no farther. His misfortunes were greater than he could bear. He despaired of discovering his remaining children, and in penury, obscurity, and sorrow, sunk into his grave.

It may be questioned if the history of the world exhibits a more heart-rending incident than the exile of this amiable and happy people, or a more sad and affecting spectacle, than the desolation of their depopulated homes; their moaning flocks and herds; their rich and waving meadows turned into a desert; and the smoking ashes of their houses and barns. While the traveller contemplates the noble dikes reared by their industry, by means of which whole regions have been won from the rivers and the sea; while he walks beneath the shade of their abundant orchards, and stands over the ruins of their cottages, or muses among their graves, his imagination goes back to a scene of rural felicity and purity, in which the fables of antiquity were realized; his heart melts in sympathy with the sudden misfortunes and the dreadful fate of the poor Acadians.

Nova-Scotia is remarkable for the number of spacious and sheltered harbors along the whole line of its northern, eastern, and southern coasts. It is intersected by many beautiful rivers, and is dotted by lakes of every variety of size and shape. Its geographical outlines suggest the advantages, and point out the routes of several canals, which have already, under the direction of the public-spirited legislature of the province, been explored, and will soon, without doubt, by means of the patronage and aid of that body, be completed. Throughout the circuit of its shores (and it is connected with the continent by a very narrow isthmus), the sea affords an abundant supply of fish. Some parts of its soil are barren, but a large proportion is rich and fertile, and in several districts equal to any in the Atlantic States. There are few, if any, better agricultural townships in America, than Cornwallis and Horton in Nova-Scotia. Beneath the soil there is an abundance of lead and iron ore; indeed the natural advantages of the province are uncommonly great, and it cannot be doubted that under the judicious and liberal administration of the local legislature, they will be rapidly and fully improved.

Halifax, the capital of the province, is one of the most convenient sea-ports and beautiful cities on the Atlantic coast. Its public and private dwellings present an aspect remarkably neat and agreeable to the eye. Mr Haliburton speaks with

great enthusiasm of the Navy Yard and the Province House. The latter indeed is a remarkably fine structure, and although we are disposed to hesitate in admitting that they surpass everything of the kind in North America, we cannot take offence at his positive and unqualified assertion to that effect.

The political condition of the northeastern British American provinces, is in many respects favorable. The legislature consists of a Governor and Council, deriving their places and authority from the crown, and a House of Assembly, elected by the qualified voters among the inhabitants. The House holds the purse of the province, and controls the expenditures of the civil department of government. The whole sum derived from the customs goes into the province treasury, and is subject to the disposition of the House of Assembly. The consequence is, that but little is needed from the people in the way of direct tax. Mr Haliburton rather boastingly compares the situation of the inhabitants of the province in this respect with that of the people of the United States. Yet the records of the proceedings of the legislature of Nova-Scotia exhibit several instances of a great waste of money. The House of Assembly, merely to gratify Lord Dalhousie, granted several thousand pounds towards erecting a college in Halifax, which Mr Haliburton acknowledges is not needed. There are too many instances of votes granting large sums of money to be expended upon swords and stars for the British generals and admirals, who have happened to be in command there. It is very undignified and quite discordant with the principles of their own constitution, for the popular and native branch of the legislature to pay this obsequious court to a foreign executive.

There is a college at Windsor, established by a charter from the king, and supported by the unremitted and profuse bounty of the Assembly. It is beautifully situated, possesses an excellent library, and has the reputation of giving a very good classical education to its pupils. But although it has been in existence since 1803, it has bestowed only on sixty-seven persons the degree of bachelor of arts. This is probably owing to the untoward circumstance, that the doctrinal test of the Church of England is imposed upon its students. There is also an excellent academy at Pictou, for the education of dissenters; but the legislature, by refusing to continue to it any patronage, seem to be disposed to permit it to languish. The Council, deriving their

seats from the British government, have determined to negative any law granting assistance to this dissenting institution; and the representatives of the people in the House of Assembly, although three quarters of their constituents are opposed to the English Church, still continue to grant a large annual sum to the Royal Episcopal College at Windsor.

Mr Haliburton has added much to the value of his work, by prefixing to it a large and well executed map of NovaScotia, by inserting several plates, representing the aspect and outlines of places of interest, and by some very useful and instructive statistical tables. Among the latter is one giving a view of the religious opinions of the people of Nova-Scotia, as they were ascertained by means of a census. Among the principal evils of a colonial condition, is the want of a stirring spirit of enterprise in the mass of the people, and the degradation of the civil and professional pursuits, produced by the glare and glitter of an elegant and imposing military life, as it is exhibited in the finely arrayed British regiments, that are quartered in the provincial garrisons.

In closing our remarks upon Mr Haliburton's work, we would again recommend it to those who are interested in American history. It is written with clearness, spirit, industrious accuracy, and with great candor and justice. It needs a more copious index, and is perhaps rather deformed, than improved by the chronological table of events from 1763 (where the history terminates) to 1828. It must necessarily be very defective, and, brief as it is, it contains much useless matter. What connexion, for instance, is there between the history of NovaScotia, and the fact, that' Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, was born June 5, 1771.' Still, notwithstanding these slight blemishes, the Historical and Statistical Account of NovaScotia' is a valuable work, honorable to its author, and worthy of the thanks of his native province, which have so handsomely been communicated to him by the speaker of the House of Assembly, in compliance with a vote of that body.

It is very desirable that the people of the United States and of the British Provinces should become better acquainted, and be led to take a more lively interest in each other. Their fathers were united by the bond of a common country; and it needs no spirit of prophecy to foresee that the time must come, when, in the natural course of events, the English colonies on our borders will be peaceably dissevered from the re

mote mother country, and the whole continent, from the Gulf of Mexico to the coast of Labrador, present the unbroken outline of one compact empire of friendly and confederated

states.

ART. V.-Legal Outlines, being the Substance of a Course of Lectures now delivering in the University of Maryland. By DAVID HOFFMAN. Vol. I.

8vo.

pp. 626.

THE author of this work has, in several previous publications, such as a Course of Legal Study,' a 'Syllabus of Law Lectures in the University of Maryland,' and various introductory discourses delivered there, explained at large his views on the subject of legal education. In his 'Course of Legal Study,' an unpretending volume, addressed to students, he has rendered them essential service by indicating, with a just selection, the most instructive works, but especially by displaying the order in which the multitudinous parts of a various science may most usefully be considered. In none is such a systematic mode of elementary study more necessary, and in none is it more generally neglected, than in the law. The Syllabus' just mentioned had the same object of giving sequence and coherence to the complicated topics of legal learning, and of reducing them to a series where each should spring naturally from another, and lead easily and gradually to a succeeding one. Mr Hoffman's views on this subject are large and liberal. He demonstrates, in these publications, and in his several introductory lectures, that he has himself minutely surveyed the extensive field, whose boundaries and divisions he has described for the student. His learning is ample, his diligence indefatigable. His classification and arrangement are such, that, if strictly pursued, all difficulties (and they are many), arising from the usual want of method, must vanish, and none remain but such as are intrinsic to the science. If he opens a long path before us, he takes all pains to make it smooth; and, by his process, the abrupt steeps of jurisprudence are insensibly surmounted by a gentle acclivity.

It is evident, however, that our author does not pretend to have discovered any royal road to legal learning. He manifestly contemplates a long course of assiduity for his student,

and while he would lessen the fatigue, he would extend the sphere of his acquisitions. He aims chiefly to give his labors. the right direction, and to solve for him the problem, not how to read the least (which seems to be the more common one), but how he may compass the most, and with the most understanding, in the shortest time. Thus he traces indeed each path distinctly, but he carries it far and high into the recesses of jurisprudence; he disentangles the topography, but he does not contract the limits of this particular domain of learning; he even makes excursions into contiguous regions. He has an enlarged conception of the duties and of the qualifications of the lawyer, and seeks therefore to extend his views beyond the limits of mere positive and municipal jurisprudence, so as to embrace those original principles in which it has its birth, and by which it must always be controlled and illustrated. He has accordingly devoted this first volume of his 'Legal Outlines,' the only one which has yet appeared, to a consideration of the elements of Natural and Political Law. He treats of the nature of the being who is the subject of this law; of his supposed condition before the institutions of civil society, and of the rights arising in that condition, and independent of civil government; of the origin of the latter, its true foundation, and its effects upon natural rights; of the general properties of law, and of the source and sanction of that universal law of nature,' which is itself the fountain and standard of all other law; of political, as distinguished from civil law; and of the various forms of government. The last lecture of the present volume contains a sketch of that remarkable system, the feudal law, which has left such strong traces in the jurisprudence of Europe and of our own country.

The entire work is designed as an analytical outline (the only one, the author remarks, which has yet appeared) of the whole body of jurisprudence proper to be studied in this country; none of the many excellent elementary works which have been published on the laws of England having aimed at presenting this complete analysis of every part. The two succeeding volumes will treat of the elements of the municipal law, including various titles which have scarcely been alluded to by Blackstone; of the law of real and personal property; of equity and mercantile law; of the law of crimes and punishments; of the Roman civil law; of the law of nations, and admiralty and maritime law; and of the constitution and laws