ART. V. SKETCH OF SIR WILLIAM BOLLAND.

[Abridged from the Law Magazine, for February, 1841.]

SIR WILLIAM BOLLAND, the eldest son of William Bolland, of London, merchant, was born in 1772. He was educated at Reading, under the late Dr. Valpy, at the same school which boasts the honor of having sent forth Mr. Serjeant Talfourd, another and one of the most distinguished of that class of lawyers of which the profession has most reason to be proud. He left Reading school for Trinity college, Cambridge, at the usual age for entering the University. He here formed a friendship with lord Lyndhurst, (then Mr. Copley,) which remained unbroken till his death. They took their degrees about the same time, (1794,) and appear to have been, in the strictest sense of the word, cotemporaries; but their ambition was of a different order.

The inn of court of which he became a member with a view to the bar, was the Middle Temple. His instructor in the noble science, (as Coke truly terms it,) of special pleading, was the late Mr. Justice Holroyd; and it is to be presumed that he devoted more than cursory attention to it, as he subsequently practised for some years below the bar. He was not called till Easter Term, 1801.' He joined the home circuit, and attended the Kent sessions, as well as those for London and Middlesex, and the metropolitan criminal courts. In all of these, no doubt aided by his father's connections, he soon obtained extensive practice, and on Mr. Knowlys's appointment to the office of recorder, he succeeded that gentleman as one of the city common pleaders. He retained this situation until he was raised to the bench, when he was succeeded by Mr. Russell Gurney.

1 We invariably refer for dates to that very useful book, Whishaw's Synopsis of the Bar.

Sir William Bolland was a good, though not a deeplyread, lawyer, and a sensible, well-informed, judicious and gentlemanly advocate.

He was made a baron of the exchequer in Michaelmas term, 1829, his friend lord Lyndhurst being then lord chancellor. Some doubts were certainly entertained at the time as to the propriety of this appointment, and we ourselves were amongst the cavillers; but we were wrong. Lord Lyndhurst knew his man: it was not a mere private preference, but a deliberate conviction of the fitness of the candidate, that influenced his decision; and it is allowed on all hands that the late baron's sound sense, knowledge of the world, and liberal, upright, manly tone of mind, more than compensated for any comparative deficiency in legal attainments. He turned out a respectable judge in civil business, and a very good one in criminal cases. The slowness, which might occasionally have been charged against him, was solely owing to his conscientiousness.

His fondness for rare and curious books began very early in life, grew with his growth and strengthened with his strength. At one time he was quite enthusiastic in the pursuit; and the sum produced by the sale of his library, (exceeding £3000,) bears ample testimony to his munificence and judgment in this particular. It is not the least remarkable circumstance of his career that his descendants are entitled to inscribe upon his tombstone: "Here lies the founder of the Roxburgh Club." It took its rise at a dinner party at his house. He had also amassed a valuable collection of coins.

He married (in 1810) his first cousin, Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. John Bolland, merchant, a lady of great personal attractions, by whom he has left three sons and two daughters. Sir William Bolland retired from the bench on account of ill health in January, 1839, and died in May, 1840.

ART. VI.-ON CODIFICATION, OR THE SYSTEMATIZING OF THE LAW.

[By J. LOUIS TELKAMPF, Jur. Utr. Dr. of Goettingen Univ., Professor in Union College, New York.]

Introduction.

In every human society the law must govern, and must control the arbitrary will of the individual; nothing, then, can more nearly interest every member of society than a consideration of this law, its nature, and such amendments as in the course of time may be found necessary to adapt it to the change of circumstances. It will be the object of this essay to examine the advantages of the adoption of a code, or in other words, of the reduction of the law into a system.

To a full exhibition of this subject, it will be necessary at the outset, to explain what we understand by law, and what by code.

The term code, we understand to mean a system of law, and would not apply it to those collections of the laws of a country, which have been made without regard to order, and are a mere succession of volumes without plan.

By system, we mean the harmonious arrangement of any number of parts, which appear in their full bearing and importance only when considered as a whole. In this sense, we speak of the system of the heavens, the human system, and others. A system of law, accordingly, is nothing but the form to which its various parts may be reduced, and which is pervaded by a rational principle. We must consider whether the nature of law is such as will admit of this form, and what in that case will be the best arrangement for rendering it more easy of comprehension, applica

tion, and amendment, as circumstances may require. For as the human body, which is a form in which man's physical existence is manifested, is of essential importance to the operations of the soul within, so, in a similar way, the form in which law is contained is of essential importance to the efficiency of its animating principle.

The small number of statutes existing in the early history of our race, made it easy to retain them in the minds of the whole people, and they consequently had little occasion to regard the form in which they were embodied: but, in course of time, the addition of many thousands of new statutes was required, to meet the wants arising from the complications of society; and it is an object, now, of extreme consequence, to discover the best and simplest mode in which these laws may be arranged. If it were not possible to systematize law, it would not deserve the appellation of a science.

If, with a view to such an arrangement, we consider the present state of law in this country, we see a confused mass of materials, certainly of very great value, but whose practical utility is much diminished by the incongruous manner in which they have been heaped together. We must remember that this law is of English origin, and was introduced here when the states were colonies of Great Britain, and that it has assumed its present condition during the lapse of ages, and through different degrees of civilization; we find, therefore, when viewing it in relation to our present circumstances, much crudeness and an almost total want of system, so that it does not readily present the means of gradual amelioration. In this country, too, the previous complication has been much increased by the addition, on the part of the various legislatures, of frequent supplements.

As my purpose, however, is not to censure, I have already said enough of this, and refer for ample proof of what has

been suggested, to fuller expositions of this part of legal science.'

This evil has been of late frequently exposed, and its effects have been often felt in the common intercourse of life. It is now, therefore, a question of urgent importance to find the proper remedy for a disorder, which time is rapidly increasing.

To investigate and criticise the many methods proposed for this purpose, would lead me far beyond the limits of a periodical. In future, should circumstances justify it, it will afford me pleasure to pursue this part of my subject, which shall comprise a portion of the substance of two essays, which I have heretofore written with especial reference to Germany. Indeed, some of the leading ideas of the present essay are a republication of parts of one of them.

Of the nature of law in general.

Let us attempt to understand the nature and meaning of all that is comprehended in the term law; for it is obvious that we cannot hope to arrange any materials according to their respective natural characteristics, without being previously acquainted with their nature. The success, therefore, of the present essay, will mainly depend upon our satisfactorily ascertaining this point.

1 See lord Bacon's Law Tracts, London, 1741, particularly his "proposition for compiling and amending the laws;" "Offer of a digest of the laws;" "Ordinances in chancery, for the better administration of justice in courts of chancery;" Sir W. Blackstone's discourse on the study of the law, p. 27; Brougham's speeches, p. 689; Sampson on codes and the common law, Washington, 1826, Vol. I. p. 20; Hoffman's course of legal study, Baltimore, 1836, Vol. II. p. 674.

2 "Amendment of the law in the states of Germany, (Ueber Verbesserung des Rechtszustandes in den Deutschen Stadten,) Berlin, 1835," and " De longa consuetudine," Hannover, 1835; written, when the author lectured on law, in the University of Goettingen.