Yet, while we thus advocate the teaching of the Common Law as a substantial part of University education, we by no means wish to imply that this would relieve the Inns of Court of the duty imposed on them by the trust, of which they are the faithless depositories. We have said that synthetical teaching ought not only to precede, but also to accompany, analytical investigation. The first part should be furnished by the Universities, the second by the Inns of Court; nor will the place where they are delivered be the only difference between these methods of instruction. The University Professor would presume no knowledge of Pleading or Practice in his pupils. He would deal with Constitutional Law, the historical parts of the law of Real Property, and the principles of Equity and Common Law, applied to contracts and wrongs in general. The Professor of the Inns of Court would presuppose more technical knowledge in his pupils, and, without abandoning scientific arrangement, and the logical deduction of one principle from another, would trench more nearly on the department of the practising lawyer. Blackstone would be the model for the University Professor, while the Lecturer of the Inns of Court might probably find his in the close and learned arguments by which the darker portions of our Law have been from time to time illustrated. We cannot sketch such an outline without a painful consciousness that we are far indeed from the time when it shall be filled up, but in the present gloomy prospects of Legal Education we are thankful for any aid, especially when received from so distinguished a body as the late Oxford Commission.

If any one should think we hold extreme opinions on this subject, we would bid him turn to the last Number of Hansard (vol. cxxii. p. 1877.), just published, in which he will find the following conversation reported to have taken place in the House of Lords on the 25th of June last:

"Lord Lyndhurst said, he wished to ask the Lord Chief Justice whether, as visitor of the Inns of Court, he was satisfied with the scheme of legal education which had been adopted by the Benchers of the Inns of Court?

"Lord Campbell said, he had always thought that the state of

legal education was disgracefully bad, and he rejoiced to see that something had at last been done which might lead to amendment. He thought more might be done. He hoped that the Benchers would still go on, that there might be the same opportunity of acquiring legal education in this country as in other civilised countries in the world.

"Lord Lyndhurst hoped that the system of education now to be adopted would not be left vOLUNTARY, but that there would be A COMPULSORY EXAMINATION OF STUDENTS before they were called to the Bar.

"Lord Brougham said, as a Bencher he was confident there was every disposition on the part of his brethren on the Bench to carry a good deal further than they had yet done the important business which they had commenced for the improvement of legal education. But he entirely agreed with his noble and learned friend, that if degrees were conferred as the result of studies in the different Inns, or in a University composed of the four Inns (which he thought would be the sounder system), that these degrees should only be conferred after compulsory examination; that was to say, that examination should be necessary for admission to the degree of a barrister, and that this degree should not be conferred EXCEPT AS THE RESULT OF EDUCATION IN THE INNS."

This, we think, is decisive. We are glad also to see, that in the "Edinburgh Review," just published, the portions1 of the last “Annual Report" of the Law Amendment Society, condemnatory of the scheme of voluntary education just issued by the Benchers, is quoted with approbation. Legislative interference is now indeed certain to take place, as every one but the parties most concerned (who meet all objections with

1 "Your Council hope and believe, that from the present Inns of Court will at length arise a complete and satisfactory Law University, endowed with the funds originally vested in the Societies for Legal Education, and which cannot be better devoted than to the purpose of teaching the Law. Nor can your Council entertain a doubt that, if the Benchers do not so apply these funds, their proper application will be enforced by the Legislature.”— Report, 1852. And the Edinburgh Reviewer adds, "Lord Coke loved to have the Inns of Court called a Third University. It is time they did something to deserve that name. What a change in the learning of the great professions were Oxford and Cambridge really to take to teaching divinity to our future clergy, and the Temple and Lincoln's Inn to fulfilling the trust of watching with proper academical interest over the instruction and progress of their respective students!"

smiling self-sufficiency) must perceive. Nor do they see that they are being led to death by members of their own body. "Pleased to the last, they crop the flowery food,

And lick the hand just raised to shed their blood."

ART. XIII.-FRENCH AFFAIRS AND JURISPRUDENCE.

WITH the political aspect of affairs among our neighbours we have not anything to do, except in so far as the administration of justice is concerned. But upon this, all that has lately happened must be allowed to have a bearing, more or less direct, beside the great interests of peace being, according to some opinions, seriously involved; and none have greater reason to pray that this may prove a groundless alarm than the friends of Law Amendment, whose cause, with that of all social progress, is gone as soon as the sword is unsheathed.

It may be assumed, as the result of the President's late appeal to the people in the southern and western provinces, that there has everywhere been seen the greatest official enthusiasm; that this was quite real in its substance, and only heightened in its exhibition by the spirit of adulation and the vanity of personal display; that the lower orders of the people (the ignorant peasantry especially) showed the same feelings, though in a very much less degree; while the better classes kept aloof, but were quite content to let the tide run unopposed which was to bear the chief of the state towards a change of his title rather than any alteration in his position. In some places, and particularly in the Bordelais, — the most Bourbon part, perhaps, of all France, the feeling in his favour was much more general, and the warmth of his reception among the respectable classes more glowing. Whoever recollects the part acted by Bordeaux in the scenes of 1814 must regard this as exceedingly discreditable to that great community. But before we set it down to the account of national levity in excess, and the silly desire of outstripping the other towns of the south, where the most exaggerated

stories of the reception had been circulated by the pressthe gagged and the prompted press, we must not be too confident in denying that a good deal of royalist feeling mixed itself with the motives of the Bordelais, who may very well have preferred any despotism to that of the mob, and preferred to anarchy any return towards monarchical government. We have mentioned the manufactured narratives of the progress; and to be sure, when every newspaper exposed itself to the process of warning by venturing to mention anything which might displease not merely a minister, but a fawning prefect, no reliance can be placed upon the silence of all but the official journals, nor upon the fulsome trash with which these overflowed. But it turned out that some of them had their accounts written before the event; and one actually gave a flowery description of the proceedings at Tholouse, unfortunately including that of the mock fight, which had been announced, but was afterwards countermanded. It is a very common error in France to suppose that the multitudes who were gathered together on all parts of the progress were an indication of the interest taken by the people in the President and his proceedings. The very great majority were only moved by the love of the show, and by that curiosity to see a person whom all men were talking about. But it is an error fully as common in England, to fancy that these feelings are peculiarly French, and to look down upon our neighbours as we on all occasions so readily do. There was nothing half so senseless in the curiosity to see the President as in our own countrymen's crowding the roads to catch a look of George IV. when, in 1820, he changed his name from Regent to King. The week before, and for eight years, he had possessed every one attribute of King, saving the name, and no one went across the street, nay, turned his head to see him. His title was changed, and for a few days the way was crowded with spectators. A few months passed, and he became the object of execration, and ventured not to appear. A few months more, and all was forgotten; and in one part of his dominions he was received with more vehement expressions (at least) of affection than the President in any part of France; and the papers of those parts were to the full as extravagant in their

descriptions as any of the enslaved journals of Paris. Among the official parasites of the South, one of whom, formerly a St. Simonian, invested him with the glories of Charlemagne as well as the Emperor, it cannot be found that any one went so far as to begin a subscription for building him a palace, or that his rabble followers plunged into the water to enjoy the honour of bearing him ashore on their backs. Nor is this the only instance in which the conduct of our countrymen, even in other parts of the United Kingdom, has been such as to preclude them from too sternly reproving the extravagant and unreflecting proceedings of their foreign neighbours.

It is fit that we call to our recollection these passages, in order to allay the undue ferment of national pride: yet we are bound to add that no one can for a moment picture to himself any degree of national alarm which could ever make the people of England submit to the entire loss of liberty, and see no other means of safety from the lawless tyranny of the mob then seeking refuge in more than Oriental despotism. If the atrocious crimes of 1793-94 covered with ever-enduring disgrace the nation so devoid of all moral courage as to suffer them, it should seem that it has not at the present day recovered much of this virtue, when a dread of seeing the same enormities repeated, lays it prostrate before whoever will at any premium insure against such a risk.

It is, however, quite certain that, after making every allowance for the circumstances to which we have referred, there has been a demonstration, and an acquiescence, quite sufficient to justify the President in affirming that the intended renewal of the Empire has the assent of the country, and in expecting that this will be more favourably given by the votes upon that or indeed upon whatever proposition he may submit to the people.

The destruction of every thing like constitutional government was attended, as we had occasion to show in our Number for last May', with a great inroad upon the independence of the judicial office — the decree which placed the

1 L. R. xxxi. p. 151.