ous indulgences, see Novel. cxi. and Edict. v.]

Monarchs seldom condescend to become the preceptors of their subjects;
and some praise is due to Justinian, by whose command an ample system
was reduced to a short and elementary treatise. Among the various
institutes of the Roman law, [97] those of Caius [98] were the most
popular in the East and West; and their use may be considered as an
evidence of their merit. They were selected by the Imperial delegates,
Tribonian, Theophilus, and Dorotheus; and the freedom and purity of the
Antonines was incrusted with the coarser materials of a degenerate age.
The same volume which introduced the youth of Rome, Constantinople,
and Berytus, to the gradual study of the Code and Pandects, is still
precious to the historian, the philosopher, and the magistrate. The
Institutes of Justinian are divided into four books: they proceed,
with no contemptible method, from, I. Persons, to, II. Things, and from
things, to, III. Actions; and the article IV., of Private Wrongs, is
terminated by the principles of Criminal Law. [9811]

[Footnote 97: Lactantius, in his Institutes of Christianity, an elegant
and specious work, proposes to imitate the title and method of the
civilians. Quidam prudentes et arbitri aequitatis Institutiones Civilis
Juris compositas ediderunt, (Institut. Divin. l. i. c. 1.) Such as
Ulpian, Paul, Florentinus, Marcian.]

[Footnote 98: The emperor Justinian calls him suum, though he died
before the end of the second century. His Institutes are quoted by
Servius, Boethius, Priscian, &c.; and the Epitome by Arrian is still
extant. (See the Prolegomena and notes to the edition of Schulting, in
the Jurisprudentia Ante-Justinianea, Lugd. Bat. 1717. Heineccius, Hist.
J R No. 313. Ludewig, in Vit. Just. p. 199.)]

[Footnote 9811: Gibbon, dividing the Institutes into four parts,
considers the appendix of the criminal law in the last title as a fourth
part.--W.]

Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.--Part V.

The distinction of ranks and persons is the firmest basis of a mixed and
limited government. In France, the remains of liberty are kept alive
by the spirit, the honors, and even the prejudices, of fifty thousand
nobles. [99] Two hundred families [9911] supply, in lineal descent, the
second branch of English legislature, which maintains, between the king
and commons, the balance of the constitution. A gradation of patricians
and plebeians, of strangers and s