surest sign of a poor country. The feudal system never took root very deeply in Norway: the greater part of the lands are freehold and cultivated by their owners. Those which areheld under the few privileged fiefs which still exist in Norway, are subjected to less galling conditions than farms of a similar tenure in Denmark. Marriage is a mere civil contract among the privileged orders: the presence of a priest is necessary for its celebration among the lower orders. In every large town, there are two public tutors appointed, who, in conjunction with the magistrates, watch over the interests of wards, at the same time that they occupy themselves with the care of the education of children within the limits of their jurisdiction. Natural children are perhaps more favoured in Denmark, than in any other kingdom of Europe; they have half the portion which the law allots to legitimate children, and the whole if there are no legitimate. A very curious circumstance took place in the kingdom of Denmark, in the middle of the last century, relative to the infliction of capital punishments upon malefactors. They were attended from the prison to the place of execution, by priests, accompanied by a very numerous procession, singing psalms, &c. &c. which ended, a long discourse was addressed by the priest to the culprit, who was hung as soon as he had heard it. This spectacle, and all the pious cares bestowed upon the criminals, so far seduced the imaginations of the common people, that many of them committed murder purposely to enjoy such inestimable advantages, and the government was positively obliged to make hanging dull as well as deadly, before it ceased to be an object of popular ambition. In 1796, the Danish land forces amounted to 74,654, of which 50,880 were militia.* Amongst the troops on the Norway establishment is a regi ment of skaters. The pay of a colonel in the Danish service is about 1740 The militia is not embodied in regiments by itself, but divided among the various regiments of the line. rix-dollars per annum, with some perquisites; that of a private 6 schellings a day. The entry into the Danish states from the German side is naturally strong. The passage between Lubeck and Hamburg is only eight miles, and the country intersected by marshes, rivers, and lakes. The straits of the Baltic afford considerable security to the Danish isles; and there are very few points in which an army could penetrate through the Norway mountains to overrun that country. The principal fortresses of Denmark are Copenhagen, Rendsbhurg, Gluchstadt, and Frederickshall. In 1801, the Danish navy consisted of 3 ships of 80 guns, 12 of 74, 2 of 70, 3 of 64, and 2 of 60; 4 frigates of 40, 3 of 36, 3 of 24, and a number of small vessels; in all 22 of the line, and 10 frigates.* The revenues of Denmark are derived from the interest of a capital formed by the sale of crown lands; from a share in the tithes; from the rights of fishing and hunting let to farm; from licences granted to the farmers to distil their own spirits; from the mint, post, turnpikes, lotteries, and the passage of the Sound. About the year 1750, the number of vessels which passed the Sound both ways was annually from 4000 to 5000; in 1752, the number of 6000 was considered as very extraordinary. They have increased since in the following ratio : In 1770, the Sound duties amounted to 459,890 rix-dollars; and they have probably been increased since that period to about half a million. To In 1791, the Swedish army amounted to to not more than 16 ships of the line: 47,000 men, regulars and militia; their navy before the war it was about equal to the Danish navy. The author of Voyage des Russia at 250,000 men exclusive of guards deux Français places the regular troops of and garrisons; and her navy, as it existed in 1791, at 30 frigates, and 50 sail of the line, of which 8 were of 110 guns. This is a brief picture of the forces of the Baltic powers. those of the community at large; and treats of those points where his previous habits might render a little intemperance venial, as well as probable, with the most perfect good humour and moderation. that contempt of rule and order is a little, nor too much; is alive to its proof of greatness of mind. Delphine interests, without being insensible to is everywhere a great spirit, struggling with the shackles imposed upon her in common with the little world around her; and it is managed so, that her contempt of restrictions shall always appear to flow from the extent, variety, and splendour of her talents. The As exceptions to the general and invulgarity of this heroism ought in some disputable principle of residence, Dr. degree to diminish its value. Mr. Col- Sturges urges the smallness of some quhoun, in his Police of the Metropolis, | livings; the probability that their inreckons up about 40,000 heroines of cumbents be engaged in the task of this species, most of whom, we dare to education, or in ecclesiastical duty, in say, have at one time or another rea- situations where their talents may be soned like the sentimental Delphine more appropriately and importantly about the judgments of the world. employed. Dr. Sturges is also of opinion, that the power of enforcing residence, under certain limits, should be invested in the bishops; and that the acts prohibiting the clergy to hold or cultivate land should be in a great measure repealed. To conclude -Our general opinion of this book is, that it is calculated to shed a mild lustre over adultery; by gentle and convenient gradation, to destroy the modesty and the caution of women; to facilitate the acquisition of easy vices, and encumber the difficulty of virtue. What a wretched qualification of this censure to add, that the badness of the principles is alone corrected by the badness of the style, and that this celebrated lady would have been very guilty, if she had not been very dull! THOUGHTS ON THE RESI- (E. REVIEW, 1803.) We sincerely hope that the two cases suggested by Dr. Sturges, of the clergyman who may keep a school, or be engaged in the duty of some parish not his own, will be attended to in the construction of the approaching bill, and admitted as pleas for non-residence. It certainly is better that a clergyman should do the duty of his own benefice, rather than of any other. But the injury done to the community is not commensurate with the vexation imposed upon the individual. Such a measure is either too harsh, not to become obsolete; or, by harassing the clergy with a very severe restriction, to gain a very disproportionate good THIS pamphlet is the production of a to the community, would bring the progentleman who has acquired a right to fession into disrepute, and have a tenteach the duties of the clerical cha-dency to introduce a class of men into racter by fulfilling them; and who has the Church, of less liberal manners, exercised that right, in the present in- education, and connection; points of stance, with honour to himself, and the utmost importance, in our present benefit to the public. From the par- state of religion and wealth. Nothing ticular character of understanding has enabled men to do wrong with imevinced in this work we should con- punity, so much, as the extreme seceive Dr. Sturges to possess a very verity of the penalties with which the powerful claim to be heard on all ques-law has threatened them. The only tions referrible to the decision of prac-method to insure success to the bill for tical good sense. He has availed enforcing ecclesiastical residence, is to himself of his experience to observe; and of his observation to judge well he neither loves his profession too consult the convenience of the clergy in its construction, as far as is possibly consistent with the object desired, and 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 certainly attend the residence of the clergy in their official mansions; but, as we have before observed, the good one party would obtain bears no sort of proportion to the evil the other would suffer. yet, of the two inconveniences, it is the least. It is some palliation of the evils of discretionary power, that it should be exercised (as by the Court of Chancery) in the face of day, and that the moderator of law should himself be moderated by the force of precedent and opinion. A bishop will exercise his discretionary power in the dark; he is at full liberty to depart tomorrow from the precedent he has es Upon the propriety of investing the Bench of Bishops with a power of en. forcing residence, we confess ourselves to entertain very serious doubts. A bishop 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 com- of men so much superior to temptapels many others to do their duty, has tion, and to construct a system of much odium to bear, and much activity church government upon such a supto exert. A bishop is subject to position, is to build upon sand, with caprice, and enmity, and passion, in materials not more durable than the common with other individuals; there foundation. 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. entirely frustrated in a few years, if it be committed to episcopal superintendence and care; though, upon the first view of the subject, no other scheme can appear so natural and so wise. 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 It is there stated, that out of 11,700 livings, there are 6000 under 80l. per annum; many of those 20l., 30l., and some as low as 21. or 3l. per annum. In such a state of endowment, 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 : 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. E 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. 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 CATTEAU, TABLEAU DES We 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. 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 ceptible touches, that which it was his exposes, by distant and scarcely perduty 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 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." The 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. 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 tavus 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 |