meaning, and plays a considerable part in the ius gentium as acceptilatio. But it would be hardly right to regard it as a definite outcome of the law of nature. Again, there is the distinction between law common to all men and a law common to the freemen of all nations. The famous passage of Marcianus which assigns slavery to the law of nations, but not to the law of nature, in the sight of which all human beings are equal in rights provides a case in point.
The intricate problem of the origin of the testament in Roman law is treated on pp. 73 ff. It would be impossible to follow M. Cornil's argument in detail, but I cannot help thinking that the contrast between the heredis institutio in the comitia calata, on the one hand, and the testamentum in procinctu and that per aes et libram on the other, is overdrawn. Our authorities do not justify the sharp opposition between a public act sanctioned by the comitia calata and a private act passed in front of the army. The latter species are described precisely as substitutes for the comitial will, and cannot therefore be constructed in opposition to it. The rule 'nemo pro parte testatus, pro parte intestatus decedere potest' is hardly to be explained as a mere survival from an age when the object of the will was exclusively to perpetuate the personality of the deceased. The maxim was quite a familiar one with the jurisconsults of the Empire, and in their mouths it had a proper juridical significance: one cannot die intestate after having made a will: in other words, rights descending from a person who has left a will are derived from the will and not from the rules of intestate succession.
Before concluding I should like to express the wish that the famous controversy as to the antiquity of the Twelve Tables should be treated somewhat more fully in subsequent editions, which are sure to be required in no distant future. It has its significance in the history of juridical literature, and although I quite agree with M. Cornil's statement of its result, the modernizations brought about by time and misunderstandings are certainly not devoid of importance.
A book which embraces so wide a subject and deals with so many particular points is sure to call forth criticisms and suggestions. But taken as a whole it should be welcomed as an excellent exposition of Roman legal principles. P. Vinogradoff.
The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge has deserved well of students of the middle ages and indeed of a wider public by undertaking the republication of Dr. Poole's now classic work, which has long been out of print. It is not easy either to particularize or to limit its influence on English medieval studies since its first appearance in 1884. Though in a narrower field, its effect has been like that of Maitland's papers, a slow infiltration, which, while adding new knowledge, has made intelligible what was already known. The curious, alien puzzle, as Dr. Poole revealed it, became a rational development.
