knowledgment of a present of game from some unknown admirer. "We love to have our friend in the country sitting thus at our table by proxy; to apprehend his presence (though a hundred miles may be between us) by a turkey, whose goodly aspect reflects to us his 'plump corpusculum'; to taste him in grouse or woodcock; to feel him gliding down in the toast peculiar to the latter; to concorporate him in a slice of Canterbury brawn. This is indeed to have him within ourselves; to know him intimately; such participation is methinks unitive, as the old theologians phrase it." old Elia presents his acknowledgments to his Correspondent unknown, for a basket of prodigiously fine game. He takes for granted that so amiable a character must be a reader of the Athenæum, else he had meditated a notice in 'The Times.' Now if this friend had consulted the Delphic oracle for a present suited to the palate of Elia, he could not have hit upon a morsel so acceptable. The birds he is barely thankful for; pheasants are poor fowls disguised in fine feathers. But a hare roasted hard and brown, with gravy and melted butter ! Mr. Chambers, the sensible clergyman in Warwickshire, whose son's acquaintance has made many hours happy in the life of Elia, used to allow a pound of Epping to every hare. Perhaps that was over-doing it. But, in spite of the note of Philomel, who, like some fine poets, that think no scorn to adopt plagiarisms from a humble brother, reiterates every spring her cuckoo cry of Jug, Jug, Jug,' Elia pronounces that a hare, to be truly palated, must be roasted. Jugging sophisticates her. In our way it eats so crips,' as Mrs. Minikin says. Time was, when Elia was not arrived at his taste, that he preferred to all luxuries a roasted pig. But he disclaims all such green-sickness appetites in future, though he hath to acknowledge the receipt of many a delicacy in that kind from correspondents, good, but mistaken men, in consequence of their erroneous supposition, that he had carried up into mature life the prepossessions of childhood. From the worthy Vicar of Enfield he acknowledges a tithe contribution of extraordinary sapor. The ancients must have loved hares. Else why adopt the word lepores (obviously from lepus) but for some subtile analogy between the delicate flavor of the latter, and the finer relishes of wit in what we most poorly translate pleasantries. The fine madnesses of the poet are the very decoction of his diet. Thence is he harebrained. Harum-scarum is a libellous unfounded phrase, of modern usage. "T is true the hare is the most circumspect of - animals, sleeping with her eye open. Her ears, ever erect, keep them in that wholesome exercise, which conduces them to form the very tit-bit of the admirers of this noble animal. Noble will I call her, in spite of her detractors, who, from occasional demonstrations of the principle of self-preservation (common to all animals), infer in her a defect of heroism. Half a hundred horsemen, with thrice the number of dogs, scour the country in pursuit of puss across three counties; and because the wellflavored beast, weighing the odds, is willing to evade the hue and cry, with her delicate ears shrinking perchance from discord, comes the grave naturalist, Linnæus perchance, or Buffon, and gravely sets down the hare as a - timid animal. Why Achilles, or Bully Dawson, would have declined the preposterous combat. "In fact, how light of digestion we feel after a hare! How tender its processes after swallowing! What chyle it promotes! How etherial! as if its living celerity were a type of its nimble coursing through the animal juices. The notice might be longer. It is intended less as a Natural History of the Hare, than a cursory thanks to the country good Unknown.' The hare has many friends, but none sincerer than "ELIA." There is one part of Lamb's private life, which Mr. Talfourd glosses over more indulgently than most of his readers will approve. The intemperate use of intoxicating liquors has been often laid to his charge, and the charge seems fully proved; but Mr. Talfourd hides the vice under such gentle names as "genial frailty," a tenderness which neither respect for the memory of the dead, nor the natural partiality of a friendly biographer, can wholly excuse. It would have been enough to state the fact, and leave the readers to think of it as they might. He was not bound harshly to condemn ; but it would have been in better taste to abstain from all attempt at palliation. ART. IV.-A Course of Legal Study, addressed to Students and the Profession generally. By DAVID HOFFMAN, Jur. utr. Doct. Göttingen. Second Edition, rewritten and much enlarged. In Two Volumes. Baltimore; Published by Joseph Neal. 1836. 8vo. pp. 876. A NOTICE of the first edition of this work appeared in the sixteenth number of our journal; but in the interval of nineteen years, which separates the first from the second edition, the field of legal bibliography has been so much enlarged, that the present edition has a fair claim to be considered rather a new work than the extension and enlargement of an old one. During that period, the science of the law has, in England, been illustrated by the labors of the Chittys, father and sons, Sugden, Preston, Theobald, Phillips, Starkie, Amos, Shelford, Collyer, and Stephen, whose treatise on Pleading is, perhaps, the most beautiful and philosophical work on any legal subject, which has appeared in England, since the days of Blackstone. Our own country too, which, twenty years ago, had done little more than adapt a few English text-books to our meridian, with just enough of editorial matter to make a decent apology for a copyright, has since vied with the mother country in the number and value of its works on legal subjects. In proof of this, we need only mention (among others) the learned treatises of Mr. Willard Phillips on Insurance and on Patents, and of Judge Gould on Pleading, Mr. Laussat's Essay on Equity in Pennsylvania, which the London Law Magazine pronounces "an admirable book for any man, a wonderful book for a student to write," the treatises of Mr. Stearns and Judge Jackson on Real Law, the various legal publications of Mr. Angell, Mr. Cushing's Essay on the Trustee Process in Massachusetts, which, though an unpretending little work, on a subject of local and limited interest, deserves honorable mention as a model of neatness, accuracy, and philosophical disposition of parts, Dunlap's Treatise on Admiralty Practice, (in which, by the by, the editorial labors of Mr. Sumner constitute much the most valuable portion,) and, above all, the Commentaries of Chancellor Kent on American law in general, and of Mr. Justice Story on Bailments, Constitutional Law, the Conflict of Laws, and Equity Jurisprudence, all of which have acquired an European reputation, and earned, for these eminent jurists, in other countries, that meed of applause, which is like the calm, unbiassed judgment of posterity. Nor, in this connexion, should we omit the name of Mr. Theron Metcalf, in the list of American law writers; for although he has, as yet, appeared before the public only in the capacity of an Editor, the annotations with which he has enriched the text submitted to him, constitute, generally speaking, the most valuable part of the reprint, and bear the same relation to the text itself, which the notes of Mr. Serjeant Williams do to Saunders's Reports. We hazard the conjecture, that he has in his desk manuscripts enough to give him a high reputation as a discriminating and philosophical law writer, would he present them to the public. An extended and minute analysis of Mr. Hoffman's "Course of Legal Study," a work exclusively professional, it would be hardly fair to inflict upon the readers of a literary journal. For them, it will be sufficient to state, that it contains a general course of legal study, followed by a particular syllabus under every title of the general course, and under each particular title are collected the various works which have been written upon the several subjects which belong to it. Connected with these titles, is a succession of learned, elaborate, and most valuable critical observations upon the most conspicuous of the works, recommended for study and perusal, interspersed with judicious reflections of a general nature, which manifest a mind of great general cultivation, and a lively interest in the progress and improvement of the student. A considerable portion of the second volume is devoted to the head of "auxiliary subjects," under the various divisions of the geography, and civil, statistical, and political history of the United States, forensic eloquence and oratory, legal biography and bibliography, legal reviews, journals, and essays, codification and proposed amendments of the law, medical jurisprudence, military and naval law, logic, and professional deportment. To the whole is subjoined an appendix, containing hints and advice on note-books, and on debating societies, and moot-courts. In such a work, the most essential and indispensable merit is that of learning and thoroughness. Without these requisites, it would be worse than useless, since it would lead the student to be content with superficial attainments, and give him the notion that he had reached the summit of professional acquisition, when he had little more than mastered the rudiments. In this respect, Mr. Hoffman's work is not only unexceptionable, but admirable. Its learning is thorough, copious, and exact, pressed down and running over. It would take a high rank in this respect, if compared with the labors of European jurisprudents, whose unbroken days, from morn to dewy eve, are passed within the walls of their studies; but when we remember that it is the work of one, who has been more or less engaged in practice, during its composition, and who has been sustaining those active duties, imposed upon even the scholars and men of letters, in our young and bustling country, it moves our astonishment no less than our admiration. By, what process he has contrived to find time to read so many books, and collect together so stupendous a mass of erudition, quite passes our comprehension. That an ambitious and hardworking lawyer should make himself well acquainted with the learning of the common law, is not so surprising, since that is a kind of knowledge which can readily be exchanged for wealth and honor. But Mr. Hoffman has not contented himself with an acquaintance with such books as are authority in Westminster Hall, though these are numerous enough to break the backs of many camels. He is equally at home among the voluminous treatises of the Roman and Continental law. The catalogue of authors on these subjects, contained in the beginning of the second volume, is, in itself, a work of no inconsiderable research, and we have no doubt that a large proportion of the names will be found to be new, even to well-instructed lawyers. Indeed, we think that those portions of Mr. Hoffman's work, which treat of the civil law, and recommend its study, are of peculiar value and importance. The study of the philosophical and scientific treatises of the distinguished legal writers of France and Germany, affords an excellent corrective to that narrow spirit which an exclusive devotion to the common law is liable to produce. English law-treatises are, for the most part, mere formularies for practice, and are little more than digests of cases, written without reference to general principles, in a purely technical form, and without any pretension to that scientific arrangement which is deemed so indispensable on the Continent. As this is a work intended for the guidance and information. of students, accuracy of judgment is a quality hardly less de |