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Coke's impersonation of the two grand pronouns, Meum and Tuum; antagonists, never effete, as the Pope and Pagan, giants of Bunyan, but, like the good and evil Principles, still mingling with and perplexing all the actions and passions of man? What can be more beautiful than his tracing the secret affinities of our law with the divine inspiration of the great Latin poet?* The many classical citations and allusions of that eminent lawyer, his splendid illustrations, his comparisons, his imagery, his ingenuity in derivations and definitions, and that fervour and vigour of conception and expression peculiar to the Elizabethan age, suffice to show, that the compliment of, "How sweet an Ovid was in Murray lost," has been merited by more than one of the profession. For my own part, if I dared say it, I am often struck with the palpable resemblance of the poetry of Comyn's Digest to the works of some authors, whom it would be invidious here to mention-but, for admission into whose class, I avow me to be here offering my humble pretensions-partly encouraged by, and partly dissenting from, the example set by several of my learned friends, who have transferred to lay literature poetical lucubrations, which, there is every reason to regret, were not, like my own, employed in illustrating the doubts, and describing the contests of Meum and Tuum."

Mr. Moile then proceeds to remark on the "pure poetry of our whole system of pleading," referring the origin of pleas to the actual speeches of counsel, while proceedings were ore tenus; a reason which, he also thinks, sufficiently accounts for the businesslike view taken by our pleadings of the actions for crim. con. and seduction. The conversion of these injuries into a species of property, the value of which is to be ascertained, and compensated in the common measure of all prices, is characteristic, as he justly observes, of a commercial nation. But the exquisite and refined dissimulation with which the property alleged to have been injured is described, in order to give its appreciation the requisite certainty and uniformity,-exhibits the most splendid instance of a continuous Figure + in obliquity and indirection, which, perhaps, no Poetry has ever equalled. Were ever fictions more beautiful or more amiable than those on which are founded the actions of ejectment and of trover? In the former of which, the injury done and suffered is entirely transferred to ideal personages; and in the latter, as also is so justly said of the institution of marriage, the law has improved and interpreted for the better the commonest instinct of human nature. "What could," continues Mr. Moile, "better exemplify the strong affinity of our laws for poetry, than the fond discretion with which all this and the like imagery has been preserved, in the unsparing cutting away of other matters less useful and brilliant. Indeed, the very name given in common to the whole of these proceedings-Forms (in the civil law, carmina), sufficiently indicates the faculty of the mind to whose exercise their origin is due, and with whose literary productions their use is to be classed."

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Foresta est nomen collectivum," and, by grant thereof, the soil, game, and a free chase, doth pass. And, seeing we are to treat of matters of game and hunting, let us, to the end that we may proceed the more cheerfully, recreate ourselves with the excellent description of Dido's doe of the forest, wounded with a deadly arrow sticken in her, and not impertinent to our purpose.

Qualis conjecta cerva sagitta, &c. &c.'-4 Inst. c. 73."

"In figura, totius voluntatis fictio est, apparens magis quam confessa; ut illic" (in tropis) "verba sint verbis diversa; hic sermoni sensus, loci, et tota causæ conformatio: . . ironiam habere videtur."-Quinct, lib. ix. s. 2.

The following is so good that it must be quoted in extenso :— "The strong analogy of criminal trials to tragedy has been ingeniously remarked by my learned friend and competitor, Mr. Jardine; and the resemblance of many Nisi Prius cases to comedy can have hardly escaped the most superficial observer; and something of it is curiously preserved by the Reports for the benefit of posterity. The action of Replevin, indeed, has already engaged the labours of both painters and dramatists. Under the name of 'The Rent Day," it has drawn tears from thousands of our national theatres; and the pencil of a Wilkie has proved a common-law, or statutable distress, may become of all others the most pathetic. But though, in both those works, the declaration and avowry are admirably deli neated, there can be no doubt that the whole of the pleas in bar would be bad on a general demurrer. Succeeding artists may avoid this fault; and the design give rise to an emulation no less noble than that of Timanthes and Parrhasius to delineate the trial of the controversy for the arms of Achilles.

"If the kindred art of painting (continues Mr. Moile) succeeds so well in judicial subjects, can they prove less congenial to poetry? Undoubtedly, the statutes at large keep in reserve an inexhaustible and golden vein, the working of which prosaically has already attracted the attention of the Common Law Commissioners; a vein which waits only till the peculiar vocation of the present age for legislation shall have called for a lawyer, whose intellect may bear the same affinity for verse that the father of jurisprudence among the Greeks bore to the father of their poetry. The common law offers still more fertile resources. What fictions of heathen mythology are more imaginative than contingent remainders, executory devises, and springing uses? What is wanting but that delicate taste and fervid genius, which in Greece could express all earthly virtues, and all divine powers, by beautiful modifications of the human form,-to give body to a freehold in abeyance, and make the three certainties vie with the three graces in elegance and celebrity? In pleading, the field is equally promising to either art. A special demurrer to a negative pregnant would differ but little from the detection and exposure of Calisto, as pictured by Dominichino on the walls of the Farnese palace. But the most worthy subject of celebration would, perhaps, be the revival of the science itself, under the new Rules of Pleading: replication,-rejoinder, rebutter, and surrebutter, raising their heads again from under the all-whelming general issue, by which they had been nearly extinguished,—and advancing like Titans, led on by a demurrable declaration, driving the business of the country before them into the courts of equity,—to the entire reform and perfecting of the common law. In nothing is the age more remarkable than in having produced minds so superior to its occasions, that opportunities for the exercise of jurisprudence are only wanting, and their discovery itself employs no small number of commissioners. In that character have the sages of the law been nothing late or unwilling to enter on the career of reform. Other alterations may, perhaps, prove of doubtful utility, but the abolition of John Doe and Richard Roe (saving in ejectments) must be universally appreciated, and is alone sufficient to redeem the bar from the reproach of being wanting in the abstruser views of legislation and policy. It will be recorded, to the honour of our profession, that, in a self-denying era, when the peers gave up their boroughs, the Church pluralities, and the king pensions and sinecures, the lawyers, nothing behind the general march of improvement, have sacrificed common bail, and pledges to prosecute."

Here we must conclude our citations from this excellent work. The most exquisite irony pervades the preface ;-two-edged irony, having operation both on the ultra-prosaic and the ultra-poetic, but wounding the latter the less. The three poems that it introduces are majestic compositions, in heroic couplets, equal, if not superior, to Crabbe; stern as his style, but with loftier reaches and deeper aims. All is weighty sterling gold. Mr. Moile deserves to be called the Dante of jurisprudence. The work, however, is not intended for the populace, but for that higher class of minds for whom only elevated souls should seek to write. We know not which to admire most, the legal accuracy and judgement, or

the poetic fire and spirit of this volume; of which it is but justice to add, that it is truly sublime and profound (“two names for one feeling," or rather, two states of the same emotion). There is hope for our literature while such a book as this appears once in a century.

R. U.

OUR MONTHLY CRYPT.

OUR CRYPT is not, as might be supposed from its secret character, a dark, dungeon-looking hole, but airy, well-lighted, and dry. In it might you sit the whole day, without any fear of the lumbago. There is certainly a tale among the children and maid-servants, of its being haunted by a GOBIE, not dressed in a winding-sheet, with great red flaming eyes as big as saucers, but a very quiet old gentleman, in a brown coat and bob-wig, having an immense book in one hand, and in the other a cane, with which he is reported to chastise those who should presume to break in upon his privacy. We, to be sure, have always, privately and publicly, treated this rumour as the "vision of a dream ;" but such, nevertheless, has been its effect on the members of our household, that his bogleship has not had cause to make frequent use of his cane.

But come what might, we were determined to explore the hidden mysteries of the haunted Crypt beneath the strange old library, now inherited by us, as Editor of the Monthly Magazine. Accordingly we applied the rusty key to the still rustier lock of its door, at the further end of our sanctum sanctorum, and began carefully to descend an old-fashioned stone staircase, on which the dust had lain undisturbed ever since 1796. Our footsteps resounded hollowly throughout the vaults below, and our courage almost gave way. Determined, however, to finish our investigation, we proceeded. Arrived at the bottom of the staircase, we stood within the Crypt.

We gazed around us. Every thing in the place bore the aspect of the most venerable antiquity; the walls were totally destitute of ornament; the roof was supported by columns, some of which were rounded, others twisted, and neither in shaft or capitals were any two of them alike: the circumference of most of the shafts, so far as we could judge, not stopping to measure them, was about four feet, and the height of plinth, shaft, and capital, only about seven fect; the CRYPT, therefore, was not very lofty; and, in parts, we stood no bad chance of bumping our head against the ceiling.

Its contents were no less singular than its architecture, consisting of innumerable books, manuscripts, &c. &c., scattered without arrangement upon the floor, and covered with cobwebs, the growth of years; it had evidently been used as a literary Crypt in which our remote predecessors had buried what, perhaps, ought never to have lived at all.

We had only just time, however, to take a hurried glance, when we heard approaching footsteps. We felt a cold tremor-a creeping of the flesh-—as we recollected the ghost-tale above related. Our first impulse was to fly, but the next moment, fearing to fear, we resolutely stood our ground. Had we not talked with spirits erewhile? The footsteps advanced nearer, and still more near. The Spectre and the Editor stood face to face!

He lifted up his cane to strike-our blood froze! Looking, however, into our countenance before he let fall the blow, the GOBIE started suddenly back; a smile of joy came over his shadowy features; and then from his thin lips pealed a hollow laugh, which made the lonely vaults to ring again.

Monotonising a sepulchral whisper-" Follow me!" he turned and began to glide away. We obeyed him.

Through many a winding passage did the Bogle lead us. Every moment

were we stumbling over some forgotten quarto or other which laid in our way -(quartos, by the bye, are not published now)--and at every fall did our supernatural conducter look back with a malicious grin, as if amused by our want of skill.

At length he came to a full stop, in a passage more crowded with papers and manuscripts than any of those we had been in before. These he began, with no very sparing hand, to turn over, regardless of the cloud of dust he was raising, and, as it seemed to us, not caring one iota whether he choked us

or not.

At last he found the object of his search. It was an old manuscript, that, from the dust and dirt upon it, appeared to have lain there for a time, times, and half a time.

The Ghost propelled it into our hands, murmuring, "Read it."

But this was an unperformable injunction, for time had so well played his part, that the writing was totally illegible. Upon explaining our distress to the Gobie, he put his hand into his pocket (enabling us thereby to add to our other attainments, the certain knowledge that Gobies sometimes wear pockets), and drew therefrom an instrument shaped like a microscope-a peculiar instrument, made by Tri-literal Francis, the inspired optician, which he gave us, intimating, by signs, that we were to apply it to the manuscript.

And, indeed, most wonderful were its effects. Upon looking through it at the manuscript, the whole writing became as plain as a pikestaff.

"Read it-print it-publish it," said the Gobie in a beseeching, dolorous tone," and come for more. Put the shade of a poor Editor out of pain, sore smitten in conscience, in having been taken away before he had redeemed his pledge to an esteemed contributor."

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He vanished. We remained in the haunted Crypt, and, with the help of the Franciscan microscope, proceeded to read the manuscript. The words, telligible nonsense," written on it by some Editor, to whom the paper had been submitted for publication, first caught our eyes. This inspired us with no favourable opinions as to its merits, but still we persevered in our perusal of it.

There were some matters in it with which we agreed-some that struck us as having a Luciferian style. But this, perhaps, was only an association due to the questionable manner in which the manuscript came into our hands. How could we say, whether it brought with it "airs from heaven, or blasts from hell?" The circumstances were puzzling. It may look better in print," said So we have even tried it.

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1. THE FINE ARTS.

THE MODERN CRYPTOLOGIST ON THE FINE ARTS.

ART is a second birth of Nature, or a second creation, of which human ingenuity is the immediate source. Nature is the art of the Divine artist; but the word art is vulgarly employed to express the creations of the creature only. It is by his artistic skill that man declares himself to be, in an especial manner, the image or representative of God. An artist is a creator, not an imitator only. The beau ideal of art is not to be found in nature, outwardly manifested to sensuous observation. It has a spiritual existence in the mind of the artist, even as creation in the mind of God, before the spirit broods over the deep, and gives organisation to the world.

There is a secondary species of divinity, therefore, belonging to art, which invests it with a religious sanctity; and the nearer it approaches the source of religious feeling, the more noble and dignified it becomes. The lower species of art lose sight altogether of the Divine relationship; but the higher species

approach the throne of the Eternal himself, and bask, like the seraphim, in the fire of love divine. Sacred oratory, sacred poetry, sacred music, sacred painting, sacred architecture, sacred sculpture, take the precedence of every other species of these respective arts; and it is this sanctity which peculiarly distinguishes the ancient from modern art. Religion is the very soul of Grecian poetry, which even now is a model for Christian genius to imitate. Heaven and earth were quickened into life by the creative fancy of the masters of ancient song. Mere physical causes were despised as beneath the dignity of the sacred lyre. The gods and goddesses of heaven were deeply engaged in all the transactions of men. Every cause was a deity. Every motive was a messenger of God. Every dream was divine in its origin, and important in its end. There is a life-a universal life-in the poetry of olden times, which modern materialism and chemical science have extinguished, and thus lowered the poetry of Christendom beneath the more sublime and elevating ideality of Pagandom.

True poetry is merely the expression of wisdom, or the religious feeling. Science, or knowledge, is its opposite pole; one in general uses verse, and always rhythm; the other, prose. Formerly, the religious feeling was more free; less fettered by creeds and popular dogmatism than now. Homer felt very little difficulty in accounting for the origin of evil: evil and good were both distributed by the same Almighty power from the two urns of Jove, and heaven itself was divided into parties like our own society. Nature in heaven was perfectly analogous to nature on earth. The only difference was, that the heavenly race were possessed of more power, experienced higher and richer sensations of pleasure, and were better skilled in the arts of alleviating sorrow. It was not accounted blasphemy in a poet to represent a god as employing deceit to allure mankind, or to accomplish his own ends by human instrumentality; but still there were high laws of honour to which all the rulers of Olympus submitted with reverence, generous sentiments by which they were actuated, and intelligible motives by which they were influenced; all which creates a sympathy which it is impossible to feel for the personifications of Milton, or the horrific satires of Dante. A being all wicked, or its counterpart all good, is what the ancients never dreamed of. They mixed the two principles as they found them in nature; and even our own religious poets do the same; but they do it under cover, without being aware of their own departure from the faith which they profess. A modern Christian poet would scarcely dare to represent an inhabitant of heaven as of a mixed character like a heathen deity; and still less would he dare to place the urn of evil before the throne of the Eternal in plain language. But our most religious poet CowPER, under the mysticism of the word heaven, which he substitutes for God, ascribes even the dissipation of youth to God's shifting plans!

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Had Cowper used the word God instead of heaven, he might have been accused of blasphemy. Homer would have used it without fear, and with richer effect; for there is a consistency in the religious poetry of the ancients, which it requires considerable scholastic skill in divinity to discover in the modern school. Hence there is more true nature in ancient poetry than in modern of the highest order. Milton's "War in Heaven," in which devils feel pain, and angels are invulnerable, stands in need of vindication. The gods of Homer are all intelligible; but more art is needed to induce us into sympathy with the Christian personifications.

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