murmur, the last stroke of disease or the executioner.

The penal statutes form a very small proportion of the sixty-two books
of the _Code_ and _Pandects_; and in all judicial proceeding the life or
death of a citizen is determined with less caution or delay than the
most ordinary question of covenant or inheritance. This singular
distinction, though something may be allowed for the urgent necessity of
defending the peace of society, is derived from the nature of criminal
and civil jurisprudence. Our duties to the state are simple and uniform:
the law by which he is condemned is inscribed not only on brass or
marble, but on the conscience of the offender, and his guilt is commonly
proved by the testimony of a single fact. But our relations to each
other are various and infinite; our obligations are created, annulled,
and modified by injuries, benefits, and promises; and the interpretation
of voluntary contracts and testaments, which are often dictated by fraud
or ignorance, affords a long and laborious exercise to the sagacity of
the judge. The business of life is multiplied by the extent of commerce
and dominion, and the residence of the parties in the distant provinces
of an empire is productive of doubt, delay, and inevitable appeals from
the local to the supreme magistrate. Justinian, the Greek emperor of
Constantinople and the East, was the legal successor of the Latian
shepherd who had planted a colony on the banks of the Tiber. In a period
of thirteen hundred years the laws had reluctantly followed the changes
of government and manners, and the laudable desire of conciliating
ancient names with recent institutions destroyed the harmony and swelled
the magnitude of the obscure and irregular system.

The laws which excuse on any occasions the ignorance of their subjects
confess their own imperfections. The civil jurisprudence, as it was
abridged by Justinian, still continued a mysterious science and a
profitable trade, and the innate perplexity of the study was involved in
tenfold darkness by the private industry of the practitioners. The
expense of the pursuit sometimes exceeded the value of the prize, and
the fairest rights were abandoned by the poverty or prudence of the
claimants. Such costly justice might tend to abate the spirit of
litigation, but the unequal pressure serves only to increase the
influence of the rich, and to aggravate the misery of the poor. By these
dilatory and expensive proceedings, the