Court founded five readerships, and instituted a system of examination. Maine became the first reader on Roman law and jurisprudence. His lectures very soon attracted the attention of all the other students. His voice and manner gave full effect to his keen thought and incisive style. Although he was for a time upon the Norfolk circuit, and afterwards joined the equity bar, he never obtained much practice, and at this time suffered from many serious illnesses. He was, however, rapidly gaining a high reputation as a philosophical jurist.
In November 1855 the ‘Saturday Review’ was started, under the editorship of Cook, and Maine became one of the foremost among a singularly able band of contributors. Cook used to say that Maine and one other writer were the only two men he had ever known who wrote as well from the first as they ever wrote afterwards. For some years the ‘Saturday Review’ received Maine's principal writings. Sir M. E. Grant Duff mentions especially the articles which he wrote in 1857 against the impending extinction of the East India Company.
Maine had contributed to the ‘Cambridge Essays’ in 1856 an able paper upon ‘Roman Law and Legal Education,’ and in 1861 he justified his reputation by the publication of his ‘Ancient Law,’ a work which made an epoch in the studies with which it is concerned. By the end of the year Sir Charles Wood, afterwards Lord Halifax, offered him the appointment of legal member of council in India. Maine, upon consulting a medical authority, was told that his life would not be worth three months' purchase in Calcutta. He declined, though bitterly disappointed by the necessity. The appointment was then given to William Ritchie, a cousin of W. M. Thackeray, but upon Ritchie's death, on 22 March 1862, was again offered to Maine, who now decided to run the risk. He left for India in 1862, having been shortly before elected member of the Athenæum Club by the committee. In the event the climate of India proved to be congenial to his health, and he returned apparently a much stronger man than he had been at his departure.
Maine held his post for seven years, two more than the ordinary period, serving during the last years of Lord Elgin's viceroyalty, the whole of Lord Lawrence's, and the first years of Lord Mayo's. A great number of acts were passed during his tenure of office, of which the principal are enumerated by Sir M. E. Grant Duff (Memoir, p. 24). Maine's health disqualified him for laborious application to details, and in drafting bills he depended greatly upon Mr. Whitley Stokes, formerly his pupil and afterwards one of his successors. His ability was shown in determining what legislation was needed, obtaining the ablest assistance, and carrying his measures through the council. Many of his speeches and minutes are reprinted in the volume published in 1892 by Sir M. E. Grant Duff and Mr. Whitley Stokes. He took an important part in the discussion of many affairs lying outside his special department, and Sir Alfred Lyall has spoken in the highest terms of his singular penetration and the influence of his opinions upon the minds of his contemporaries. Maine was appointed vice-chancellor of the university of Calcutta, and delivered four remarkable addresses to the graduates. His wife was prevented by her health from accompanying him to India, and he therefore lived as a bachelor, entertaining hospitably and seeing many distinguished men. Upon his departure the highest opinion was expressed of his services by his colleagues, and he reached England in 1869 with an established reputation.
He was appointed in the same year to the Corpus professorship of jurisprudence just founded at Oxford. His first course of lectures was published in 1871 as ‘Village Communities.’ The book was founded partly upon the researches of Nasse and G. L. von Maurer, and contained also much information acquired in India during his own legislative experience, and from the conversation of Lord Lawrence. His statements as to India were also verified by Sir George Campbell, then lieutenant-governor of Bengal. Another course of lectures formed the substance of the ‘Early History of Institutions,’ published in 1875, in which his Indian experience was again made to throw light upon old institutions, as illustrated by the translations of treatises on Brehon law recently published or shown to him in manuscript. In May 1871 Maine was gazetted K.C.S.I., and in November of the same year appointed by the Duke of Argyll to a seat upon the Indian council. He did not speak frequently, but, as Sir M. E. Grant Duff tells us, ‘an able man, who spoke rarely and always voted right, was a great treasure.’ The same authority assures us that the work is not so light as is sometimes imagined. Maine was chiefly interested in the judicial department, but he also expressed opinions upon other matters, such as the selection and training of candidates for the Indian civil service.
In 1877 Maine was elected master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. The duties of that position were not absorbing, and Maine did not give up his house in London. He re-
