of the same laws to every part of the most extensive empire. But, while we concede the principle, we are compelled to assert its inadmissibility in a variety of cases: and we need only instance, as an example, the immense possessions of the British East-India company. Something of the principle here contended for was at one time attempted in their Asiatic dominions, by the universal introduction and application of English legislation; but so widely different are the political views, the national prejudices, practices, and religions, of the natives in the different provinces, that the attempt was soon and wisely relinquished; and a new system of law, founded upon principles appealed to by all, or admitting the operation of local prejudices and customs, the common law of the cast or province, was introduced in its stead.

On the subject of legal language, our author affords us some very happy and judicious remarks; and we trust his countrymen. will profit by them in their present infantine institutions. The redundancy and periphrasis which we are perpetually meeting with at home-the absurd use of obsolete terms, the meaning of which has been long totally unknown to the people, and is scarcely recognised by the profession itself-those barbarisms and obscurities which run through every page, and, instead of adjusting, lay the foundation for additional disputes-are a disgrace to the age in which we live. A lawyer, observes M. Baudin, in preparing his brief, ought to be as cautious in the selection of his terms as Boileau was accustomed to be in that of his rhymes. Doubt would then be discarded, and one word would often answer the purpose of a dozen.

IX. On ancient National Sepultures, and the external Ornaments which at different Times have been employed; on Embalmings; on the Tombs of the French Kings in the heretoforenamed Church of St. Germain; and on a Project of Interment for the Departments. By M. Legrand d'Aussy.'

This is a voluminous memoir, occupying not less than 270 quarto pages. Our author opens the bowels of the earth with APP. Vol. 34.

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all the hardihood of a mineralogist, and often affords us more entertainment. The title divides this bulky communication into three parts. Of these the first, relating to ancient national sepultures, is subdivided into five chapters-1. On sepultures common to the ancient nations of Europe and Asia. 2. On such as were in use among the Gauls, and the barbarous hordes who invaded Gaul. 3. We have in this chapter the different modes of sepulture cominon to the Gauls, divided into six different epochs. Of these, the first mounts up to a period of very early antiquity, and even of savage life; prior indeed, in our author's opinion, to the invention of tools for excavating the earth, when, merely in consequence of such want of conveniences, the dead body was uniformly burnt, and the ashes covered over with unhewn stones. To this era, wishing, like the Scandinavian historians, to designate it by some peculiar appellation, M. d'Aussy, somewhat whimsically, gives the name of the primitive age of fire. His second epoch he entitles the age of hillsalluding to the excavations made in their prominences for the reception, not of the body itself, but of the bones and ashes collected after it had been burnt, and deposited in an urn or other receptacle consequently this second age implies some considerable acquaintance with mechanics and metallurgy. The third epoch comprises sepulcral hills, without the use of burning, which our author imagines to have had a very long duration, though he favours us in no instance with any thing like dates, or advances beyond conjecture. His fourth age is that of funeral piles. His fifth, of sarcophagi, or stone coffins interred in the bosom of the earth. His sixth the age of mausolea, including sepulcral monuments of the present day.

The fourth chapter is devoted to the subject of embalmings, which is again divided into three sections. Of these, the first relates to the mummy of Auvergne. The Auvergnois are well known to have been peculiarly happy in the art of embalming at a very early period, and infinitely to have excelled the Egyptian artists: for, while the latter, by withdrawing the brains and entrails, and shriveling the limbs, reduced the body to a mere skeleton, enveloped in a kind of adhesive cere-cloth, the former preserved every individual particle of the body in its just and natural symmetry, and presented, in the person of the embalmed, an image rather of sound and refreshing sleep, than of death and desolation of form. The preparation employed for this purpose, like many other ingenuities of the earlier ages, we are now totally ignorant of, notwithstanding our general pretensions to superior knowledge and information; nor has any fair and decisive example of the Auvergnian mummy reached the present day: whence it is but just, however, to conclude, that, though the artists of that country embaloned with greater elegance than those of Egypt, their preparations were less durable. The

proofs of the art, and of the success of the former, are at present only to be found in the pages of ancient writers who had been witnesses of their ingenuity. In the second section of this chapter our author treats of the embalinings of the middle and lower ages; in the course of which we meet with nothing that needs detain us. His third section is on the use of mummies in medicine; and refers to an absurd belief, which at one time passed current in the world, that the flesh of an Egyptian mummy was an excellent specific in cases of contusion, and even of mortal wounds. In consequence of this vulgar preju dice, mummies became an object of great traffic; and more were disposed of in every year than perhaps all Egypt was in possession of False mummies were manufactured; many of them in Egypt itself, but many also in France and the adjoining kingdoms-immense numbers of bodies being stolen, according to the testimony of Ambrose Paré, in the night-time, either from gibbets or church-yards; and, when duly manufactured, offered to sale, and occasionally at the low price of about two guineas and a half, as importations of Portuguese merchants, purchased by these latter in the province of Lower Egypt.

The fifth chapter relates to the external ornaments of tombs employed at different ages. These, in two distinct sections, are divided into as many classes, viz. Roman and national tombs: the latter referring to those of the Gauls, or such barbarous tribes as the Franks, Visigoths, and Burgundians, who, having forcibly taken possesion of the country, became an integral part of the people; the former being confined to those which are strictly Roman, bearing the Roman form and character, and usually accompanied with Latin inscriptions. To these are added two other sections, appropriated to what our author denomi nates by two terms now for the first time admitted from the provincial dialects into the standard language of the countrylecavènes and dolmines: meaning by the former the rude mode, once in use, of designating the place of interment by two unhewn and parallel stones raised in an upright direction over the body of the deceased, accompanied, in some instances, with a' third, which was thrown across and lodged upon the other two; and which, he seems to conceive, gave the first idea of sepulcral colonnades, and other decorations of a similar class; while by the latter our author designates that simple monument which consists of two flat lateral stones with a third laid upon them, elevated hereby a little above the surface of the earth, and containing the name and age of the deceased. This latter may have been the common origin of the greater number of sepulcral elevations now to be met with in the country church-yards of Great Britain but M. d'Aussy is unquestionably mistaken in attributing the chored gigantum, or the immense and massy relics at Stonehenge, to the class of lecavènes, or of any other

sepulcral order whatever. We have already had occasion, in our review of Mr. King's Munimenta Antiqua, as well as in several other articles, to assert, without fear of contradiction, that these astonishing relics, instead of being funeral monuments, are unquestionably the remains of an ancient seat of judicature. The same subject is continued through two other sections. The seventh considers the origin of rude earthen tumuli or cromlechs among different and uncultivated nations. The eighth is on the construction of different kinds of tombs not included in the foregoing divisions, on chapels and epitaphs. The ninth and tenth branch out into the consideration of mausolea and their different ornaments.

The second and third part of this extensive memoir form merely a kind of short appendix to the first, and are devoted to the two subjects enumerated in the remainder of its title.

X. Report made in the Name of a Commission composed of MM. Laplace, Fourcroy, Cels, Naigeon, Fleurieu, Baudin, Camus, Mongez, and Vincent, charged by the National Institute to examine in what Manner, on the Decease of its Members, it ought to pay them its last Respect. By M. Baudin (des Ardennes.)'

This is a short memoir, and concludes with the following plan, which was adopted by the Institute on its proposal. I. The members of the National Institute shall assist at the funerals of their brethren. 2. Every member of the Institute shall wear, during the ceremony, a piece of black crape round his left arm. 3. The members of the Institute who compose the committee of the class of the deceased, or who are his particular friends, or his near neighbours, are requested, as soon as possible, to make themselves acquainted with the day and the hour of the funeral, and to communicate such information to the secretary. 4. The commission of the treasury is to charge itself with the necessary expenses, and to circulate the necessary intelligence, as soon as it has reached the secretary, to every member of the Institute, by expresses for the purpose. 5. When the time of interment interferes with that of a sitting, whether general, or particular, the sitting is postponed to the next open day. This disposition does not apply to public sittings. 6. In the public sitting in which the notice relative to deceased members shall be pronounced, their family shall be allotted a peculiar situation. The president of the sitting shall take care that it be pre-occu pied by the family; and the commission of the treasury shall conduct them into it.

XI. Second Report, made in the Name of the Commission enumerated in Memoir X. on the present State of the BurialGrounds in the Commune of Paris.

Many of the burial-grounds in Paris and its environs are far too small for the object to which they are destined; and, in consequence, the deceased are often crowded upon each other in the