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justice might tend to abate the spirit of litigation, but the unequal pressure serves only to increase the influence of the rich, and to aggravate the misery of the poor. By these dilatory and expensive proceedings, the wealthy pleader obtains a more certain advantage than he could hope from the accidental corruption of his judge. The experience of an abuse, from which our own age and country are not perfectly exempt, may sometimes provoke a generous indignation, and extort the hasty wish of exchanging our elaborate jurisprudence for the simple and summary decrees of a Turkish cadhi. Our calmer reflection will suggest, that such forms and delays are necessary to guard the person and property of the citizen; that the discretion of the judge is the first engine of tyranny; and that the laws of a free people should foresee and determine every question that may probably arise in the exercise of power and the transactions of industry. But the government of Justinian united the evils of liberty and servitude; and the Romans were oppressed at the same time by the multiplicity of their laws and the arbitrary will of their master.
Chapter XLV:
State Of Italy Under The Lombards.
Part I. Reign Of The Younger Justin. -- Embassy Of The Avars. -- Their Settlement On The Danube. -- Conquest Of Italy By The Lombards. -- Adoption And Reign Of Tiberius. -- Of Maurice. -- State Of Italy Under The Lombards And The Exarchs. -- Of Ravenna. -- Distress Of Rome. -- Character And Pontificate Of Gregory The First. During the last years of