prevent any future reformation. To
maintain the text of the _Pandects_, the _Institutes,_ and the _Code_,
the use of ciphers and abbreviations was rigorously proscribed; and as
Justinian recollected, that the perpetual edict had been buried under
the weight of commentators, he denounced the punishment of forgery
against the rash civilians who should presume to interpret or pervert
the will of their sovereign. The scholars of Accursius, of Bartolus, of
Cujacius, should blush for their accumulated guilt, unless they dare to
dispute his right of binding the authority of his successors and the
native freedom of the mind. But the Emperor was unable to fix his own
inconstancy; and while he boasted of renewing the exchange of Diomede,
of transmuting brass into gold, discovered the necessity of purifying
his gold from the mixture of baser alloy. Six years had not elapsed from
the publication of the _Code_ before he condemned the imperfect attempt
by a new and more accurate edition of the same work, which he enriched
with two hundred of his own laws and fifty decisions of the darkest and
most intricate points of jurisprudence. Every year or, according to
Procopius, each day of his long reign was marked by some legal
innovation. Many of his acts were rescinded by himself; many were
rejected by his successors; many have been obliterated by time; but the
number of sixteen _Edicts_ and one hundred and sixty-eight _Novels_ has
been admitted into the authentic body of the civil jurisprudence. In the
opinion of a philosopher superior to the prejudices of his profession,
these incessant and, for the most part, trifling alterations, can be
only explained by the venal spirit of a prince who sold without shame
his judgments and his laws.

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 those of Caius 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
were 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,