The science of law must ever have been in a melancholy state in a country like Poland. Poland proper has always been governed by _statutes_ and _constitutions_, sanctioned by the diet. These were either founded on ancient usages, _consuetudines_, or occasioned by particular circumstances. The towns were governed according to the code of Magdeburg. In Lithuania the ancient Lithuanian statutes, collected in 1529, prevailed and still prevail, if not in collision with any intervening _ukase_.[64] In the other provinces, the laws of the respective monarchies to which they are annexed, are in force. Thus the different portions of Poland are governed in accordance with seven different systems of law.[65] Under the administration of the last king of Poland, which was so rich in improvements; a general code of laws was also planned, and projects were prepared by able statesmen and lawyers; but they were all rejected by the diet of 1777. Under the Russian administration, preparation was made from the very beginning for the introduction of a new code; but the first project of a criminal code presented by the council of state, was likewise rejected by the diet of 1820. A portion of the civil code was accepted in A.D. 1825; but the complete code, which was ready for publication in the year 1830, had not, so far as we are informed, been introduced before the outbreak of the revolution. The administration of justice in Poland is about as bad as in Russia; being nothing but one great system of bribery and corruption. Of the judges of the lower courts, two thirds are elected; one third of these, and all the officers of the higher tribunals, are appointed by the government. In former times the profession of a lawyer, as well as that of a physician, was considered in Poland as degrading and unworthy of a nobleman. These two professions were not indeed prohibited by law, like that of traders,--for a nobleman who retailed "by yards or by pints," legally lost his rank,--but custom had made all those occupations which were the source of pecuniary profit, equally the objects of contempt. There was even a time, "when it was reckoned a matter of indifference for a nobleman _to understand arithmetic_[66]." In modern times the ideas on this subject have of course changed; the study of law is no longer despised, especially in its necessary connection with the administration of justice. Slotwinski in Cracow, Bantkie and Maciejowski in Warsaw, were esteemed as teachers of law. We shall hereafter have occasion to mention the valuable work of the latter on this subject. The Roman law, both civil and criminal, was studied in the universities, as well as the law of nature and nations; which latter, in the case of this unhappy country, has been for more than seventy years so cruelly violated.