demical research, and classical inquiry. I am aware that an objection may be started (the very converse of those above mentioned to the prolixity of Civilians) viz, to the brevity of the work. From these deeply versed in the Civil Law, the objection is fair, nor is it supposed that it can be of use to them, except as an abridgment, in adjumentum memoria. But it would come with a bad grace from the idle theorist who has not industry, or the busy practitioner of Common Law, who has not time, to peruse works of greater length, and for such it was principally intended, that he who runs may read. Prolixity would have given little trouble, conciseness gave much. Quotation and indiscriminate transfusion would have swelled the work, with moderate pains; but compression and selection of points really important were attended with considerable labour...

The present volume contains twenty Lectures, three of which are introductory, and treat on the utility of the study of the Ci vil Law; on the comparative merits of the Roman and English Laws; and on the Law of Nations. In these sections we discover nothing that is new, and in point of doctrine nothing that is erroneous: but the style is highly objectionable. With such a prototype as Blackstone, who is so remarkable for genuine simplicity and unaffected elegance of composition, how could Professor Browne, in a didactic work, be betrayed into such expressions as these: Can the ætherial form of heavenly virtue be stained by the pollution of man, or its immutable essence change with the fickle villany of the human heart? Forbid it heaven! Such opinions can never enter these walls within this sanctuary, refutation were idle.'—' Let their doctrines boast a little temporary success or individual elevation. Nor are they merely obeisances to the star of virtue!

The first Book consists of six Lectures, and discusses the Rights of Persons in the different relations of Husband and Wife, Master and Servant, Father and Son, Guardian and Ward; with a Lecture on Corporations. The second Book, containing eleven Lectures, treats on the Rights of Things, as opposed to the Rights of Persons.-These we have read with considerable pleasure, for they shew a correct and intimate acquaintance with the subject; and, by the mode of subjoining the decisions in our English Courts, an useful and entertaining comparison between the two Codes is established. We have often thought that such a mode might be adopted with advantage; and we were strengthened in that opinion by some of Professor Millar's Lectures, in which he contrasted the Laws of Rome with those of other States, in a way that did credit to

If deeper research be desired, the parts of the Corpus Juris Civilis to be read on each subject, are mentioned in the respective Lectures; so that, while conspicuous remarkable portions are selected and abridged, a general course of Civil Law is pointed out.'

his talents and various information. The present, however, is the first publication in which we have observed this practice; and we hope that Professor Browne will have encouragement and perseverance to complete his plan.

We shall present our readers with the Lecture on the Origin of Property and Division of Things, because it is the shortest in the collection, and because, on a topic of universal concern, it furnishes a fair specimen of the Author's abilities and knowlege.

The Civil Law does not enter into the minute and subtle disquisitions about the natural origin of property, which have employed the pens of Grotius, Locke, and Blackstone. As far however as it has upon them, it agrees, (in the opinion of Mr. Gibbon) with the Oxonian Professor, in deriving it from occupancy. To me it seems rather to coincide with Grotius, who deduces it from an implied compact of nations for in fact, it speaks of occupation only as one of the titles to property arising from natural law, i... says Justinian, from the Law of Nations, shewing that he is not speaking of the Law of Nature universally and in the abstract, as it operates in a state of nature, but only as it becomes a part of the Law of Nations. The language of Justinian in the Institute is this-that all rights to things arise from the Law of Nature, that is the Law of Nations, or from Municipal Law*. Under the first, he reckons occupancy, accession and tradition; under the latter, prescription, donation, inhe ritance, &c.

* Next to the consideration of property in general, and its origin in the Law of Nature, natural order teaches us, first to treat of the division of things, then of property in them, and lastly of the particular modes of acquiring title to them, a method which has been pursued by the clear mind of Mr. J. Blackstone, and which I shall endeavour to follow, especially as Justinian here by no means furnishes a clear model for imitation.

In their division of things, the Roman Jurists are much more minute, accurate and metaphysically exact than ours; things were, according to them, either in patrimonio, capable of being possessed by

Accordingly Mr. Blackstone speaks of that rule of the Law of Nations, recognized by the Laws of Rome, Quod nullius est, id ratione naturali occupanti conceditur.'

Justinian in his Institutes is in this respect extremely immetho dical, for in the first chapter of his second book, he begins with the division of things-then proceeds to the titles to them acquirable by the Law of Nature and Nations, and in the subsequent chapters of the same book returns to division of things, and to quantity of ins terest in them, thereby postponing the caumeration of the other mes thods of acquiring property, viz. those by municipal law, and awk wardly separating these titles to property from the former, i. e. from those arising from the Law of Nature and Nations, by the interposition of the chapter of corporeal and incorporeal things, and of services, usufruct and use.

single

single persons exclusive of others, or extra patrimonium, incapable of being so possessed.

Things extra patrimonium were common, i. e. free to all mankind ; public, i.e. belonging to some nation or people; universitatis, i. e. belonging to some certain city, society, or corporation; or fourthly, things nullius, belonging to nobody, which included all things consecrated and devoted to religious uses, which are distinguished into sacred, sanct, and religious.

This was the division of things in relation to their propertyshipwith respect to their nature, they were divided into corporeal and incorporeal and the corporeal again into moveable and immoveable. This is the order and manner of division chosen by Justinian in the Institutes, and we shall follow it *.

Things common to all, are those which being given by Providence for general use, cannot be reduced to the nature of property; such are the air, running water, the sea, and the shores of the sea. By shore the Institutes mean up to high water mark, or (where little or no tides as in the Mediterranean,) as high as the highest winter wave washest, but if a man by prescription, from time immemorial had the use of running water ‡, as for a mill, his case was an exception to the general rule, but he must not waste the water unnecessarily, and mills and other buildings might be erected on rivers by particular licence. Vid. Digs. 48. 8.

Things public. Among things public, Justinian principally notices, harbours, banks, and rivers, and the right of fishing in them. By the Civil Law, the rivers were public; of exclusive rights of fishing the Romans had no notion, any more than of Game

The order adopted by the famous Roman lawyer, Caius, and apparently approved in the Digests, is somewhat different: he first distinguishes things into those of divine and those of human right, things of divine right he separates into sacred, sanct, and religious those of human into things in patrimonio, and extra patrimonium, and under the res nullius, a sub-division of the latter, considers not only holy things, but those which tho' not consecrated wanted a master, such as the hereditas jacens. Justinian confines the res nullius to things of divine right.'

+ Notwithstanding this position of the sea being common, many nations in modern times have claimed dominion over parts of it, as the Venetians over the Adriatic, the King of Denmark over the Sound, and 'the King of Great Britain over the four seas. The learned Selden even contends that the sea is as capable of becoming property as the land. Undoubtedly where nations have taken upon themselves the burden of freeing the sea from pirates, or erecting light houses on dangerous coasts, they have a right to reimburse themselves by duties upon passing ships, nor is it to be understood that foreign nations have a right to use the shore of the country against the will of the inhabitants, except from inevitable distress.

By Magna Charta the appropriating running water, which it seems unnatural to restrain, was prohibited, consequently the rivere fenced at that time were directed to be laid open.'

Laws

Laws, and the inhabitants of the waters became the property of the first occupant; nor was any obstruction or diversion of a river allowed. See Dig. Lib. 43.

A bank of a river might have been private property, but it was so far publick that all persons had a right to come upon it for certain purposes; for instance, for a towing path +.

Res Universitatis, or Things belonging to cities or bodies politic. Such things belonging to the Corporation or body politic in respect of the property of them, but as to their use they appertain to all those persons that are of the Corporation or body politic; such may be theatres, market-houses and the like t.

Res Nullius, or Things which are not the goods or property of any person or number of men, are principally those of divine right; they were of three f sorts-things sacred, things religious, things sanct. Things sacred were those which were duly and publicly consecrated to God by the priests, as churches and their ornaments, their chalices, books, &c.

Things religious were those places which became so by burying in them a dead body, even tho' no consecration of these spots by a priest. had taken place.

Things sanct were those which by certain reverential awe arising from their nature-sometimes augmented by the addition of religious ceremonies, were guarded and defended from the injuries of men; such were the gates and walls of a city, offences against which were capitally punished.

It is their peculiar praise, says Gibbon. With us by the Feodal Polity, the Prince claimed a right of granting franchises of free fishery in rivers, which by an odd perversion of language means exclusive fishery; but these rights of fishery in consequence of Magna Charta, must be as old as Henry II's time. Probably very few of our present fisheries could boast such antiquity, or are really legal, but, being proved to have existed longer than the memory of the oldest men living, are presumed to have been from Hen. II's time, no proof appearing to the contrary. Many Gentlemen in Ireland support their titles to fisheries by grants from Charles II. but such grants convey nothing, being directly contrary to Magna Charta, and are only corroborating evidence of the rights being from time immemorial. A subject may have by prescription a right to a several fishery in an arm of the sea, 4 T. R. 437-'

This rule of the Civil Law, adopted also by our Bracton, was much insisted on in the case of Ball v. Herbert, 3 Term Reports, when however it was determined that by the Common Law of England, the public are not entitled to tow on the banks of navigable rivers.'

They differ from things public, the latter belonging to a nation.* For tho' Caius in his division of things, makes them to consist of derelicts, treasure trove, the hereditas jacens, or an inheritance lying before it be entered on or appropriated, yet as these are of a private nature, and capable of proprietorship, Justinian more properly confines the res nullius to things of divine right.

• We

We have now done with things extra patrimonium, and must remind the reader that things in patrimonio are divided into corporeal and incorporeal, and the corporeal again into moveable and immoveable.

Corporeal things are those which are visible and tangible, as lands, houses, jewels, &c. Incorporeal are not the object of sen sation, but are the creatures of the mind, being rights issuing out of a thing corporeal, or concerning or exercisable within the same.

Corporeal things are either moveable, as silver, gold, houshold goods: or immoveable, as lands and houses*.

Corporeal things may be unoccupied; or held for life, or lesser term, or in inheritance; in the second case, the English Law cal's them tenements, in the third hereditaments. So incorporeal rights may be tenements or hereditaments, as they are to exist for the life of the individual or to descend to his posterity.

The Civil Law does not make use of these terms, but yet, like the English, in the division of things, pays more peculiar attention to those of an incorporeal nature, which we may if we please, to keep up the analogy,

call hereditaments.

We take leave of this work with recommending it to the attention of those young men who are beginning their law studies, whether they may mean to dedicate their future exertions to the Courts of Doctors Commons, or to those of Westminster-Hall. 8.R.

ART. X. The select Works of Antony Van Leeuwenhoek, containing his Miscroscopical Discoveries in many of the Works of Nature. Translated from the Dutch and Latin Editions published by the Author, By Samuel Hoole. Part I. 4to. pp. Ico, and four Flates. 10s. 6d. Nicol, &c. 1798.

TH

HE name and the discoveries of Leeuwenhoek are well known to those who are engaged in the pursuits of natural philosophy: yet we believe that this is the first English transJation of that author; and, judging from the specimen before us, the edition promises to be a very handsome one.

• Moveables and immoveables are more usually and technically called by our Law, things real and personal; thus Mr. Blackstone defines in the second chapter of his second book, things real to be such as are fixed and immoveable; things personal to be goods, money, and other moveables; yet in his twenty-fourth chapter he is forced to depart from this definition, and to acknowledge that things personal include something more than moveables, viz. what we call chattels real, (as leases for years,) which he says are of a mongrel, amphibious nature. Such awkward effects arise from our distinctions of real and personal property, and so much superior is the simplicity of the Civil Law.'

From