tive body have at once to vacate their seats, that whole body may be interested to put off its dissolution, and to protract illegally its sittings; and that if one half be to go out at once, one half is liable to that wish, and may find it easy to gain over a vote or two, and thus effect its purpose. Whereas if one-third only, or any less number, be to rote out at once, the chance always must be that the legislature itself will compel the punctual observance of the law (two-thirds having, by the hypothesis, no interest in the breach of it), and thus secure to the people a regular periodical renewal of their choice.

For both these reasons partial rotation is essential to wise representation. The prerogative of entire dissolution, or simultaneous dismissal of the delegates, ought to be withdrawn from the crown. A further objection is, that the cotemporary meeting of all the constituents of a house of commons, legally calls into action a power necessarily greater than that of the government, whose stability, in democratic times, might thereby be attacked.

A defect of this declaration is, that concerning the duration of parliament nothing is stated, except that it may safely be triennial, biennial, or even annual, on the plan recommended. We deprecate very short parliaments. It is not the duty of representatives to decide in all cases as the people themselves would decide; but as it is best for the people that they should decide. Not the coincidence of their opinion with that of their constituents, but its coincidence with universal justice, is the rule of approbation. Now the shorter the time a delegation lasts, the greater the probability of obedience to the constituency. In order then to diminish the influence of hasty, vulgar, and unsound opinion, time enough ought to be given for sudden ferments of the public mind to subside. The representative should have a chance of assuading his own better judgment on the multitude. A year in the present state of instruction is evidently too little. Triennial are there fore preferable to annual parliaments. But annual elections are compatible with triennial parliaments; of three countymembers one might rote out yearly. Or, under sexennial parliaments, one rote out biennially. This would keep alive a sufficiently frequent appeal to the people; and, by influencing progressively the divisions in the house of commons, would abate the insolence of power, and intercept the despair of secessions. Short par

liaments would cheapen too much the dignity of a representative; and the collective body would lose weight and power in the state from the comparative insignificance of the component individuals. Six years is not too much for a demagogue to unfold his general plan of conduct and legislation: time should be allowed for apprenticeship to the local circumspection requisite. The liberties of France are gone; because every body who coveted a seat in the house had been accommodated: there was no motive to be anxious any longer for a college of tribunes. All the fire-flies, that chose, had shone, and had burnt out their phosphorus. The parliament of Britain produced fewer great men during its trienniality, than since the prolongation.

A great reform has been accomplished in the British parliament by the introduction of the hundred new members from Ireland. The effect which lord Chatham anticipated from increasing the number of representatives is already very discernible:

a consciousness of strength, a spirit of independence, is rising anew. The next best addition would be to suffer the unrepresented towns to frame a charter for themselves. It is within the competence of the royal prerogative to grant such charters. Any homogeneous system of representation has its inconvenience. Some one sect or interest would preponderate, and would new-model every thing by its peculiar will. There is no tolerance when a majority has counted noses: the puritans of England, the libertines of France, overwhelmed their opponents as with the tide but the waters ebbed, and one has now to lament the want of those holds and anchorages which, if the parliaments of France, or the municipal corporations, or the provincial states, had been specifically represented, might perhaps have been found. As the best administration are those which consist of an aristocracy of strong minds culled from rival and opponent parties; so the best representations are those which leave unconfused the natural sources of social influence, and admit them all in due proportions. We should like to have twenty or five-andtwenty tribunes of the people, eligible by universal suffrage without any qualifica tion of property, superadded to the extant legislature. Let us see if they could contrive to better the condition of the poor or of the rich, to strengthen the gravitation of allegiance, or. brighten the radi ance of public glory.

A homogeneous representation of the people would be disconnected with the nobility, would be disconnected with the crown. If equally numerous with the present house of commons, one chance is, that the same quantity of patronage would be equally operative. It might annex itself as an humble appendage to the hereditary branches of the constitution, accept distributions of emolument and honour from the minister for the time being, talk about the public and care for itselfin this case nothing would be gained by the alteration. Another chance is, that it would display a spirit of independence, increase its own authority at the expence of the hereditary institutions, and encroach both on the influence of the crown and the privileges of the nobility. This is the more probable event: it is the expectation, the hope, the desire of the people, and their motive for soliciting reform. Now can any politician, who has read the history of England through the last, and of France through the present century-who has considered the nature, spirit, and tendency of a popular assembly, strong in the fresh confidence of the people, and anxious by splendid enterprize not to disappoint the expectations formed from its long-protracted hardearned approach-can any less tutored politician doubt, that such a body will be willing and able to encroach, not merely on the mischievous prerogatives of the Crown, but on royalty itself; that it will once more vote the house of lords superfluous, concenter in its own hands a legislative omnipotence, and then employ it in breaking up all our corporations and establishments? This rational conviction is grown so general, that those, who are not republicans, consider these sweeping projects of innovation as volcanic ground, which the cautious tread of a constitutionalist has to avoid; and begin consentaneously to turn away from every plan of parliamentary reform, which goes to the length of representing the people.

The republicans, on the other hand, would perhaps be blameable, if they stopped short at a plan of reform for one house of parliament only. Mr. Fox has wisely said, that every unmixed government is bad-simple monarchy, simple aristocracy, simple democracy, have severally been found oppressive. Legislative omnipotence intrusted to any individual, or to any corporation, is a power too great to be wielded well by men. The excluive sway of a despot or of a citizenry, ANN. REV. VOL. IV.

the monarchy of a king or the monarchy of a convention, is tyrannous alike. It should seem therefore that, if ever the lower house be strengthened by connecting it with the mass of the people, a new, a stronger, and more elective upper house, ought also at the same time to originate, in order to keep its authority in equipoise, and to divide and moderate its power. Can it be less legal to conspire the newmodelling of the one than of the other house of parliament? Why not substitute the pursuit of a constitutional reform to that of mere parliamentary reform? Our nobility grows too numerous for the expedient concession of an entire vote in the upper house to each of its members. Why not limit the peerage to direct descent? Why not confer an elective character on the whole upper house, vesting the choice exclusively in the nobility, and granting one vote to knights, two to baronets, four to barons, six to viscounts, eight to earls, ten to marquisses, and twelve to dukes, in the choice of their proxies, or delegates?

The remaining public papers are of little moment.

The subsequent correspondence, though somewhat dull, from the unvarying tone of reciprocal panegyric in which it is conducted, deserves a short commentary.

At page 75, Mr. Wyvill blames the friends of the people for not expelling Mr. Cartwright. And what was the crime of Mr. Cartwright? He was a friend to universal suffrage. It is mortifying to see these would-be reformers behaving like bishops at a council; intolerant to every aberration from their own confined creed; and, while they are complaining of the exclusive spirit of the state, themselves getting up an interior ostracism to defraud principle of its confessors, and the poor of their advocates.

At page 115, we find Mr. Wyvill coalescing with the government-party, and subscribing those declarations of allegiance which had been indirectly called for by the proclamation against seditious publications and assemblages. These meetings. for the declaration of loyalty took place throughout the kingdom in November and December 1792. The old reformers, whose associations were of ten years standing, chose to distinguish themselves from the new reformers, who were more apparently aimed at in the proclamation. The old reformers signed the constitutional tests at least Mr. Wyvill and his friends did so. They do not scruple to

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tax Mr. Pitt with a base abandonment of his principles, for suffering his new ministerial associates to prosecute a printer who republished the duke of Richmond's resolutions and his own. Is it less a desistance from protecting those whom your own example betrayed into imprudence, to have signed these tests, and thus to have left in a distinct minority, and in the smallest possible apparent number, the men who, in 1792, were struggling against the arm of power and the frown of the higher orders of society? The only chance of producing any impression on government was to make the republicans pass for strong, by confounding in one mass all the non-contents. But the ten-yearold reformers preferred a base security to success, and the sneering civility of their foes to the confidence and gratitude of their friends and imitators. This is a blot in the scutcheon of the old reformers: fidelity being in the conduct of parties of all qualities the most important.

At page 177, and in other places, argumentations occur about the proper time for pursuing a parliamentary reform. The constitutionalist will perhaps incline to think no time proper; the republican to think all times proper: yet there is a distinction of expediency which deserves attention. Whenever the house of commons is animated by a spirit of independence, by a disposition to diminish the influence of the crown, and to abolish its noxious prerogatives, it is expedient for the tory-party to raise an outcry in behalf of reform, in order to sow disunion between the people and their representatives, and thus to withdraw from the proceedings of the house of commons the countenance and encouragement of pular sympathy. Whenever the house of commons is sunken into the lethargy of servility, and is lending its instrumentality to the personal caprices and enterprizes of the monarch, with too little regard to public and national welfare, it is expedient for the whig-party to raise an outery in behalf of reform, in order to bring popuJar odium on the sycophants of majesty, and to interrupt senatorial servility by the interposition of the constituent body. The reformers of 1782 merited the approbation of the tories, the reformers of 1792 the approbation of the whigs.

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At page 240, a note occurs in which Mr. Wyvill recapitulates the principal arguments which have been opposed to personal representation, or universal suffrage. The populace, he says, through ignorance

or profligacy would abuse their vote This is contradicted by experience: i in those towns where the right of puttr descends to the lowest class, the con people are as equally split into partics their superiors. The manufacturer duces his journeymen to vote with and the weight of property, acting throng all the forms of its employment, as reg larly influences such elections, as whe the voters are fewer. To confine vat to taxed householders would be a go. oppression to the manufacturers, whee a numeroas, wealthy, and enlightened i der of men, and who would find tconsequence reduced to individuality, their journeymen were deprived of se frage. Those whose capitals are eny. ed to put in motion the most produc sort of labour, ought not to be defrau ba of the natural influence resulting t their industry and utility. Universal frage is less a justice due to the poor, t to the maintainers of the poor. Wyvill adds, that in quiet times the so of the poor will be venal, and in unga times ungovernable. What objection there to the venality of votes? If sod sudden cash they will not interfere w the influence of property: if sold for la bitual patronage, protection, and kind they will better the condition of the p in the most desirable manner, and incress the ascendancy of benevolence and ch rity. If votes are bestowed indepe ently, or to take Mr. Wyvill's phrase, governably, they will be at the service sects of opinion, they will promote in mation, they will confer a reward power on the instructors of the multis We should be glad to know where: other pretended arguments against versal suffrage are to be found. The thority of Sir William Jones, of Sir Ju Mackintosh, of Mr. Thomas Cooper. they are all weighty names, decides universal suffrage: under what pretest the advocates of limitation shelter th dissent? Why not grant to six towns, to six counties, a choice by universal ste frage, in order to observe its operationa a safe scale? No form of represent ought to be rendered general, with previous experience of its effects. Yo shire is a fit county to new-model for s purpose of experiment; as it is too lo for the extant plan of election. I people of each riding, or tithing, m appoint delegates, agree on a pa plan, and petition parliament for a se rate bill of redress. Where the old wa

profession of a soldier is not merely a permitted but an honoured employment among the founders of christianity: it has the sanction of the master himself, see especially Luke, c. vii. v. 6-9. In the discharge of taxes Jesus was no less an exemplary citizen. He had been long a resident at Capernaum, and, on revisit ing his place of abode, they that received tribute came to Peter and said: Doth not your master pay tribute?' He saith: 'Yes.' (Matthew, c.xvii.v. 24--25.) And again, when consulted by the Herodians about the expediency of submitting to Roman taxation, he expressly teaches submission (Matthew, c. xxii. v. 21.) to the sovereign for the time being; and advises

that, while the image and superscription of the coin were Cesar's, to him, though a heathen, tribute should be paid. The tythe is notoriously a tax of Jewish origin (Leviticus, c. xxvii. v. 30-32.), and more conformable to scriptural authority than these Roman capitations. The resistance of the quakers to soldiering and to tythes is therefore not merely anarchic, but antichristian.

We counsel this author to reconsider his argument; and to set about predisposing the members of his sect to confine their protest, or testimony, against the laws, to a wholesome interference in elections.

THERE are four motives for making books: 1. The desire of attaining an end; 2. The desire of gain; 3. The desire of fame; and, 4. The desire of composition. This book is so driftless, so useless, so temporaneous, that it cannot but have been drawn up to gratify the latter of these motives. It seems entitled therefore to that indulgent sort of reception, which hobby-horsical amusements, that are innocent, obtain from the politeness, if not from the complacency, of the bystander.

This is more than an innocent, it is a well-intended, but it is a long-winded exertion panting praise would toil after it in vain. As in a maggot-race ring draws ring after ring with most visible progress and most insensible advance, the turgescence of effort travelling at every hitch from head to tail, and back again-so here section drags on section, and chapter, chapter; and at every fresh topic the author stops to recapitulate and retrace the little whole length of his political crawl. Still the wish to be useful is no less obvious than the wish to be busy. Gratitude balances every feeling of annoy. The love of country is estimable even in the prattle of its dotage. If patience in the reader is attended with long-suffering, it will be followed, like going to church, with moral consolations.

The introduction narrates the author's motives for attempting to rectify public affairs; and gives an outline of his design.

The second chapter recommends the

institution of parish-agencies; or the usurpation by government of a power now confided to elective overseers. This may at first appear to save trouble to the parishioners, and to favour the comforts of the poor. The pauper-monger appointed by ministry will feel less solicitude about the interests of the payers, than an overseer appointed by the parish, and will not care less for the good-will of the poor. But all such appointments by government degenerate in a few years into mere jobs; into hospitals for decayed valetry and dependents of ministerial land-owners. The hired pauper - mongers, like new brooms, will at first sweep clean; by degrees they will become useless pensioners on the poors rate, which, for the sake of their percentage, they will be very alert to increase. Elective and rotatory institu tions, on the contrary, always retain their elasticity. They are less brilliant than those new patent patronized methods executed by the zeal of vanity for the parade of publicity; but they are of less transient operation. There is the same proportion of good overseers now as there was in the forty-fourth year of Elizabeth.

Another plan for the increase of ministerial patronage, which this author discusses, is a corporation for national information, a sort of clergy to teach the arts of this life, such as (page 191) agricul ture, medicine, mental improvement, and practical jurisprudence.' This plan might, be licked into form. The churches might, for half the Sunday, be put at the disposal