The coaches must be given up; so must the roads, Treadmill, before Trial. It would have been a very easy and so must the inns. They are of course what these thing for us to have hung Mr. Headlam up as a spectacle to accommodations are in all new countries, and much the United Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, like what English great-grandfathers talk about as exthe principality of Wales, and the town of Berwick-onTweed; but we have no wish to make a worthy and resisting in this country at the first period of their recolpectable man ridiculous. For these reasons we have not even looked at his pamphlet, and we decline entering into a controversy upon a point, where, among men of sense and humanity (who have not heated themselves in the dispute,) there cannot possibly be any difference of opinion. All members of both houses of Parliament were unanimous in their condemnation of the odious and nonsensical practice of working prisoners in the treadmill before trial. It had not one single advocate. Mr. Headlam and the magistrates of the North Riding, in their eagerness to save a relic of their prison system, forgot themselves so far as to be entrusted with the power of putting prisoners to work before trial, with their own consent-the legislature was, We will not trust you,'-the severest practical rebuke ever received by any public body. We will leave it to others to determine whether it was deserved. We have no doubt the great body of magistrates meant well. They must have meant well-but they have been sadly misled, and have thrown odium on the subordinate administration of justice, which it is far from deserving on other occasions, in their hands. This strange piece of nonsense is, however, now well ended-Requiescat in pace!

selling or buying, or no business to settle, he prefers country ?"—"Well, my friend, you have guessed right at last, being alone and looking at the fire, If any gentleman and I am sure you deserve something for your perseverance; was in distress, he would willingly lend an helping and now I suppose it will save us both trouble if I proceed to hand; but he thinks it no part of neighbourhood to I am going to New Orleans." This is really no exaggerated the second part of the story, and tell you where I am going, talk to a person because he happens to be near him. picture: dialogues, not indeed in these very words, but to this In short, with many excellent qualities, it must be ac-effect, occurred continually; and some of them more minute knowledged, that the English are the most disagree- and extended than I can venture upon in a letter. I ought, able of all the nations of Europe,-more surly and mo- however, to say, that many questions lose much of their familrose, with less disposition to please, to exert them- iarity when travelling in the wilderness. selves for the good of society, to make small sacrifices, from?" and "whither are you bound?" do not appear imperand to put themselves out of their way. They are found myself making inquiries which I should have thought tinent interrogations at sea; and often in the western wilds I content with Magna Charta and trial by jury; and very free and easy at home.-Hodgson's Letters, II. 32-35. think they are not bound to excel the rest of the world in small behaviour, if they are superior to them in great institutions.

"Where are you

We are terribly afraid that some Americans spit up. on the floor, even when that floor is covered by good carpets. Now, all claims to civilization are suspended till this secretion is otherwise disposed of. No English gentleman has spit upon the floor since the Hep-is, that the settlers take the law into their own hands, tarchy.

The curiosity for which the Americans are so much laughed at, is not only venial, but laudable. Where men live in woods or forests, as is the case, of course, in remote American settlements, it is the duty of every man to gratify the inhabitants by telling them his name, place, age, office, virtues, crimes, children, fortune, and remarks; and with fellow-travellers, it seems to be almost a matter of necessity to do so. When men ride together for 300 or 400 miles through the woods and prairies, it is of the greatest importance that they should be able to guess at subjects most agreeable to each other, and to multiply their common topics. Without knowing who your companion is, it is difficult to know both what to say and what to avoid. You may talk of honour and virtue to an attorney, or contend with a Virginian planter that men of a fair colour have no right to buy and sell men of a dusky colour. The following is a lively description of the rights of interrogation, as understood and practised in America.

In all new and distant settlements the forms of law must, of course, be very limited. No justice's warrant is current in the dismal swamp; constables are ex. ceedingly puzzled in the neighbourhood of the Mississippi; and there is no treadmill, either before or after trial, on the little Wabash. The consequence of this and give notice to a justice-proof delinquent to quit the territory; if this notice is disobeyed, they assemble and whip the culprit, and this failing, on the second visit, they cut off his ears. Rock has his descendants in America. Mankind can In short, Captain not live together without some approximation to jus tice; and if the actual government will not govern well, or cannot govern well, is too wicked or too weak to do so-then men prefer Rock to anarchy. The fol lowing is the best account we have seen of this system of irregular justice;

branches off to the S. E., and passed the Walnut Hills, and 'After leaving Carlyle, I took the Shawneetown road, that Moore's Prairie, These two places had a year or two before been infested by a notorious gang of robbers and forgers, who had fixed themselves in these wild parts in order to avoid justice. As the country became more settled, these desperadoes became more and more troublesome. The inhabitants, therefore, took that method of getting rid of them that had been counties, Kentucky, and which is absolutely necessary in new adopted not many years ago in Hopkinson and Henderson and thinly settled districts, where it is almost impossible to punish a criminal according to legal forms.

As for the inquisitiveness of the Americans, I do not think it has been at all exaggerated.-They certainly are, they profess to be, a very inquiring people; and if we may sometimes be disposed to dispute the claims of their love of knowing to to the character of a liberal curiosity, we must at least admit that they make a most liberal use of every means in their power to gratify it. I have seldom, however, had any difficulty in repressing their home questions, if I wished it, and without offending them; but I more frequently amused myself by putting them on the rack, civilly, and apparently unconsciously, eluded their inquiries for a time, and than awakening their gratitude by such a discovery of myself as I might choose to make. Sometimes a man would place himself at my side in the wilderness, and ride for a mile or two without the smallest communication between us, except a slight nod of the head. He would then, perhaps, make some grave remark on the weather, and if I assented, in a monosyllable, he would stick to my side for another mile or two, when he would commence his attack. "I reckon, stranger, you do not belong to these parts?"-" No, sir; I am not of Alabama."-"I guess you are from the north?"-No, sir; I am not from the north."-"I guess you found the roads mighty muddy, and the creeks swimming. You are come a long way, I guess ?"-" No, not so yery far; we have travelled a few hundred miles since we turned our faces westward."-" I guess you have seen Mr. or General -?" (mentioning the names of some well-known individuals in the middle and southern states, who were to serve as guide-posts to detect our route); but, "I have not who have broken up a notorious gang of coiners and thieves 'There is also a company of Regulators near Vincennes, the pleasure of knowing any of them," or, "I have the pleas- who had fixed themselves near that place. These rascals, ure of knowing all," equally defeated his purpose, but not his before they were driven off, had parties settled at different hopes. "I reckon, stranger, you have had a good crop of cot-distances in the woods, and thus held communication and ton this year?""I am told, sir, the crops have been unusually abundant in Carolina and Georgia."-" You grow tobacco, then, I guess?" (to track me to Virginia.) "No; I do not grow tobacco." Here a modest inquirer would give up in despair, and trust to the chapter of accidents to develope my name and history; but I generally rewarded his modesty, and excited his gratitude, by telling him I would torment him no longer.

men of a district form themselves into companies, under the 'On such occasions, therefore, all the quiet and industrious name of "Regulators." They appoint officers, put themselves under their orders, and bind themselves to assist and stand by each other. The first step they then take is to send notice to any notorious vagabonds, desiring them to quit the state in a certain number of days, under the penalty of receiving a domiciliary visit. Should the person who receives the notice refuse to comply, they suddenly assemble, and when unexpected, go in the night time to the rogue's house, take him out, tie him to a tree, and give him a severe whipping every one of the party striking him a certain number of times.

prit; but should he continue obstinate, and refuse to avail "This discipline is generally sufficient to drive off the culhimself of another warning, the Regulators pay him a second visit, inflict a still severer whipping, with the addition probably of cutting off both his ears." remain after a second visit, For instance, an old man, the No culprit has been known to father of a family, all of whom he educated as robbers, fixed himself at Moore's Prairie, and committed numerous thefts, &c. &c. He was hardy enough to remain after the first visit, when both he and his sons received a severe whipping. At the second visit the Regulators punished him very severely, and cut off his ears. This drove him off, together with his whole was once dangerous to travel alone. -gang; and travellers can now pass in perfect safety where it

passed horses and stolen goods from one to another, from the Ohio to Lake Erie, and from thence into Canada or the New England States. Thus it was next to impossible to detect the robbers, or to recover the stolen property.

pean. I have talked with some of the chief men of the Regu"This practice of Regulating seems very strange to an Eurolators, who all lamented the necessity of such a system. They The courage of a thorough-bred Yankee* would rise with thickly settled, there would no longer be any necessity for very sensibly remarked, that when the country became more his difficulties; and after a decent interval, he would resume: such proceedings, and that they should all be delighted at "I hope no offence, sir; but you know we Yankees lose noth-being able to obtain justice in a more formal manner. I forgot ing for want of asking. I guess, stranger, you are from the old

* In America, the term Yankee is applied to the natives of New England only, and is generally used with an air of pleasantry.'

to mention, that the rascals punished, have sometimes prosecuted the Regulators for an assault. The juries, however, knowing the bad character of the prosecutors, would give but trifling damages, which, divided among so many, amounted to next to nothing for each individual.'-Excursion, pp. 233-236.

The same traveller mentions his having met at ta- | from it. It does, however, seem ominous of evil, that so little ble three or four American ex-kings-presidents who ceremony is at present used with the constitutions of the varihad served their time, and had retired into private life; he observes also upon the effect of a democratical government in preventing mobs. Mobs are created by opposition to the wishes of the people: but when the wishes of the people are consulted so completely as they are consulted in America, all motives for the agency of mobs are done away.

'It is, indeed, entirely a government of opinion. Whatever the people wish is done. If they want any alterations of laws, tariffs, &c., they inform their representatives, and if there be a majority that wish it, the alteration is made at once. In most European countries there is a portion of the population denominated the mob, who, not being acquainted with real liberty, give themselves up to occasional fits of licentiousness. But in the United States there is no mob, for every man feels

himself free. At the time of Burr's conspiracy, Mr. Jefferson said, that there was little to be apprehended from it, as every man felt himself a part of the general sovereignty. The event proved the truth of this assertion; and Burr, who in any other country would have been hanged, drawn, and quartered, is at present leading an obscure life in the city of New York, despised by every one.'-Excursion, p. 70.

It is a real blessing for America to be exempted from that vast burthen of taxes, the consequences of a long series of foolish, just, and necessary wars, carried on to please kings and queens, or the waiting maids and waiting lords and gentlemen, who have always governed kings and queens of the Old World. The Americans owe this good to the newness of their government; and though there are few classical associations, or historical recollections in the United States, this barrenness is well purchased by the absence of all the feudal nonsense, inveterate abuses, and profligate debts of an old country.

The good effects of a free government are visible throughout the whole country. There are no tithes, no poor-rates, no excise, no heavy internal taxes, no commercial monopolies. An American can make candles if he have tallow, can distil brandy if he have grapes or peaches, and can make beer if he have malt and hops, without asking leave of any one, and much less with any fear of incurring punishment. How would a farmer's wife there be astonished, if told that it was contrary to law for her to make soap out of the potass obtained on the farm, and of the grease she herself had saved! When an American has made these articles, he may build his little vessel, and take them without hindrance to any part of the world; for there is no rich company of merchants that can say to him, "You shall not trade to India; and you shall not buy a pound of tea of the Chinese; as, by doing so, you would infringe upon our privileges." In consequence of this freedom, all the seas are covered with their vessels, and the people at home are active and independent. I never saw a beggar in any part of the United States; nor was I ever asked for charity but once -and that was by an Irishman.'-Excursion, pp. 70, 71.

ous states. The people of Connecticut, not contented with having prospered abundantly under their old system, have lately assembled a convention, composed of delegates from all parts of the country, in which the former order of things has been condemned entirely, and a completely new constitution manufactured; which, among other things, provides for the same process being again gone through, as soon as the profanum vulgus takes it into his head to desire it.* A sorry legacy the British Constitution would be to us, if it were at the mercy of a meeting of delegates, to be summoned whenever a majority of the people took a fancy for a new one; and I am afraid that if the Americans continue to cherish a fondness for such repairs, the Highlandman's pistol, with its new stock, lock, and barrel, will bear a close resemblance to what is ultimately produced.'-Duncan's Travels, II. 335, 336.

In the Excursion there is a list of the American navy, which, in conjunction with the navy of France, will one day or another, we fear, settle the Catholic question in a way not quite agreeable to the Earl of Liverpool for the time being, nor very creditable to the wisdom of those ancestors of whom we hear, and from whom we suffer so much. The regulations of the American navy seem to be admirable. The states are making great exertions to increase this navy; and since the capture of so many English ships, it has become the favourite science of the people at large. Their flotillas on the lakes completely defeated ours during the last war.

Fanaticism of every description scems to rage and flourish in America, which has no establishment, in about the same degree which it does here under the nose of an established church; they have their prophets and prophetesses, their preaching encampments, female preachers, and every variety of noise, folly, and nonsense, like ourselves. Among the most singular of these fanatics, are the Harmonites. Rapp, their founder, was a dissenter from the Lutheran church, and therefore, of course, the Lutheran clergy of Stutgard (near to which he lived) began to put Mr. Rapp in white sheets, to prove him guilty of theft, parricide, treason, and all the usual crimes of which men dissenting from established churches are so often guilty; and delicate hints were given respecting faggots Stutgard abounds with underwood and clergy; andaway went Mr. Rapp to the United States, and, with. a great multitude of followers, settled about twentyfour miles from our countryman Mr. Birkbeck. His people have here built a farge town, and planted a vineyard, where they make very agreeable wine. They carry on also a very extensive system of husbandry, and are the masters of many flocks and herds. They have a distillery, brewery, tannery, make hats, shoes, cotton and woollen cloth, and every thing ne cessary to the comfort of life. Every one belongs to some particular trade. But in bad weather, when there is danger of losing their crops, Rapp blows a horn, and calls them all together. Over every trade there is a head man, who receives the money and gives a receipt, signed by Rapp, to whom all the money collected is transmitted. When any of these workmen wants a hat or a coat, Rapp signs him an order for the garment, for which he goes to the store and is fitted. They have one large store where these manufactures are deposited. This store is much resorted to by the neighbourhood, on account of the goodness and the cheapness of the articles. They have built an excellent house for their founder, Rapp-as it might have been predicted they would have done. The Harmonites profess equality, community of goods, and celibacy; for the men and women (let Mr. Malthus hear this) live separately, and are not allowed the slightest intercourse. In order to keep up their numbers, they have once or twice sent over for a supply of Germans, "The other great obstacle to the prosperity of the American as they admit no Americans, of any intercourse with nation, universal suffrage, will not exhibit the full extent of whom they are very jealous. Harmonites dress and its evil tendency for a long time to come; and it is possible live plainly. It is a part of their creed that they should that ere that time some antidote may be discovered, to pre- do so. Rapp, however, and the head men have no vent or alleviate the mischief which we might naturally expect such particular creed for themselves; and indulge in In the greater number of the States, every white person, wine, beer, grocery, and other irreligious diet. Řapp 21 years of age, who has paid taxes for one year, is a voter; in others, some additional qualifications are required, but they are not such as materially to limit the privilege.

America is so differently situated from the old governments of Europe, that the United States afford no political precedents that are exactly applicable to our old governments. There is no idle and discontented population. When they have peopled themselves up to the Mississippi, they cross to the Missouri, and will go on until they are stopped by the Western Ocean; and then, when there are a number of persons who have nothing to do, and nothing to gain, no hope for lawful industry and great interest in promoting changes, we may consider their situation as somewhat similar to our own, and their example as touching us more nearly. The changes in the constitution of the particular states seem to be very frequent, very radical, and to us very alarming;-they seem, however, to be thought very little of in that country, and to be very little heard of in Europe. Mr. Duncan, in the following passage, speaks of them with European feelings.

*The people of the State of New York have subsequently taken a similar fancy to clout the cauldron, (1822)

is both governor and priest-preaches to them in | BENTHAM ON FALLACIES. (EDINBURGH Rechurch, and directs all their proceedings in their

Bentham. By a Friend. London, J. and H. L. Hunt. 1824.

VIEW, 1825.) working hours. In short, Rapp seems to have made The Book of Fallacies: from Unfinished Papers of Jeremy use of the religious propensities of mankind, to persuade one or two thousand fools to dedicate their lives to his service; and if they do not get tired and fling their prophet into a horse-pond, they will in all probability disperse as soon as he dies. Unitarians are increasing very fast in the United States, not being kept down by charges from bishops and archdeacons, their natural enemies.

The author of the Excursion remarks upon the total absence of all games in America. No cricket, football, nor leap-frog-all seems solid and profitable.

THERE are a vast number of absurd and mischievous fallacies, which pass readily in the world for sense and virtue, while in truth they tend only to fortify error and encourage crime. Mr. Bentham has enumerated the most conspicuous of these in the book before us.

Whether it is necessary there should be a middleman between the cultivator and possessor, learned economists have doubted; but neither gods, men, nor booksellers can doubt the necessity of a middle-man 'One thing that I could not help remarking with regard to between Mr. Bentham and the public. Mr. Bentham the Americans in general, is the total want of all those games is long; Mr. Bentham is occasionally involved and and sports which obtained for our country the appellation of "Merry England." Although children usually transmit stories obscure; Mr. Bentham invents new and alarming exand sports from one generation to another, and although many pressions; Mr. Bentham loves division and subdivi of our nursery games and tales are supposed to have been im- sion-and he loves method itself more than its conse. ported into England in the vessels of Hengist and Horsa, yet quences. Those only, therefore, who know his origi our brethren in the United States seem entirely to have forgot-nality, his knowledge, his vigour, and his boldness, will recur to the works themselves. The great mass of readers will not purchase improvement at so dear a rate; but will choose rather to become acquainted with Mr. Bentham, through the medium of reviewsafter that eminent philosopher has been washed, trimmed, shaved, and forced into clean linen. One great use of a review, indeed, is to make men wise in ten pages, who have no appetite for a hundred pages; to condense nourishment, to work with pulp and essence, and to guard the stomach from idle burden and unmeaning bulk. For half a page, sometimes for a whole page, Mr, Bentham writes with a power which few can equal; and by selecting and omitting, an admirable style may be formed from the text. Using this liberty, we shall endeavour to give an account of Mr. Bentham's doctrines, for the most part in his own words. Wherever any expression is particularly happy let it be considered to be Mr. Bentham's-the dullness we take to ourselves.

ten the childish amusements of our common ancestors. In America I never saw even the schoolboys playing at any game whatsoever. Cricket, foot-ball, quoits, &c., appear to be utterly unknown; and I believe that if an American were to see grown-up men playing at cricket, he would express as much astonishment as the Italians did when some Englishmen played at this finest of all games in the Cascina, at Florence. Indeed, that joyous spirit which, in our country, animates not only childhood, but also maturer age, can rarely or never be seen among the inhabitants of the United States.'-Excursion, pp. 502, 503.

These are some of the leading and prominent circumstances respecting America, mentioned in the various works before us: of which works we can recommend the Letters of Mr. Hudson, and the Excursion into Canada, as sensible, agreeable books, written in a very fair spirit.

America seems on the whole, to be a country possessing vast advantages, and little inconveniences; they have a cheap government and bad roads; they pay no tithes, and have stage coaches without springs. Our Wise Ancestors-the Wisdom of our Ancestors They have no poor laws and no monopolies-but their the Wisdom of Ages-venerable Antiquity-Wisdom inns are inconvenient, and travellers are teased with of Old Times.-This mischievous and absurd fallacy questions. They have no collections in the fine arts; springs from the grossest perversions of the meaning but they have no lord-chancellor, and they can go to of words. Experience is certainly the mother of wislaw without absolute ruin. They cannot make Latin dom, and the old have, of course, a greater experience verses, but they expend immense sums in the educa- than the young; but the question is, who are the old? tion of the poor. In all this the balance is prodigiously and who are the young? Of individuals living at the in their favour: but then comes the great disgrace same period, the oldest has, of course the greatest exand danger of America-the existence of slavery, perience; but among generations of men the reverse which, if not timously corrected, will one day entail of this is true. Those who come first (our ancestors) (and ought to entail) a bloody servile war upon the are the young people, and have the least experience. Americans which will separate America into slave We have added to their experience the experience of states and states disclaiming slavery, and which re- many centuries; and, therefore, as far as experience mains at present as the foulest blot in the moral cha- goes, are wiser, and more capable of forming an opi racter of that people. A high-spirited nation, who nion than they were. The real feeling should be, not cannot endure the slightest act of foreign aggression, can we be so presumptuous as to put our opinions in and who revolt at the very shadow of domestic tyran- opposition to those of our ancestors? but can such ny-beat with cart whips, and bind with chains, and young, ignorant, inexperienced persons as our ances murder for the merest trifles, wretched human beings tors necessarily were, be expected to have understood who are of a more dusky colour than themselves; and a subject as well as those who have seen so much have recently admitted into their Union a new state, more, lived so much longer, and enjoyed the experi with the express permission of ingrafting this atro-ence of so many centuries? All this cant, then, about cious wickedness into their constitution! No one can our ancestors is merely an abuse of words, by transadmire the simple wisdom and manly firmness of the ferring phrases true of contemporary men to succeedAmericans more than we do, or more despise the piti- ing ages. Whereas (as we have before observed) of ful propensity which exists among government run- living men the oldest has, cæteris paribus, the most exners to vent their small spite at their character; but perience; of generations, the oldest has, cæteris parion the subject of slavery, the conduct of America is, bus, the least experience. Our ancestors, up to the and has been, most reprehensible. It is impossible to Conquest, were children in arms; chubby boys in the speak of it with too much indignation and contempt; time of Edward the First; striplings under Elizabeth; but for it, we should look forward with unqualified men in the reign of Queen Anne; and we only are the pleasure to such a land of freedom, and such a magni- white-bearded silver-headed ancients, who have treaficent spectacle of human happiness. sured up, and are prepared to profit by, all the experience which human life can supply. We are not disputing with our ancestors the palm of talent, in which they may or may not be our superiors, but the palm of experience, in which it is utterly impossible they can be our superiors. And yet, whenever the chancellor comes forward to protect some abuse, or to oppose some plan which has the increase of human happiness for its object, his first appeal is always to the wisdom

of our ancestors; and he himself, and many noble lords who vote with him, are, to this hour, persuaded that all alterations and amendments on their devices are an unblushing controversy between youthful temerity and mature experience !-and so, in truth, they are-only that much-loved magistrate mistakes the young for the old, and the old for the young-and is guilty of that very sin against experience which he attributes to the lovers of innovation.

learned, not only among crowned but among uncrowned heads, marking out for prohibition and punishment the practices of devils and witches, and without any the slightest objection on tions, consigning men to death and torment for the misfortune the part of the great characters of that day in their high situaof not being so well acquainted as he was with the composition of the Godhead.

'Under the name of exorcism the Catholic liturgy contains a form of procedure for driving out devils-even with the help of this instrument, the operation cannot be performed with the desired success, but by an operator qualified by holy orders for the working of this as well as so many other wonders. In our days and in our country the same object is attaininstrument as a common newspaper: before this talisman, not ed, and beyond comparison more effectually, by so cheap an only devils but ghosts, vampires, witches, and all their kindred tribes, are driven out of the land, never to return again! The touch of the holy water is not so intolerable to them as the bare smell of printers' ink.-(pp. 74–77.)

We cannot of course be supposed to maintain that our ancestors wanted wisdom, or that they were necessarily mistaken in their institutions, because their means of information were more limited than ours. But we do confidently maintain that when we find it expedient to change any thing which our ancestors have enacted, we are the experienced persons, and not they. The quantity of talent is always varying in any great nation. To say that we are more or less able than our ancestors, is an assertion that requires tham, (no matter to what effect), is proposed to a leFallacy of irrevocable Laws.-A law, says Mr. Bento be explained. All the able men of all ages, who have ever lived in England, probably possessed, if gislative assembly, who are called upon to reject it, taken altogether, more intellect than all the able men upon the single ground, that by those who in some now in England can boast of. former period exercised the same power, a regulation But if authority must be resorted to rather than reason, the question is, was made, having for its object to preclude for ever, what was the wisdom of that single age which enactor to the end of an unexpired period, all succeeding leed the law, compared with the wisdom of the age that now proposed. gislators from enacting a law to any such effect as which proposes to alter it? What are the eminent men of the one and the other period? If you say that our ancestors were wiser than us, mention your date and year. If the splendour of names is equal, are the circumstances the same? If the circumstances are the same, we have a superiority of experience, of which the difference between the two periods is the measure. It is necessary to insist upon this; for upon sacks of wool and on benches forensic, sit grave men, and agricolous persons in the Commons, crying out 'Ancestors, Ancestors! hodie non! Saxons, Danes, save us! Fiddlefrig, help us! Howel, Ethelwolf, protect us.'-Any cover for nonsense-any veil for trash-any pretext for repelling the innovations of conscience and of duty!

of time, every legislature must be endowed with all Now it appears quite evident that, at every period those powers which the exigency of the times may require: and any attempt to infringe on this power is inadmissible and absurd. The sovereign power, at any one period, can only form a blind guess at the riod: but by this principle of immutable laws, the gomeasures which may be necessary for any future pevernment is transferred from those who are necessarily the best judges of what they want, to others who thirteenth century decides for the fourteenth. The can know little or nothing about the matter. The fourteenth makes laws for the fifteenth. The fifteenth hermetically seals up the sixteenth, which tyrannizes over the seventeenth, which again tells the eighteentn how it is to act, under circumstances which cannot be foreseen, and how it is to conduct itself in exigencies which no human wit can anticipate.

'So long as they keep to vague generalities-so long as the two objects of comparison are each of them taken in the lump -wise ancestors in one lump, ignorant and foolish mob of modern times in the other-the weakness of the fallacy may escape detection. But let them assign for the period of superior 'Men who have a century more of experience to ground wisdom any determinate period whatsoever, not only will the their judgments on, surrender their intellect to men who had a groundlessness of the notion be apparent (class being compar-century less experience, and who, unless that deficiency coned with class in that period and the present one), but, unless stitutes a claim, have no claim to preference. If the prior the antecedent period be comparatively speaking a very mod- gentleman were, in respect of intellectual qualification, ever ern one, so wide will be the disparity, and to such an amount so much superior to the subsequent generation-if it under in favour of modern times, that, in comparison of the lowest stood so much better than the subsequent generation itself the class of the people in modern times, (always supposing them interest of that subsequent generation-could it have been in proficients in the art of reading, and their proficiency employ- an equal degree anxious to promote the interest, and conseed in the reading of newspapers), the very highest and best quently equally attentive to those facts with which, though in informed class of these wise ancestors will turn out to be order to form a judgment it ought to have been, it is impossigrossly ignorant. ble that it should have been acquainted? In a word, will its love for that subsequent generation be quite so great as that same generation's love for itself?

Take, for example, any year in the reign of Henry the Eighth, from 1509 to 1546. At that time the House of Lords would probably have been in possession of by far the larger 'Not even here, after a moment's deliberate reflection, will proportion of what little instruction the age afforded: in the the assertion be in the affirmative. And yet it is their prodiHouse of Lords, among the laity, it might even then be a ques-gious anxiety for the welfare of their posterity that produces tion whether, without exception, their lordships were all of them able so much as to read. But even supposing them all in the fullest possession of that useful art, political science being the science in question, what instruction on the subject could they meet with at that time of day?

the propensity of these sages to tie up the hands of this same posterity for evermore-to act as guardians to its perpetual and incurable weakness, and take its conduct for ever out of its own hands.

'If it be right that the conduct of the 19th century should 'On no one branch of legislation was any book extant from be determined not by its own judgment, but by that of the which, with regard to the circumstances of the then present 18th, it will be equally right that the conduct of the 20th centimes, any useful instruction could be derived: distributive tury should be determined, not by its own judgment, but by law, penal law, international law, political economy, so far that of the 19th. And if the same principle were still pursued, from existing as sciences, had scarcely obtained a name: in all what at length would be the consequence?-that in process of those departments, under the head of quid faciendum, a mere time the practice of legislation would be at an end. The conblank the whole literature of the age consisted of a meagre duct and fate of all men would be determined by those who chronicle or two, containing short memorandums of the usual neither knew nor cared any thing about the matter; and the occurrences of war and peace, battles, sieges, executions, rev-aggregate body of the living would remain for ever in subjecels, deaths, births, processions, ceremonies, and other external tion to an inexorable tyranny, exercised as it were by the agevents; but with scarce a speech or an incident that could en- gregate body of the dead.'-(pp. 84-86.) ter into the composition of any such work as a history of the human mind-with scarce an attempt at investigation into The despotism, as Mr. Bentham well observes, of causes, characters, or the state of the people at large. Even Nero or Caligula, would be more tolerable than an irwhen at last, little by little, a scrap or two of political instruc- revocable law. The despot, through fear or favour, or tion came to be obtainable, the proportion of error and mis- in a lucid interval, might relent; but how are the Parchievous doctrine mixed up with it was so great, that whether liament, who made the Scotch Union, for example, to a blank unfilled might not have been less prejudicial than a be awakened from that dust in which they reposeblank thus filled, may reasonably be matter of doubt. If we come down to the reign of James the First, we shall the jobber and the patriot, the speaker and the doorfind that Solomon of his time eminently eloquent as well as keeper, the silent voters and the men of rich allusions