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Ploughrwell. True, fir. Who fhould I fee last week but 'fquire Littlewit's gentleman; there was four or five over a bowl of punch at the Crown; now you know, fir, the 'fquire hates you because you opposed him in his election ;-one of the company propofed your health; and, from that, there began a talk about how generous you were, and how well you lived, and fuch like ;-I faw the 'fquire's man bite his nails for vexation; at last, looking with a grin, fays he, your 'fquire entertains nobly indeed, when his guests can't get a bit of white bread at his table; I hear he choaks all his vifitors with his household bread.- Now, that made my blood rife, 'caufe I knew you did not do it for faving, for I had heard you say if every body would eat household bread there would be corn enough ;-and fo does our rector, he won't have any other in his houfe. So he laughed and faid, it fignified nothing at all.-Now, fays I, I will make the cafe as plain as the nofe in your face.-Suppofe all the people would ufe nothing but cream, and throw away all the milk, don't you think it would make it very dear? muft not many a family go without a pudding? The cafe is much the fame.-So he fhrugged up his fhoulders, took his hat off a peg, and sneaked off as mute as a fifh.-But I fear I have hindered you, fir. Please to give my refpects to your good fifter, and I heartily with you both your healths.-You have no commands to the hall ?

Col. Freeman. None to trouble you with. Pray my good wishes to your wife and pretty Kate.

Ploughwell. I am obliged to you, fir; but my daughter is no beauty, thank heaven! [Exit Ploughawell.

Col. Freeman. There goes good fenfe in an undrefs- How respectable does this man appear, by having pride enough to live fuitable to his sphere in life, while they, who imitate and vie with their fuperiors, point out their own inferiority by fhewing you they are ashamed of their condition.-The man, who nobly difdains to aim at what he cannot reach, gathers a kind of dignity, whilft he can fay I am an honest Briton."

is but flight, Jas

yet

From this remnant it will, we truft, appear, that the fair, lady's manufacture, though flight, is elegant and we will venture to add, that on comparing the whole piece with its pattern, it will be found to be a pretty luteftring comedy.

The first part of the title is a ftrained compliment to her Majefty, and the remainder merely in reference to the year in which the play was written, a matter of no importance to the merit of the work, and of as little confequence to the reader.

ART. VII. The History of Manchefer. By the Rev. Mr. Whitaker.
Vol. II. 4to. l. 1 s. Boards. Johnson. 1775.

T

HERE is a fpecies of history lately rifen up among us, and not now unfafhionable, which may be properly called THE CONJECTURAL. Find a perfon and a periodand an industrious hiftorian, by virtue of that powerful mono

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fyllable, would, fhall induce a series of action that poffibly exifted no where but in the regions of imagination, and which he admits as true, only because it was not unlikely to happen. He is led to this by a ftrong defire of what he cannot obtain, by a thirst of knowing unrecorded facts: and, as, in the pursuit of other enjoyments, we have recourfe to fancy where acquifition fails, fo it generally happens in matters of hiftorical refearch.

Mr. Whitaker, in the volume before us, which is a fecond volume on the fubject, though not fo mentioned in the title, had frong temptations to fall into this fpecies of conjectural hiftory: for, treating of the Roman-British and Saxon periods, he had little more to build upon than the bafis of tradition, con &ed with the feanty notices of a few hiftorians of doubtful redit. With fuch materials, however, he has courage to venture upon the fabulous æra of King Arthur, and to attempt even a fyftematic hiftory of that doughty hero. Of the ftyle and manner in which fuch a narrative must run, and of the fingular utility of the words probably, perhaps, and would, under fuch difficulties, let the following paffage ferve as a specimen :

• Selected by Ambrofius for the command of the army and reco very of the provinces in the north, Arthur began his march. He was now first exalted perhaps to an independent command, and naturally attended by his own Silures. He marched across the midland parts of the kingdom, all trembling for their fafety, and interestedly folicitous for his fuccefs. And in Staffordshire or Shropshire he would be joined by the combined army of the north.

The Saxon forces in Cheshire seem to have been very confiderable, as they had pushed near forty miles before the main army, and the British troops were unable to prevent their advance. They were in all probability engaged at this period in the fiege of the famous Deva or Chester, the city of the twentieth legion, and inhabited by the defcendants of the legionaries. And it was the relief of the Roman colony perhaps, that was the firft and immediate object of Arthur's march into the north. At his approach the Saxons might have raised the fiege, and have fallen back to the main body. They did not. And Arthur marched up to them. The attack began. The Saxon army was defeated. And the town was relieved.

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The northern Britons would now be animated by the return of victory. And their commander would lead them directly after the fugitives, and against the main army of the Saxons. This was encamped by the ruined capital of the Siftuntii. Arthur croffed the ford at Warrington probably, and entered the county of Lancaster, the great deliverer of it. And he must have marched along the Roman road by Haydock to Blackrode.

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The Saxons were encamped on the fouthern bank of the Douglas, and near to the Roman station. And there they waited for the victorious monarch. The British troops advanced to the charge. The battle was uncommonly bloody. A confiderable officer was killed among the Britons. And, according to tradition, the Douglas ran crimsoned with the blood to Wigan. But the Saxons were defeated. REV. June, 1775

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And

And the night probably interpofed, to prevent the utter route of their army.

'They fled. All in confufion, they took not the road to Preston. They retired along the current of the Douglas. And they haftily retreated perhaps into the thick woodland, that originally fwept about the town of Coccium, and which tradition particularly plants along the banks of the river. They halted about fix miles from the field of action. They took poft upon the eminences and flopes, that are now lined with the houfes of Wigan and washed by the waters of the Douglas. And tradition and remains concur to evince the fact. The former fixes a battle about Wigan-lane, many ages before the recent rencounter in the civil wars, which has nearly obliterated its memory. And credulity, deeply impreffed with the ftory, not unfrequently fancies to the prefent period, that it fees warriors habited in strange old dreffes, and hovering about the scene of flaughter. The Britons purfued the Saxons along the windings of the Douglas. They came up with them at Wigan-lane. And they began the attack. The Saxons perhaps had thrown up fome intrenchments in the woods. And they had affuredly lined the thickets. The intrenchments were ftormed. The thickets were cleared. And the Saxons were dislodged.

They fled across the hill of Wigan. They were overtaken on the oppofite fide. They were again attacked. And a fresh engagement enfued. The town of Wigan preferves to this day a lively memorial of both the battles, in its ancient and prefent appellation. And about four and thirty years ago, in forming the canal there, the workmen discovered evident indications of a confiderable engage. ment on the ground. All along the courfe of the channel, from the termination of the Dock to the point of Pool-bridge, for forty or fifty roods in length and feven or eight yards in breadth, they found the ground every where ftored with bones of men and horfes. They dug up a large old fpur, carrying a ftem four or five inches in length, and a rowel as big as a half crown. And they collected five or fix hundred weight of horse-fhoes. The Saxons were again defeated. They were completely broken. They fled in the utmost diforder. They plunged into the Douglas. They threw themselves into the marshes. And there tradition fixes another battle,'—and a fourth victory.

Yet fhall we blame the writer who thus endeavours to embody thefe fcattered and uncertain notices, and to make a Juno of a cloud? If we are under no temptation to embrace his vifionary Being, wherefore fhould we condemn him? We would rather indulge him in the ideal and conjectural part of his progrefs, with which he feems to have amuled himself, and may poffibly amufe others. He will gradually gain our confidence as we proceed, and as he defcends to the lefs obfcure parts of the Saxon period.

The third chapter of this volume brings him down to the reduction of Manchefter under Edwin about the year 620. The fourth contains the Saxon geography of the island, and

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an account of the immediate effects of the Saxon fettlements. Those effects were not, as it is easy to suppose, desirable. The invaders had fought hard for empire, and they were determined to enjoy the fweets of it.

The conquered Britons were neither indulged entirely with their original property, nor divefted entirely of it, by the Saxons. The victors would certainly fequefter a portion of the lands for their own ufe. And the vanquished did as certainly retain a portion in their own poffeffion. In the laws of Ina the monarch of the Weft-Saxons, and during the course of the feventh century, the fine for the murder of a Wilife or Briton is fixed at a hundred and twenty fhillings, if he poffeffed a hide of land, and at eighty only, if he poffeffed but half that quantity. And fo alfo on the continent, and in the earlier laws of the Franks, a heavy mulet is prescribed for the murder of a Provincial that was the actual proprietor of an eftate; Romanus bomo poffeffor, id eft, qui res in pago ubi remanet proprias poffidet. The rule of war, which was observed by the Germans in general on their conquefts along the continent, would be equally practifed by the Saxons in the island. And two-thirds of the land belonging to the vanquished became the prey of the victor. The Germans, infinitely more merciful than the Romans to the flaves which they took in battle, were much less humane than they to the countries that they reduced in war. The latter with all their municipies, colonies, and ftations, and all their taxes, fervices, and impofitions, fcarcely received a fifth of the provincial dominions. And the Saxons, not content with a fourth, a third, or even a half, rapaciously took two thirds into their own poffeffion. Two-thirds of the houfes in the town, and two-thirds of the land in the country, would be configned by lot to the conqueror. And the fmall remainder would be divided in the fame manner among the original proprietors, and measured out to them exactly according to their original portions.'

The fixth chapter defcribes the feveral great divifions of a Saxon ftate, the civil polity eftablished in each of them, together with the military economy fettled over the whole. And here the Reader will find Mr. Whitaker, with great ability and erudition, contefting a generally received opinion:

The partition of the Saxon kingdoms into tythings, hundreds, and counties has been almoft univerfally attributed to the illuftrious Alfred. Malmesbury expressly afferts him to have divided his territories into hundreds and tythings. Ingulphus as exprefsly declares him to have modelled them into counties, tythings, and hundreds. And nearly the whole body of our modern hiftorians and lawyers have religioufly copied the one and implicitly followed the other. But they are all mistaken. The tything, hundred, and county conftituted a part of that original polity, which the Saxons brought with them from Germany. And two of them appear existing in Britain, and all three in France, even fome ages before the time of Alfred. The tything and fhire are both mentioned in the laws of the WeitSaxons, before the clofe of the feventh century and during the reign of Ina. And the tything, the fhire, and the hundred are noticed in the capitularies of the Franks, before the year 630 and the reign of Dagobert.

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Dagobert. All the three inftitutions would commence originally at one and the fame period, among the kindred nations of the Franks and Saxons. And the fact prefents us with a view of fociety, the most remarkable that occurs in all the varied delineations of hiftory. It fhews these admirable establishments to have been formed amid the wilds of Germany. It holds up to us a fine police, exifting among a barbarous people. And it exhibits the most accurate model of domestic œconomy, reduced to practice by a military nation.

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The tything makes its first appearance in France about the beginning, and in England about the conclufion, of the feventh century. By this inftitution every freeman of the kingdom, that was the mafter of a family, became a Bonh, Freo-bonh, Friborg, or frank pledge to the government, for the good and peaceable behaviour of all the perfons within it. And he was alfo obliged to give fecurity for his own behaviour, and to have nine neighbouring masters of families for his own fponfors. This remarkable part of the Saxon œconomy has been a thousand times described by our hiftorians, antiquaries, and lawyers; and yet was never explained by any of them. They have all purfued the fame high-road of notices, and all followed in one beaten track of obfervations. And they have praised it without affigning reafons, and admired it greatly without understanding it.

They have particularly imagined the Friborg and his nine fponfors to be merely the mafters of common families. But this furely is fo ridiculous a fuppofition, as inftantly strikes the mind with a convincing fenfe of its abfurdity. No polity could feriously think of defcending to such a minuteness, as to bring every ordinary house. keeper under an immediate recognizance to the crown. A military one especially, fuch as that of all nations is in the first stages of civility, and the Saxon must particularly have been in the very infancy of their fettlement here, would undoubtedly disdain to do it. And, if both one and the other could be prevailed on to think of the fcheme, it could never be reduced into practice. The trouble and expence of taking the ftipulations would have been infupportable, and the number of recognizances lodged in the courts, infinite. The very multiplicity of the objects must have prevented any distinctnefs in them. And the wild extenfiveness of the plan would baffle every effort of execution.

The dictates of common fenfe, therefore, fuggefted a different procedure to the legiflators of the Saxons. And the same strength of intellect, which could frame the great fyftem of tythings, would immediately catch the only practicable mode of its execution at first and of its operation afterwards. The neceffities of civil polity, the principles of military economy, and the interior difpofition of the country at this period, would all concur together to point out fome of the greater and prefiding families as the reprefentatives of those below them, and to make them immediately refponsible for the reft.'

In the following paffage we behold, in a ftrong light, the barbarous polity of our Saxon ancestors, and fome strictures on our own that feem to merit attention, though not altogether

new:

• Founded

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