The Green Bag
306 A BOOK OF VERSES
Dorian Days. Poems. By Wendell Phillis Stafford, fIustice of the Su reme Court of t e District 0 Columbia. The acmillan Co., New York. Pp. vi, 112. (81.25 net.)
T is a pleasure to come upon a volume of verses by a judge who is also a poet. Judge Stafford has followed in the footsteps of Keats and William Morris. His devotion to beauty in its objective shapes is sincere. His verses are marked by distinction and are modeled upon a good tradition. Their charm is derived from beauty of form rather than of substance. The thought may be commonplace, but the imagery and diction frequently give rise to rare pleasure. There is often a reminiscence of the poetic manner of Keats, as where, for example, in “The Singing of Orpheus," we read that :— the moon increasing Leads on the black sea-wall her white-maned tides Till the breath of their nostrils is vainly blown high on its thundering sides.
The subjects of the chief poems are drawn from classical mythology, and among the most exquisite are those on the Belvidere Apollo,
Actaaon
at
the
Bath
of
Artemis,
and the Venus of Melos. The writer shows a particularly happy command of the sonnet form, and one of the best things in a book which deserves to be widely circulated is the noble sonnet on the Sistine Madonna,
divine law, but human law also. are of divine origin, and are the dictate of the Almighty Himself; and . . . by Him it is committed to the people to organize society, according to their varying circumstances, to carry the fundamental principles into effect.
This line of thought controls the treatment throughout. The author's point of view is that of mediaeval theology, and his religious bias has led him to disregard the modern literature of most of the subjects upon which he writes. The result is an unscholarly series of essays, warped by prejudice and destined to mislead the reader. The attitude assumed toward barbarism and savagery, which "are merely lapses from a primordial civilization," results in the brushing aside of their phenomena as abnormal and un worthy of serious consideration. The writer is thus unable, notwithstanding some proof
of diligence in superficial historical research, to present a symmetrical outline of the development of law. His book is without footnotes, bibliography
or
index,
and
its
publication must produce the impression that his venture beyond the customary field of professional empiricism was ill-advised, and that these lectures at Georgetown University are likely to work greater injury to the cause of sound legal education than if they had wisely been suffered to remain unpublished.
which may here be quoted :— Other madonnas ever seem to say, “My soul doth magnify the Lord"; but she, Dove-like in sweetness and humility, Has caught the words of wonder day by day And kept them in her heart. Look as we may, The mother is yet more a child then he Who nestles to her. In his eyes we see The pro hecy of lightnings that will play About t e temple courts. the conqueror Traveling in the greatness of his strength, But in her eyes only the love unsle ing Wherewith, all times, he will be waited or, Which, as the cross lets down its load at length, Will take her babe once more into her keeping
MORRIS’S HISTORY OF LAW An Introduction to the History of the Develop ment of Law. By Hon. M. F. Morris, Associate ustice of the Court of Appeals of the District of olumbia. John Byrne 8: Co., Washington. Pp. 315. (82.)
NE might suppose that the hierarchical conception of law no longer existed in an enlightened age, yet a judge of some prominence has seen fit to publish a book affording a startling example of modes of thought long since relinquished. At the outset Judge Morris declares : All the fundamental principles of law, not merely
NEW BOOKS RECEIVED
RECEIPT of the following new books which will be reviewed later, is acknowl edged :— The Histo of Casteinlndia. With an asppendix on Radical efects of Ethnolo . By hridhar V. Ketkar, A.M. (Cornell). . 1. Taylor &
Carpenter, Ithaca. N. Y.
Pp. xv.
17(H-index
22. ($1.50.) The Nature and Sources of the Law. By John Chipman Gray, LL.D.. Royall Professor of Law in Harvard University. Columbia University Press, New York. P . xii, 292+appendices and index 40. ($1.50 net. Virginia Colonial Decisions. The Reports by Sir John Randol h and b Edward Barradall of Decisions of the eral urt of V' 'nia. 1728 1741. Edited, with Historical Int uction, by
R. T. Barton. 2 v. Boston Book Company, Boston. V. 1, pp. xxviii-i-lntroduction 250+Randol h's Fe rts 118; V. II, Barradall's Reports. pp. 94.
8 .) American Electrical Cases; being a collection of all the important cases (exce ting patent cases) decided in the state and f eral courts of the United States from 1873, on subjects relating to the tele aph, the telephone, electric light and. power, eectrical railway, and all other ractical uses of electricity; with annotations. ited by Austin B. Griffin, of the Albany bar. V. IX (1904‘ 1908). Matthew Bender 8: Company. Albany.
Pp- viii, 1140+1'ndex 47
($6.)
