His father, David, was a professor and a poet; Jacobus studied jurisprudence at Leyden, and afterward practiced law at Amsterdam.

In Lombardy the growth of wealth, population, and trade, demanded a more developed jurisprudence, and a new study had sprung up of Roman law.

Nor was there probably among Oriental nations any elaborate codification of the decrees and laws as in Greece and Rome, except by the priests for their ritual service, like that which marked the jurisprudence of the Israelites.

Mr. Bentham, in his attempts to revise and amend our criminal jurisprudence, proceeds entirely on his favourite principle of Utility.

To Justinian belongs the immortal glory of reforming the jurisprudence of the Romans.

He understood Roman jurisprudence, and was the author of a code for the Goths, but in a case like this he was obliged to conform to national customs.

It is too evident, nevertheless, that the principle of retaliatory punishment, irrespective of any considerations of public safety, or the benefit of the offender, pervades our criminal jurisprudence, both in theory and practice, and just so far as this is the case, is the last great object defeated, for his feelings are deadened, and his heart hardened by it.