energetically to
extract the general principles embedded in a vast mass of precedents and
technical formulas, and who was eminently qualified to lay them down in
the language of plain common sense, without needless subtlety or
affectation of antiquarian knowledge. I can fully believe in the truth
of Sir C. P. Ilbert's remark that whatever the value of the codes in
other respects, their educational value must be considerable. They may
convince students that law is not a mere trackless jungle of arbitrary
rules to be picked up in detail, but that there is really somewhere to
be discovered a foundation of reason and common sense. It was one of
Fitzjames's favourite topics that the law was capable of being thus
exhibited; and that fifty years hence it would be a commonplace that it
would be treated in a corresponding spirit, and made a beautiful and
instructive branch of science.

The publication of these two books marked a rise in his general
reputation. In the introduction to the 'Digest of the Criminal Law' he
refers to the rejection of his 'Homicide Bill.' The objections then
assigned were equivalent to a challenge to show the possibility of
codifying. He had resolved to show the possibility by actually codifying
'as a private enterprise.' The book must therefore be regarded as 'an
appeal to the public at large' against the judgment passed upon his
undertaking by Parliament and by many eminent lawyers. He does not make
the appeal 'in a complaining spirit.' The subject, he thinks, 'loses
nothing by delay,' and he hopes that he has improved in this book upon
the definitions laid down in his previous attempts. In connection with
this I may mention an article which he contributed to the 'Nineteenth
Century' for September 1879 upon a scheme for 'improving the law by
private enterprise.' He suggests the formation of a Council of 'legal
literature,' to co-operate with the Councils for law-reporting and for
legal education. He sketches various schemes, some of which have been
since taken up, for improving the law and legal knowledge. Digests of
various departments of the law might be of great service as preparing
the way for codification and illustrating defects in the existing state
of the law. He also suggests the utility of a translation of the
year-books, the first sources of the legal antiquary; a continuation of
the State Trials, and an authentic collection of the various laws of the
British Empire. Sir C. P. Ilbert has