he passed in Dresden and Berlin, where he and his wife knew most of the eminent men of the time. While living at Dresden he wrote for the 'Edinburgh Review' a refutation of the arguments in favour of protectionism propounded by Dr. List in 'Das nationale System der politischen Oekonomie.' Though regarding Dr. List's 'desultory' treatise as 'a theory of trade unworthy of grave criticism,' he refuted it with unsparing thoroughness. To see his copy of List's work preserved in the Austin collection in the Inner Temple Library — the book copiously annotated in a bold, clear hand, and scored as a lawyer might score his brief — is to get an idea of the conscientious zeal which Austin carried into all he executed. Austin was at this time under the spell of German scholarship, and he wrote with fervour of his obligation to a land in which he and his wife had so long lived. 'Germany is one of the countries which we respect the most, and to which we are the most attracted, having found in the works of her philosophers, her historians, and her scholars, exhaustless mines of knowledge and instruction, and exhaustless power of pleasure or consolation. Above all we admire the spirit of comprehensive humanity which generally comes through the writings of her classical authors; and it is one of the causes of quarrel with Dr. List that he labours to diffuse a spirit of exclusive and barbarous nationality in the country of Leibnitz, Kant, and Lessing.' To the 'Edinburgh Review' of January 1847 he contributed an elaborate article on centralisation. Taking as his text 'De la Centralisation,' by Timon, and other French works, he endeavoured to dissipate the crowd of fallacies which had gathered round the idea of centralisation. He sought to clear up certain ideas concerning it, and, among them, the confusion between centralisation and over-government, and the common assumption that the former is incompatible with free or popular government, or local government of popular origin. The article concluded with two suggestions still well worthy of consideration — one that the function of private or specific legislation ought to be delegated to subordinate judicial functionaries; the other that there should be a permanent commission, composed of experienced lawyers, whose business it would be to examine and report upon bills submitted to either house of parliament.
In 1844-48 Austin lived in Paris. Shortly after his arrival he was made by the Institute a corresponding member of the moral and political class. Driven from France by the revolution, he settled with his wife at Weybridge in Surrey, where they took a 'long, low rambling old house,' and there the remainder of his days was spent in retirement. It was the happiest period of his life. His interest in jurisprudence, political economy, and politics was undiminished. He folloAved the course of events with unflagging interest. The coup d'etat deeply excited his wrath, and Napoleon III was an especial object of aversion to him. 'I can see him now,' writes a relative, 'with his magnificent hazel eyes flashing as he struck the table with his fist, saying "By God, sir, he is a scoundrel!"' Dissatisfied with all he did, Austin wrote little. He could not even be induced to prepare a second edition of his work on jurisprudence. In 1859 he wrote an article intended as a review in one of the quarterlies of Earl Grey's book on 'Parliamentary Reform.' It was rejected by the editor, and he published it as a pamphlet under the title of 'A Plea for the Constitution.' It was an acute defence of the English constitution as it existed and a warning of the danger of widening the suffrage and putting political power into the hands of people who were not fit to use it. 'It Avill be remarked,' he says in a sentence in the preface, which strikes the keynote of the pamphlet, 'by those who do me the honour of reading the essay, that the consequences I anticipate from any parliamentary reform are all of them mischievous.' The whole essay indicates that Austin's political opinions had been much influenced by his residence abroad; that the 'insane' revolution of 1848 had inspired him with dread of democracy, and that he had abandoned most of the political ideas of Bentham and the radical friends of his youth. He died in December 1859, just as his principles with respect to codification were triumphing in India. His death was little noted; even the legal journals of the time did not mention it; and Mr. J. S. Mill's article in the 'Edinburgh Review' of October 1868 was the first intimation to the majority even of English lawyers that they had lost a great jurist. In 1861 his widow edited a new edition of the 'Province of Jurisprudence,' and added to it a preface, in which she told the chief facts of her husband's life with much pathos. Two years afterwards she published two volumes of his lectures, or such remains of them as she, with remarkable sagacity and zeal, could discover. She was engaged in preparing another edition when she died, and the work was completed by Mr. Robert Campbell. The record of Austin's life is, in many respects, one of failure and disappointment. 'I was born out of time and place,' he himself said. 'I ought to have been a schoolman of the twelfth century or a German professor.' Asked why he did not do more for his brother, the
