Feb. 17. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



121 



sena burnt and plundered every village tbrough 

 which he passed. The church and convent of 

 Alcobaga — " the value of which," says Mr. 

 Southey, " may be expressed to an English 

 reader by saying, that they were to the Portuguese 

 what Westminster Abbey and the Bodleian are to 

 the history and literature of England " — were 

 burnt by orders from the French head-quarters. 



In my next, which will consist chiefly of En- 

 glish examples, this series of notices will be con- 

 cluded. B. H. COWPEB. 

 (To he continued.) 



THE ROMAN AND ENGLISH I-AWS. 



The highest flower of the Roman law falls in the 

 limes of the deepest decline of civil liberty, in the 

 second and third centuries. Tlie greatest jurist, 

 Papinian, was the Prefectus Prcetorio of the greatest 

 tyrant, Caracalla. The organs of despotism, and 

 even the municipal decuria, had sunk during the 

 prevalence of that law to such a depth of degra- 

 dation, that criminals were condemned to accept 

 the decury ; a post which also Jews and heretics 

 were competent to fill, and by which illegitimate 

 children were declared legitimate. The panegy- 

 rists of that law, such as Savigny and others, in 

 vain try to persuade us, that Hot the law itself, 

 but its tyrannical application, had wrought mis- 

 chief in the country. They forget, however, that 

 the emptiness of a legislation shows itself not only 

 by the wrongs accruing from its own direct force 

 and application, but also by the absence of those 

 provisions by which a wrong application or inter- 

 pretation might be prevented. 



In striking contrast with the above, stands the 

 welfare and prosperity of the English nation, de- 

 spite the defects in their laws and judicial admi- 

 nistration. The difference between the two is, 

 that the Romans could not have been more un- 

 happy even without their laws, while the English 

 might probably be still more happy without theirs, 

 i. e. by reforming them. 



The laws of the Germanic nations were the 

 emanation of their times, customs, manners, and 

 way of thinking ; and they were consequently 

 adapted to their individual and national wants and 

 necessities. The Roman laws, on the contrary, 

 possessed no national peculiarities. They found 

 a home in all countries, because they were at 

 home nowhere : they might be adopted or dis- 

 carded everywhere according to circumstances; 

 they could in short be applied to everything, and 

 all cases, because they did not suit any case in 

 particular. Db. Michelsen. 



Spenser and Tasso. — Although the " lovely 

 lay" which, with the exception of one line, forms 

 the 74th and 75 ih stanzas of Canto xii. book ii. of 

 The Fairie Queene, meets with neither note nor 

 comment in any of the editions of that poem to 

 which I have referred, I can scarcely believe that 

 its origin is unknown. 



The author of that fragrant volume Flora 

 Domestica, marks a "striking resemblance" be- 

 tween it and a passage in Tasso ; and on referring 

 to La Gerusalemme Liberata, I find that is in 

 reality a pretty faithful translation of the 14th 

 and 15th stanzas of Canto xvi. The comparison 

 of human life with the frail fleeting beauty of the 

 flower, can only become a poet's own by the man- 

 ner of its treatment : for, as your readers are well 

 aware, the thought is to be found in every litera- 

 ture, and admits of almost endless illustration. 

 Its teaching here, as that of the poets of old, is — 



". . . . citraque juventam 

 -^tatis breve ver, et primes carpere fiores." 



A. Challsteth. 



Duration of a Visit. — With the saying of an 

 old lady in one (which ?) of Miss Ferrier's novels, 

 as referred to in Lockhart's Life of Scott, 

 chap. Ixiv. p. 570. (People's edition), viz. " that a 

 visit should not exceed three days, the rest, the 

 drest, and prest day," compare Plautus, Mil. Glor., 

 III. i. 145. : 



" Hospes nuUus in amici hospitium devorti potest, 

 Quin, ubi triduum ibi continuum fuerit, jam odiosua 

 siet." 



P. J. F. Gantillon. 



" Muratorii Rer. Ttal." — A large paper copy of 

 Muratorii Rerum Ltalicarum Scriptores has been 

 recently purchased for a public libraiy. On col- 

 lating vol. Iv., I found the paging to run thus : 

 pp. 353, 354, 355, 354. 359, 358, 359, 360. This 

 I found to be not an error in paging, but a dupli- 

 cation of pp. 354. 359., and a deficiency of pp. 356, 

 357. On inquiry I found the small paper copies 

 correct ; and our copy has been completed by 

 leaves taken from an odd volume of one of those. 

 From what I have learned, I believe the British 

 Museum copy to be perfected in a similar manner. 

 As some of your readers possessing copies of this 

 work may not be aware of the above error, I 

 hope you will not object to inserting the above 

 memorandum in your valuable periodical, of which 

 I have been a most warm advocate from its very 

 commencement, though (from pressure of business) 

 not a contributor to it. B. V. 



John Gait and Jeremy Taylor. — In Sir An- 

 drew Wylie, the hero acquires the sobriquet of 

 "Wheelie" by calling out, when a four-wheel 

 carriage passed him and his schoolmaster, " Wee 



