be constructed from Roman sources, from whence evident traces of the common patriarchal system of the Aryan race will find their proper place in the narrative of Roman progress. The source from which we gain the Roman conception of the Patriarchal Theory is their legal system. We can only see here its decay, existing in the form of its principal relic-the Patria Potestas. Though this important element in Roman law to a great extent superseded the whole machinery of modern criminal law,* though the whole basis on which Roman family law was founded is that of paternal authority, there is no trace of its origin ever having been sought for in the patriarchal primitiveness from which the nation had descended. With its first introduction into written codes, we perceive also the commencement of its decay, but not a sign of its injustice or its arbitrary introduction into their system. The Twelve Tables make provision relating to the control of the father over his children-the right existing during their whole life to imprison, scourge, keep to rustic labour in chains, to sell or slay, even though they be in the enjoyment of high offices. By the side of this despotic rule, however, is a section (and it derives additional authority from being an original fragment of the celebrated code, which the preceding is not) stating that three consecutive sales of the son by the father releases the former from the patria potestas-si pater filium ter venum duit, filius a patre liber esto.+ Now, so completely is the origin of patria potestas obscured at the time of the Antonines, that Gaius affirms there is scarcely any other nation where fathers are invested with such power over their children as at Rome," although I am aware, " he adds, "that among the Galatians parents are invested with power over their children."§ Sir Henry Maine observes upon this, that had he glanced across the Rhine or the Danube, to those tribes of barbarians which were exciting the curiosity of some among his contemporaries, he would have seen examples of patriarchal power in its crudest forms. But neither did his contemporaries, and amongst them the noble genius of Tacitus, perceive sufficient analogy to trace a common origin from a patriarchal commencent of tribal life, though, according to Professor Stubbs, it is on points of social and political organisation that our greatest debt to Tacitus is due. We owe to his historical taste a narrative which has supplied to modern scholars the place of a Pentateuch or Iliad and Odyssey; but his own country * Austin, lecture xliv. + Ortolan's History of Roman Law, sec. 119. These are portions of the fourth table; but the first one is not included by Dr. Wordsworth in "Fragments and Specimens of Early Latin," p. 256. It is given in Ortolan's History of Roman Law, p. 107-Nasmith's translation. § Institutes, i. 55. owed to his historical vision absolutely nothing, or much of the opposition and bitter hostility of Roman and barbarian might have been influenced by the softening power which is now exerting itself on Hindoo and Englishman. In passing from Roman to English history, it must not be supposed that we are passing from ancient to modern thought. The mediæval age of the world stretches far down into European history, and the subject of this paper illustrates this conception of Bunsen very clearly. Moreover, a peculiar parallelism is observable in that, instead of tracing the evidence from the literature of the age, it is necessary to have recourse to the legal or political actions of the government, as they stand unrecorded except in the dry annals of official routine. The long series of chronicles, due chiefly to the Romish monks, give but very little elucidation of the course of early English historical life; and it would be an interesting chapter of English literature to trace the causes which may account for the late development of historical writing. England falls equally short with Greece and Rome in failing to perceive what was going on around her from a properly historical point of view. We meet this with peculiar significance in the treatment of Ireland by the English Government.* Sir Henry Maine, in his valuable work on Early Institutions, while noticing the invectives of Sir John Davis and the author of the "Faery Queene" against the "lewd" institutions of the Irish, claims that they were virtually the same institutions as those out of which "the just and honourable law" of England grew. In following the lectures of Professor O'Curry on Irish history, it is easily perceived that the whole basis claimed for Irish institutions, and more particularly those which roused the anger of the English ministers of Elizabeth, was derived from that system common to the whole Aryan peoplethe Patriarchal system. It is not found that the Irish claimed this for themselves, any more than Greece and Rome did of old. Though much of what might have remained had yielded to the raids and innovations of English conquerers, we find that, at a much earlier period of English history the same narrow view of historical evidences was taken as that in Elizabeth's reign. In 1277, King Edward I. wrote to his chief-justice in Ireland that 8000 marks were offered him to establish the English laws in that country; and that he consents to do it, because, says he, those which the Irish make use of are abominable in the sight of God and by consequence ought not to be deemed laws.† The English Justinian held a broad and states * Vide Dr. Sullivan's Introd. to O'Curry's Lectures on Ancient Irish, page clxxxiv., on the custom of gavelkind. + Vide Rymer's Fœdera, ii., p. 78. man-like view of English juridical necessities, and so earned a place in English history which far out-values the questionable honour from the title borrowed from his Roman prototype. But historical thought had not proceeded to that phase when men can look beyond the trammels of fixed systems of knowledge and perceive the unity of all knowledge (to borrow an analogy from Mr. Freeman's celebrated Rede Lecture); beyond the trammels of nationality and perceive the unity of race; beyond the trammels of race and perceive the unity of mankind. It may, I think, be gathered from this review of the Patriarchal Theory in history, that hitherto, it has existed on an insecure basis because it did not derive its history from the broader groundwork that modern science has opened up. Among the ancients it was faintly recognised as a condition of society in which they once lived, though totally unconnected with later circumstances; among the moderns it has been dragged into political controversy and lost altogether its historical value in the assertion of its religious authority. Among the ancients it sank into insignificance because it had no connected literature for its historical support; among the moderns it has, on the one hand, been argued to be the only origin of kingly power, because it has been preserved in the records of religious writ; and, on the other, it has been cast aside as altogether useless, because, first, it was unhistorical and then unscientific. This paper has, it is hoped, explained the position of the Patriarchal Theory in modern historical thought to be not altogether in consistent with its past. though placing it on a somewhat new basis. G. LAURENCE GOMME, F.R. Hist. Soc. A SONG OF TRADITION. "Now let us praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us." Ecclesiasticus, chap. xlv. 1. LONG bygone scenes lived once again Chorus: Long bygone scenes, &c. A cheer for Royal Alfred's name, Who made our hallowed England's fame, We raise the song and chorus ; And laud our sires before us. Chorus: For letters, laws, &c. Let's hymn the Lords of Runnymede, (That camp of legislation), For many a wise and noble deed, The patterns of our nation. 'Twas they who, first from discord dire, To right and reason bore us. Now let us praise our famous men, And laud our sires before us. Chorus: 'Twas they who first, &c. A ringing cheer for Queenly Bess, Inspires a deathless chorus. Now let us praise our famous men, And laud our sires before us. Chorus: The light that shone, &c. Of Anson, Clive, and Wellington, The names shall live for ever, Chorus: A cheer alike, &c. Hurrah, for all who dying make Who gild this world for duty's sake, Chorus: Till angel harps, &c. Who wielded well the sword of Truth, And laud our sires before us. Chorus: Who trod the narrow path, &c. Our lives will swell the seething sea Of history and tradition; Then may our children, glad and free, Chorus: With mantling flush, &c. |