"Marcus Aurelius, we are told, was in the habit of giving a large measure of water to the advocates, and even permitting them to speak as long as they pleased.

"By a constitution of Valentinian and Valens, A.D. 368, advocates were authorised to speak as long as they wished, upon condition that they should not abuse this liberty in order to swell the amount of their fees."

The history of Roman practice, and, in particular, of the Cincian Law on the subject of advocates' fees, is ably condensed; and the law of France and Scotland on the subject is thus stated :

"In France, ancient laws and decisions, as well as the opinions of the doctors, allowed an action to advocates to recover their fees; but according to the later jurisprudence of the Parliament of Paris, and the actual discipline of the bar now in force, no advocate was or is permitted to institute such an action. În like manner barristers in England are held to exercise a profession of an honorary character, and cannot, therefore, maintain an action for remuneration for what they have done, unless the employer has expressly agreed to pay them.'

Upon this point the authorities in the law of Scotland are not very precise. Lord Bankton says, 'Though action be competent for such gratification, advo cates who regard their character abhor such judicial claims, and keep in their mind the notable saying of Ulpian upon the like occasion, Quædam enim tametsi honeste accipiantur, inhoneste tamen petuntur.' But it is maintained by others, whose opinion is entitled to great weight, that no action lies for such fees

the presumption, in the absence of an express paction, being, that the advocate has either been satisfied, or agreed to serve gratis.'

What the law of England is on this most important question will probably be definitively settled in a cause celèbre now depending. We do not conceal our earnest hope that the principles laid down in the recent judgment of Chief-Justice Erle will never be departed from.

We close this notice by strongly recommending Lord Mackenzie's book to the notice both of the student and the practising jurist, to each of whom we think it indispensable.

THERE is a mysterious power in this ninetenth century before which we all bow down and worship. Emperors have grown powerful by its support, and kings that know not how to please it become the laughing-stock of Europe. The highest are not beyond its reach, the lowest are not beneath its notice. The Secretary of State spreads lengthy despatches as peace-offerings at its shrine, and the parish beadle is careful not to put his hat on awry lest he fall beneath its censure. The idol has innumerable votaries; but its high priests, the exponents of its law, are the great authors and statesmen of the day. And they have a hard taskmaster to serve they must do the pleasure of their lord before he has signified his wishes they must anticipate his thoughts and be beforehand with his commands; obsequiousness and obedience alone will not suffice them; they may sacrifice every friend and every principle for his sake, and nevertheless disgrace and proscription await them, unless they can know their master's mind before it is known to himself.

Public Opinion is the unknown master to whom all submit ; listening anxiously but vainly for his commands, not knowing how or where to study his humour. There are Houses of Parliament, newspapers, clubs, mechanic's institutes, pot-houses, prayer meetings-but which of all these speak public opinion? A weekly gathering of articles from daily papers is not public opinion. Opinion after din ner is not public. It is evidently necessary to apply some means specially adapted to the place and the time in order to discover the mood of public opinion. In Syracuse, Dionysius constructed an ear for the purpose; unfortunately this invention has been lost.

In London, it is popularly said that the only means to ascertain

public opinion is to take a seat in the omnibus for the day and drive continually up and down.

In Florence, public opinion walks, it cannot afford to drive. The people must be studied on foot. The reader will therefore have already understood that the title of this paper was chosen from necessity and not for the sake of the alliteration; that in order to catch a glimpse of Italian affairs as seen through Tuscan spectacles-in order to enter for the moment into the jealousies, the grievances, and the vanities of the provincial town of Florence-there is no resource but that of treating the question peripatetically-that is, of walking the streets.

This course is the more natural because in Florence the streets are

thanks to the high price of manure remarkably clean. Accordingly the people live in the street; there they are to be met at an early hour lounging along talking or smoking, wrapped in cloaks that take an extra twist with every degree of cold. The street is their assembly-room; it is frequented by men of all sorts, as will be at once seen by a moment's scrutiny of the stream of people creeping slowly along over the pavement.

There is the commercial dandy who affects a felt hat with mandarin button on the crown, a knobby stick, and a would-be English shooting-jacket. Behind him is the sober professional man, in a French great-coat which has wandered from Paris, making room for newer fashions. There, too, is the priest of portly figure and wasted garments, which show at once his devotion to the inner man, and his neglect of the outer world, walking along with a blessing on his lips and a green cotton umbrella under his arm. By his side is the peasant come to town for the day, cart-whip in hand, and a long coarse cloak

trailing from his shoulders, embroidered behind with flowers in green silk. Every stitch will show character in one way or another. Italians wear green flowers where Spaniards would have crosses in black braid.

And who is there among all this crowd who would trouble his thoughts about Victor Emmanuel and his Ministers? Look at yonder corner-wall where there is a sheet of paper prominently pasted on a black board: one solitary passenger gives it a passing glance: that is the telegram just received, announcing the formation of the new Ministry. But farther on there are collected a little company of people, whose animated and intent looks show something really interesting to be going on: it is that two or three young men are practising in chorus a snatch out of the last street-ballad. Farther on the respective merits of different balletdancers are under discussion, and some of the company are pronouncing the stage-manager unfit for his post. In the whole crowd there is not one word, nor even a passing thought, bestowed on the Government which is going on at Turin. So universal is the carelessness with regard to the current affairs of the day, that, as a general rule, if a man be heard to speak about politics, or in any way show himself conversant with public affairs, it may at once be concluded, more especially if he speak in a disagreeable voice, that that man is a Piedmontese.*

In vain do loud-voiced criers hawk prints representing the murder of the Gignoli family by the Austrians in 1859; they offer them at half-price, at quarter-price, but find no purchasers. Even the photograph of the bullet extracted from Garibaldi's foot has ceased to draw people to the shop-window.

Leaving the street for the mo

ment, and turning the corner of the great Piazza, we find under the colonnade, opposite the picture gallery, an anxious crowd of people, eager and pushing. That is the entrance to the 'Monte di Pieta,' or municipal pawnbroking establishment (for private pawnbroking is illicit in Florence). There is a long table before the door, and on it are spread silver watches, coral bracelets, and other trinkets. Articles that have lain unredeemed are being sold at auction. The sale is well attended, but purchasers will not compete. There is much examination and very little bidding. This same scene has occurred regularly at stated intervals for the last several centuries.

In the time of the Medicis, public policy and private benevolence became copartners in founding a self-supporting pawnbroking shop on a large scale, to be kept under the supervision of Government. To a people who, whenever they begin to be pinched in circumstances, try to economise but never attempt to work, and exert themselves rather to save than to make money, it is no small object to have a public pawnbroking establishment where money is allowed at a fixed scale. If a Florentine have a bracelet too much, and bread too little, he has but to give the bracelet in pawn to the Government. In the same way, if he be troubled with a child too many, he proceeds to the infant asylum, rings the bell, and in the cradle which forthwith opens, he deposits the child for the Government to feed. Under the Governments which have prevailed in Tuscany for the last three hundred years, this is precisely the kind of political institution which the Florentines have learnt to value and appreciate.

The proper supervision of the pawnbroking shop, the mainte

nance of the foundling asylums and the hospitals (with which Florence is, in proportion, better provided than London), the grant made to the opera-these and other such questions are the matters of government in which a Florentine takes interest. To politics, in an Englishman's sense of the word, they pay little or no attention. In the election of representatives to the Chambers at Turin the people appear to take little or no part. For instance: M. Peruzzi, the present Minister for the Interior, is one of the representatives of Florence. On accepting office he was of course obliged to appeal to his constituents. The seat was contested. On the day appointed for the election I had occasion to ask my way to the place where it was being held several respectable citizens did not know that any election was to take place whatever. At last one man, better informed than the rest, had heard something about an election that week, but did not know where the elections were held. The election proved invalid for want of the legal complement of voters namely, one-half the whole number. This is the general result of elections in Tuscany on the first trial. The second election is valid, provided only the same number of voters are present as attended the first. This is fortunate, otherwise it might occur that there would be a lack of representatives from Tuscany in the Parliament at Turin.

The fact is, and it needs repetition, the Florentines do not care about politics. They have accepted the revolution that was made for them, and on the whole are well contented with the change; at least we ought in justice to ascribe their general listlessness in political affairs to contentment and not to indifference.

To inquire, however, more exactly into the thoughts of those amongst the Florentines who do think about politics, it will be as well to obtain at once rest and in

formation by sitting down for a few moments in the tobacconist's shop, which may be called the centre of the political world. To begin with, the tobacconist is always himself by profession a finished politician, and he, moreover, enjoys the confidence of several distinguished friends, who keep him accurately informed of every word that passes in the Cabinets of Europe. The general burden of his conversation, which is a fair type of the talk at shops and second-rate cafés, is as follows:- The Pope-king is the father of all mischief; and how should it be otherwise? are not priests and kings always the promoters of every evil? and this man is a combination of both. Then follows a complaint against the Emperor Napoleon and his creatures, the Ministers at Turin, who, like true Piedmontese, are in secret jealous of the greatness of Italy, and treacherously keep in pay reactionary employés in lieu of filling the offices, as they should, with enterprising liberals. This sentiment meets with loud and general applause, and the company, waxing warm on this topic, forthwith launch into various prophecies as to the immediate future. French wars, Polish revolutions, Austrian bankruptcies, are all considered, and it is weighed what each might do for Italy. What the Italians themselves might do is a less frequent theme.

The Government, however, is blamed for its neglect of Garibaldi, which is only of a piece with its conduct in leaving the active and patriotic liberals of the country without employment while they are pensioning the reactionists-an opinion which usually serves alpha and omega in the discussions of the Florentine liberals on the conduct of the Government.

as

Having exhausted this topic, our friend the politico-tobacconist resumes his seat, taking his scaldino (an earthenware vessel shaped like a basket, and filled with hot ashes) on his lap for the comfort of his

fingers, and proceeds to draw the attention of visitors to various piles of newspapers, the sale of which is part of his trade. And as Florence produces, for a country town, a very respectable number of papers (some dozen daily papers, not to count two tri-weekly papers and other periodicals), which, moreover, have something of a national, or rather of a provincial character, it will be worth while to look over them before leaving the tobacconist's shop. It is not every paper that will be found for instance, the three retrograde papers will not be forthcoming. These have so extremely small a circulation that it is very difficult to hunt them up. It is only by favour, for instance, that a copy of the Contemporaneo' can be got, for, there being no public demand, there is no sale; a limited number of copies only are distributed among subscribers.

:

The newspapers to be found on the counter are all liberal, but of various shades of "colour," as the Italians name party opinions.

The 'Gazzetta del Popolo,' which is strictly constitutional, has still the largest circulation of any (it prints about 3000 copies daily), though not half what it had. Its decline has been owing partly to general competition, partly to its having embraced the defence of the late Ratazzi Ministry, which unpopular course is said to have cost it in a few months nearly one-fourth of its circulation; partly, perhaps, to its sustaining the Piedmontese, who have not of late been growing in the favour of the Tuscans.

The other papers are all more "advanced," that is, more opposed to Government. Among these the 'Censor' ranks first. This is a thoroughly Tuscan paper, and full of quaint, provincial expressions. In party politics it is red-a colour which evidently finds most favour in the eyes of the poorer citizens; for recently it lost no less than a fourth of its circulation by raising its price from three to five cents, that is, from about a farthing

and a half to a halfpenny. In its columns, though not there only, may be seen a catalogue of indictments against the Piedmontese. The Tuscans voted annexation to Italy, it is said-not to Piedmont. With Rome unity, without it none. Does the unity of Italy mean the domination of Turin? Are we to accept from the most barbarous portion of Italy laws which are sent down to us written in a jargon which cannot even be called Italian? Tuscany is being fleeced by men so greedy of every little gain, that they supply all the royal offices with paper made only in Piedmont, in order that Piedmontese paper-mills may reap the benefit.

It speaks well for the Piedmontese that, with so much desire to find fault with them, these are the most serious charges brought forward.

In the Ratazzi Ministry the papers lost the most fruitful theme of declamation. The caricatures against this Minister were endless, representing him in every stage of official existence, from the time when he climbs the high ministerial bench by the aid of a little finger stretched out from Paris, to the moment when he is shown hiding his head under the folds of the Emperor's train.

What is said against the Italian Government, however, is not said in praise of the Grand-duke's rule. On the contrary, the Opposition papers those at least that have any circulation-all lean rather towards the "party of action," or the extreme Liberals. The most prominent paper of this description in Florence is the New Europe,' which is republican, and makes no mystery of its principles.

Indeed, the press is so outspoken, and is allowed such latitude, that it is difficult to understand for what purpose the Government maintains a censorship. Nevertheless, such is the case. It is not a very effective one. Every paper is bound to be laid before the Reggio procuratore