weak and faltering as to induce him to forego the trouble of further measures, after obtaining his goods-the law has checked him by its penal sanctions. If he compounds a felony, he becomes an offender himself, and is sure of meeting an exemplary punishment. Not so with the abuses and vices that lead to robbery and every other crime. Drunkenness does not immediately affect the beholder. "It neither picks his pocket, nor breaks his leg." He has no immediate personal interest in the correction of the offender. Besides, there is an odium attached to individual interference in cases of mere morals. Such interference is imputed to personal enmity or to a restless officiousness. Very different is it, however, when men of sobriety and elevated character unite for definite purposes-purposes publicly known and avowed; and when the support of all is mutually plighted. Strength is thus accumulated, personal odium avoided, and a restraining impression made. We know, indeed, that evil principles are more active than good, because they are more restless. But good principles, when brought into action, are the strongest and most enduring. To restrain the former, and to foster and give an object and a direction to the latter, is one of the main ends of civilized society.

Hope and principle (the want of which is frequently the cause of intemperate drinking) may be given to men by human institutions. It is no less the duty than the interest of a government to see that they are given. And no government has shown a more provident and fostering regard to this great object, than is displayed in the constitution and laws of this Commonwealth. The literary and moral instruction, which is the fruit of those laws, furnishes a delightful subject of contemplation. It must, however, be passed by at this time with a single remark-that this system of early instruction is a more efficacious preventive of drunkenness, pauperism, and crime, than all the terrors of penal enactments with their bloodiest sanctions. Let it be cherished, improved, and perpetuated.

Entertaining these views, and confiding in the character and wisdom of the Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance, we fervently hope they will pursue the good work they have undertaken; and doubt not they will hereafter be acknowledged as public benefactors.

Quique sui memores alios fecêre merendo,
Omnibus his niveà cinguntur tempora vittâ.

1. Report from the Commissioners appointed to Revise the Statute Laws of the State of New York, prepared in Obedience to a Resolution of the Assembly; communicated March 15th, 1826. Albany. 1826. 8vo. pp. 112.

2. Sampson's Discourse and Correspondence with various learned Jurists, upon the History of the Law, with the Addition of several Essays, Tracts, and Documents, relating to the Subject. Compiled and published by Pishey Thompson. Washington. 1826. 8vo. pp. 202.

UNLESS we greatly deceive ourselves, the undertaking, which the commissioners appointed to revise the statute laws of New York have assumed, is destined to hold a prominent place in the history of American legislation. The Report before us will enable the public to judge of the importance of the object, the best mode of accomplishing it, the competency of those to whom the duty is entrusted, and the probable effect of their labours upon our systems of jurisprudence.

They, whose profession or pursuits make them intimately acquainted with the condition of statute law in our state governments, can most readily appreciate the importance of the subject. There are few persons, however, we apprehend, entirely ignorant of the confusion and prolixity, the numberless repetitions, contradictions, omissions, and other anomalies, which, owing partly to the inconsiderate facility wherewith laws are passed, and partly to the pernicious influence of certain maxims of the common law, deface more or less the statute-book of every state in the Union. To remedy these evils in her own laws, the State of New York, upwards of a year ago, appointed John Duer, Benjamin F. Butler, and Henry Wheaton, commissioners, to collate and revise all the public statutes of the State, of a general and permanent nature. They were charged to collate and reduce into one act, those acts or parts of acts, which related to the same subject; to distribute the consolidated acts into suitable titles and other subdivisions; to omit all acts or parts of acts, which had been repealed, or had expired, or were repugnant to the present constitution; to suggest to the legislature such imperfections as should appear in the revised acts, and the best mode of amending them; to suggest the repeal of old laws, and the enactment of new ones, where they should deen it expedient; and to complete the revision in other respects, so as to render the statutes more plain 44

VOL. IV.

and easy to be understood. Such is the object contemplated,a most valuable and dignified one certainly, and worthy of the enterprising character of New York to attempt.

The Report contains an extract from the revision, with a reprint of the revised statutes, thus affording the most complete and satisfactory evidence of the utility of the scheme. All we ask of those, who doubt concerning its excellence, is, carefully to compare the same law in its existing shape, with the intelligible, clear, simple, and methodical digest of it, which the commissioners have prepared. In regard to these gentlemen individually, without indulging in general encomium, we merely say, that their established characters, and the specimen they have given of the plan and execution of their work, fully justify the choice of the legislature. And we confidently predict, therefore, that this experiment, being tried under such favourable auspices, will be imitated elsewhere, and be followed by the happiest consequences.

The State of New York has not proposed to make a perfect code of all her laws, but only a thorough revision of her statutes. But public sentiment there, and in other parts of the country, is, if we mistake not, gradually undergoing a radical change in relation to this point. A majority of the legal profession are undoubtedly hostile, from habit, education, and other causes, to a reform in our systems of law. But the spirit of inquiry is now too freely exerted to suffer a subject so important, and one which enters so immediately into every body's concerns, to continue long enveloped in the mists of ancient prejudice. There is nothing here to check, permanently, the progress of truth; no kingly government, no titled aristocracy, no complicated fabric of timesanctioned and prescriptive oppressions, to be shaken and endangered by reducing the laws to a compendious, fixed, and intelligible shape. The example of other times, and other nations, is beginning to have its influence; and the great cause of legal improvement to find advocates among the ablest members of that profession, which has been heretofore esteemed so generally adverse to innovation. In several of the states, the executive has strongly recommended to the legislature the formation of a complete code; which, in the language of Mr Clinton, "would free our laws from uncertainty, elevate a liberal and honourable profession, and utterly destroy judicial legislation, which is at war with the genius of representative government."

Mr Sampson's Discourse, and the various letters and tracts accompanying it, are full of powerful, cogent reasoning upon the desirableness of completing this great work. Many of the pieces

are written by jurists of eminent standing; and all of them conspire to disseminate just notions respecting the vaunted perfection of the common law. They strike, with no feeble hand, at that idol of the English lawyers, whose extravagant praises of it, we, in this country, have been too prone to re-echo, without considering the difference in the spirit and condition of our respective governments.

We will not recapitulate the arguments, which abound in this book, on the utility and expediency of introducing written codes. in America. On a future occasion, we may recur to a topic so inviting, and so important to the highest interests of the nation. For the present, we abstain, merely asking those of the profession, with whom antiquated authority is every thing, to ponder the opinion of Sir Francis Bacon, "the wisest " man of his time, and of the great and good Sir Matthew Hale.

In his Preface dedicatory to Queen Elizabeth, prefixed to his Elements of the Common Law, Lord Verulam uses the following language.

But I am an unworthy witnesse to your Majestie of an higher intention and project, both by that which was published by your chancellor in full parliament from your royall mouth, in the five and thirtieth of your happy reigne; and much more by that which I have beene since vouchsafed to understand from your Majesty, imparting a purpose for these many years infused into your Majesties breast, to enter into a generall amendment of the states of your lawes, and to reduce them to more brevity and certainty, that the great hollowness and unsafety in assurances of lands and goods may be strengthened, the swarving penalties that lye upon many subjects removed, the execution of many profitable lawes revived, the judge better directed in his sentence, the counsellor better warranted in his counsaile, the student eased in his reading, the contentious suitor that seeketh but vexation disarmed, and the honest suitor that seeketh but to obtaine his right relieved; which purpose and intention, as it did strike mee with great admiration when I heard it, so it might be acknowledged to be one of the most chosen workes, and of the highest merit and beneficence towards the subject, that ever entred into the mind of any king.

Sir Matthew Hale wrote an admirable tract of some length on the "Amendment of the Laws," in which the whole question of the expediency of codifying the common law, is argued in a masterly manner. In his Preface to Rolle's Abridgment, after praising Justinian's reformation of the civil law, he proceeds thus;

And truly, considering to how great a bulk the volumes and books of the common law have, in progress of time, arisen; how many printed resolutions of the same cases or points; how many disagreeing reports there are, touching the same matters; how many contradictory opinions, that would be explained or settled; how many titles are disused; it were to be wished that some complete corpus juris communis were extracted out of the many books of our English laws, for the public use, and for the contracting of the laws into a narrower compass and method, at least for ordinary study. But this is a work of time, and requires many industrious and judicious hands and heads to assist in it.

1. The Claims of Puritanism; a Sermon, delivered at the Annual Election, May 31, 1826. By the Rev. ORVILLE Dewey. Boston. 8vo. pp. 32.

2. Character of the Puritans; a Sermon, preached before the Ancient and Honourable Artillery Company, June 5, 1826. By F. W. P. GREENWOOD. Boston. 8vo. pp. 22.

We have been highly gratified with the perusal of these two eloquent discourses. They are honourable to our clergy, and to our country. Mr Dewey takes occasion, from the New England character of the celebration in which he is engaged, the delivery of a sermon before the legislature of the State of Massachusetts, at the opening of the political year, to discuss the character of the puritans, the fathers of New England. This subject has lately attracted much attention, and the orator takes up their cause with the zeal of a champion. He eulogizes the spirit of dissent from established institutions, as synonymous in their case with the spirit of improvement; the courage with which they fought the battles of liberty in the time of Charles I.; the disinterestedness which led them to sacrifice their own immediate interest for the good of posterity; the intelligence and foresight displayed in their establishments, civil, literary, and religious. They have never, he considers, been held in just estimation, because it has been left to their enemies to tell their story. We have no wish to deny their merits. Their descendants may justly glory in them. But the orator seems to us to have dealt too exclusively in panegyric, when it is considered, that the current of opinion is now running strongly in their favour, and that it is not so much a defence, as a just exposition of their characters, which is needed.