ent Circuits. The Letter' (we should rather say the billet') commences in the following civil strain:-" Mr. Anthony Hammond presents his compliments to the members of the different circuits, and begs to communicate as follows:" He then announces, that "There has been printing at the government press, by Mr. Peel's directions, a series of documents styled the Criminal Code. This Code contains-1. A Digest of the Judicial Decisions; 2. A Consolidation and Condensation of the Enactments; 3. The Opinions of the Text Writers; 4. The Law of Scotland and of France; 5. Suggestions for the Amendment of each particular Title of the Criminal Law; 6. A paper ascertaining those general principles that should govern in the formation of a Code of Criminal Jurisprudence, and ascertaining by comparison in what particulars the English system, first in the abstract, and then in relation to existing institutions, is perfect or imperfect; 7. The Code itself properly so called, reducing the common or unwritten Law to writing, and bringing the Criminal Jurisprudence of this country, Common and Statute, into a single Law. The first five documents were prepared previously to the meeting of the Criminal Law Committee, and were designed as the basis of the intended reform; that department which it was proposed Mr. Hammond should fill, and which has been continued to him under the new arrangement." The last sentence is a specimen of the enigmatical felicity of Mr. Hammond's style;-what may be the department, which has been continued to him under the new arrangement ;— whether it be the Basis' or the Reform,' is not very clear. But to proceed:-Mr. Hammond informs us that the Code is to consist of four grand divisions:- Offences against Property;'Procedure; Offences against the Person;'-and Offences against the State.' He adds:-" From the exertions which the King's printers have made,' and from the state of the copy, it will not be long before the whole is in print. After this I hope to be permitted with certain assistances to proceed with the Civil Law in the same way.” (a)

(a) That Mr. Hammond's hopes are likely to be frustrated, and that he has already strangely misconceived the extent of his instructions, may be inferred from the following letter addressed to him from the Home office.

(COPY.)

"Whitehall, Jan. 9. "Mr. Peel considers that it would be for the convenience of Mr. Hammond and himself, that Mr. Ham

mond should distinctly understand the nature and extent of the autho rity which he has from Mr. Peel, to proceed in the Consolidation of a certain branch of the Statute Law of England.

"Some time after Mr. Peel had undertaken, with the assistance of Mr. Hobhouse and Mr. Gregson, to consolidate the laws relating to the trial and punishment of criminal offences, he learnt that Mr. Hammond was employed, under the direction

He then states that the particular arrangement of the code has been adopted with a view: 1st. "To suggest more readily and more distinctly to the mind eight several questions," (not one of which is, as far as we can see, suggested by the arrangement). 2d. "To render it useful to those engaged in the administration of justice, by giving a view of the whole doctrine of the law, and by rendering any reference to the statutes, reports, or authoritative writers unnecessary, since they will all be found in this code." 3d. "To furnish a document, in which the whole body of the law,

upon any given subject, may be found, whether the information be sought by the historian, the antiquarian, or the lawyer."

As we have above remarked, we do not think that the arrangement of Mr. Hammond's code suggests any one of the eight golden questions which he has mentioned; nor do we regard the circumstance as very material, inasmuch as the considerations involved in those questions are abundantly obvious to any person who has ruminated for five minutes on the subject of Criminal Law. If this, however, be a failure, no one can deny that it is fully compensated, if the arrangement has succeeded in attaining the second and third objects in all their vast and comprehensive importance. That Mr. Hammond is satisfied that it has so succeeded, is very evident; and therefore, in full reliance upon his authority, we congratulate all those who are engaged in the administration of justice, all lawyers, historians, and antiquarians, that they may now consign their ponderous folios, their statutes, reports, and authoritative writers, "Crok. Car., Crok. Jac., and Crok. Eliz." to the hucksters or the flames, and upon every point of English jurisprudence refer, with perfect confidence, to Mr. Hammond's Code. (b)

But to resume;-Mr. Hammond, in the next place, proceeds to lay down a principle for our guidance, with regard to the muchagitated question of innovation, which we shall give in his own luminous language:

"There is no state of things to which objections may not be raised, and in which deficiencies may not be clearly and distinctly pointed out; but it does not, therefore, follow that we must set ourselves to reform it; because, though it be plain that, in one point of view, a benefit will result, yet, in another, the reform may produce a greater inconvenience. If it be too much to assert that it is only when the effects which a given innovation will produce can be distinctly predicated, or the worst evil that can happen can be known, that the innovation is justifiable; it is not too much to say, that where the most fatal consequences may ensue, against which we can receive no reasonable assurance, it should never be attempted. The great political blessing which the Chancellor has been of to this country, has been his undeviating adherence to this principle."

A principle so novel and so sound, betokening such matchless sagacity and depth of thought, has seldom been propounded to admiring readers. The concluding compliment would doubtless be more acceptable to the learned person, who is the subject of it, if it happened to be in good grammatical English.

(b) Mr. Sugden, in his Letter to Mr. Humphreys, third edition, observing cursorily upon Mr. Hammond's Digest of the Criminal Law, says, "which, of course, he (Mr. Hammond) would not rank higher

than any other treatise on the same subject written by any other intelligent lawyer." We very much doubt whether Mr. Hammond would subscribe to this conjecture.

The only remaining part of the "Letter," which requires notice, is the announcement that two private works will ultimately grow out of the public work thus undertaken:-1. "A Digest of the Laws of England." 2. " New Commentaries on the Laws of England." Now, when the Common Law has been digested, the Statute Law consolidated, and the whole, Statute and Common, combined in a single law, according to the professed plan of Mr. Hammond's Code, the necessity of a private Digest of the Laws is not very apparent; nor is it quite obvious why Mr. Hammond should feel it incumbent upon him to write commentaries upon the code which Mr. Hammond has framed. But this is one of the conundrums to be met with in our author's writings, which we shall leave others to solve, and shall proceed to take a short review of those parts of the "Criminal Code" which have, up to this time, made their appearance. "Offences against Property" have been distributed into fifteen different titles. Five only of these have, as yet, issued from the press;-Burglary-House-breakingChurch-robbing-Coining-and the favoured offspring of Mr. Hammond's labours, Forgery. Each of these titles is divided into so many sections. "The first section is entitled the Introduction, and is chiefly historical. The remaining sections, except the last, contain the digest of judicial decisions, and the consolidation of the enactments. The consolidated enactments are first expressed in the language of the statutes themselves, and then are condensed. The last section gives a summary of the law, as contained in the preceding sections, excepting the first, and suggests certain alterations in that law." Each article is accompanied by the most complete Tables of Reference--Analytical Table of Contents-Table of Cases-Tabie of Books and Opinions cited-Table of Statutes, and a copious Index. It is in these more mechanical parts of the work, that Mr. Hammond appears to the greatest advantage; in which his indefatigable industry and scrupulous accuracy are most conspicuous. Remissness, indeed, can rarely be laid to the charge of our author; and those faults, which it will be our duty to point out in the body of the work, are rather attributable to a want of judgment, and a fatal defectiveness of style, than to a want of zeal.

6

The first section of each article is the repository of Mr. Hammond's historical and antiquarian lore. It contains etymologies, definitions, critical surmises, and the Law of France and Scotland. Thus the introduction to Burglary' displays in long array the many derivations of the term to be found in the text books; which derivations (with modesty be it spoken) convey about as distinct an idea of the nature and properties of that intricate title of the law, as Coke's parler la ment' or the 'parium lamentum' of another writer do of the constitution and powers of parliament.

Mr. Hammond, however, having maturely weighed these learned etymologies, adopts the following into his text:-"The term Burglary is compounded of the two German words, Burgh a house and Laron a thief;"-the only objection to which is, that, as the word Burgh is decidedly German, the word Laron is decidedly not German. We shrewdly suspect, that Sir Edward East is the innocent cause of the blunder, in having stated that "burglary is derived from the German burg, a house, and laron or latro a thief." This shows the danger of altering or inverting the expressions of an author in copying him, and will probably remind our readers of Ash's ludicrous endeavour to render Johnson's exposition of the word curmudgeon more explicit, by translating 'cœur' old, and mechant,' correspondent. As to definitions, the introduction to Forgery contains no less than eight from different great authorities; and these not being sufficient, Mr. Hammond has favoured us with one of his own. Forgery at common law, he says, may be defined Fraudulently investing any writing with a fictitious character.' This is, no doubt, more sonorous and dignified, but it may be questioned whether it is more clear than Blackstone's definition: The fraudulent making or alteration of a writing, to the prejudice of another's right;" or than Hawkins's, as quoted by Mr. Hammond, viz. "Falsely or fraudulently making or altering."-We say, as quoted by Mr. Hammond, because our author, by curtailing the sentence, has suppressed the fact, that Hawkins limits the crime at common law to the falsification of " any matter of record, or any other authentic matter of a public nature;" a limitation, to which all those, who wish to preserve a distinct and definite idea of the meaning of that muchabused term Common Law,' will be inclined to accede.

With respect to the French law introduced into the work before us, our readers must not imagine that the dispositions of the Code Napoleon' are analysed or explained, its simplicity compared with the complex sinuosities of our own system, or any hints drawn from it to guide and assist us in the task of amelioration. Instead of this, a certain portion of the Code Penal' is given, once for all, in a note, without gloss, comment, translation or exposition. And thus is satisfied our author's engagement as to the Law of France. There are persons who may be of opinion, that as the avowed object of the Code before us is to exhibit the Law of England in its actual state, in order to ascertain what modifications or alterations may be advisable, it was altogether unnecessary to insert the provisions of the French Code; and that it would have been quite as reasonable to introduce extracts from the Peinliche Gerichts-ordnung' of Charles the Fifth, the Code Frederique, or the Code of Louisiana. But be that as it may, we are convinced that the passages inserted are, in their present shape, absolutely