andard
of civil jurisprudence.

From Augustus to Trajan, the modest Caesars were content to promulgate
their edicts in the various characters of a Roman magistrate; and, in
the decrees of the senate, the _epistles_ and _orations_ of the prince
were respectfully inserted. Adrian appears to have been the first who
assumed, without disguise, the plenitude of legislative power. And this
innovation, so agreeable to his active mind, was countenanced by the
patience of the times, and his long absence from the seat of government.
The same policy was embraced by succeeding monarchs, and, according to
the harsh metaphor of Tertullian, "the gloomy and intricate forest
of ancient laws was cleared away by the axe of royal mandates and
_constitutions_." During four centuries, from Adrian to Justinian
the public and private jurisprudence was moulded by the will of the
sovereign; and few institutions, either human or divine, were permitted
to stand on their former basis. The origin of Imperial legislation was
concealed by the darkness of ages and the terrors of armed despotism;
and a double fiction was propagated by the servility, or perhaps the
ignorance, of the civilians, who basked in the sunshine of the Roman and
Byzantine courts. 1. To the prayer of the ancient Caesars, the people
or the senate had sometimes granted a personal exemption from the
obligation and penalty of particular statutes; and each indulgence was
an act of jurisdiction exercised by the republic over the first of
her citizens. His humble privilege was at length transformed into the
prerogative of a tyrant; and the Latin expression of "released from the
laws" was supposed to exalt the emperor above _all_ human restraints,
and to leave his conscience and reason as the sacred measure of his
conduct. 2. A similar dependence was implied in the decrees of the
senate, which, in every reign, defined the titles and powers of an
elective magistrate. But it was not before the ideas, and even the
language, of the Romans had been corrupted, that a _royal_ law, and an
irrevocable gift of the people, were created by the fancy of Ulpian, or
more probably of Tribonian himself; and the origin of Imperial power,
though false in fact, and slavish in its consequence, was supported on
a principle of freedom and justice. "The pleasure of the emperor has the
vigor and effect of law, since the Roman people, by the royal law,
have transferred to their prince the full extent of their own p