2. A Letter to the Right Hon. Lord John Russell on the Transfer of Landed Property. By Robert Wilson. 3. On the Reform of the Law of Real Property, in a Letter to the Right Hon. Lord Lyndhurst. By H. B. 4. Draft of a suggested Bill to facilitate the Transfer of Real Estate, and for the complete Registration of As- A Letter to the Right Hon. Lord Brougham aud Vaux on the Improvement and Consolidation of the Law ART. V.—THE USES OF THE GLOSSATORS AND THE COM- 1. Histoire du Droit Romain au Moyen Age. Par E. C. DE SAVIGNY. Traduit de l'Allemand par M. Charles Guenoux, Docteur en Droit. Paris. 2. Dissensiones Dominorum sive Controversiæ Veterum Juris Romani Interpretum qui Glossatores vocantur. - - ART. IX. - REFORMATORY INSTITUTIONS. BIRMINGHAM 1. Report of the Proceedings of a Conference on the Subject of Prevention and Reformatory Schools, held at Birmingham on the 9th and 10th December, 1851. 2. An Account of the Reformatory Institution for Juve- nile Offenders at Mettray, in France. From the Pamphlet of M. AUGUSTIN COCHIN, LL. D. And an Introduction by the Rev. George Hans Hamilton, M. A., Chaplain to the Durham County Gaol and - LAW THE REVIEW. ART. I.—THE BRIDGEWATER PEERAGE CASE. "MANY times,” says Bacon'," the things deduced to judgment may be meum and tuum, when the reason and consequence thereof may trench to point of estate. I call matter of state not only the parts of sovereignty, but whatsoever introduceth any great alteration or dangerous precedent, or concerneth manifestly any great portion of people." If these words had been delivered prophetically, we could hardly venture to doubt that Bacon had in his view precisely that great litigation which during the last two years has occupied the attention of our profession, and we may believe, also, of the public, under the name of the Bridgewater Case. Every word, as well as the whole spirit, of the wise sentence above quoted, is true as a delineation of the nature and circumstances of that case. The immediate question was, indeed, "meum" or "tuum," as between the youthful Viscount Alford, and his uncle, the Honourable Charles Henry Egerton (formerly Cust). They alone were the wrestlers and gymnasts in this Olympic; but a whole crowd of public athletes were interested in the issue; for the " reason and consequence" of the struggle trenched to "the parts of sovereignty," yea, even the very composition and purity of our constitution; and a "great portion of the people" were directly and "manifestly concerned," because the combat of the Viscount was in the name of resistance to what, if his cause was well conceived, was a most "dangerous precedent." Seldom, in truth, does it happen that private legal contests Essay of Judicature. become the arena for adjusting questions of such distinguished public moment as were contingent upon the issue of this It is remarkable, indeed, on account of the vast amount of property in question, the elevated position of the parties at issue, the dignity and authority of the Court before which it was brought, the intellectual and political renown of the individuals of whom that Court was composed, and the powerful advocacy arrayed on either side. Thus, the property is reputed to be worth two millions; the parties were Earls and Viscounts; the Court was the House of Peers, of which the grandeur is well described by Wooddeson, when he terms it "the oracle of jurisprudence" in this country; the individual peers had all attained the highest place their country could bestow in the office of Chancellor, and had called in the assistance of eleven of the Judges of the Common Law as their coadjutors; and these five peers personally are men endowed with minds of such breadth and capacity, but withal of qualities and tendencies and modes of thought so diversified, that their concurrence in opinion upon any public question must so fortify it as almost certainly to render it unimpeachable either in reasoning or sentiment. Their illustrious corps of coadjutors, too, comprised persons of accomplished intellect and profound knowledge. But attractive as all these circumstances and contingents of the discussion were, they fall into insignificance in comparison of the vast consequence to the community at large of the principles and interests concerned in this great forensic trial. Reducing these questions under general heads, and without more particularly adverting to the various interesting episodes of the discussion (which, however, in their proper place, we shall have to notice), this case compels us at several points to investigate some of the first principles of property, politics, and jurisprudence. The most cursory glance at the argument informs us that the Judges had to consider, first, what was the nature and what were the conditions of that right of disposal of landed property which is given by our law, and which, in some form or another, is almost invariably the consequence of the very institution of property itself; secondly, what acts of private interference with public pre |