greater part of this effay with feeling, and with advantage. Our Author's fentiments concerning the reprefentation of the colonies, form the most exceptionable part of it. This is a fubject which he seems not to have penetrated fufficiently ;—and no wonder, for who has attempted it with any tolerable degree of fuccefs? Such a work we apprehend to be yet wanting: and well would he deferve of the nation who fhould lay down fect and fatisfactory plan for the political administration of the colonies. per Toward the end of his effay on the Conflitution, our Author endeavours to fhew that the fecurity of Liberty is a work of fuch confequence, that no danger or hazard can be too great to rifk for it; intimating, at the fame time, that every one among us is not of the fame opinion: and he informs us that he rather hints this from remarking fome modern ideas of liberty and freedom, which Heaven forbid fhould ever become common in this kingdom. They refult from travelling through various countries; travellers, finding that there are some arbitrary ones, in which the people are fiflematically governed, and not as defpotically as in Turky, conclude that fuch a conftitution is a modification of freedom, and attribute to the principles of modern politics, a general freedom, as they are pleased to call it. This equivocal liberty is fully explained by a late author, and as the spirit of the paflage is remarkable, I fhall give it without apology at full length; was not the whole chain of thefe new fangled ideas contained in it, I fhould be obliged to have recourfe to fome other quotations, but as it happens to be very complete, it will fingly be fufficient." Trade and induftry owed their establishment to the ambition of princes, who fupported and favoured the plan at the beginning, principally with a view to enrich themselves, and thereby to become formidable to their neighbours. But they did not difcover, until experience taught then, that the wealth they drew from fuch fountains was but the overflowing of the fpring; and that an opulent, bold, and fpirited people, having the fund of the prince's wealth in their own hands, have it alfo in their own power, when it becomes ftrongly their inclination, to shake off his authority. The confequence of this change has been the introduction of a more mild and a more regular plan of adminiftration. (In what countries? Not furely in arbitrary ones; and the mildness of free ones is not owing to trade, but the jord, which drove cut tyranny.) The money-gatherers are become more uleful to princes, than the great lords; and thofe who are fertile in expedients for eftablifhing public credit, and for drawing money from the coffers of the rich by the impofition of taxes, have been preferred to the most wife and moft learned counREV. June 1772. 1 i fellors. fellors. (This, it must be confeffed, is a very extraordinary argument to prove the advantages liberty has received from trade; if this is the MILD and REGULAR PLAN the author before meant, as it evidently is, he explains himse ƒ fufficiently; it is precifely the very thing I before confidered in this fiction; this MILD PLAN is the tranquillity which attends an enflaved people: it is in this MILDNESS that confifts thefe new ideas of liberty.) As this fyftem is new, no wonder if it has produced phænomena both new and furprizing. Formerly the power of princes was employed to deftroy liberty, and to establish arbitrary fubordination; but in our days we have feen those who have beft comprehended the true principles of the new plan of politics, arbitrarily limiting the power of the higher claffes, and thereby applying their authority towards the extenfion of public liberty, by extinguishing every fubordination, other than that due to the established laws. (The fallacy of this argument is palpable: What are theje eftablished laws? The edils of arbitrary princes. But this new ffem of liberty is in every thing confiflent. What a contraft is this to the fentiment of Montefquieu, La Monarchie fe PERD lorfque le prince rappertant tout uniquement à lui, appelle l'etat à fa capitale, la capitale à la cour, & la cour à fa foule perfonne," which is the cafe with every arbitrary King in Europe.) The fundamental maxim in fome of the greateft minifters, has been to reftrain the power of the great lords. The natural inference that people drew from fuch a step, was, that the minifter thereby intended to make every thing depend on the prince's will only. This I do not deny. But what use have we feen made of this new acquisition of power? Those who look into events with a political eye, may perceive feveral acts of the most arbitrary authority exerciled by fome late European fovereigns, with no other view than to establish public liberty upon a more extenfive bottom. (It is pity this author did not explain Lis ideas of the words public liberty: they however are not difficult to be guejjed at; the species of freedom which is built on fuch retten foundations is very evident.) And although the prerogative of fome princes be increafed confiderably beyond the bounds of the ancient conftitution, even to fuch a degree as perhaps juftly to deferve the name of ufurpation; yet the confequences refulting from the revolution. cannot every where be faid, upon the whole, to have impaired what I call public liberty *." I cannot An Enquiry into the Principles of Political Economy. By Sir James Steuart, Vol. i. p. 248. Swift obicrves, that there is a fet of fanguine tempers who deride and ridicule in the number of fopperics, all apprehenfions of a lofs of English liberty. (Works, Vol. iii. p. 55.) Such ridicule, however, 7 I cannot help adding here a fhort fentence from Rousseau; not that I apply it fully to this author, of whom I am totally ignorant, but to all who prefer an equivocal fpecies of liberty to that which is the birthright of Britons. "Les ames balles ne croyent point aux grands hommes: De vils efclaves fourient d'un air moqueur à ce mot de liberté †.” [To be continued.] however, is very badly founded; nor ought we to put too much confidence in the lively maxims of fuch an agrecable author as M. Beaumelle; he is, however, very fenfible of the value of liberty properly fo called." England, fays he, is a very ftriking inftance, that an unfhaken and fteady conflitution is a happiness that cannot be too dearly purchased.-The conftitution of England is immortal, because a wife people cannot be enflaved by an enemy at home, nor a free people by an enemy abroad. Rome perished; and was it poffible for her to fubfift? her fyftem tended to aggrandizing herfelf; it did not tend to her prefervation. England is arrived to fuch a pass, as to be impoffible for her to perih, because revolutions, which fhould have been the bane of her fyftem, have ferved only to complete it." (Mes penfes.) Luxury has not done the utmoft against this conftitution, for although the above-recited author would have us believe that the operations of trade on conftitutions are not hurtful in changing them; yet I fhall very readily agree with Rollin, who declares, that" The molt judicious hiftorians, the most learned philofophers, and the profoundest politicians, all lay it down as a certain and indifputable maxim, that wherever luxury prevails, it never fails to deftroy the most flourishing ftates and kingdoms; and the experience of all ages and all nations does but too clearly demonstrate this maxim." Anc. Hift. Manners of the Arians, Art. 5, Sect. 1.' + Contract Social, p. 202. This facred word ought not to be prostituted to that freedom a people enjoys, which is open to the political prefcriptions of ftate phyficians, fuch as are mentioned in the following paffage; it is written by a Frenchman on French liberty. Oh! fi, au lieu de cela, vous vous chargiez de faire Jabourer tous les champs, en vertu de ce que c'est à vous à faire le fervice public, & que le foin de la fubiillance de vos fujets en eit la premiere fonction, vous croiriez faire votre charge, je le veux; mais vous feriez dans le fait la plus grande faute politique. A cet ́égard vous fentez cela: C'eft cependant ce qu'on fait tous les jours en votre nom, fons prétexte de la police, de prévoir les malheurs les diffettes, & autres mafques du monopole, qui abufent de votre follicitude paternelle. Car dire au laboureur, je veux avoir la clef de votre grenier, c'eft lui dire, je veux ordonner, à vos fraix & à vos ifques, de votre adminiflration journaliere, de votre travail, de vos femailles, de vos recoltes, de vos achats, de vos ventes, de vos repas, de vos moments, &c. par mon autorité confiée à une multitude d'agents étrangers a vos interets & aux miens. Theorie de L'Imp. p. 12.' Ii 2 ART: ART. VII. An hiftorical Treatife on the feudal Law, and on the Conftitution and Larvs of England; with a Commentary on Magna Charta, and neceffary Illufirations of many of the Englifo Statutes. In a Courfe of Lectures, read in the Univerfity of Dublin, by the late Francis Stoughton Sullivan, L L. D. Royal Profeffor of the Common Law in that University. 4to. 16s. Boards. Johnfon and Payne. 1772. HIS work treats of a subject which is, in the highest T degree, important; and which is executed with fingular ability. The very learned and ingenious Author has explained, with a minutenefs of inveftigation, and with a fpirit of candour, which have not hitherto been exerted, the origin and progrefs of the English conftitution and laws. Enlightened by reflection, no lefs than by ftudy, he furmounts difficulties, which former inveftigators were unable to refolve; and divested of thofe party-prejudices, which mifled our earlier antiquaries and lawyers, his work neither defcends to flatter the crown nor the people. He does not write the apology of a faction. He has fought for the truth, and he has found it, amidst the errors of hypothefis, the delufions of religious folly, and the obfcurities, which a crafty invention had created to conceal it. Before he enters formally into his fubject, he has, with much propriety, enquired into the intention and ends of political fociety. He fpeaks of thofe ufages and cuftoms, which govern men, antecedently to pofitive enactments; and he explores the hidden fources of legiflation. He then examines fome peculiarities attending particular modes of government; and thence he is led to confider the varieties produced in relation to laws, by the growing refinement of nations. Among the caufes of their multiplicity, he finds the liberty of the people to be the most powerful; from which he naturally infers, the difficulty of the ftudy of the English law, and proceeds to enumerate the methods which have been employed to advance the knowledge of it. Thefe topics engage his attention in his firft lecture. In his fecond, he explains the plan of his own undertaking. A partial, and a weak fondness for their country had engaged Lord Coke, and other lawyers of his age, to infift, that the English laws were not derived from a foreign fource. It is, however, perfectly obvious, that they are to be deduced from the feudal cuftoms; and Dr. Sullivan, confidering them as flowing from this fource, has very judiciously commenced his inquiries concerning the English conftitution, by inveftigating the origin of the feudal law, and its ceremonies. For this purpose, he looks back, in his third lecture, into the customs of the German nations, before they invaded the Roman empire. He examines and reprobates feveral opinions, which men of learning have formed concerning the original of the the feudal polity, and he can find no traces of its fource, but among the nations, which deftroyed the western empire of the Romans; that is, among the Franks, Burgundians, Goths, and Lombards. Of these, fays he, the firft and 1.ft have the greatest number of advocates; and, whether out of jealousy to the French monarchy, or not, I cannot determine, the majority declare for the Lombards. Thefe different opinions, however, may be eafily adjusted, by diftinguifhing between the beneficiary law, as I fhall call it, while the grants were at will, or for years, or at the utmost for life, and that which is more properly and ftrictly called feudal, when they became tranfmiffible to heirs, and were fettled as inheritances. As to the beneficiary law, no one of these nations can lay a better claim to it than another, or with reafon pretend that the reft formed their plan upon its model, each of them independent of the other, having eftablifhed the fame rules, or rules nearly the fame; which were, in truth, no more than the ancient cuftoms of each nation, while they lived beyond the Rhine, and were such as were common to all the different people of Germany. But, as to the law and practice of feuds, when they became inheritances, there can be little doubt but that it was owing to the Franks. For the books of the feudal law, written in Lombardy, acknowledge that the emperor Conrad, who lived about the year 1024, was the first that allowed fiefs to be defcendible in Germany and Italy; whereas the kingdom of the Lombards was deftroyed by Charlemagne above two hundred years before; and he it was who first established among his own Franks the fucceffion of fiefs, limiting it, indeed, only to one defcent. His fucceffors continued the fame practice, and, by flow degrees, this right of fucceffion was extended fo, that by the time of Conrad, all the fiefs in France, great and finall, went in courfe of defcent, by the concellion of Hugh Capet, who made use of that device, in order to fweeten his ufurpation, and render it lefs difagreeable. By this conceffion he, indeed, eftablifhed his family on the throne, but fo much weakened the power of that crown, that it cost much trouble, and the labour of feveral centuries, to regain the ground then loft. The opinion of the feudal law's being derived from the Lombards feems owing to this, that, in their country, those caftoms were first reduced into writing, and compiled in two books, about the year 1150, and have been received as authority in France, Germany, and Spain, and conftantly quoted as fuch. But then it fhould be confidered, that the written Jaw in thefe books is, in each of thofe nations, efpecially in France, controuled by their unwritten cuftoms; which thews 113 plainly |