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DUBLIN UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL.

IN connexion with the arrangements adopted by the Benchers of the King's Inns, the Professor of Feudal and English Law lectures on the subject of Real Property twice in the week during the College Term.

The Regius Professor of Civil Law lectures on the Roman Civil Law twice in the week during the College Term.

Decreed by the Provost and Senior Fellows, October 26, 1850. 1. Students may begin to attend the Regius Professor of Civil Law in the first Term of their Senior Sophister year.

2. To obtain credit for their first year as law students, they must attend the Regius Professor for the three terms of that year, and pass an examination in subjects to be prescribed by the Professor at the end of Trinity Term.

3. Students who have passed this examination may attend the lectures of the Professor of Feudal and English Law.

4. To obtain credit for the second year as law students, they must attend three Terms of the lectures of the Professor of Feudal and English Law, and pass an examination as before, at the end of Trinity Term, in the subjects prescribed by the Professor.

5. Students who comply with the foregoing regulations will be considered as law students of the University, and entitled to the same privileges in their Senior Sophister year which have been already given to other professional students.

6. The Law Professors shall give a joint certificate to such students as have attended for two years the lectures, and passed the examinations required by the foregoing regulations."

INTRODUCTORY LECTURE.

IT has been determined by those to whom is intrusted the power of admission to the Bar, that the study of the Roman Civil Law shall form a part of the education of every law student; and the Provost and Board of our University, anxious to assist in every possible way the great object of professional education, have not alone directed their Professor of Civil Law to deliver Lectures on that most interesting branch of study, and to illustrate, as he best can, the general principles through which alone Law is, or may be regarded as, a science, but have offered to you all manner of encouragement to pursue the study with ardour and diligence. The same privileges which have been before granted to the medical and other professional students who attend the classes in which instruction is given in their particular departments, are now granted to law students. The attendance required by the decree of the Board is strict, and at the end of the Course it is determined that an Examination shall take place, on the result of which depends whether you shall be allowed credit for the attendance. Still more strict is the attendance required to enable me to give such a Certificate as the Benchers require, before you can be called to the Bar. I will read a sentence for you from their late regulations.*

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When I consider the difficulties of the subject to which I shall chiefly have to call your attention, increased greatly by the fact, that the Roman Civil Law has of late years been but little the subject of study in this country, I cannot but at times almost feel regret that it has not become the duty of some other, rather than myself, to direct your studies. We have no light task to perform. We-you, my friends, and I have alike to create again in our minds the image of that mighty power, whose laws we are examining. We have to examine each particular law by its relation to a vast system, which, with all our diligence, can be but imperfectly seen. We must endeavour to see the laws of Rome as they were, not as they have been modified in accommodation to the institutions of those countries of modern Europe, of which the Roman law is the basis. In this way alone shall we detect the principle which is at the root of all law. Our great authorities, both as to the history of the civil law and as to its doctrines, are the compilations of Justinian; yet we must not allow ourselves to be deceived by the splendour which his exertions in the cause of legal science have cast round his name. We must remember, that when we think of laws we are speaking of the mutable forms in which the spirit of Justice successively seeks to clothe itself; that while there is an undying principle for ever struggling to express itself, it for ever finds language an insufficient instrument; that this, which once gave life to the letters now dead and voiceless, we are compelled to try and detect in records, of which much has become obscure, much was at all times but occasional, and, for our purposes, unimportant.

The Empire was in its decline in the days of Justinian. A country's laws, meaning by laws a larger thought than is expressed by the Latin word "leges"-one which the Romans sometimes expressed by the words "jus" and "jura,”— cannot but share the fortunes of the country; but here again we are met by the imperfections of language, and feel that

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