Fees of the Clergy. It is proposed to have the amount of fees taken by the clergy settled by the bishop of the diocese with the consent of the incumbent and vestry, and to give some legal mode of enforcing the payment of them. No umpire is named, in case the bishop, incumbent and vestry disagree, which is not an improbable occurrence. Burial. The practice of burying in the church or chancel is condemned, as liable to deteriorate the fabric, and to affect the health of the inhabitants. The Commissioners are of opinion that it should be discontinued, so far as this can be. effected without trenching upon vested rights. We give verbatim the concluding sentences of the Report: "This Report has been drawn up on the supposition that the Provincial Court of York is to be retained; but it is proper to say, that a doubt has presented itself to our minds, whether the arrangement which we have proposed for the improved administration of the ecclesiastical laws, would not be rendered more complete and effectual, if the contentious and testamentary jurisdiction now exercised by the courts in the province of York were transferred to the metropolitan courts of Canterbury. We do not, however, venture to offer a specific recommendation on this head. "In so extensive an investigation, which has necessarily involved us in inquiries respecting questions of considerable difficulty, some diversity of opinion would unavoidably exist amongst us; but though some of us may still entertain doubts as to a few particulars, we, whose names are hereunto subscribed, have united in humbly offering to your Majesty the recommendations contained in this Report." The doubt expressed above as to the Provincial Court of York, affords an apt illustration of the besetting sin of the Report;-the weak, wavering, ambiguous, and often shuffling tone of it. We have hardly a plain, direct, straightforward, intelligible proposition, without a "perhaps" or "possibly," throughout; which would lead one to suspect that the doubts mentioned in the last sentence were not confined to 66 a few particulars," had we not a specific assurance to the contrary. We have also been obliged to indicate some few instances of sinister silence and disingenuous omission. But with all these drawbacks, the Report is a very valuable one, and, were it only for the admissions contained in it, will lead, we prophesy, to important results; for it shows that the Church is ready to surrender at once the invidious portion of her privileges, and submit the whole of them to that test of expediency by which all the rest of our national institutions are to be tried. Many, too, of the particular propositions deserve unqualified praise. H. ART. II.-AUSTIN'S LECTURES. The Province of Jurisprudence Determined. THIS is an admirably filled part of an admirable outline; but to appreciate either, a man should have studied the two, nor do we well know by what selection of passages or compression of arguments, we can convey any thing like an adequate notion of the book—any thing like an adequate reflection of the sentiments with which we ourselves have been inspired by it. Deep, clear, high toned and eloquent, it is yet by the comprehensiveness of its plan, and the beautiful dependency of its parts, that the work most strongly impresses us; and these are untransplantable. We will give, however, as accurate a description of its general scope and tendency as we can. The publication consists of a Preface, explaining the purpose and indicating the principal topics of the Lectures; the Lectures themselves, six in number, but as long as twelve of the ordinary length and originally delivered as ten; and an improved copy, by way of Appendix, of the Outline of which we formerly spoke. 1 The purpose is to distinguish positive laws (the appropriate matter of jurisprudence) from objects with which they are con 1 Law Mag. vol. v. p. 258. nected by ties of resemblance and analogy, as also by the common name of laws, and with which, therefore, they are often blended and confounded. The way taken to accomplish this purpose may (to borrow Mr. Austin's own words) be shortly stated thus:-1. "I determine the essence or nature which is common to all laws that are laws properly so called; in other words, I determine the essence or nature of a law imperative and proper. 2. I determine the respective charaoters of the four several kinds into which laws may be aptly divided: or (changing the phrase) I determine the appropriate marks by which laws of each kind are distinguished from laws of the others." We shall also allow him to indicate, nearly in his own words, the topics with which the treatise is chiefly concerned, and the order in which they present themselves: 1 "I. In the first of the six lectures into which the treatise is divided, I state the essentials of a law or rule (taken with the largest signification that can be given to the term properly). In other words, I determine the essence or nature which is common to all laws that are laws properly so called. Determining the essence or nature of a law imperative and proper, I determine implicitly the essence or nature of a command; and I distinguish such commands as are laws or rules, from such commands as are merely occasional or particular. Determining the nature of a command, I fix the meanings of the terms which the term 'command' implies; namely, sanction' or enforcement of obedience,'' duty' or obligation,'' superior and inferior.' "II. (a) In the beginning of the second lecture, I briefly determine the characters or marks by which the laws of God are distinguished from other laws. "In the beginning of the same lecture I briefly divide the laws, and the other commands of the Deity, into two kinds: the revealed or express, and the unrevealed or tacit. "Having briefly distinguished his revealed from his unrevealed commands, I pass to the nature of the signs or index through which the latter are manifested to man. Now, concerning the nature of the index to the tacit commands of the Deity, there are three theories or three hypotheses. First, the pure hypothesis or theory of general The four several kinds here alluded to are: 1. The Divine laws, or laws of God. 2. Positive laws; that is to say, laws which are simply and strictly so called. 3. Rules of positive morality. 4. Laws metaphorical or figurative, as the laws of matter. utility; secondly, the pure hypothesis or theory of a moral sense; thirdly, a hypothesis or theory mixed or compounded of the others. And with a statement and explanation of the three hypotheses or theories, the greater portion of the second lecture, and the whole of the third and fourth lectures, are exclusively or chiefly occupied." (Here Mr. Austin digresses to show the pertinency of these theories to the subject and scope of his course. We believe no thinking man will doubt of it, but we may notwithstanding avail ourselves, a little further on, of his remarks on this head, though (not to break the analysis) we think it best to pass over them now.) "II. (b) At the beginning of the fifth lecture, I distribute laws or rules under two classes. First, laws properly so called, with such improper laws as are closely analogous to the proper; secondly, those improper laws which are remotely analogous to the proper, and which I style, therefore, laws metaphorical or figurative. I also distribute laws proper, with such improper laws as are closely analogous to the proper, under three classes: namely, the laws properly so called which I style the laws of God; the laws properly so called which I style positive laws; and the laws properly so called, with the laws improperly so called, which I style positive morality or positive moral rules. I assign, moreover, my reasons for marking those several classes with those respective names. "Having determined, in preceding lectures, the characters or distinguishing marks of the divine laws, I determine, in the fifth lecture, the characters or distinguishing marks of positive moral rules: that is to say, such of the laws or rules set by men to men as are not armed with legal sanctions; or such of those laws or rules as are not positive laws, or are not appropriate matter for general or particular jurisprudence. Having determined the distinguishing marks of positive moral rules, I determine the respective characters of their two dissimilar kinds; namely, the positive moral rules which are laws imperative and proper, and the positive moral rules which are laws set by opinion. "The divine law, positive law, and positive morality, are mutually related in various ways. To illustrate their mutual relations, I advert, in the fifth lecture, to the cases wherein they agree, wherein they disagree without conflicting, and wherein they disagree and conflict. "I show, in the same lecture, that my distribution of laws proper, and of such improper laws as are closely analogous to the proper, tallies, in the main, with a division of laws which is given incidentally by Locke in his Essay on Human Understanding. "II. (c) At the end of the same lecture, I determine the characters or distinguishing marks of laws metaphorical or figurative. And I show that laws which are merely laws through metaphors, are blended and confounded, by writers of celebrity, with laws imperative and proper. "II. (d) In the sixth and last lecture, I determine the characters of laws positive: that is to say, laws which are simply and strictly so called, and which form the appropriate matter of general and particular jurisprudence. "Determining the characters of positive laws, I determine implicitly the notion of sovereignty, with the implied or correlative notion of independent political society. For the essential difference of á positive law (or the difference that severs it from a law which is not a positive law) may be stated generally in the following manner : Every positive law, or every law simply and strictly so called, is set by a sovereign person, or a sovereign body of persons, to a member or members of the independent political society wherein that person or body is sovereign or supreme. Or (changing the phrase) it is set by a monarch, or sovereign number, to a person or persons in a state of subjection to its author. "To elucidate the nature of sovereignty, and of the independent political society that sovereignty implies, I examine various topics which I arrange under the following heads: First, the possible forms or shapes of supreme political government; secondly, the limits, real or imaginary, of supreme political power; thirdly, the origin or causes of political government and society. Examining those various topics, I complete my description of the limit or boundary by which positive law is severed from positive morality. For I distinguish them at certain points whereat they seemingly blend, or whereat the line which divides them is not easily perceptible. "The essential difference of a positive law (or the difference that severs it from a law which is not a positive law) may be stated generally as I have stated it above. But the foregoing general statement of that essential difference is open to certain correctives. And with a brief allusion to those correctives, I close the sixth and last lecture." Readers not conversant with such subjects, or not aware of the extent to which they ramify, may wonder how three hundred pages can be occupied in determining the province of law. It may abate their wonder to be told, that we find unavoidably included in this work the better part of all which the best elementary writers on ethics, politics, and jurisprudence are studied for; of all which it is the professed object of such |