356 HENRY JAMES SUMNER MAINE. 



work is unique in its class for its extent, completeness, and thorough- 

 ness. 



Eichler was a man of strong will, having a great capacity for labor, 

 and with a sensitiveness to duty which allowed him no rest so long as 

 his physical strength endured. During the last ten years of his life, 

 however, he suffered much from disease, which revealed itself in 1886 

 as the fatal malady known as leukaemia. 



He was elected Member of this Academy in 1885, as successor to 

 George Bentham. His name has been given to a Brazilian genus of 

 Gerauiacea?. 



HENRY JAMES SUMNER MAINE. 



Sir Henry James Sumner Maine was born in the year 1822. 

 He was a son of the physician, Dr. James Maine. He was educated 

 at Christ's Hospital, and at the University of Cambridge, where he 

 received many honors for his excellent scholarship. The Craven 

 Scholarship was given him, and medals for Latin and English verses. 

 He was Senior Classic, Senior Chancellor's Classical Medalist, and 

 Senior Optime in Mathematics. He took his degree in 1844. He did 

 not receive a fellowship from his own College, Pembroke. There were 

 no Pembroke fellowships vacant at the time. He received one from 

 Trinity Hall, and took up his residence there. He was Tutor in the 

 College, and afterwards, at a later period of his life, its Head Master. 



Between the years 1844 and 1847 he must have been mainly occu- 

 pied with the study of Jurisprudence; for in 1847 he was made 

 Regius Professor of the Civil Law in his University. Three years 

 later, in 1850, he was called to the bar, and became a member both 

 of Lincoln's Inn and of the Middle Temple. At the Middle Temple 

 he was Reader in Jurisprudence and the Civil Law, and delivered the 

 lectures which were afterwards (in 1861) published under the title of 

 Ancient Law. The lectures were delivered in the beautiful old hall 

 of the Middle Temple, — the same hall where, in- 1601-2, Shake- 

 speare's Twelfth Night was performed. 



The Ancient Law is almost the first book in our language in which 

 Jurisprudence is treated from a strictly scientific point of view. It is 

 almost the first attempt to explain the development of legal ideas 

 according to the doctrine of evolution. The book is composed in a 

 very simple and lucid style, so that it is interesting not merely to stu- 

 dents of legal history, but to scholars generally ; it has been very much 

 read, both in England and in foreign countries; and it has brought 



