chap, xliv] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 499 Florence, 91 and is now deposited as a sacred relic 92 in the ancient palace of the republic. 93 It is the first care of a reformer to prevent any future refor- Legal in- mation. To maintain the text of the Pandects, the Institutes, of justin- and the Code, the use of cyphers and abbreviations was rigor- ously 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, 94 he 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 second edi- enriched with two hundred of his own laws and fifty decisions code a.d. 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 Many of his acts were rescinded by himself, many were rejected by his successors, many have been obliterated by time ; but the number of sixteen edicts, and one hundred and sixty-eight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, 95 has been 91 Pisa was taken by the Florentines in the year 1406 ; and in 1411 the Pandects were transported to the capital. These events are authentic and famous. 92 They were new bound in purple, deposited in a rich casket, and shewn to curious travellers by the monks and magistrates bareheaded, and with lighted tapers (Brenokman, 1. i. c. 10, 11, 12, p. 62-93). 93 After the collations of Politian, Bologninus, and Antoninus [leg. Antonius] Augustinus, and the splendid edition of the Pandects by Taurellus (in 1551) [legendum, Taurellius (1553)], Henry Brenckman, a Dutchman, undertook a pilgrimage to Florence, where he employed several years in the study of a single manuscript. His Historia Pandectarum Florentinorum (Utrecht, 1722, in 4to), though a monument of industry, is a small portion of his original design. 94 XpiHTea xa/«iW, kicar6fx^oi eVvea^oiW, apud Homerum patrem omnis virtutis (1st Prsefat. ad Pandect.). A line of Milton or Tasso would surprise us in an act of Parliament. Queb omnia obtinere sancimus in omne tevum. Of the first Code, he Bays (2d Praefat.), in Eeternum valiturum. Man and for ever ! 95 NovellcB is a classic adjective, but a barbarous substantive (Ludewig, p. 245). Justinian never collected them himself ; the nine collations, the legal standard of modern tribunals, consist of ninety-eight Novels ; but the number was increased by the diligence of Julian, Haloander, and Contius (Ludewig, p. 249, 258 ; Aleman.
