to ascertain the precise beginning, and first spring, of an ancient and long established custom.' And so my Lord Hale says, "The original of the common law is as undiscernible as the head of the Nile.' And indeed in this seems to consist the very essence and excellency of these customs, for so soon as any one can ascertain the commencement and original reason of them, they cease to be good law, as see Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. i. p. 70, So that if any one can show the beginning of it, it is no good custom.' From which preceding remarks and authorities our intelligent readers are no doubt fully satisfied that the common law is admirably well adapted to our times, and in the highest degree reasonable, for although the learned Mr Christian in his notes upon the Commentaries, alleges, that 'it cannot be dissembled that there are decisions drawn from established principles and maxims, which are good law, though such decisions may be manifestly absurd and unjust,' and that 'precedents and rules must be followed, even when they are flatly absurd and unjust,' thereby plainly hinting that these precedents and maxims are sometimes absurd and unjust, yet fortunately the learned Blackstone himself has furnished us with a very ready way of getting over such difficulties, for,' says he, speaking of the rules of the common law, though their reason be not obvious at first view, yet we owe such a deference to former times as not to suppose that they acted wholly without consideration;' which key to the proper understanding and due digestion of many rules of the common law, has been of infinite assistance, and is much used, in the study and practice of that science.

Having thus satisfactorily disposed of the first point, we proceed to show how easily an acquaintance with this law may be attained to. Now these rules of the common law, upon a due knowledge and observance of which the life and property of every member of the community in a great measure depend, are not, as we have before observed, written out and collected in one or more books or sets of books, as the civil and statute law are, so that a person should have occasion to know how to read, and reflect, and reason, in order to come to a knowledge of them; but very happily for us are stored up in the breasts of divers learned judges, whence they are to be extracted by a certain process, called a case in court; so that any one who has a desire to be informed of his own rights, or those of his neighbor, in any particular, instead of tumbling over musty books, to

the great waste of his time and injury of his eyes, has only to set about such a process, in which he is very kindly and willingly assisted by gentlemen of the bar, so called, (great numbers of whom are always at hand, ready for such undertaking) when after a few years constant attendance upon courts, and the laying out of several small sums of money, not worth mentioning, he will obtain a sufficient knowledge of the point in question, by a regular decision of the judges. And this course of inquiry being free to every one, rich or poor, high or low, all classes and members of society have by these means an equal opportunity of enjoying the laws of their country. Nor ought we to neglect mentioning here what puts this mode of acquiring a knowledge of the law greatly before every other, that, for several sufficient reasons, the legal information, once obtained after this manner, lays such good hold upon the memory as seldom or never to be forgotten for the rest of one's life.

But notwithstanding the plain excellencies of the common law, many persons said, and perhaps it may be thought with some reason, that if people were only able to ascertain what the law was after it was decided against them, it was no better than ex post facto law, and therefore contrary to all justice; and that all the rules and maxims of the common law ought to be collected and written out plain in some book, so that any person might go to it and suit himself, according to his case. Upon which, and many other like suggestions, it was set about to improve the old system. And this was done in the only feasible way, namely, by creating at once a great abundance of new judges, of all sorts and kinds, from whom, by a constant employment of them, all the rules and maxims of the common law might in a short time be extracted. In addition to these, numerous learned reporters were also appointed, whose duty it should be, to write out at length, and publish under their own hands, the decisions of the judges. By which judicious means these said rules and maxims of the common law have now got to be so well collected and reduced to writing, that it is thought Congress will shortly have to set apart one of the western territories for the sole purpose of storing away the numerous books of reports containing them; after the manner of a careful housewife, who is always known to appropriate some one chamber in her house to the purpose of a rubbish room. Nor did this rapid extraction of the common law fail of producing the advantages expected from it. For it often happened before this, that when persons who chanced

to fall into some small dispute with each other, came to examine into the law on the subject, they either found no adjudicated cases at all, touching the question, or if any, they were very like to be all on one side of it, which greatly disappointed one of the parties and much discouraged useful judicial investigations. Whereas since the better settlement of the law by the multiplication of valuable reports, numerous decisions may be found, not only applicable to every case that can arise, but also to every side of it, so that both parties apply with equal confidence to the legal tribunals, and are said to be rectus in curia, or to stand right in court, which, freely rendered, we understand to mean, start fair, it being impossible to conjecture on which side the weight of law is, until all the cases are regularly cited by the counsel and counted by the court.

These striking improvements on the common law as administered by our ancestors, raised such an enthusiasm in favor of the new system of things, that even the judges themselves fell in with it, and began to make experiments, so that notwithstanding it had always heretofore been the received opinion, and still is, we believe, in the mother country, that the wisdom of a judge lies principally in his wig, and that he might as well appear upon the bench without his head upon his shoulders, as without his wig upon his head; yet in their warmth, with one accord, and in the face and eyes of all precedents, they pulled their venerable hair wigs off their heads and converted them into seats, in the shape of hair cushions, alleging that the administration of justice was thereby rendered much more easy.

But of all the sciences cultivated in these times, the sublime science of Phrenology is that upon which the moderns most pride themselves; a science calculated to give us a perfectly new view of mankind. To attack this important science, the favorite of distinguished heads, seems to be the aim of the third and last memoir.

The name given to this wise man is Le Peigne, and he describes in the following extract his unexpected and extraordinary meeting with the first phrenologist.

6

My brother Harmony, began the Third Wise Man of Gotham, has, it seems, been shipwrecked in pursuit of the Perfectibility of Man; and my brother Quominus has fallen a victim to the Perfection of Reason, or the Wisdom of Ages, I can hardly tell which; I, on the contrary, am the martyr of science.

'I was born and educated in the most scientific, literary, and philosophical city in the world, for the women were all blues and the men metaphysicians. In truth, I may say, with perfect veracity, there were so many people running after science, that there were not sciences enough for them to run after. The business was overdone; the game was exhausted, as in countries too thickly settled and too much cultivated; and nothing was left for them but the invention of new sciences, to give them employment. Besides, such had been the unwearied industry, the deep sagacity, with which they had pursued the old sciences, that they had driven them from their most secret recesses; detected all their arcana; exposed their occult mysteries; and, in fact, pulled them by the ears, as it were, out of every hole and corner where they had entrenched themselves for ages. Strangers, who were allured to the city by the fame of its learning, observed with astonishment, that the women could call every thing by its scientific name, and that even the very children talked nearly as wisely as the best of them. Learning, science, and philosophy were becoming vulgar, insomuch that several people of the highest rank and fashion, began to study ignorance, and actually sent their children to school to unlearn every thing. It was high time, therefore, for the lovers of science to begin to look about them; for the writers and lecturers upon the old Grey Beard mathematics, philosophy, botany, and chemistry, instead of an audience of pretty fashionables, with nodding plumes, were content to confine their instructions to classes of rusty students, who actually came for no other purpose than to learn. The fashionable young ladies began to yawn at conversations where they met to relax themselves with political economy and metaphysics; and a universal alarm prevailed, when a great heiress, who was considered the bulwark of the blues, backslided, and married a regular dandy, with a thin waist and no learning.

'It was high time to get up something new for these people, and as the natives of our isle are more apt to improve upon the inventions of others than to invent anything themselves, I was selected by a coterie of philosophers, and sent out into the world to discover a new plaything for these grown up children of knowledge. I travelled, and travelled, and travelled, as the storybooks say, over divers countries that have neither latitude nor longitude; I visited all the colleges, scientific institutions, and bedlams; sought out the most learned and adventurous philosophers of christendom; consulted the Pundits of India, the Chingfoos of China, the Dervises of Turkey, and the Jugglers of the Flathead Indians of the Missouri. In short, I ransacked the uttermost ends of the earth, and was returning disconsolate, through GerVOL. XXIV.No. 54.

7

many, to my native city, with a firm conviction that there was nothing new under the sun, when an unexpected adventure befell me on the eve of a long day's journey.

'Owing to various untoward accidents, one of which was the lameness of my horse, I had been overtaken by twilight in the midst of the forest of Teutoburgium, not far, as it afterwards proved, from the spot where Varus and his legions had been cut off by the German hero Arminius. As the night gathered thick around me, obscured into Cimmerian darkness by the overarching shades, I became more and more confused and uncertain of my way. I heard the growling of bears, the howling of wolves, the hooting of owls, and the shrill whistle of the bandit, mingling with the sighing and moaning of winds as they wandered in the impenetrable shades. At length my progress was arrested by a cold and heavy hand, forcibly applied to my mouth, with such excellent aim, considering it was so dark, that it stopt it entirely and prevented me from calling for help, had I bethought myself of doing it. So forcible was the blow, that it knocked me from my horse, and I lay on the ground for a few moments insensible to everything around me. As I gradually recovered, the pain of my fall, the loneliness of my situation, and the apprehension that the bandit would return with his companions, and finish, perhaps, what he had begun, overcame me entirely, and I groaned at intervals aloud. Nothing for a time answered me, but the dismal echoes of the forest, and once or twice the neighings of what I snpposed my own horse, who had wandered to a distance. At length, however, my cries were answered by a voice which seemed close to my ear.

"Who and what art thou, that thus wanderest alone, at midnight, on the spot where the bones of tens of thousands have been bleaching for ages?" cried a hollow and tremulous voice.

"I am a pilgrim," exclaimed I, " from a far distant country, travelling the earth in search of a new science."

"Thou hast hit the nail on the head," replied the invisible voice. "Follow me, give me thy hand, thou art a lucky man, and hast been born, without doubt, with a silver spoon in thy mouth."

"But my horse," quoth I.

"He is safe," replied the voice, taking me by the hand. As I lifted it to my lips in token of thankfulness, I started back with horror.

"It smells of mortality!" cried I.

"True-It hath handled nothing but the bones of Varus and his legions, for more than thirty years."

"Art thou a sexton ?"

"No."