of justice were often sacrificed to the
prejudices of virtue, the bias of laudable affection, and the grosser
seductions of interest or resentment. But the errors or vices of each
praetor expired with his annual office; such maxims alone as had been
approved by reason and practice were copied by succeeding judges; the
rule of proceeding was defined by the solution of new cases; and the
temptations of injustice were removed by the Cornelian law, which
compelled the praetor of the year to adhere to the spirit and letter
of his first proclamation. [34] It was reserved for the curiosity and
learning of Adrian, to accomplish the design which had been conceived by
the genius of Caesar; and the praetorship of Salvius Julian, an eminent
lawyer, was immortalized by the composition of the Perpetual Edict. This
well-digested code was ratified by the emperor and the senate; the long
divorce of law and equity was at length reconciled; and, instead of the
Twelve Tables, the perpetual edict was fixed as the invariable standard
of civil jurisprudence. [35]

[Footnote 3211: There is a curious passage from Aurelius, a writer on
Law, on the Praetorian Praefect, quoted in Lydus de Magistratibus, p.
32, edit. Hase. The Praetorian praefect was to the emperor what the
master of the horse was to the dictator under the Republic. He was the
delegate, therefore, of the full Imperial authority; and no appeal could
be made or exception taken against his edicts. I had not observed
this passage, when the third volume, where it would have been more
appropriately placed, passed through the press.--M]

[Footnote 33: The jus honorarium of the praetors and other magistrates
is strictly defined in the Latin text to the Institutes, (l. i. tit.
ii. No. 7,) and more loosely explained in the Greek paraphrase of
Theophilus, (p. 33--38, edit. Reitz,) who drops the important word
honorarium. * Note: The author here follows the opinion of Heineccius,
who, according to the idea of his master Thomasius, was unwilling
to suppose that magistrates exercising a judicial could share in the
legislative power. For this reason he represents the edicts of the
praetors as absurd. (See his work, Historia Juris Romani, 69, 74.) But
Heineccius had altogether a false notion of this important institution
of the Romans, to which we owe in a great degree the perfection of their
jurisprudence. Heineccius, therefore, in his own days had many opponents
of his system, among others the