sticks and turf, which
irresistibly recalls a reminiscence of Jack the Giant-killer. The
chapters on theft and trespass establish the rights of book owners
as against book stealers, book borrowers, and book defacers, with an
affectionate precision which would have gladdened the heart of Charles
Lamb or Sir Walter Scott. ["A, being on friendly terms with Z, goes
into Z's library, in Z's absence, and takes a book without Z's express
consent. Here, it is probable that A may have conceived that he had Z's
implied consent to use Z's books. If this was A's impression, A has not
committed theft."

"A takes up a book belonging to Z, and reads it, not having any right
over the book, and not having the consent of any person entitled to
authorise A so to do. A trespasses.

"A, being exasperated at a passage in a book which is lying on the
counter of Z, snatches it up, and tears it to pieces. A has not
committed theft, as he has not acted fraudulently, though he may
have committed criminal trespass and mischief."] In the chapter on
manslaughter, the judge is enjoined to treat with lenity an act done
in the first anger of a husband or father, provoked by the intolerable
outrage of a certain kind of criminal assault. "Such an assault produced
the Sicilian Vespers. Such an assault called forth the memorable blow of
Wat Tyler." And, on the question whether the severity of a hurt should
be considered in apportioning the punishment, we are reminded of
"examples which are universally known. Harley was laid up more than
twenty days by the wound which he received from Guiscard;" while "the
scratch which Damien gave to Louis the Fifteenth was so slight that it
was followed by no feverish symptoms." Such a sanguine estimate of the
diffusion of knowledge with regard to the details of ancient crimes
could proceed from no pen but that of the writer who endowed schoolboys
with the erudition of professors, and the talker who, when he poured
forth the stores of his memory, began each of his disquisitions with the
phrase, "don't you remember?"

If it be asked whether or not the Penal Code fulfils the ends for which
it was framed, the answer may safely be left to the gratitude of Indian
civilians, the younger of whom carry it about in their saddle-bags, and
the older in their heads. The value which it possesses in the eyes of a
trained English lawyer may be gathered from the testimony of Macaulay's
eminent successor, Mr. Fitzjames Stephen, who wr