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12 be made to the labours of Corssen and Mommsen; but a compendious and accessible collection of early Latin is also contained in the late Dr Donaldson's interesting Varronianus We are here concerned less with form, except as evidence of antiquity, than with matter; from a consideration of which it would appear that the earliest Roman 'laws' were embodiments of custom, generally bearing a religious or quasi-religious character, and often referring specially to that system of the family common to all infant states, yet nowhere attaining such wide development and lasting influence as at Rome.

 

may be urged with justice that out picture of the earliest Roman law must be entirely colored by the source from which our materials are derived—that is, in all probabbility, the books of the pontiffs. These officers, it may be said, would naturally only record what enactments affected their own province, and the preponderance of the quasi-religious element is therefore no proof that leglislation on the subject came first. In reply, the following points are to be considered. First, the priority of rules of conduct (one can scarcely call them laws) upon religious matters is an analogy with all that we know of