being determined by the judge. Now it would appear that the ludices, when they stated in the Litis Aestimatio on what score (quo nomine) they fixed the amount to be paid, might make the offence appear of the most serious or most venial description, and they might even express themselves in such terms as to lay the culprit open to a new impeachment for an offence more serious than that for which he was under trial; but generally speaking they were in the habit of leaning to the side of mercy, and saving him from the penalties of a Lis Capitalis. In point of fact, we may infer from the expression used in this chapter with regard to Scaevola-omni contentione pugnatum est, ut lis haec capitis aestimaretur-that when an individual was found guilty generally of any offence which admitted of many gradations of guilt, it depended upon the nature of the Litis Aestimatio whether the Poena was to be Capitalis or not, the Iudices discharging the duty which devolves upon the judge according to our system.

inimicum putant esse. se.] Two reasons are here assigned which tended to render jurors lenient or careless in the Litis Aestimatio.

1. They believe that the person they have found guilty will look upon them as his personal enemies, and therefore they desire to prove that they are willing to befriend him as far as they can—si qua in eum lis capitis illata est non admittunt.

2. Thinking that their duty as jurors has been discharged by bringing in a verdict, they are indifferent and careless about the subsequent proceeding-negligentius attendunt cetera.

Itaque et maiestatis.] This is the most desperate sentence in the whole passage. We have given the text of Orelli, which is supported by all Mss. except A, B ; but I am unable, without great violence, to twist any satisfactory meaning out of the words.

A, B insert maiestatis before essent, and the text stands thus in the edd. of Class. and Bait.:

Itaque et maiestatis absoluti sunt permulti, quibus damnatis de pecuniis repetundis lites maiestatis essent aestimatae; from which the following meaning is extracted: Very many persons having been found guilty when impeached De Repetundis, and the jurors in the Litis Aestimatio having implied that they were guilty of Maiestas, have, when brought to trial for Maiestas, been acquitted.

There can be no doubt that this is a distinct meaning; but I hesitate to adopt it, because it appears to me to be completely at variance with the tenor of Cicero's observations. The orator, in the preceding sentence, if I understand it aright, has asserted that the jurors were for the most part loose and lenient in the Litis Aestimatio. Itaque, he continues, as a proof of this-and then follows the sentence before us; but this, according to the interpretation of Classen, far from being an illustration of the careless leniency of jurors, would be rather a proof of vindictive persecution, since by the terms of their Litis Aestimatio they laid open the accused to a fresh charge of a most serious character; and this had happened in the case of very many individuals (permulti).

ad quos pervenisse pecunias.] When an individual was con

victed De pecuniis repetundis, and ordered to make restitution, if his property proved inadequate to yield the sum fixed, an inquiry was instituted to discover the persons into whose hands the missing property had passed, and these persons became themselves liable to an impeachment De Repetundis. Cicero here adduces as an additional proof of the leniency of jurors, that, after having, in a Litis Aestimatio, fixed upon the persons into whose hands the property unlawfully acquired had passed-the resetters, as it were, of the stolen goods-they had refused to convict these persons when brought to trial.

... ut lis haec capitis aestimaretur.] The meaning seems clearly to be that which we have indicated above: Scaevola was found guilty by the testimony of very many witnesses, upon a charge altogether unconnected with the trial of Oppianicus (aliis criminibus). The greatest exertions were made that the Litis Aestimatio should be in such terms as to render him amenable to a Poena Capitalis. Few will be disposed to adopt the interpretation of Manutius: The greatest exertions were made that the Poena Capitalis involved in this charge (ut haec lis capitis) should be commúted for a fine' (aestimaretur).

However much we may differ with regard to the true interpretation of some of the above clauses, the argument of Cicero is perfectly intelligible.

One of the facts adduced to prove the guilt of Cluentius is, that the jurors who convicted P. Septimius Scaevola stated expressly, in their Litis Aestimatio, that he had received a bribe on the trial of Oppianicus; and this,' continues the orator, my opponents call a legal decision (iudicium). But I need not tell you, who are so well versed in proceedings of this sort, that a Litis Aestimatio is not a legal decision (iudicium). In the first place, it is notorious that jurors, after they have brought in a verdict of guilty, are disposed to be lenient and careless in the Litis Aestimatio; and that even when, in the course of a Litis Aestimatio, they have indicated the guilt of a third person, they often refuse to convict that person when brought to trial before them. From no point of view, therefore, can a Litis Aestimatio be regarded as a Iudicium, and it ought not to be called by that name.'

We have never until now seen this passage explained entirely to our satisfaction; for the slight hesitation evinced by the professor at the words itaque et maiestatis absoluti sunt permulti, scarcely detract from its completeness. We think the word maiestatis before essent ought to stand, as it does in Long's edition. Cicero has said that the jurors were for the most part loose in the litis aestimatio, and sometimes lenient; but clearly not always. He says that sometimes, when a previous capital assessment of damages was brought up against a man whom they had found guilty, they did not allow it to weigh in their present assessment (non admittunt); and then adds generally that they were negligent on this point because they thought their work over when the verdict was agreed upon. The inconsistencies in their conduct sprang sometimes

from mercy, and sometimes from carelessness. As an instance of the latter, he cites the well-known fact, that men found guilty of repetundae had had damages assessed for maiestas; and then says that this assessment was never regarded as a legal declaration of their guilt, for when brought to trial for maiestas they were acquitted. The words negligentius attendunt cetera do not at all preclude the idea of the jurors sometimes erring on the side of severity; and Cicero seems to have given the two sentences, itaque et maiestatis and et hoc quotidie, as instances of each failing. Mr. Long's note on this passage is exceedingly obscure, and his explanation of the words omni contentione pugnatum est ut lis haec capitis aestimaretur far from so obvious and reasonable as Mr. Ramsay's.

In conclusion, we would call attention to Mr. Ramsay's notes on cap. xlvi. relative to the punishment of soldiers, and cap. lxiii. on the slaves who were put to the torture. In each of these passages he contrasts favourably with Mr. Long, from whom he differs; and though in the latter of the two we cannot agree with his explanation, yet he states his own case more clearly and strongly than his predecessor.

But the vacation has arrived. A truce to the quirks and quibbles of our learned friends, and poets reciting in the dog-days. "O fortunatos nimirum, sua si bona norint, Agricolae," we exclaim. We will put on our caligae, as Mr. Macleane would say, and go to Dr. Daubeny,-to a land of corn and wine and oil; and so will we gladden our hearts and make our countenances cheerful, and forget the horrors of murder and the dusty mysteries of the law. In truth, a pleasanter volume than this one of Dr. Daubeny's we should not care to look for. It is a peculiarly English book, and appeals strongly to an Englishman's tastes. It would not come within the scope of our present article to examine it in detail; but we notice it for the sake of the one feature which it has in common with the other works upon our list we mean its illustrative utility. The pleasure of reading Virgil is very greatly increased by a more accurate explanation of the trees, herbs, and flowers which he mentions, of the agricultural processes which he describes, and the maxims which he enjoins upon the farmer; while, on the other hand, any difficulties presented to young beginners by the technical terms employed are here completely levelled. His chapters on live stock are most interesting. The Romans had many delicacies at their banquets from which modern taste would shrink, though whether wisely or not we cannot Dormice were strictly preserved; snails, . periwinkles,

and other conchifera, were carefully fattened in the cochlearia. The Roman fishponds are famous: they seem to have stood in the same relation to the Roman gentleman as his covers to an English squire; the lampreys and mullets were his pheasants and partridges. And perhaps the story of the man who fed his fish upon slaves may be in the nature of an allegory, and point only to the consumption of gamekeepers. Cicero dwells with indignation on the conduct of these piscinarii, as he calls them, who were so wrapt up in their preserves that they would not come to Rome to organise a conservative party. "And what the mullet was, are fores now," may be said perhaps without any violent exaggeration. The fish were often very tame, as we read in Martial; and would swim up to the edge of the pond to be fed, just as game, where it is plentiful, will come up to the breakfast-room window. The pleasant good-humoured noble, feeding his lampreys and talking to his humbler neighbours, recalls too the image of the last English king who had the habits of an English gentleman.

The Doctor makes less use of Martial in his pictures of country life than we should have anticipated. Martial has left us a genial and graphic description of the sights and sounds. which encountered a Roman proprietor as he stepped into his outer farmyard on some fine day towards the close of autumn. The tribula (threshing-machines) are hard at work. The vinedresser passes him with a load of late grapes. The meadows below the house are dotted with cattle, and their lowing alternates pleasantly with the cooing of the pigeons from the turrets. At his feet strut the whole people of the poultry-yard, as various in their voice as in their plumage :-the goose, the peacock, and the flamingo,-the partridge, the guinea-hen, and the pheasant. And as the villicus comes by with a lapful of acorns, he is followed by a crowd of importunate porkers. From the sheepfold in his rear the master catches the bleating of the lambs separated from their mothers. Inside the house the children of the slaves are huddling over a good fire, while their elders are out in the woods and on the lake to replenish the fishpond and the thrush-house. Some neighbours from the town are taking a stroll in his garden; and presently a countryman approaches to pay his respects with something better than mere compliments: "Will his honour accept this fine piece of virgin honeycomb, with this cone-shaped cheese from the pastures of Umbria ?"—or perhaps a few couple of dormice, or a live kid, or a brace of fat capons, constitute his humble offering, which is doubtless accepted with all graciousness; and perhaps too, before the day is over, some buxom dark-eyed Phyllis comes tripping up to the "Hall" with a "basket" from the worthy

couple, her parents. One cannot fail to be struck with the simplicity and kindliness of this rural picture,-which we strongly recommend to all our readers in the original,—written of a spot but a short distance from the voluptuous watering-place of Baiæ, and by one to whom none of the indulgences or vices of that self-indulgent and vicious age were unknown.

It is the unaffected attachment to a country life, breathing through such passages as these, which has contributed more than any other cause to the permanent popularity of the ancient literature. It is the salt of the Classics, which has rendered their baser elements innocuous. Through the grossest pictures of vice and the most degraded conceptions of religion by which their pages are disfigured, runs a vein of purity and tenderness which leavens the entire mass. Amid the fetid atmosphere of cities we catch the fresh breezes of the hills, and up over the "smoke and roaring bustle of Rome" floats a pleasant murmur of the country. The Athenians were litigious to a proverb, and as fond of public life as Lord Palmerston. Their law-courts and political assemblies were, next to the theatre, the favourite amusement of the people. Away from Athens, one would have supposed there was nothing in which the countrymen of Pericles were interested. Yet it was not so. We are informed by Thucydides that the principal cause of their hostility to the Peloponnesian War was the necessity of leaving their country-houses, and exposing their gardens, olive-grounds, and orchards, to the devastations of the invader. In Aristophanes, a genuine man of the world, we find the same sentiments illustrated with as much force as humour; while Xenophon, the scholar and philosopher, was at the same time a country gentleman and a sportsman.

In Latin literature every other page is redolent of this rural spirit. We need not mention the professed writers on agriculture. Whether in the philosophic studies and deep poetic sympathies of Lucretius; in the flowers, and festivals, and lovers of Tibullus and Propertius; in the literary leisure of Horace, and Martial, and Pliny; or clinging to the rough song of Juvenal, like the moss upon an ancient wall,-we ever see the ruling instinct. The old Roman character was exactly suited to appreciate the dignity of country life, and to value the many pleasures it afforded, without permitting them to sink into mere luxuriousness. The Roman was still the man of action. Law, and conquest, and legislation, were the work of his massive nature but still he looked to the country as the source of his purest delights; and, in the senate or the camp, had probably ever some well-loved spot in his memory, of which he would exclaim with his favourite, Sit meae sedes utinam senectae.