of absolutely independent units; when, instead of old relations of master and man, with respect due on the one side and responsibility on the other, there is no "superior" and no "inferior," but a large plenty of equality, and a hard business contract only, between "boss" and " employé"?

Dr. Hearn shows reason why we should be thankful that the ancient state of society has broken up:

"The Household was much more compatible with political authority than the clan. It, consequently, long survived the full ascendancy of the State; and it left, at least in Roman law, deep traces of its influence. The principle of universal succession, the principle that no acquisition could be made by means of a stranger, the consequent retardation of the natural growth of agency, and the whole doctrine of the Patria Potestas, are all due to the original conception of the Household as a corporation. Yet this corporate Household was inconsistent with full social and political development, and slowly and gradually broke asunder. Its disintegration was caused, not by any single influence, but by the concurrent effect of various causes. The process may be described in general terms as an alteration in the position of the Pater familias. In one direction his powers were greatly extended; in another direction they were greatly abridged. On the one side the State gradually discharged the trusts upon which the Pater familias held his property, and, consequently, the restrictions upon his enjoyment of it. On the other side it strictly limited the exercise of his authority over the persons of his Household. Thus, the history of individual property and the history of personal liberty coincide. Both of them resulted

from the disintegration of the Household. The House - master stood forth secure in his property, but shorn of his power. The dependent emerged from the ruins, penniless, but free.

"The partition of inheritances and execution for debt levied on land are destroying the communities-this is the formula heard nowadays everywhere in India.' The like forces were in more or less active operation in Rome at the time of the Twelve Tables. Those Tables recognised the partition of inheritances, the sale of the property of the Household, and the power of testation. As to the partition of inheritances, we have already seen that the principle was recognised by custom, and was indeed essential, at least within certain limits, to the growth of archaic society. But it was a serious matter to establish a new Household, with its peculiar sacra, for the continued maintenance of which provision must have been made. The process of separation was probably, therefore, slow and difficult, and required the consent of all parties concerned. The interference of the State gave precision to the vague customary duties. The rule was established that no person could be retained in a partnership against his will. A process, which was at least comparatively prompt, was devised for ascertaining the amount of each partner's share, and of winding-up the affairs of the partnership. So, too, actions were given for the partition of individual property, and for the settlement of boundaries. Little is known of these proceedings; but they belong to the older period of the history of Roman law, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that their tendency was similar to that which we know that similar measures produce in other countries at the present time.

"The sale of the Household estate was a grave matter. Originally, as I have said, it was probably prohibited, or perhaps I should rather say unheard of. It was then allowed with the consent of the community, who, as the ultimate heirs, had a direct interest in such a transaction. Gradually, as the exigencies of social life grew urgent, it was considered that such sales might be made in cases of extreme necessity, or, as in India, of failure in business. In Ireland there appears to have been a special tribunal, whose duty it was to decide upon the existence of the alleged necessity. The tomb was excepted from the sale, and, if it were possible, the hearth. Still the sale would be effected, but only in a particular form and with the consents of specified persons. This customary mode of sale was, in Roman law, called mancipation, or, from the ceremonies used in it, sale by the bronze and balance. The transaction was attested by five witnesses, who may have been, or have represented, the parties whose consent was required. The authority of the State furnished a simpler and perhaps a safer method. This method, which was one of the Roman Legis Actiones,' or forms of procedure recognised by the Twelve Tables, was styled In Jure Cessio.' It was, in effect, a collusive action before the Prætor, who, upon the defendant admitting the claim, adjudged the property to the plaintiff. At a later period, when the consent of the five witnesses was reduced to a form, the mancipation became practically the easier process, and superseded in its turn the fictitious surrender. But the assistance of the State had done its work, and alienation had become habitual and comparatively easy. With regard to the power of testation, there is a distinction to which I have previously ad

verted, and which it is important to note. A testament was at one time a means for continuing the universal succession; at another time it was a means of distributing the testator's property. In the language of Roman law, it was either a method of appointing a 'Heres' or universal successor; or it was a method of providing for the payment of legacies or charges on the property. How the one object was related to the other, or by what steps the modern will was developed, I must, since I am not writing the history of law, resist the temptation to discuss. That which is material for my present purpose is, that the will is distinctly the creature of the State. The true will is found only at Rome, or, if anywhere else, at Athens-that is, it is found in those countries, and at that period of their history, where and when the State was developed; and it is not found in any Aryan community while it remained in the clan system. But Solon's will was a clear innovation by legislative authority upon clan custom. As to the Roman will, it is enough to cite the words of the 'Digest:' Testamenti factio non privati sed publici juris est.' There is, however, another aspect of this power. In matters of succession, we are so accustomed to look to the powers of the decedent, or to the gain of the successor, that we forget that that successor has not only rights, but duties. It must be remembered that, by the custom, a Filius familias, or other person in manu, could not, if he were required to act, refuse to be his father's heir, and that it might be very disad vantageous to him to be so. The heir was the universal successorthat is, he succeeded to all the liabilities as well as to all the rights of his ancestor. If, therefore, the estate were insolvent, he

succeeded to what the Roman lawyers emphatically called 'damnosa hereditas.' His liabilities were not confined to the assets that he received, but he was bound to pay all the debts of the deceased, even if there were no assets at all. The reason was that the Familia, or property of the Household, belonged to a corporation; that the corporation was bound by the acts of its Pater, or manager for the time being; that the successor was a member of the corporation, either indicated for that office by custom, with or without the sanction of law, or appointed, by virtue of a power conferred on him by law to make such nomination, by the late Pater; that, as such member of the corporation, all his acquisitions while he was in manu formed part of the common fund; and that he took the property as he found it, subject to all the proceedings of his predecessor. Such was the rule of immemorial custom; and this custom was accepted and enforced by law. But Gaius states that 'the Prætor permits them (i.e., the heredes necessarii) to abstain from the succession, so that the goods of the parent may rather be sold.' There is no information as to the time when the Prætor first introduced this beneficium abstinendi,' as it was called. Whatever may have been its date, it marks another distinct step in the disintegration, by the operation of law, of the archaic Household.

"There is a peculiarity in archaic procedure which has been often noticed. The remedy against a debtor was always personal. A creditor could seize his defaulting debtor, imprison him, and treat him as a slave; but he could not enter his house or sell a foot of his land. The reason of this apparent anomaly is sufficiently clear. land belonged to the Household, not to the individual debtor; and

The

a sale of the holy hearth and its belongings could not take place without grave injury to the sacra. The State, indeed, might, for its own debts, and then for the most part by way of punishment, sell out a citizen; but in a transaction between party and party, neither custom nor law sanctioned so extreme a course. At first the Prætor ventured to interpose his authority when, by the conduct of the debtor, the ordinary remedy against him was not available. If, without appointing any person to act on his behalf, the debtor left the jurisdiction, or if he hid, the Prætor had recourse to his favourite mode of operation through the Possession. He gave the creditor possession of the defendant's goods, subject to such conditions as the justice of the case required; and in due time possession ripened into ownership. It is noteworthy that, although he thus assisted the creditor, the Prætor never ventured to interfere on behalf of the debtor. The first attempt to introduce the modern principle of insolvencynot merely to substitute a remedy against the goods for a remedy against the person, but to close the whole transaction by applying, so far as they would go, the existing assets to liquidate the existing debts-was due to the great Julius. It is probable that Augustus carried into effect the unfinished policy of the Dictator. Ultimately, under Antoninus Pius, judgment debts were enforced directly by the seizure and sale of the debtor's goods by public officials.

"The influence of the State upon the authority of the House Father over the members of his Household needs not detain us long. No State is likely to permit to any person the uncontrolled power of life and death over its subjects. Thus, in India, as I have said, the British Government never even

listened to the claims of the natives to exercise their paternal power. In early times the assertion of the supremacy of the State, even within the sacred precinct, was necessarily gradual and slow."

In all this obscure process of change, what have we gained? Certain words stand out from the text. Law has come in place of custom; personal liberty succeeds personal slavery; social and political development (full of flaws as it may be) takes the place of the rigid narrow confinement of the clan; the living independent individual succeeds the obedient child of the household; the rule of the empire succeeds the petty dictation of the house father; personal property allows the development of each man's tastes; the individual has ceased to belong to a corporation of unlimited liability, and that could not be liquidated.

The moral seems to be that, in modern life, for better or for worse, we are individuals, and that if we do our best we may have all our clothes made to fit us. If we were put back into the old communal nursery, and made to wear, to eat, and to do what we were bid, even to the impossibility of choice of our wives or of privacy of our prayers, what terrible rebels we should

become!

Having chosen to be individual, and preferring that independence to any other birthright, we must be prepared to take up the burden of the responsibility of our position. If as individuals we feel it hardly when trade is bad, and we are isolated and friendless, and there is no communal accumulation to draw from, or if our fathers or ourselves have been spendthrifts or have managed badly, we must remember that it is as individuals that we have opened out the world, and by our energy which has resulted in access to lands to which famine has not reached, have ensured a certain small provision for our State, even for the worst of times. When the famine came in the days of old, the small and isolated archaic household was subject to its naked severity; when bad times come upon us individuals, we suffer, it is true; but the energy of our individualism, combined with the power of our nationalism, has protected us from the worst; and ships sail to and fro, and engines of all kinds labour until we are relieved, and can wait and work for prosperity, with its extensions and enhancements of life, to be at our doors again.

THERE seems to be a chance at last of a dictionary of English commensurate with the wide spread and importance of the language. In 1859 went out a "proposal for the publication of a new English Dictionary, by the Philological Society," and now, twenty years later, it is announced that the delegates of the Clarendon Press are taking up the matter, and that the president of the Philological Society has been appointed editor. "What a fuss about a trifle," we can imagine a superficial reader saying: "have there not been numbers of new dictionaries and new editions within the last twenty years?" May be; but there are dictionaries and dictionaries. The one in question will possess this rare qualification, that for the meanings and uses of the words we shall not have to depend upon a lexicographer's bald statement, but that century by century, period by period, the use and position of each word will be illustrated by examples drawn from English literature. Those who care for the beauty and strength and purity of language will thus have the very life and career of words opened out before them, and obtain at a glance the history of their noble or ignoble uses. It will be evident that a dictionary of this kind must be on a stupendous scale. We are not in the secrets of the editing staff, but if the work should be brought into less compass than fiveand-twenty large volumes, we shall be surprised.

We first made the acquaintance of the dictionary in this wise, and have ever since borne it much respect. Living neighbourly to an old clergyman, the late George Wheelwright, of Crowhurst, East Grinstead, he one day pointed to a set of bookshelves in his study on which were ranged vast rows of neat thick packages of manuscript. There," he said, "is letter F; I have been seven years engaged upon it." He opened a package, and there we saw sheet after sheet of excerpts in various handwritings, among which could be recognised the clear, firm caligraphy of Mr. W. M. Rossetti; the smaller but equally neat script of Professor Dowden; and the work of many another valued pen. The seven years, spared from the work of a parish whose handful of sons of the soil afforded little intellectual opening, had been devoted to the arrangement of these extracts, the verbal definitions, the derivations, and the general work of a dictionary.

We soon found that these crowded shelves inspired our host with gloom rather than delight. He had done his work, and there it remained-unheeded. Letter F was ready, but where were A, B, C, and the rest; and what was the good of poor letter F without his elder brethren? The silent years passed on, and the great dictionary seemed to be dying rather than taking form. Thinking of the vast sums of English money spent on Turkish palaces, we suggested to