Among the Romans, there were two forms of adop tion : the one before the praetor, called adoptatio ; the other, during the commonwealth, at an assembly of the people, and afterwards by a rescript of the emperor, called adrogatio. In the first, the natural father address cd the praetor, declaring, 'that he emancipated his son, resigned all authority over him, and consented that he should be taken into the adopter's family. The other mode was practised when the party to be adopted was already free. The person adopted changed all his for mer names, and assumed the rename, ninne, and sur name, of the adopting father. In the reign of Nero, the senate ordained, that fraudulent adoptions should be of no avail, either to qualify men for honours, or to en title them to the whole of any inheritance.
By the law of Mahomet, adoption is no impediment. to marriage. Among the Turks, the ceremony is per formed by obliging the adoptive person to pass between the shirt and skin of the adopter. For this reason, to adopt is expressed by the phrase, to draw another through my shirt ; and an adopted son is called by them,. lkietogli ; i. c. The son of another life ; because he was not begot ten in this. Something like this is observable among the Hebrews : Elijah adopts the prophet Elisha ; first by putting his mantle upon him, and then by letting it fall, when he was ascending in the chariot of fire. (I Kings, six. 19. 2. Kings, ii. 15.) Du Cange supposes, that the adoption ol Godfrey of Bouillon, by the emperor Alex ius Comnenus, who named him the champion of the em pire, and dignified his homage with the filial name and rights of adoption, was of this kind.
Among the Greeks and Armenians, as well as the Turks, this ceremony is frequently performed merely by the adopting person exchanging girdles with him who is adopted, when he succeeds to all the rights and honours of a son. To prevent their estates from falling into the grand seignor's treasury, when they are not likely to have any children of their own, they also some times choose a child of either sex, amongst the mean est people, and carry the child and its parents before the cadi, and there declare, that they receive it for their heir. ' The parents, at the same time renounce all future claim to it ; a writing is drawn and witnessed ; and a child thus adopted cannot be disinherited.
Besides these ceremonies, many of which have a stri king resemblance to each other, various other methods of adoption have taken place, and are denontinated accor ding to the forms that were employed among Gothic and military nations. See Halhed's Gentoo Laws, p. 263. Institutes of Menu, in sir W. Jones' !Forks, vol. iii. p. 47, 352. ,Irchxologia Attica. Gellius, Gronoy. lib. v. cap. 19. Du Cange, Sur Joinville, Dis. xxii. p. 270. Pitt's Travels to Mecca, p. 217, 225. Lady Mon tague's Letters, let. xlii. Border's Oriental Customs, No. 459, 473, 512. Gibbon's Hist. chap. Iviii. vol. ii. p. 45. note. (d)