courts, sheriffs, clerks of Session and jury court, law professors, counsel for the Excise, assessors, &c. By these means, there are offices to the extent of nearly one for every third person, eligible from his standing to occupy it. There are four situations worth L. 4000 each per annum,-three of L. 3000,-three of L. 2500, -fourteen of L. 2000,-four of L. 1000,-eight of L. 500,-thirty-four of L. 300,-and eight of about L. 250.* No profession in Scotland, therefore, holds out, independent of private practice, such an advantageous prospect of settled and lucrative employment as that of the bar.

The fees or honoraria payable to advocates, which are always, if possible, in guinea notes, are very high; being generally from two to ten guineas for the writing of papers on legal cases, and for debating thereon. Occasionally they amount to fifty guineas. By a business of this nature, it is possible to realize the sum of L. 4000 per annum, though few actually receive more than the fourth part of this sum.t

The Faculty of Advocates possess a library of a very extensive description, situated contiguous to the courthouses. From its national importance, it will form the subject of a separate notice among other similar institutions.

Edin. Rev. vol. xxxix.

+ The custom of wearing wigs is now falling into disuse among the advocates; but they all still wear the ancient toga of the profession.

PROMINENT AND PECULIAR LAWS AND USAGES IN

SCOTLAND.

NATURE OF SCOTCH LAW-PROCESSES FOR THE RECOVERY OF DEBTS-SEIZURE OF THE PERSON AND MOVEABLE PROPERTY SCOTCH JAILS-ARRESTMENTS OF FOREIGNERS AND STRANGERS-ATTACHMENT OF HERITABLE PROPERTY.

If he his ample palm

Should haply on ill-fated shoulder lay
Of debtor, strait his body, to the touch
Obsequious, as whilom knights were wont,
To some enchanted castle is convey'd.

PHILIPS.

It may be remarked, that by no peculiarity in the institutions of a people, the instrumental part of religion excepted, is their genius and character so prominently developed as the contexture of their civil and criminal jurisprudence. The truth of this proposition is distinctly exemplified by the sympathy subsisting between the laws of Scotland and its inhabitants. It is now very generally understood among those indefatigable antiquaries, who delight in exploring the origin of customs and national institutions, that at one period the laws of England and Scotland, if not exactly uniform, bore a great resemblance to each other. But with regard to how this similarity originated, or by whom it was effected, there still exist great doubts. If such a parity in legal usages ever actually existed, it has long ceased to be observable. In the present

THE REGIAM MAJESTATEM.

145

day, only a few faint traces of a former consanguinity can be distinguished. The principles of the two codes of jurisprudence are often alike; but in their practical influence on society, or the forms by which they are set in motion, there is seldom any common points of similitude. Each law has in the course of centuries been gradually adapting itself to the circumstances, the manners, and the feelings of the people among whom it acts. The vast increase of commerce, wealth, and population, with the corresponding elevation of the middle ranks of society, have caused the institution of innumerable new statutes, and have been the consequent means of obscuring the old written law in England, while the long impoverished and depressed state of Scotland, its want of industry or spirit, and its religious distractions, tended to preserve the old laws in almost their original constitution. The abrogation of some of the most inefficacious usages since the Union, and the introduction of British statutes since that event, has amended, but by no means revolutionized the system, and therefore the Scottish law may be adduced as still one of the most prominent national institutions.

The foundation upon which the superstructure of our law is reared, is a very ancient work entitled the "Regiam Majestatem." Almost no point in history has been so warmly canvassed as the authorship of this production; one party asserting it to be a compilation dictated by David I. of Scotland, and another, with equal feasibility, declaring it to be a work digested by order of Edward I. of England, and introduced by him into this country for the purpose of assimilating the Scotch with the English law. Leaving this to be cleared up by the researches of historians, it may be mentioned, that whether Edward was the patron of the Regiam or not, it is at least very certain, that on con quering the northern part of the island, he was anxious to engraft upon it the institutions of his own kingdom. While he and his successor were in Scotland, the Court of King's Bench sat at Roxburgh,

K

146

THE PANDECTS OF JUSTINIAN.

where cases were determined on equal terms from all parts of Britain.*

The work which has thus been made the object of the keenest controversy, whether a copy of the treatise of Ranulph de Glanville or the reverse, is a compilation of a very extraordinary nature. It has evidently been the production of a man of profound abilities as a scholar. He must have had an extensive knowledge of sacred and profane history, and of the languages, laws, manners, and customs of Europe, and especially those of this country. He has extracted and incorporated the substance of the Justinian Pandects or Roman law; as much of the Levitical and Canon law

* Blackstone.

+ The Pandects of Justinian, or the civil law which had been in use among the Romans, were lost for many centuries after the overthrow of the empire by the barbarians, and they were not discovered till the year 1137, by which time the whole of the nations of Europe were lying in the lowest pitch of degradation. A copy, which had escaped the general destruction of Roman literature, it is said, was discovered accidentally in the town of Amalfi in Italy; and no sooner was the fact promulgated, than the Romish ecclesiastics addressed themselves warmly to the task of disseminating its contents throughout the different states in which they happened to be. Each country thus became indebted to Roman law for a portion of its legal institutes. Some adopted and preserved the use of it more than others; but none seems to have retained the Roman usages so completely as the Scotch. They have done so by means of statutory and consuetudinary laws enforcing attention to particular heads. As we are of opinion that little is popularly known of the origin of that mighty exertion of genius, the Pandects of Justinian, we beg to offer the following explanation in the words of Banckton: "The Emperor Justinian, [A. D. 533,] having, by his great vic. tories, restored to the Roman empire the several vast provinces which had been dismembered from it in the times of his predecessors, by the Goths, Vandals, and other foreign nations, and enjoying perfect tranquillity, undertook the noble but difficult enterprise of reducing their laws to order, which, by their immense bulk, had fallen into great confusion; and in the first place he caused compile the code, consisting of the constitutions of the emperors from Adrian's time till his own, collected out

THE ELEMENTS OF SCOTTISH LAW. 147

as suited his purpose; the Decretals of popes and their councils; made selections from the known laws of moof the Gregorian, Hermogenian, and Theodosian codes. Next, he caused digest what was proper to have the sanction of laws of the writings of the Roman lawyers, that flourished either in times of the commonwealth, or under the emperors till the emperor Gordian, under whom Modestinus the last of those illustrious lawyers lived. These consisted of no less than two thousand volumes, all which were perused by the learned persons commissioned for that purpose, who excerpted such portions as they thought fit for the design, and composed them into fifty books, called the Pandects and Digests, which the emperor authorized for laws, and advised the same to be published. And the very same year he advised the Institutions, as the elements of the civil law, to be composed; these are contained in four books, to which he likewise gave the imperial sanction. He afterwards added new laws or Novels, and the whole being joined together, the greatest magazine of knowledge was thus formed that ever the world was favoured with."

The benefits which have accrued to the modern world by the promulgation of the Roman law in the twelfth century, are now incalculable. Had the church of Rome stifled the publication of the Pandects, which it could easily have done, it is extremely probable that civilization would have been now scarcely dawning on Europe; there assuredly would have been as yet no reformation in religion, and Christianity itself might have been lost, or only remembered as a curious tradition. The original copy of the Pandects was deposited at Florence 1411, where, says Brenckman-an enthusiastic Dutch lawyer, who undertook a pilgrimage to study one of the manuscripts, and has left a learned work on the subject-it is esteemed as the most valuable literary curiosity in existence, being preserved in purple velvet in a rich casket, and shown to travellers by the monks and magistrates bareheaded, and with lighted tapers. Modern tourists are silent respecting the present condition of the Pandects, but we believe they are lodged among other rare books and manuscripts in the principal Florentine library or Magliabechina. The lawyers of Holland have written many ponderous volumes of commentaries on the Roman law, and to these monuments of learning and industry, Scottish advocates frequently find occasion to refer in their papers and pleadings. There have been several splendid editions of the Pandects; that commonly used is from the Dutch press, and resembles a thick octavo bible, closely printed in double columns. The word Pandect is from the Greek, and literally signifies all the words, or, by a free interpretation, all the wise sayings.