XXXVIU 



As akin to this subject, we may glance at the article, written by 

 Mr. Pickering for the Encyclopedia Americana, on the " Agrarian 

 Laws of Rome " ; a correct view of which laws he considered in- 

 dispensable to general readers, as well as lawyers, who would have 

 just notions of the Roman history and constitution. Contrary to 

 the general impression, that those laws were always a direct in- 

 fringement of the rights of private property, he shows that the 

 original object of them was the distribution of the public lands, and 

 not those of private citizens, though they might sometimes violate 

 private rights ; as certain laws of our State legislature, agrarian in 

 principle, made for the relief of illegal settlers on Eastern lands, 

 violated the rights of proprietors of those lands. 



The " Lecture on the alleged Uncertainty of the Law," deliv- 

 ered by Mr. Pickering before the Boston Society for the Diffu- 

 sion of Useful Knowledge, is an excellent production. Instead of 

 seeking for his auditors an hour's diversion by indulging their love 

 of pleasantry at the law's expense, he aims at what is true and use- 

 ful, and affords both entertainment and instruction. His object 

 was, to promote a just respect for the science of the law by se- 

 curing for it a proper confidence. The science itself is as certain 

 as the sciences in general ; but when we come to apply it to the 

 innumerable objects to be regulated by it, then the same uncer- 

 tainty takes place, which is experienced in the other sciences, not 

 excepting the mathematics. The various learning and striking il- 

 lustrations with which this beautiful lecture abounds place it 

 among his most valuable writings. 



The article written for the North Atnerican Review, entitled 

 " Egyptian Jurisprudence," is as characteristic as it is curious. 

 No other American scholar, we think, would have attempted it. 

 For several years, he observes, the learned world had been in 



