council of Constance. A short 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 should publish a second 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 pursues his subject from the 15th to the 17th century, and concludes with the age of Grotius. He pronounces a high eulogium on the celebrated treatise, de Jure Belli et Pacis, of that amiable man and universal scholar. 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 extensive erudition; and that, it bears through out unequivocal marks of induftry and ability.

An Inquiry into the Duties of Man, in the higher and middle Classes of Society in Great Britain, resulting from their respective Stations, Profeffions, and Employments. By Thomas Gisborne, M. A. 4to.

Ther T has been objected to moral writers, from Plato and Aristotle down to Puffendorff and Grotius, that their systems are too scientific and refined for the ordinary occurrences of life; tor how shall abstract

principles repel a present and strong temptation? More modern authors have delivered their rules of ethics with a closer attention to practice, but they have usually comprehended too wide a range, and have described the general duties of man, while those of the different ranks and professions in society have been pafled 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 should explain clearly the particular duties of that class of perfons whose pursuits and avocations were allied to his own. Sorel, the hiftoriographer of France, published about the middle of the last century, in his "Bibliotheque François," a long 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 should feem that their precepts referred to behaviour rather than to morals, and were directed chiefly to the higher orders in fociety. This last observation applies to a very ingenious little pamphlet, entitled, "Thoughts on the Manners of the Great," of which elegance and force are its least recommendations; and which appears to have suggested 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 service to his country and to mankind. That he has been able to treat minutely and correctly of the habits, pursuits, and occupations of the different ranks and profeffions into which the higher and middle classes of society are in

tions deemed essential to the proper discharge of the duties attached to them. Of these 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 shall be conferred, and the defcription of perfons to whom it shall be entrusted, no man who is destitute of the civil qualifications prescribed, has any plea for complaining of injustice in being precluded from filling the post. It would be as unreasonable in a person thus disqualified, 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 same right to appoint citizens of a particular description to choose members of parliament, as it has to appoint a particular family to occupy the throne." In a subsequent part of the fame chapter, the anthor confiders the expediency of the limitation of the right of voting for members of parliament; and concludes with the following observations: "The grand object to be had in view in imparting the elective franchise is, to secure, as far as may be possible, the choice of of proper representatives. 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 should be confined to men competent and

likely to difcharge the trust 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 society; 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 misrepresentations and iuflammatory harrangues; on the difficulty of preventing confufion and riots in popular assemblies, spreading over the face of a whole kingdom; on the rapidity with which tumults excited by design or accident in one assembly 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 these and other circumstance which would attend the plea of universal fuffrage, we shall 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 necessarily 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 sovereign, we shall make no selection; 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 wish to conform to the intention of the worthy and patriotic author, of extending to the widest circles the benefit of his labours. Jabours. We shall pass over likewife the fourth chapter for the fame reason, observing only that Mr. Gifborne contefts in it, but we do not think with fuccess, 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 observation on the custom of voting by

proxy.

A confiderate nobleman will make a very sparing 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 person giving his vote in the decifion of a question 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 present pofture of affairs and circumstances either at home or in the rest of Europe, is fo plainly repugnant to common fenfe, is capable of being so eafily and grossly perverted to the manœuvres of private interest, or of party, and so nearly resembles the Popish plan of putting one man's confcience into the hands of another, that the furrender of this privilege would, apparently be at once honourable to the house of lords, and beneficial to the nation."

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

It furnishes the means of a paVOL. XXXVII.

tient and safe difcuffion of political grievances and popular discontents, before they are grown to fuch a magnitude as neither to be tolerated with fafety to the flate, nor removed without the risk of dangerous convulfions. The beneficial effects of a representative house of commons, in this point of view, are not to be described. In despotic governments, from the want of fimilar ing stitutions, the fmothered embers accumulate heat in fecret, until they burst into a general flame. The people, impatient at length of enduring the wrongs over which they have long brooded in filent indignation, feck redress 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 representation was not adopted, endeavours to redress glaring defects in the conftitution were usually 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 serves as a conductor to draw off the lightning by a noiseless and conftant discharge, inftead of fuffering it to collect until the cloud becomes incapable of containing it, and by an instantaneous flash to level to the ground a fabric, which ages had been employed in erecting." The three following chapters we shall pass over in filence, rémarking only, that the eighth, which relates to the duties of naval and military officers, contains in the notes several important and striking facts derived from the best authority, and contributing very much to diverfify and to enforce the reasoning. The fame obfervation 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 assail a justice of the peace is forcibly expressed:

"Every fituation and employment in life influences, by a variety of moral causes, the views, tempers, and difpofitions, of those who are placed in it. The justice 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 some 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 extensive, and comprises a multiplicity of persons and cafes. The individuals who are brought before him are almost universally his inferiors, and commonly in the lowest ranks of fociety. The principal share of his business is transacted in his own house, before few spectators, and those in general indigent and illiterate. Hence he is liable to become dictatorial, brow beating, consequential, and ill-humoured; domineering in his inclinations, dogmatical in his opinions, and arbitrary in his decisions. He knows, indeed, that most of his decifions may be subject to revisal at the sesfions, but he may easily learn to flatter himself, that he shall meet with no fevere censure from his friends and brethren on the bench, for what they will probably confider as an oversight, or, at the most, as an error eafily remedied, and therefore of little importance. He knows too, that he may be called to account

4

before the court of king's bench but he is also aware that great tenderness is properly shewn 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, ignorant, and timid, to think of feeking redress, except in very palpable and flagrant cafes, and frequently tou poor to be able to undertake the tafk of seeking it in any. In consequence, moreover, of being petually converfant in his official capacity with the most worthless mem. bers of the community, destined as it were to register every crime perpetrated within many miles of his habitation, and witneffing petty acts of violence, knavery, and fraud, committed by men who had previoufly 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 general distrust, and of looking with less and less concern on the distresses of the common people, from a vague and inconfiderate perfuafion that they feldom suffer more than they deserve. Against these snares and temptations which beset him on every fide, and will infallibly cit cumvent him in a greater or less de gree, if he rests in heedless inatten tion, or in false ideas of security, let him guard with unremitting vigilance. If they are suffered to undermine those better resolutions, and supplant those better purposes with which he entered upon his office; let him not think that he shall escape from the circle of their influence, when he quits the limits of his justice-room. They will follow him into every scene of private and do