Frederic Harrison on Henry James Sumner Maine

“I was deeply impressed with his brilliant intelligence and rare literary instincts. I attended his lectures in Middle Temple Hall (afterwards his book Ancient Law),—the substance of the problems we discussed together.”

“When I listened to the lectures of Henry S. Maine, which afterwards became his Ancient Law, I was as strongly attracted to Roman Law and historical Jurisprudence as I had been repelled by the barbarous verbiage of "common forms." I insisted upon becoming Maine's pupil for six months, as a condition of keeping my reason during my study of law.”

“Henry Sumner Maine, whose private pupil I was in 1857, when he was giving his lectures on "Ancient Law," was rather historian than lawyer, and more social philosopher than jurist. I remained in intimacy with him until his too early death, and never ceased to delight in his brilliant scholarship and analytic genius, as well as his literary culture and charm of manner. His very precarious health quite prevented him from acquiring the profound and exact learning of a modern professor; but he may rank with Herbert Spencer, and indeed with Charles Darwin, as an instance of how intellectual insight and grasp of luminous principles can dispense with any exhaustive study of books, nay, so often can open visions of truths which are denied to the voracious amasser of book learning.”