Imatges de pàgina
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even to sacrifice something that ought | lax, and corrupt administration of its to be done, in order that much may be laws. It is certainly inconvenient, in done. Upon this principle, the clergy- many cases, to have no other guide to man should not be confined to his par- resort to but the unaccommodating sonage-house, but to the precincts of mandates of an act of Parliament; his parish. Some advantage would yet, of the two inconveniences, it is certainly attend the residence of the the least. It is some palliation of the clergy in their official mansions; but, evils of discretionary power, that it as we have before observed, the good should be exercised (as by the Court one party would obtain bears no sort of Chancery) in the face of day, and of proportion to the evil the other that the moderator of law should himwould suffer. self be moderated by the force of preUpon the propriety of investing the cedent and opinion. A bishop will exBench of Bishops with a power of en- ercise his discretionary power in the frcing residence, we confess ourselves dark; he is at full liberty to depart toto entertain very serious doubts. A morrow from the precedent he has esbishop has frequently a very tempo-tablished to-day; and to apply the same rary interest in his diocese: he has fa- decisions to different, or different decivours to ask; and he must grant them. sions to the same circumstances, as his Leave of absence will be granted humour or interest may dictate. Such to powerful intercession; and refused, power may be exercised well under one upon stronger pleas, to men with- judge of extraordinary integrity; but out friends. Bishops are frequently it is not very probable he will find a men advanced in years, or immersed proper successor. To suppose a series in study. A single person who compels many others to do their duty, has much odium to bear, and much activity to exert. A bishop is subject to caprice, and enmity, and passion, in common with other individuals; there is some danger also that his power Sir William Scott has made it very over the clergy may be converted to a clear, by his excellent speech, that it political purpose. From innumerable is not possible, in the present state of causes, which might be reasoned upon the revenues of the English Church, to great length, we are apprehensive to apply a radical cure to the evil of the object of the Legislature will be nonresidence. It is there stated, that entirely frustrated in a few years, if it out of 11,700 livings, there are 6000 be committed to episcopal superintend- under 80l. per annum; many of those ence and care; though, upon the first 20l., 30l., and some as low as 21. or 31. view of the subject, no other scheme per annum. In such a state of endowcan appear so natural and so wise. ment, all idea of rigid residence is out of the question. Emoluments which a footman would spurn, can hardly recompense a scholar and a gentleman. A mere palliation is all that can be applied; and these are the ingredients of which we wish such a palliation should be composed :

Dr. Sturges observes, that after all the conceivable justifications of nonresidence are enumerated in the Act, many others must from time to time occur, and indicate the propriety of vesting somewhere a discretionary power. If this be true of the penalties by which the clergy are governed, it is equally true of all other penal laws; and the law should extend to every offence the contingency of discretionary omission. The objection to this system is, that it trusts too much to the sagacity and the probity of the judge, and exposes a country to the partial, VOL L

of men so much superior to tempta tion, and to construct a system of church government upon such a supposition, is to build upon sand, with materials not more durable than the foundation.

1. Let the clergyman have full liberty of farming, and be put in this respect exactly upon a footing with laymen.

2. Power to reside in any other house in the parish, as well as the parsonage house, and to be absent five months in the year.

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4. Penalties in proportion to the value of livings, and number of times the offence has been committed.

5. Common informers to sue as at present; though probably it might be right to make the name of one parish. ioner a necessary addition; and a proof of non-residence might be made to operate as a nonsuit in an action for tithes.

3. Schoolmasters, and ministers bonâ | ecuted with great diligence and good fide discharging ministerial functions sense. Some subjects of importance in another parish, exempt from resi- are passed over, indeed, with too much dence. haste; but if the publication had exceeded its present magnitude, it would soon have degenerated into a mere book of reference, impossible to be read, and fit only, like a dictionary, for the purposes of occasional appeal: it would not have been a picture presenting us with an interesting epitome of the whole; but a typographical plan, detailing, with minute and fatiguing |precision, every trifling circumstance, and every subordinate feature. We should be far from objecting to a much more extended and elaborate performance than the present; because those who read, and those who write, are now so numerous, that there is room enough for varieties and modifications of the same subject; but information of this nature, conveyed in a form and in a size adapted to continuous reading, gains in surface what it loses in depth, and gives general notions to many, though it cannot afford all the knowledge which a few have it in their power to acquire, from the habits of more patient labour, and more profound research.

6. No action for non-residence to lie where the benefice was less then 804 per annum; and the powers of bishops to remain precisely as they are.

These indulgences would leave the clergy without excuse, would reduce the informations to a salutary number, and diminish the odium consequent upon them, by directing their effects against men who regard church preferment merely as a source of revenue, not as an obligation to the discharge of important duties.

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We venture to prognosticate, that a bill of greater severity either will not pass the House of Commons, or will fail of its object. Considering the times and circumstances, we are con- This work, though written at a period vinced we have stated the greatest when enthusiasm or disgust had thrown quantum of attainable good; which of most men's minds off their balance, is course will not be attained, by the cus-remarkable, upon the whole, for sobriety tomary error, of attending to what is and moderation. The observations, desirable to be done, rather than to though seldom either strikingly inwhat it is practicable to do. genious or profound, are just, temperate, and always benevolent. We are so far from perceiving anything like extravagance in Mr. Catteau, that we are inclined to think he is occasionally too cautious for the interests of truth; that he manages the court of Denmark with too much delicacy; and exposes, by distant and scarcely perceptible touches, that which it was his duty to have brought out boldly and strongly. The most disagreeable circumstance in the style of the book is the author's compliance with that irresistible avidity of his country to declaim upon commonplace subjects. He goes on, mingling bucolic details and sentimental effusions, melting and measuring, crying and calculating, in a

CATTEAU, TABLEAU DES
ETATS DANOIS.
(E. REVIEW, 1803.)
Tableaux des Etats Danois. Par Jean

Pierre Catteau. 3 tomes. 1802. à Paris,

THE object of this book is to exhibit a picture of the kingdom of Denmark, under all its social relations, of politics, statistics, science, morals, manners, and everything which can influence its character and importance, as a free and independent collection of human beings.

This book is, upon the whole, ex

manner which is very bad, if it is poetry, and worse, if it is prose. In speaking of the mode of cultivating potatoes, he cannot avoid calling the potato a modest vegetable; and when he comes to the exportation of horses from the duchy of Holstein, we learn that "these animals are dragged from the bosom of their peaceable and modest country, to hear, in foreign regions, the sound of the warlike trumpet; to carry the combatant amid the hostile ranks; to increase the éclat of some pompous procession; or drag, in gilded car, some favourite of fortune."

prises, with an heroic valour, which merited wiser objects, and greater ultimate success. The spirit of the Danish nation has, for the last two or three centuries, been as little carried to literature or to science, as to war. They have written as little as they have done. With the exception of Tycho Brahé, and a volume of shells, there is hardly a Danish book, or a Danish writer known five miles from the Great Belt. It is not sufficient to say, that there are many authors read and admired in Denmark: there are none that have passed the Sound, We are sorry to be compelled to none that have had energy enough notice these untimely effusions, es- to force themselves into the cirpecially as they may lead to a suspicion culation of Europe, to extort uniof the fidelity of the work; of which versal admiration, and live, without fidelity, from actual examination of the aid of municipal praise, and local many of the authorities referred to, approbation. From the period, howwe have not the most remote doubt. ever, of the first of the Bernstorffs, Mr. Catteau is to be depended upon as Denmark has made a great spring, securely as any writer, going over such and has advanced more within this various and extensive ground, can ever last twenty or thirty years, than for be depended upon. He is occasionally the three preceding centuries. The guilty of some trifling inaccuracies; peasants are now emancipated; the but what he advances is commonly de- laws of commerce, foreign and interior, rived from the most indisputable au- are simplified and expanded; the transthorities; and he has condensed to- port of corn and cattle is made free; gether a mass of information, which a considerable degree of liberty is will render his book the most accessible granted to the press; and slavery is to and valuable road of knowledge, to cease this very year in their West those who are desirous of making any Indian possessions. If Ernest Bernresearches respecting the kingdom of storff was the author of some less conDenmark. siderable measures, they are to be atDenmark, since the days of Piracy, tributed more to the times than to the has hardly been heard of out of the defects of his understanding, or of his Baltic. Margaret, by the Union of heart. To this great minister succeeded Calmar, laid the foundation of a mon- the favourite Struensee, and to him archy, which (could it have been pre-Ove Guldberg: the first, with views of served by hands as strong as those improvements, not destitute of liberawhich created it) would have exercised lity or genius, but little guided by a powerful influence upon the destinies judgment, or marked by moderation; of Europe, and have strangled, perhaps, the latter, devoid of that energy and in the cradle, the infant force of Russia. firmness which were necessary to exDenmark, reduced to her ancient bounds ecute the good he intended. In 1788, by the patriotism and talents of Gus- when the King became incapable of tavns Vasa, has never since been able business, and the Crown-prince asto emerge into notice by her own sumed the government, Count Andrew natural resources, or the genius of her Bernstorff, nephew of Ernest, was called ministers and her monarchs. During to the ministry; and, while some nathat period, Sweden has more than tions were shrinking from the very once threatened to give laws to Europe; name of innovation, and others overand, headed by Charles and Gustavus, turning every establishment, and viohas broke out into chivalrous enter-lating every principle, Bernstorff stea

dily pursued, and ultimately effected, | coast of Jutland, from Riba to Lemvig, the gradual and bloodless amelioration is principally alluvial, and presents of his country. His name will ever much greater advantages to the culti form a splendid epoch in the history vator than he has yet drawn from it. of Denmark. The spirit of economical The eastern coast is also extremely research and improvement which em- favourable to vegetation. A sandy anated from him still remains; while and barren ridge, stretching from north the personal character of the prince of to south, between the two coasts, is unDenmark, and the zeal with which he favourable to every species of culture, seconded the projects of his favourite and hardly capable of supporting the minister, seem to afford a guarantee wild and stunted shrubs which languish for the continuation of the same system upon its surface. Towards the north, of administration. where the Jutland peninsula terminates In his analysis of the present state of in the Baltic, everything assumes an Denmark, Mr. Catteau, after a slight aspect of barrenness and desolation. It is historical sketch of that country, di-Arabia, without its sun or its verdant vides his subjects into sixteen sec-islands; but not without its tempests tions.

1. Geographical and physical qualitics of the Danish territory: 2. Form of government: 3. Administration. 4. Institutions relative to government and administration : 5. Civil and criminal laws, and judiciary institutions: 6. Military system, land army, and marine: 7. Finance: 8. Population 9. Productive industry, comprehending agriculture, the fisheries, and the extraction of mineral substances: 10. Manufacturing industry: 11. Commerce, interior and exterior, including the state of the great roads, the canals of navigation, the maritime insurances, the bank, &c. &c.: 12. Establishments of charity and public utility: 13. Religion: 14. Education: 15. Language, character, manners, and customs: 16. Sciences and arts.-This division we shall follow.

From the southern limits of Holstein to the southern extremity of Norway, the Danish dominions extend to 300 miles in length, and are, upon an average, from about 50 to 60 in breadth; the whole forms an area of about 8000 square miles. The western

The mile alluded to here, and through the whole of the book, is the Danish mile, 15 to a degree, or 4000 toises in round num. bers: the ancient mile of Norway is much more considerable. It may be as well to

mention here, that the Danes reckon their money by rixdollars, marks, and schellings. A rixdollar contains 6 marks, and a mark 16 schellings; 20 schellings are equal to one livre; consequently the pound sterling is equal to 4 r. 4 m. 14 sch., or nearly 5 rix dollars.

or sands, which sometimes overwhelm what little feeble agriculture they may encounter, and convert the habitual wretchedness of the Jutlanders into severe and cruel misfortune. The Danish government has attempted to remedy this evil, in some measure, by encouraging the cultivation of those kinds of shrubs which grow on the sea-shore, and by their roots give tenacity and aggregation to the sand. The Elymus Arenaria, though found to be the most useful for that purpose, is still inadequate to the prevention of the calamity.*

The Danish isles are of a green and pleasant aspect. The hills are turfed up to the top, or covered with trees; the valley animated by the passage of clear streams; and the whole strikingly contrasted with the savage sterility, or imposing grandeur, of the scenes on the opposite coast of Jutland. All the seas of Denmark are well stored with fish; and a vast number of deep friths and inlets afford a cheap and valuable communication with the interior of the country.

The Danish rivers are neither numerous nor considerable. The climate, generally speaking, is moist and subject to thick fogs, which almost obscure the horizon. Upon a mean of twenty six years, it has rained for a hundred and thirty days every year, and thun

There is a Danish work, by Professor Viborg, upon those plants which grow in sand. It has been very actively distributed in Jutland, by the Danish administration, and might be of considerable service in Norfolk, and other parts of Great Britain.

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Lidered for thirteen. Their summer tions of rational liberty by the wise rebegins with June and ends with Sep-strictions imposed upon its returning ember. A calm serene sky, and an Monarch, the people of Denmark, by atmosphere free from vapours, is very a solemn act, surrendered their natural rarely the lot of the inhabitants of rights into the hands of their Sovereign, Denmark; but the humidity with which endowed him with absolute power, the air is impregnated is highly fa- and, in express words, declared him, vourable to vegetation; and all kinds for all his political acts, accountable of corn and grass are cultivated there only to Him to whom all kings and with great success. To the south of governors are accountable. This revoDenmark are the countries of Sleswick lution, similar to that effected by the and Holstein. Nature has divided King and people at Stockholm in 1772, these countries into two parts; the one was not a change from liberty to of which is called Geetsland, the other slavery; but from a worse sort of Marschland. Geetsland is the elevated slavery to a better; from the control ground situated along the Baltic. The of an insolent and venal senate, to that sal resembles that of Denmark. The of one man; it was a change which simdivision of Marschland forms a band plified their degradation, and, by lesor stripe, which extends from the Elbe sening the number of their tyrants, o the frontiers of Jutland, an alluvium put their servitude more out of sight. gained and preserved from the sea, by There ceased immediately to be an a labour which, though vigilant and arbitrary monarch in every parish, and Tere, is repaid by the most ample the distance of the oppressor either profits. The sea, however, in all these operated as a diminution of the oppresalluvial countries, seldom forgets his sion, or was thought to do so. inal rights. Marschland, in the same spirit, to be sure, which urged Best of all its tranquillity, fat, and them to victory over one evil might lence, was invaded by this element in have led them on a little further to the the year 1634, with the loss of whole subjugation of both; and they might villages, many thousands of horned have limited the King by the same cate, and 1500 human beings. powers which enabled them to dissolve

The

Nature is as wild and grand in Nor- the senate. But Europe, at that period,
knew no more of liberty than of Gal-
vanism; and the peasants of Den-
mark no more dreamed of becoming
free, than the inhabitants of Paris do

y as she is productive in Marsch-
and Cataracts amid the dark pines;
the eternal snow of the mountains;
stretch out to the end of the world; at this moment.
that bid adieu to the land, and
an endless succession of the great and

the terrible,-leave the eye and the one of the most arbitrary governments At present, Denmark is in theory mind without repose. The climate of on the face of the earth. It has rethe longevity of the human race, and which we have just alluded; in all Norway is extremely favourable to mained so ever since the revolution to ciently so to the life of many ani- which period the Danes have not, by are of a good breed: the horned cattle an impatience of their yoke, or any mals domesticated by man. The horses any important act of rebellion, evinced excelent, though small. Crops of sense that the enormous power delegrain are extremely precarious, and gated to their monarchs has been imGlen perish before they come to matu- properly exercised. In fact, the DanIn 1660, the very year in which this for its forbearance and mildness; and appier country was laying the founda- sanctifies, in a certain degree, its exeWe shall take little notice of Iceland in with which it is administered. We retha review, from the attention we mean to y that subject in the review of "Voyageret extremely that Mr. Catteau has beland, fait par ordre de sa Majesté given us, upon this curious subject of the

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Inase," 5 vols, 1802.

ish government enjoys great reputation

crable constitution, by the moderation

Danish government, such a timid and

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