the Athenians had not even an idea of estatestail by implication, much less of recoveries by which those entails might be barred; we muft, therefore, fuppofe that this was only a defire or recommendation of Polyarchus, which his fon might legally, although not very decently, difregard. Next, it may be remarked, that, in the real teftament of Philoctemon and in the pretended one of Hagnias, we may discover the rudiments of thofe fubftitutions, which form fo large a part of our modern systems: Hagnias is supposed to have devised his property to his niece, and, after her death, to his half-brother Glauco, who, when fhe died, entered upon the estate by virtue of the remainder, which had been vested in him; but fuch limitations were I believe, uncommon among the Athenians, whofe jurisprudence was not entangled with the fubtile doctrine of contingent and vefted interefts, or the multitude of perplexing questions, to which the capricious fancy of teftators, with a little help from conveyancers, has conftantly given birth in England; nor would the ancient courts have fuffered juftice to be impeded by the technical niceties which confined our countrymen, to whom devifes, on their first introduction, appeared, they said, of a marvellous nature; and a single question, in the caufe of Curius and Coponius, which the Roman tribunal decided

justly in one day, was agitated in our courts for near forty years. I check myfelf on the pro pect of the vaft field, into which this fubject would lead me, remembering, that it is the fole duty of a commentator to illuftrate his author ; and the speeches of ISÆUS are made, I flatter myself, fufficiently clear by the preceding obfervations; although, I confefs, that fome few clouds and dark places are left in them, which more leifure than my late engagements have permitted me to enjoy, might perhaps have enabled me to difperfe and elucidate. I am fully fenfible, that deep researches into the legal antiquities of Greece and Rome are of greater use to scholars and contemplative perfons, than to lawyers and men of bufinefs; that Bracton and Littleton, Coke and Rolle, are the proper objects of our study; and that, if a client were to ask his counfel whether he had an eftate for life or in tail, he would receive little fatisfaction from being told, that, whatever eftate he had, he might devise it by the law of Solon, provided the devifee took his daughter in marriage; but the ableft advocates and wifeft judges have frequently embellished their arguments with learned allufions to ancient cafes; and fuch allufions, it must be allowed, 'are often useful, always ornamental; and, when they are introduced without pedantry, never fail to please. So delight

ful, indeed, is the study of laws, general and particular, ancient and modern, Afiatick and European, that even the fine arts are not more alluring; and it is with pleasure, as well as firmnefs, that I adopt the refolution of CICERO, which cannot be more forcibly or concifely ex-preffed than in the very words of his letter to Varro: "Mihi hæc videntur-fi nemo utetur

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operâ, tamen et fcribere et legere woλireías, et fi -"minùs in curiâ atque in foro, at in literis et "libris, ut doctiffimi veteres fecerunt, navare

SACONTALÁ;

OR,

THE FATAL RING:

AN

INDIAN DRAMA.

BY CÁLIDAS.

TRANSLATED FROM THE

ORIGINAL SANSCRIT AND PRACRIT.