perhaps inadvertently committed, for a sulky look at an insulting warder or a hasty expression wrung out by provocation-the punishment of bread and water and confinement to the cells for slight offences, inflicted with tyrannical readiness, and flogging with the cat-o'-ninetails. These latter inflictions are shown to be arbitrary, and in part unnecessary, by the excessive number of instances. in one prison compared with another.

Prison Visitors to be encouraged and their duties and powers enlarged.

The Moderation of sentences of unnecessary severity. The Question of Capital punishments.

The amendment of the law of "Constructive" Murder. The amendment of the law of Murder in respect of provocation.

The amendment of the law in respect of Infanticide.
The abolition of sentences of flogging.

To secure the granting of bail.

Provision for the defence of accused persons.

To secure the release and compensation of the innocent convicted, and wrongly accused, and to procure the reconsideration of doubtful convictions, or excessive punishments.

The foregoing are set forth as specimens of the work which the Society is carrying out, but they must not be taken to limit its action in any cognate matters it may choose to entertain.

In conclusion, the Society confidently appeals to the Profession outside and to the world to support its endea

vours.

CHAS. H. HOPWOOD.

1 Can now only be inflicted after special reference to the Secretary of State and his confirmation obtained. This is our greatest success. It is not regulated by Rules, but by express words in the Statut e 61 & 62 Vict. c. 41, s. 5. Some other useful reforms have been embodied in the Rules of 1898 which have become law.

THE

157

HE word Speculum, and corresponding words in ancient and modern languages, such as-to take only the less obvious ones-Hebrew,' Arabic, Greek, and Icelandic, have been used for many centuries to denote handbooks on different subjects. In this sense Speculum is comparatively late in origin, but its connexion with the literal mirror is obvious. A line of Terence,

Inspicere tanquam in speculum in vitas omnium, may supply the link. The word means a book in which certain statements or pictures (for many of the more popular Specula were illustrated) appear as in a mirror. In one case (that of Durandus, mentioned later) the book was also called Speculatio. This term, however, is more properly derived from specula than from speculum. Specula, speculor and speculatio generally imply an attempt by research, speculum having no such meaning, but being confined to what is the result of research. The reason of the employment of such a word as speculum seems to be the ineradicable tendency to metaphor in writing, illustrated by the analogous cases of the numerous Anthologies, Ladders, Labyrinths, Garlands, etc.

In classical literature there are none but faint foreshadow

1One of the most interesting examples is Barnet-Spiegel, Speculum Clarum, a German book in Hebrew characters, published at Bâle in 1602.

Such as Speculum Mundum representans, interprete Abrahamo Ecchellensi (Paris, 1641).

There are at least two Catoptra, that of Petrus Aureævallis, also called Rationalis sive Speculum Ecclesio, and Fludd's καθολικόν medicorum κάτοπτρον (Frankfort, 1631).

S. Lyche, Einn lytill Idruna Spegill, translated by Olaf Gislason (Hólar in Iceland, 1775), a volume of sacred verse. Also the Speculum Regale (see below).

Adelphi, iii., 3, 61.

*Augustine, De Speculo, defines Speculatio as longe videre. This would perhaps hardly be recognised as true in the Throgmorton Street of to-day.

Hostismo is

ings of the future metaphorical use. One has already been given, another occurs in the same play :

Pueri in quibus ut in speculo natura cernitur.1

Somewhat similar uses occur in Lucretius:

Hoc igitur speculum nobis natura futuri

Temporis exponit post nostram denique mortem,?

and in Cicero, whose use of speculum nature" may be compared with the phrases just quoted. In the Corpus Juris only the literal use is found. One of the meanings given by Du Cange is registrum or regestum or series cartarum. The use of the word by Dante is interesting.

61, he says:

Su sono specchi, voi dicete tron,

Onde rifulge a noi Dio guidicante,

In Par. ix.

a kind of forerunner of the later connexion between justice and the mirror. Compare Par. xiii., 59, perhaps suggested by St. Thomas Aquinas' suggestion that the Word is the speculum of God. Dante's arrangement of sins in the Purgatorio was probably derived from St. Bonaventura's Speculum Beatæ Virginis. In the eighth epistle (to the Italian Cardinals) Dante says, Nescio quod speculum, Innocentium, et Ostiensem declamont. This is an allusion to the Speculum Juris of Gulielmus Durandus or Durante (d. 1296) Bishop of Mende; the others named in the sentence being probably the Compilatio Tertia of Innocent III., and the glosses on Canon Law by Enrico da Susa, Cardinal of Ostia.

Four great classes of Specula may be distinguished, theological, philosophical, legal, and general, including satirical, of which many examples exist. Theology seems to lead the way; the oldest work of the kind-as far as the 1 iii. 4, 51.

2 iii., 987.

De Finibus, ii., 10, 32.

4 Whence Durandus was sometimes known as Speculator, a use of the term etymologically wrong.

3

writer's researches have extended-is the De Speculo of St. Augustine.' The point of the work is that the mind of man is the speculum of the Trinity, and on it the Beatific Vision may be impressed. The theological speculum came down as a commonplace through many centuries, in fact, up to a few years ago. Among books of this kind the first place is taken by the famous Speculum Humane Salvationis, the production of which in large quantities taxed to the utmost the resources of the xylographic art just before the invention of printing. Others of the more prominent specula of this kind were the encyclopædiac Majus Speculum of Vincent of Beauvais, the Speculum Perfectionis of Brother Leo the Franciscan, the Speculum Spiritualium of Richard Rolle of Hampole, the Specchio da Croce of Domenico Cavalco, and the Miroir de l'Âme Pécheresse, attributed to Margaret of Navarre, and translated by Queen Elizabeth as "The Mirror of the Sinful Soul." This list comprises only a small selection of the vast mass of theological specula. Among philosophical and general may be classed two or three of the more notable. The perennial Speculum Noctua or Eulenspiegel is known to everyone, at any rate by name. History is represented by the Speculum Historiale of Richard of Cirencester, science, true or false, by the three Specula of Roger Bacon, Alchimia, Secretorum, and Mathematica, and the Speculum Astrologic of Albertus Magnus. Considerably later social matters are dealt with in Gascoigne's "Steel Glass." There are several anonymous Spanish Espejos, such as de Caballerias and de Principes y Caballeros, somewhat in the Castiglione style.

1 Itself possibly based on the eσотроν of the Book of Wisdom. 2e.g., Canon Newbolt's Speculum Sacerdotum (1894).

"This work has often been edited and described, e.g., by Berjeau, Essai Biblio. graphique sur le Speculum Humanœ Salvationis (Paris, 1862).

4 Recently edited by P. Sabatier (Paris, 1898), and translated by S. Evans as "The Brother Minors' Mirror of Perfection."

Sometimes the writers throw their ideas into verse, as in the Idruna Spegill, the Speculum Regum, the prologue to the Sachsenspiegel, and the " Myrroure for Magistrates.” The strangest of all the satirical ones is surely a production of the seventeenth century, Speculum juvenum uxores impetuose affectantium, in quo plurinos feminarum viperinos mores ex omni pene genere conditorum selectos sole clarius deprehendent. In the long title of Sebastian Brant's Stultifera Navis the word speculum is used. This was no doubt introduced as an attractive phrase, likely to be found taking in a popular work. The vogue of similar works is also shown by the fact that the Myrrour of the World" was printed by Caxton and the "Myrrour of the Church" by Wynkyn de Worde, both translations.*

In the days when the practice of the law was largely in the hands of ecclesiastics, the transition from theology or philosophy to law was easy, and a popular title was also to be desired. The fact that Augustine and Aquinas had used the word would be sufficient to consecrate it, and both lawyers and laymen were accustomed to both the idea and the phrase. It is impossible to arrange the legal specula quite in order of date, but perhaps the Speculum Juris Canonici of Petrus Blessenis or Peter of Blois (d. 1200),

1 The tendency of early legal writers to make use of verse in order to convey their meaning has often been noticed. Something on the matter will be found in the LAW MAGAZINE AND REVIEW, vol. xxii., p 224. As far as regards the Sachsenspegiel, the words of its latest editor, Dr. Julius Weiske, are as follows:Recht und Poesie stehen in inniger Verbindung; Poesie ist im Rechte und die Rechtsausdrücke werden von den Dichtern mit Vorliebe verwendet; (preface to 7th Ed., Leipsic, 1895).

? Anon: Paris, 1647.

It is not without interest to note that when Gutenberg and his partners were printing at Strassburg in 1438, they made it known, in order to divert suspicion, that they were making mirrors by a new process. Was this possibly a play on words, with a veiled allusion to literary mirrors?

The first of the Speculum Mundi, the second of Hugh of St. Victor's Speculum Ecclesiæ.