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council of Constance. A fhort account of it may be found in L'Enfant's hiftory of that council: but the best relation of it is in the 8th vol. of Vanden Hardt's collections. If the author fhould publish a fecond edition of his work, which we think, its merit makes highly probable, we hope he will give the particulars of this curious event in our diplomatic history.

Mr. Ward now purfues his fubject from the 15th to the 17th century, and concludes with the age of Grotius. He pronounces a high eulogium on the celebrated treatife, de Jure Belli et Pacis, of that amiable man and univerfal fcholar. He mentions Puffendorf with praise, and Vattel in terms of the greatest commendation: but he obferves, in conclufion, that his treatife does not appear, by any means, to preclude the neceffity of studying the works of his masters.

From the perufal of this publication we have derived great pleasure. We think that it is written with method and clearness; that it is replete with various and extenfive erudition; and that, it bears throughout unequivocal marks of induftry and ability.

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principles repel a present and strong temptation? More modern authors have delivered their rules of ethics with a clofer attention to practice, but they have ufually comprehended too wide a range, and have described the general duties of man, while thofe of the different ranks and profeffions in fociety have been passed in filence. Indeed, to trace out minutely the different habits and obligations of all the different orders in civil life, might be too much to expect from an individual writer; it would be confidered as fufficient, if he fhould explain clearly the particular duties of that class of perfons whose pursuits and avocations were allied to his own. Sorel, the hif toriographer of France, published about the middle of the last cen tury, in his " Bibliotheque François,” a fong account of authors in the French language who have treated of the conduct of life in public, or of what are called the homiletical virtues; but it fhould feem that their precepts referred to behaviour rather than to morals, and were directed chiefly to the higher orders in fociety. This laft obfervation applies to a very ingenious little pamphlet, entitled, "Thoughts on the Manners of the Great," of which elegance and force are its leaft recommendations; and which appears to have fuggefted the hint of the work before us. The author of this has indeed extended his plan over a much more ample and useful field of inquiry, and has rendered by it a very eminent fervice to his country and to mankind. That be has been able to treat minutely and correctly of the habits, purfuits, and occupations of the different ranks and profeffions into which the higher and middle clafles of fociety are in

this country diftributed, is owing, bufinefs. Chapter the fourteenth

as he informs us in a fhort preface, to his having been favoured with the unreferved advice and animadverfions of perfons feverally occupying the ftation, or belonging to the profeffion in queftion, and accuftoned to confider its duties in a confcientious light.

on the duties of private gentlemen. In the fifteenth and concluding chapter, confiderations are fubmitted to perfons who doubt or deny the truth of Chriftianity, or the neceffity of a firict obfervance of all its precepts. In a work, the obvious intention of which is to be useful rather than amufing, much novelty ought not to be expected; we will, therefore, content ourselves with paffing curforily over the work, felecting fuch paflages from each chapter, in its order, as fhall appear to us moft original or important.

The work is divided into fifteen chapters. The first contains the plan of the work; and in the course of this chapter the author gives his reasons why no part of the work has been appropriated to those who are placed in the lowest ranks of fociety. By them argumentative and bulky treatifes of morality will not be read. The careful perufal of their Bible, and the ftudy of fhort and familiar expofitions of its precepts, aided by the public and privale admonitions of their paftors, are to them the principal fources of inftruction. The fecond chapter contains general remarks on the firft principles of the British conftitution. Chapter the third explains the duties of the fovereign. Chapter the fourth, the general duties of Englifhmen, as fubjects and fellowcitizens. Chapter the fifth is on the duty of peers. Chapter the fixth is on thole of members of the houfe of commons. Chapter the feventh treats on the duties of the executive officers of government. Chapter the eighth is on the duties of naval and military officers. Chapter the ninth on the duties of the legal profeffion. Chapter the tenth on those of juftices of the peace and municipal magiftrates. Chapter the eleventh on the duties of the clerical profeffion. Chapter the twelfth on the duties of phyficians. Chapter the thirteenth on the duties of perfons engaged in trade and

10

Our author's observations, in the fecond chapter, on the privilege of voting for members of parliament, are of this description:

"It is undoubtedly true, that a very large majority of the inhabitants of this kingdom has no elective voice in the appointment of the members of the house of commons; in other words, moft of the people of Great Britain have no fuffrage in the nomination of the perfons who are to enact the laws by which nonelectors, in common with the reft of the nation, are to be governed. But the limited diffufion of the elective franchife cannot fairly be affirmed to be a breach of justice. The right of voting for a member of parliament is a public truft; it is as truly a civil office as the most confpicuous employment in the state; and, humble as it may feem, is a civil office of confiderable importance. All public offices and trufts being conftituted in this kingdom for the general good of the whole; it is juft that they should be conferred on fuch political conditions as the general good may demand, and be devolved on thofe perfons alone who poffels the political qualifica

tions

tions deemed effential to the proper discharge of the duties attached to them. Of thefe conditions and qualifications the nation is to judge; and when it has fixed, according to its best views of public utility, the terms on which each public office fhall be conferred, and the defcription of perfons to whom it fhall be entrufted, no man who is deftitute of the civil qualifications prefcribed, has any plea for complaining of injuftice in being precluded from filling the poft. It would be as unreasonable in a perfon thus difqualified, to contend that he is treated with injustice in not being permitted to be an elector, as it would be to affirm that he is unjustly treated in not being permitted to be king. The king and the elector are alike public officers and the nation has the fame right to appoint citizens of a particular defcription to choose members of parliament, as it has to appoint a particular family to occupy the throne." In a fubfequent part of the fame chapter, the author confiders the expediency of the limitation of the right of voting for members of parliament; and concludes with the following obfervations: "The grand object to be had in view in imparting the elective franchise is, to fecure, as far as may be poffible, the choice of of proper reprefentatives. By this confideration alone the number and defcription of electors ought to be regulated. And if this confideration undeniably requires, on the one hand, that the whole number of electors in the kingdom should bear an adequate proportion to the amount of the inhabitants, it seems equally to require, on the other, that the right of voting fhould be confined to men competent and

likely to difcharge the truft com mitted to them, in a manner condu cive to the public good. If we reflect on the uninformed condition of multitudes in the lower ranks of fociety; on the blind deference which they commonly pay to the will of their immediate fuperiors; on the temptations they are under of being corrupted by bribes; on the facility with which they may be deluded by artful mifreprefentations and inflammatory harrangues: on the difficulty of preventing confufion and riots in popular affemblies, fpreading over the face of a whole kingdom; on the rapidity with which tumults excited by defign or accident in one affembly would be communicated by contagion to another, until the country would be agitated with general convulfions; if we reflect on the dangers to be dreaded from thefe and other circumftance which would attend the plea of univerfal fuffrage, we fhall probably fee great reason to rejoice that the elective right is limited under the British conftitution. And we are not to forget, that if any inconveniences and hardships are to be apprehended, in confe quence of limiting it, they are neceffarily much diminished, if not altogether removed, by the very small share of property requifite to procure the privilege of voting for county members.

From chapter the third, which treats of the duties of the fovereign, we shall make no felection ; not that we think it inferior in excellence to the other parts of the work; but as we cannot quote from every part, we would with to conform to the intention of the worthy and patriotic author, of extending to the wideft circles the benefit of his

labours.

labours. We fhall pafs over like wife the fourth chapter for the fame reafon, obferving only that Mr. Gifborne contefts in it, but we do not think with fuccefs, the claim of the fovereign to natural, perpetual, and indefeafible allegiance; though he is fupported in his opinion by Sir W. Blackstone, and other writers of high repute.

The chapter on the duties of peers has a very juft and important obfervation on the cuftom of voting by

proxy.

"A confiderate nobleman will make a very fparing and cautious ufe of his privilege of voting by proxy; and will be fcrupulous in receiving the proxy of another peer. Indeed, the idea of a perfon giving his vote in the decifion of a queftion which he has rot heard debated, and may never have confidered, in enacting or rejecting a bill with the nature and object of which he is unacquainted, at a time too, perhaps, when he is in another quarter of the globe, and unable to learn the prefent pofture of affairs and circumftances either at home or in the rest of Europe, is fo plainly repugnant to common fenfe, is capable of being fo eafily and grofsly perverted to the manœuvres of private intereft, or of party, and fo nearly refembles the Popish plan of putting one man's confcience into the hands of another, that the furrender of this privilege would, ap.parently be at once honourable to the houfe of lords, and beneficial to the nation."

Among the benefits refulting from the houfe of commons, as it is at prefent conftituted, the following deferves to be recited from the fixth chapter:

It furnishes the means of a paVOL. XXXVII.

tient and fafe difcuffion of political" grievances and popular difcontents, before they are grown to fuch a magnitude as neither to be tolerated with fafety to the flate, nor removed without the ritk of dangerous convulfions. The beneficial effects of a reprefentative houfe of commons, in this point of view, are not to be defcribed. In defpotic governments, from the want of fimilar in ftitutions, the fmothered embers accumulate heat in fecret, until they burit into a general flame. The people, impatient at length of enduring the wrongs over which they have long brooded in filent indignation, feck redrefs by open rebellion, as the only method by which they can hope to obtain it. In the ancient democratic states, in which the principle of representa tion was not adopted, endeavours to redrefs glaring defects in the conftitution were ufually productive of ferments, tumults, and factious diforders, which rendered the attempt abortive, or terminated in hafty and impolitic refolves. But in Great Britain, the house of commons ferves as a conductor to draw off the lightning by a noiseless and conftant difcharge, inftead of fuffering it to collect until the cloud becomes incapable of containing it, and by an inftantaneous flath to level to the ground a fabric, which ages had been employed in erecting."

The three following chapters we fhall pafs over in filence, remarking only, that the eighth, which relates to the duties of naval and military officers, contains in the notes feveral important and ftriking facts derived from the beft authority, and contributing very much to diverfify and to enforce the reafoning. The fame oblervation applies allo to the thir[*M]

teenth

teenth chapter, and indeed, in writings of the didactic kind, examples can hardly be too often employed.

The recital occurring in the tenth chapter, of the temptations which affail a juftice of the peace is forcibly expreffed:

"Every fituation and employment in life influences, by a variety of moral caufes, the views, tempers, and difpofitions, of thofe who are placed in it. The juftice of the peace can plead no exemption from this general rule. The nature of his authority, and the mode in which it is exercised, have an obvious ten dency to produce fome very unde: firable alterations in his character, by implanting new failings in it, or by aggravating others to which he may have antecedently been prone. His jurifdiction is extremely extenfive, and comprises a multiplicity of perfons and cafes. The individuals who are brought before him are almost univerfally his infe-, riors, and commonly in the loweft ranks of fociety. The principal fhare of his bufinefs is tranfacted in his own houfe, before few fpectators, and thofe in general indigent and illiterate. Hence he is liable to become dictatorial, brow beating, confequential, and ill-humoured; domineering in his inclinations, dogmatical in his opinions, and arbitrary in his decifions. He knows, indeed, that most of his decifions may be subject to revifal at the fef fions, but he may easily learn to flatter himself, that he shall meet with no fevere cenfure from his friends and brethren on the bench, for what they will probably confider as an overfight, or, at the moft, as an error eafily remedied, and therefore of little importance. He knows too, that he may be called to account

before the court of king's bench 4 but he is also aware that great tenderness is properly fhewn by courts of law to the conduct of a juftice, unless a culpable intention on his part is clearly proved, and that the objects he may be tempted to aggrieve are usually too humble, ignofant, and timid, to think of feeking redrefs, except in very palpable and flagrant cafes, and frequently too poor to be able to undertake the tafk of feeking it in any In confequence, moreover, of being perpetually converfant in his official capacity with the most worthless members of the community, deftined as it were to regifter every crime perpetrated within many miles of his habitation, and witneffing petty acts of violence, knavery, and fraud, committed by men who had previously maintained a tolerable good character in their neighbourhood, he may readily acquire the habit of beholding all mankind with a fufpicious eye; of cherishing fentiments of ge neral diftruft, and of looking with lefs and less concern on the distresses of the common people, from a vague and inconfiderate perfuafion that they feldom fuffer more than they deferve. Against these fnares and temptations which befet him on every fide, and will infallibly circumvent him in a greater or lefs degree, if he refts in heedlefs inattention, or in falfe ideas of fecurity, let him guard with unremitting vigilance. If they are fuffered to undermine thofe better refolutions, and fupplant thofe better purposes with which he entered upon his office; let him not think that he fhall escape from the circle of their influence, when he quits the limits of his juftice-room. They will follow him into every fcene of private and do

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