fome countries, the lord's confent ftill continues a favour, and that in others it is a right, which the tenant may claim on rendering a fine. In short, he will find the works of the foreign feudifts filled with accounts of the jus retractus, &c. but he will hardly find the words, conditional fee, eftate tail, difcontinuance, warranty, fine, or recovery, in the fenfe in which we ufe them.'

It follows, fays Mr. Butler, that our writers must be filent on many of the topics which fill the immenfe volumes of foreign feudifts, and they, from the fame circumstances, must be equally filent on many of the fubjects difcuffed by our writers. In this manner Mr. Butler, very properly, accounts for the contemptuous ftyle in which Hottoman and his followers have treated Littleton.

We have here prefented a compendious view of Mr. Butler's vindication of Littleton, to give the Reader fome idea of his manner; which will probably excite the curiofity of the Public to know more of the original performance. We think it deferves to be read.

Of Sir Edward Coke's Commentary, Mr. Butler gives an account, which ought not to be here entirely omitted. He ftates, very fairly, the obfervation of Sir Harry Spelman, whose words

are

"I do marvel many times, that my Lord Coke, adorning our law with fo many flowers of antiquity and foreign learning, hath not (as I fuppofe) turned afide into this field, i. e. feudal learning, from which fo many roots of our law have, of old, been taken and tranfplanted. I wifh fome worthy would read them diligently, and fhew the feveral heads from whence thofe of ours are taken. They beyond the feas are not only diligent, but very curious in this kind; but we are all for profit, and lucrando pane,' taking what we find at market, without enquiring whence it came."

Since Sir Harry Spelman's time, the fame wonder has been entertained by all English lawyers; but the defect, as Mr. Butler obferves, has been, in a great measure, compenfated by the writings of the Lord Chief Baron Gilbert, particularly his Treatife of Tenures; and by the works of Sir William Blackftone. He might, we think, have added Wright's Tenures; and, certainly, Dalrymple's Feudal Law deferves a perufal.

Having admitted this omiffion by fo great a lawyer as Sir Edward Coke, Mr. Butler proceeds to ftate his merits, and the fervice he has done his country. After apologizing for the want of method in the Commentary, and the quaintnefs of his ftyle, which must be attributed to the taste of the age in which he wrote, our Author fays,

The most advantageous and most proper point of view in which the learned Commentator can be placed, is by confidering him as the centre of modern and ancient law. The modern fyftem of law may be fuppofed to have taken its rife at the end of the reign of Henry VII. and to have affumed fomething of a regular form about the lat

ter

ter end of the reign of King Charles II. The principal features of this alteration are, perhaps, the introduction of recoveries, conveyances to uses, teftamentary difpofition by wills, the abolition of military tenures, the ftatute of frauds and perjuries, the establishment of a regular fyftem of equity, the difcontinuance of real actions, and the mode of trying titles to landed property by ejectment. A material alteration has been effected, during the above period, in the jurifprudence of this country; but this alteration was not fo much by fuperfeding, as by giving a new direction to the principles of the old law, and applying them to new fubjects. Hence a knowledge of ancient legal learning is abfolutely neceffary to a modern lawyer. Now Sir Edward Coke's Commentary upon Littleton is an immense repofitory of every thing that is moft interefting or useful in the legal learning of ancient times. Were it not for his labours, we should still have to search for it in the voluminous and chaotic compilation of cafes in the year-books, or the dry, though valuable, abridgment of Brooke, Rolle, and others. The writings of Sir Edward Coke have confiderably abridged, if not wholly taken away, the neceffity of this painfal purfuit.

But Coke's Commentary is not only a repofitory of ancient learning, but may be said to contain the outlines of the principal doctrines of modern law and equity. Sir Edward Coke delineates, on the one hand, the ancient system of law, as it stood at the acceffion of the Tudor line; and in the other, he points out the leading circumstances of the innovations which then began to take place. He fhews the different restraints which our ancestors laid on the alienation of land property, and the methods by which they were eluded, together with the various modifications which property received after the free alienation of it was allowed. He fhews how the notorious and public transfer of property by livery of feifin was fuperfeded by the fecret and more refined mode, introduced in confequence of the ftatute of uses. We may trace in Coke's Commentary the beginning of the difufe of real actions, the tendency of the nation to convert the military into focage tenures, and the outlines of almost every other point of modern jurifprudence. Thus Sir Edward Coke's wri tings ftand between and connect the ancient and modern part of the law; and by fhewing their mutual relation and dependency, difcover the many ways by which they refolve into, explain, and illuftrate one another."

We have been thus copious in our extracts from Mr. Butler's preface, because it appears to be both a judicious and a well written account of the original text, and the learned Commentary of Sir Edward Coke. The experienced lawyer may, as we conceive, derive some advantage from the light in which this celebrated work is placed by Mr. Butler; and the Reader, who is a novice in the laws of his country, will here find a dawn of science opening on his mind. In our next we shall examine the merits of Mr. Hargrave and Mr. Butler in this edition, begun and finished by their joint labours. [To be continued.]

FOREIGN

ART. XV.

FOREIGN LITERATURE.

Lettre de M. DE LUC fur les Obfervations, &c. i. e. M. de Luc's Letter on the Obfervations made by M. de Sauffure on the Summit of Mont Blanc. 4to. pp. 8.

IN

[N our laft Appendix, p. 532, we gave an account of M. de Sauffure's journey to the top of Mont Blanc, and an abstract of the observations which he made during his short stay in that elevated fituation. The letter before us contains M. de Luc's remarks on these obfervations, which, when duly confidered, are the ftrongest confirmation of the theory of that excellent philofopher, that could have been expected.

In our review of M. de Sauffure's Journey, we gave an abridgment of his conclufions, and the refult of his calculations concerning the height of Mont Blanc. We paffed a flight cenfure on M. de Luc's formula for determining heights by barometrical obfervations; alleging, that it gave the height less than the truth.

M. de Luc, in the present Letter, defends his theory of barometrical measurements, and fhews that M. de Sauffure's refult was faulty, in confequence of his having taken, for one of the data, in determining the elevation of the mountain, the height of the thermometer in the shade, inftead of its height in the sun. In the ufe of M. de Luc's formula, it is an effential condition, that the heights of the thermometer fhould be taken when the inftrument is expofed to the fun's rays. The thermometer, in the fun's rays, on the top of Mont Blanc, ftood, as M. de Sauffure fays, at 1.3 below the freezing point: in the corresponding obfervation made at Geneva, the thermometer in the shade stood at 22.6 above the freezing point *; from experience in fimilar cafes, M. de Luc thinks, and in our opinion very juftly, that in the fun the thermometer at Geneva would ftand at 24.6: from thefe data we have gone through the whole calculation according C 16 to M. de Luc's theorem, Log. B — Log. b × 1 +

215

where B is the height of the barometer at the bottom of the mountain, b its height at top, and the mean height of the thermometer at the bottom and top, taken in the fun. In the prefent cafe, Log. B Log. b = .22886, c = 11.65, and C 163 .977; then .22886 X.977 (removing the de. cimal point 4 places) gives 2236, in whole numbers, for the height of the fummit of Mont Blanc above M. Senebier's ob

215

* This thermometer has o for the freezing point, and 80 for boiling water at a mean height of the barometer.

fervatory

fervatory at Geneva, in toifes; to which 13 toifes must be added, being the height of M. Senebier's obfervatory above the lake, to give 2249 toifes, the true height of Mont Blanc above the level of the lake of Geneva. Sir George Schuckburgh made it 2257 toifes, by geometrical measurements, and M. Pictet, by the fame means, 2238 toifes; the mean of these is 2247 toifes; which fo nearly coincides with M. de Luc's, that they give each other a mutual fupport:-they do not differ much more than in the 2000th part of the whole. This we look on as a ftrong confirmation of the truth of M. de Luc's theorem, which was originally obtained by means of a long series of ac curate and laborious experiments, and found to agree with the geometrical theory of the atmosphere, deduced from the laws of gravitation. As it is doubtlefs a valuable theorem, we fhall inform our Readers, that it was firft given by M. de Luc, in his Recherches fur les Modifications de l'Atmosphere, and reduced to English measure by the Doctors Mafkelyne and Horfley, in the 64th volume of the Philofophical Tranfactions. The papers here mentioned are valuable explanatory commentaries on M. de Luc's elaborate performance.

The next object of M. de Luc's remarks, is the degree of the thermometer in boiling water, when the barometer ftands at 16.075 French inches, as on the top of Mont Blanc. The difference between the obferved height 68°.858, and that which the theory gives, 68°.993, is too fmall to be of any confequence.

M. de Sauffure fays (fee our laft Appendix, p. 538.), "I shall shortly make it appear that M. de Luc's objections to this method (viz. M. de Sauffure's) of obtaining the measure of extreme humidity, are ill-founded; and that his new hygrometer is a faulty and fallacious inftrument." M. de Luc anfwers, that he never has faid any thing against that method of determining the extreme humidity; and he adds, I wish to be informed what it is that M. de Sauffure has found defective in my experiments, fince I am ready to change my opinion if I am miftaken.'

The Letter concludes with the relation of a set of experiments comparing the motions of M. de Sauffure's hair hygrometer, M. de Luc's of tranfverfe whalebone, and another of whalebone taken lengthways. They confirm the opinion which we laid be fore our Readers in the review of M. de Luc's treatife on meteorology, refpecting the fuperior excellence of the tranfverfe whalebone hygrometers.

*We give the height in toifes, because M. de Luc's theorem is adapted to that measure; 10000 French toises are equal to 10654 English fathoms.

REV. Feb. 1788.

M

Art.

Art. II. Memoires d'Agriculture, &c. i. e. Memoirs of Agricul ture, and of rural and domestic Oeconomy. Published by the Royal Society of Agriculture at Paris. Vols. II. III. IV. and V. 8vo. See our laft Appendix, p. 581.

In the fhort announce of this article given in our laft Appendix, we took notice of the ufe that might be made of this publication by foreigners, who can feldom obtain a diftin& idea of the internal fituation and domeftic œconomy of the people of France, as fuch particulars, for the most part, efcape the notice of hiftorians, and even of travellers, and others, who give defcriptions of the country they have vifited. The well-informed politician, knowing that the profperity of a nation depends on the domeftic felicity of the people, is indeed anxious in his refearches after thofe little circumftances which affect them, and which are in general overlooked and difregarded by curfory obfervers. To enquirers of this ftamp, these memoirs will be confidered as an ineftimable work; and, in confequence of the ufe which may be made of it by them, it will, we doubt not, if continued on the fame plan, prove highly beneficial to the community. That our native country may derive fome advantages from it in this refpect, as well as with regard to the ufeful hints it may fuggeft on the fubject of agriculture, we now proceed, according to our promife, to give a fhort account of fuch particulars in these volumes, in both these respects, as appear to be most deferving the notice of our Readers.

Trimeftre of autumn 1785 [vol. ii.], or number for the months of October, November, and December, 1785 *. The first article in this number is an account of a medal ftruck by the direction of the fociety for commemorating an act of the king's munificence. This medal, however, will also give a ftriking picture of the low state of agriculture in France, of the poverty of the people who carry on the important operations of husbandry there, and of the small advances that their philofophers have yet made in the true fcience of political reformation. The king, who patronized this fociety, had diftributed to the people in the generality of Paris, a certain number of cows, gratis, which gift is meant to be continued for feveral years; and it is this event which is commemorated in the medal, as an act of charity. The measure deferves applaufe; but if it be viewed as a means of promoting agriculture, it must be confidered as extremely puerile.

The only exertion by actual farmers, recorded in this volume, tending to the improvement of agriculture, is the account given" *We have no English word equivalent to trimestre, a space of three months, a quarterly publication. It is fingular that the French call these three months autumn. They of course, begin the year with the winter quarter or trimestre.

by