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The University was accordingly respected, as well at this period, as under the Westphalian usurpation. will not, perhaps, be numbered among Heyne's greatest rewards, that he was presented by Jerome with the order of the Westphalian Crown. This latter worthy personage, who oppressed for a short time with a vulgar sway a rich and beautiful country, presented to the library at Gottingen the spoils of some of the other universities particularly some of those of the library at Wolfenbuttel. These, we understand, have been sent

back.

Heyne was happy beyond most, who attain like him the age of eighty-three, in not outliving his own reputation and usefulness.-Though not altogether without the warnings of his end, he was able to persevere in his literary labours to the last. The day before his death, he wrote some letters, one of them in Latin, which was found finished, but open upon his table, after his death. He arose as usual at five o'clock, on the morning of the 14th of July; and as his servant returned to his chamber with his coffee, a quarter of an hour after, he found him dead by the side of his washstand. We close our extracts, with the following account of his funeral. After the body had been laid out at the 'house of the deceased, on the evening of the 16th, it was 'carried early in the morning of the 17th to the lower 'hall of the Library, from which as his real home, the 'funeral was to proceed. From 7 o'clock, the train of mourners collected in the great hall. Here upon a table hung with black, were three white satin cushions, em'broidered with gold; upon that in the middle was placed the badge of the Westphalian order, with an oaken garC land, upon the two others the Homer and Virgil of the deceased bound with laurel wreaths. The students with 'their marshals, assembled at the same time. At 8 o'clock the procession commenced, with solemn musick be'fore the hearse, which was surrounded with pall-bearers, 'from among the students. Next to these followed Count von Schulenburg, with the cushion and Westphalian order, with Professors Tychsen and Mitscherlich, on either side, bearing the two other cushions, with the two principal works of the deceased. The procession passed by 'the house of the deceased through the Pauline and Ween'der streets, to the church-yard by the Weender gate,

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'where his grave had been prepared by the side of those of Meister and von Schlozer. Some friendly hands had strew'ed it with roses and other flowers. The procession form'ed itself in two rows about the grave, and before the coffin was deposited, the sublime hymn of Klopstock "thou ""shalt rise! thou shalt rise* !" was sung by a number

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'of the students. The Prorector Pott advanced to the grave, and made a short address, adapted to the soren 'moment. A profound stillness prevailed throughout the concourse, and the address itself was rather a thankoffering to God, who had given us this memorable man, ' and preserved him to us in the exercise of his faculties to the last moment, than a funeral lamentation. The procession returned in like order to the hall of the library, 'where after the deposition of the badge and writings of the deceased, in their former places, professor Benecke, as one of the overseers of the library, pronounced a short 'but sublime and affecting speech, and the procession dispersed. Shortly after was distributed a Latin poem com'posed in the name of the academy, by Professor Mitscherlich, and entitled "Pietus Georgiae Augustae, in funere 'viri summi Christiani Gottlob Heyne, ordinis coronae Westphaliae equitis, eloquentiae et poeseos professoris 'publici ordinarii."

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In taking our leave of this very entertaining work, we have only to express our regret, that our limits have not admitted of larger extracts. A great many anecdotes of the literature of the last half of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century are scattered through it, and it yields more incidental information upon the state of the German literary establishments, so far as Heyne, in a life of 83 years, was connected with them, than is easily to be found in any other book of the same compass, with which we are acquainted. We cannot but express our surprise that it has not yet had a translation into English.

Mr. Heyne's literary empire, like that of Alexander, was divided among four successors. He is succeeded by Professor Mitscherlich, as professor of Eloquence, by Mr. Reurss as principal Librarian, by Blumenbach as Secretary of the Royal Society, and by Eichhorn as editor of the Literary Journal.

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A Digest of the Law of Maritime Captures and Prises. By Henry Wheaton, Counseller at Law, and Advocate, New-York, published by R. M. Dermut, and D. D. Arden, No. 1, City Hotel, Broadway. Forbes and Co. Printers.-1815.

A Digest of Prize law has long been a desideratum with professional gentlemen. What is written on the subject was dispersed over such a variety of volumes, treatises in different languages, and the reports of our own, that to bring it within the compass of a single book, is rendering 'the state some service.' A lawyer's library, from the lumber of its thousands of volumes, has grown to be so repulsive an object, that writers of Digests are more than ever in requisition to reconcile us to the task of attempting to master whatever of substance it contains. Those are here the most useful labourers, whose exertions most conduce to the saving of labour. Nor is the work humble. Judges of highest ambition have engaged in it. Gilbert and Comyn, Blackstone and Buller. The extensive utility of the end gave dignity to the means; and these men were satisfied that they could not more effectually exalt their ambition into virtue, than by devoting their talents and benevolence to the relief of the profession from that superincumbent weight, which they were sensible oppressed, and which, they had reason to believe, threatened in no very long time to crush it. If books were indeed in their day mischievously many, how much more alarming is the evil now, when a new world has been given to the common law, and the Reports of this hemisphere already vie in voluminousness with those of the other. Yet it seems the increasing evil is destined still to iacrease. It grows out of our liberties, and is the exuberance of excessive fertility. Excres cencies would be less frequent, from a liberty less rich. Formalities increase, said Montesquieu, in proportion to the value which is set on the honour, fortune, liberty and life of the subject.

These remarks grow out of a review of a new Digest. The compiler has brought to his task assiduity and judgment, discrimination and research. He may not have cited all the authorities that could possibly have been produced, in support of some points, but enough are cited to

settle the law, and the profession will thank him for sparing the rest. With respect to the competence of a belligerent court to condemn prizes while lying in a neutral port, the case of the Comet, 5 Rob. 285. might have been added to the cases cited, and this question must now be considered at rest, notwithstanding the very respectable decision of the N. Y. Supreme Court as pronounced by Ch. J. Kent, 1. Johns. 478, and the dissentient opinions in the cases in Cranch, since these cases have since been adopted as law in divers of the Circuits; and while the volume before us was passing the press, they were adopted, in the case of a libel against goods taken from the brigs Arabella and Madeira and carried to Canton, China, by Story J. who was not of the court when those cases were decided. Extreme convenience first gave rise to the practice which these decisions sanction, and though we agree with Chief Justice Kent, Scaevolae assentimur, that courts of this country were not bound by the practice, but were at liberty from the precedents that controlled Sir William Scott, yet we think they were to yield, not indeed to the practice, but the convenience that suggested it. It is alike convenient to us, as to every other maritime people, who have found the convenience imperative. The practice is indeed a deviation from the principle on which admiralty jurisdiction was thought to be founded; but what amounts to the legal notion of necessity justifies this deviation. It is at all events of importance, that on this subject there be but one rule the world over, and more than half the world had already settled it for themselves, before the turn came to us to pass upon the question.

In the first chapter reference is had to the decision of the Supreme Court of the Union in the case, Brown v. the United States, and much is extracted from the opinion of the Circuit Judge which that decision overruled. The decree pronounced by the District Judge which that decision affirmed, contained matter pertinent to this chapter, and we regret that the author has not availed himself of the manuscript in this instance, and given this opinion a place, for the same reason he assigns, page 267, for giving place to the address of M. Portalis.

This work is divided into ten chapters, which comprehend very fully the whole of the subject. The appendix might perhaps have been spared, notwithstanding the value of the

six first articles, they having already been published in various works. In some instances citations are made from MS. opinions, since in print, and for the convenience of reference, we supply the places where the passages cited may be found in the printed volume.

Page 29 Emulous, Brown claimant. See 1. Circ. Ct. Reports, first Circ. 563

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Croudun et al. v. Leonard is cited p. 275, and the page and volume omitted. It is 4; Cranch 424.

In a work of this nature much original matter is not to be expected. The little here given, makes the reader regret, that the scope of the undertaking would admit of no more. Fairness and fidelity in compilation, precision in connecting the passages compiled, judgment in the division and arrangement, are all that can be expected from a digest, and the expectation is here not in vain. There was little on the subject in the language before, or rather little in any one volume, but what was to be found in the Law of War, translated from Bynkershoek by Du Ponceau, or in Lee on captures, an inferiour translation of the same work. Mr. Wheaton has collated and condensed whatever could be selected of importance, in various languages, from writers on the law of nations, from the Reports of Judicial decisions, and from the works of eminent civilians. Without any parade of erudition, the writer has endeavoured to satisfy a profession not satisfied with a little learning; and to save others' labour has been laborious himself. His subject has indeed abated much of its interest from the reestablishment of peace. But from its own nature, and the nature of man, the utility of the work is, we fear, permanent, and it should certainly find a place among the permanent authorities of a lawyer's library.

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