law of gradual progress which governs all human approaches towards perfection; and that this law is not confined to physics. Hume and Adam Smith, he observes, had their predecessors in political economy; and Fra Bartolommeo and Perugino preceded Raphael. Lord Brougham, who may in the present age be considered as the founder of law reform, had also illustrious predecessors, who paved the way, although, as a class, lawyers have not been fond of change ;* but we may reckon amongst those who were reformers the illustrious names of Lord Bacon, Sir M. Hale, and Blackstone. Lord Bacon, in his Proposal for an Amendment of the Law,' and in other parts of his works, has laboured to show the necessity and safety of the work, and how it may be done, 'being nothing speculative, but real and feasible; not going to the inatter of the laws, but to the manner of their registry, expression, and tradition; giving rather light than new nature.' And he observes that the laws, as they now stand, are subject to great uncertainties, whence arises the multiplicity of suits; that the contentious person is armed, and the honest subject wearied and oppressed, and that men's assurances of their lands and estates are subject to be questioned.' Again-There is such an accumulation of statutes concerning one matter, and they so cross and intricate, as the certainty of the law is lost in the heap.' He describes his proposal for amendment as a pruning and grafting of the law, not a ploughing up and planting again; for such a remove I should hold to be a perilous innovation, but in the way I shall now propound, the entire body and substance of the law shall remain, only discharged of idle and unprofitable matter.' In this cautious and tentative spirit the work has for the most part been carried on, and if some abuses linger long in consequence, the great mistake is avoided of pulling down material portions of the edifice, and substituting a crazy and inadequate structure in their stead. In tracing the progress of Lord Brougham's Law Reforms we have purposely avoided touching upon the labours of others in the same direction-upon the measures of Lord Campbell, Lord St. Leonards, Lord Cranworth, and we may add, from the bills he has already introduced, the present Lord Chancellor. The exertions of these eminent lawyers cannot be adequately described in an episode. But we cannot conclude without paying a tribute to the vast services rendered by Lord Lyndhurst, who was the first person in high Even Cicero was infected with the prejudice in favour of existing municipal institutions, estimating the twelve tables of the Decemvirs above all to be found in the libraries of Grecian philosophy. office to come to the rescue, and who did so much, both by the introduction of many important measures, and by affording his powerful aid in passing others. His merits as a law reformer are less generally known than his singular abilities as a judge and a statesman. Nor is it more for the bills he has promoted than for those he has prevented that he is entitled to distinction. Without a tincture of that blind, unhesitating, though astute opposition which characterised Lord Eldon, no one has rivalled him in the acute discrimination between plausible fallacies and real improvements. A mind so subtle and yet so practical has rarely or ever been brought to bear upon the question of legal reform; and it is to the sifting that many of the innumerable propositions made during the last five and thirty years have undergone in his fine understanding, that we owe alike the retention of what was excellent in the schemes, and our preservation from what was pernicious. Liberal where change was desirable, his vigilance has been incessant in defending whatever is excellent in our institutions against hostile attack and rash innovation: witness his invaluable efforts on the passing the Municipal Corporations Bill. With all the chaste and perspicuous eloquence and with all the acuteness of reasoning and exactness of learning which distinguished him in the meridian of life, he, only the other day, rescued our jury system from what most must consider as an alteration of very questionable value. It was not the least characteristic part of this remarkable display that a declaration which has been made again and again at various Assizes by the Lord Chief Justice of England of his power to have a jury, who could not agree in a verdict, carried in a cart to the borders of the county and there shot, like rubbish, into a ditch, was shown to be purely apocryphal, and to be founded upon a misunderstanding of an old word, and an ignorance of ancient customs. The precision of knowledge possessed by Lord Lyndhurst has been shown on many similar occasions to be as conspicuous as its extent. But we shall not now attempt to do justice to his rare powers, nor shall we even venture to sum up the character of Lord Brougham as a law reformer. Enough to say that though those who may hereafter take a view of his life and actions will, in estimating his achievements, dwell upon his vast powers as an energetic orator, and upon his qualities as a statesman, a scholar, a philosopher, and a philanthropist; there will yet be no one branch of his exertions which will prove his great services to his country more than his unremitting labours for the amelioration of our laws. He is among the small band of illustrious men who have left the impress of their minds upon the the age in which they have flourished, and a people educated, a popular literature diffused, and a cumbrous and expensive law made cheap and plain, will carry with them to the remotest generations the name of Brougham. ART. VIII.-1. La Quistione Italiana. Il Conte Buol ed il Piemonte. Lettere di L. C. Farini a Lord J. Russell. Turin. 1859. 2. Della Indipendenza d'Italia. Discorso di V. Salvagnoli. Florence. 1859. 4. La Proprietà Fondiaria in Lombardia. Studj di S. Jacini. Milan and Verona, 1857. 5. Condizioni Economiche della Provincia di Sondrio. Memoria di S. Jacini. Milan and Verona. 1858. 6. Sulla Necessità di accordare al Regno Lombardo-Veneto la Perequazione della sua Imposta Prediale con quella delle Provincie Tedesche del Impero. Di V. Pasini. Venice, 1858. 7. L'Empereur Napoléon III. et l'Italie. Paris. 1859. 'WE E close,' says Mr. Hallam, the history of the Middle Ages, while Italy is still untouched, and before as yet the first lances of France gleam along the defiles of the Alps.' There is still a moment, if only a moment, before us, resembling that which the illustrious historian has chosen to mark the conclusion of his first great literary journey. But although blood has not yet begun to flow, and the hum of peaceful industry is still unbroken by the roar of cannon, the cloud of military preparation has grown so dense that it appears as though it could not choose but burst, and abashed diplomacy seems almost on the point of ceding her place and office to the sword. Three months or even one month ago, we might have treated the Italian question as one for simple argument in senates, and in those wider circles where public opinion lives and moves. The issue grows narrower now, and may soon be reduced simply to this: with what feelings ought England to regard the combatants in the impending strife, and what will be the nature and scope of her concern in the combat? We fear that, at the point which we have now reached, it might not improbably be assumed that the interval between the manifestations which have already occurred and the first outbreak of war, is but like the moment after the eye has seen the flash and before the ear hears the report; that though divided in time they are one in causation; that, the first having occurred, we cannot hope eventually eventually to escape the latter. But the prospect which such a supposition offers is one of which, as long as hope remains, the eye must shrink from the contemplation. It is assuredly not the less terrible, because the war in which France will be avowedly a principal will be waged on her part in the name of liberty. Liberty is a plant that will not thrive in artificial heat, but is the growth of its own inward energies, matured in free contact with its native atmosphere. In contemplating the threatened strife, a throng of tormenting questions press upon the mind. Will the high organization of the Austrian army and the strategic accomplishments of its commanders enable that highly centralised but ill-balanced and ill-consolidated Empire to encounter with success the greater and more varied resources, the loftier spirit, and the more daring energies of France? On the other hand, will the pacific temper which the French nation has latterly acquired, partly from the experience of suffering and partly in the pursuit of wealth, allow it freely to embark its fortunes in the war on which the Sovereign, not the people, has determined? If it does not cordially embrace the war, can the throne of the second Napoleonic dynasty survive the miscarriage of so gigantic a venture? If it does, and if success crown the operations of the French armies, then can we suppose that the nation will rest contented with having vindicated a liberty for Piedmont or for Italy which they do not enjoy themselves? That they will bear with equanimity a fresh addition of five or it may be ten millions sterling to their annual taxation? That they will not seek large territorial compensation, and thus add to that power which is already so great as to constitute almost a 'standing menace' to the equilibrium of the European Continent? Nay, even if we have boldness or credulity sufficient to meet these demands, can we hope that the well-ordered liberty of Piedmont will survive both the assaults of its despotic antagonist, and the assistance of its despotic ally? Or, if Freedom runs fearful risks on the standing point she has so laboriously and painfully acquired, is it more likely that she, the child and ally of peaceful reason, will make new ground amidst the frightful convulsions of an European war, and will build the stately temple of Order with one hand while she wields the sword with the other? And what in particular will be the fate of that hybrid Sovereignty, ever a marvel and now undoubtedly a monster, which at once oppresses and enervates Central Italy, and in the sacred names of the Gospel and the Saviour overrides every social right, and raises again the question whether government and law are indeed intended for a blessing or for a curse to mankind? It would be far easier to multiply these inquiries than to answer them. The boldest specu lator lator is reduced to silence and to awe, and nothing is left him but the sad words of the prophet-Lo, a roll of a book; and there was written therein lamentations, and mourning, and woe.'* Even the outbreaking of such a war, however, and far less the prospect of it, cannot dispense us from the duty of considering the rights and wrongs involved in it. It is easy to give sufficient reasons why England should not enter into the arbitrement of blood; but it is easier still to show cause why she cannot sever herself from the moral and social interests of the contest which is to shake the European system from top to base and from centre to edge. Nay, more, why she should reserve to herself a perfectly unfettered discretion as to the future, and should even stand free to entertain at any time the question of a positive and perhaps decisive intervention. Either the aggrandisement of Austria at the cost of Italy, or the aggrandisement of France at the cost of Austria, would be an event which might impose determinate and weighty duties upon England. In what character these duties might have to be performed is a question at which we shall presently have to glance; and we shall strive to show that it is one of no less dignity than importance. The simple admission, however, that we must be interested spectators, and may at some period perforce be parties, requires us to consider whether the public opinion of England on the questions at issue is enlightened and matured in the degree which the magnitude and the urgency of the case require. The love of the Englishman for what he calls broad views is a motive power better suited to domestic than to foreign affairs. In his own sphere, he is fed with knowledge by his daily experience; and his abhorrence of subtlety and chicane, though it may sometimes make him judge with precipitation, is sufficiently guarded by sound information to prevent its hurrying him into any gross injustice. Although he can only well comprehend one idea at a time, yet, upon the whole, he knows when he ought to drop his favourite conception and bethink him of another in its place. Foreign affairs, in his normal state, he regards with indifference. But in the crises when they absolutely force themselves upon his attention, he takes them in hand with the earnestness and force that belong to him. Yet this uprightness of purpose, when it is not guided by carefulness and knowledge, may itself become the minister of injustice. For we often fail to discriminate between objects, which we hastily assume to be identical for no better reason than because they are presented to us in company. In the heroic struggle for national independence or * Ezekiel, ii. 9, 10. existence, |