But by the words of the thirty-eighth clause, the feudal tyranny, wherever relaxed between the king and his vassals, was to be relaxed between the superior and inferior, through all the links of the feudal subordination. And of the thirty-eight clauses some were of a general nature. By the ninth and thirtieth, an effort was made for the benefit of commerce; protection afforded to the trading towns, foreign merchants, &c. &c.

The eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, seventeenth, twenty-fourth, twenty-eighth, and thirty-fourth, were intended for the better administration of justice.

In the twenty-sixth may be seen the first effort that was made to procure for an accused person a trial; i. e. in other words, to protect the subject from arbitrary imprisonment.

Yet so slow is the progress of civil liberty, that the first principles of the most obvious justice could not be secured till some centuries afterwards, by the proper fitting up of the writ of habeas corpus in the reign of Charles II. The thirty-seventh clause runs thus:-"Scutagium de cætero capiatur sicut capi solebat tempore regis Henrici avi nostri." And in the time of Henry II. the scutage was moderate.

The important point of the levying of money was thus left in a very imperfect state. But in the confirmation of the charters by Edward I., it was distinctly stated that no money should be levied upon the subject, except by the common assent of all the realm, and for the benefit of the whole realm.

The celebrated statute, "de tallagio non concedendo," is shown by Blackstone to be probably nothing more than a contemporary Latin abstract of the two French charters themselves, and not a statute.

The most striking clause of all so well known, so often quoted, so justly celebrated, runs thus:-"Nullus liber homo capiatur," &c. &c. "nisi per legale judicium parium suorum vel per legem terræ," &c. &c.

This twenty-ninth clause contains a general description of a free constitution. Dr. Sullivan, in his Lectures on the Laws of England, has made it the subject of a comment through all its words and divisions. That, in the first place, it secures the personal liberty of the subject; in the next, the full enjoyment of his property, &c. &c.; and certainly while the spirit of this clause is preserved, civil liberty must be enjoyed by Englishmen : whether, however, this spirit shall be preserved, depends upon their preserving their own spirit. The book of Dr. Sullivan is worth looking at. You may see from the contents, what parts are more particularly deserving of your

attention.

The Charter of the Forest speaks volumes to those who can reflect on what they read.

Observe the words of the tenth clause :—“ Nullus de cætero, amittat vitam vel membra pro venatione nostra."-" Sed si quis captus fuerit," &c. &c. "jaceat in prisonâ nostrâ per unum annum," &c. &c.

Offences in the forest must have been, before this time, often punished by the loss of life or of limb, when murder was not.

Observe, too, the clauses which concede the restoration of whole tracts of land to their former state-tracts which had been reduced to forests.

That the kings of these days, and no doubt their barons, should have been so interested in hunting as to be guilty, for the sake of it, not only of robbery and tyranny, but of maiming men and even putting them to death, is no slight proof of the value of those elegant arts and that more extended system of inquiry and knowledge, in consequence of which the manly exercises are left to fill their place, and not more than their place, in the circle of human anxieties and amusements.

Our game laws and our country gentlemen are the regular descendants of the forest laws and barons of ancient times. They are thought by many to bear some marks of their iron original.

In the fourth clause of Magna Charta are these words :-" Et hoc sine destructione et vasto (waste) hominum vel rerum;" that is, the labourers and the stock are summed up together: no distinction made between them.

The barons, the assertors of their own independence, though they felt for freemen and those below them, were but too insensible to the situation of the villeins; to the heavy system of slavery which they saw, or rather did not see, darkening with its shade the fair fields of their domain.

In like manner were the English nation, in our own times, twenty years in abolishing the slave trade; and if the whole kingdom had been equally accustomed to the trade, as were the ports of Bristol and Liverpool, they would have been twenty centuries.

The effect of habit in banishing all the natural feelings of mercy, justice, benevolence, as in the instances of slave-dealers, banditti, supporters of harsh laws, penal statutes against dissenters, &c. &c. is perfectly frightful.

VI.

THERE is a book by Daines Barrington, Observations on the Ancient Statutes, which should be considered.

It is often descriptive of the manners of the times, of the views and opinions of our ancestors: it is even entertaining.

The conclusion which the student should draw, is, the good that might be done, or might be at least most honourably and virtuously attempted, by any legislator or lawyer who would turn his attention to our statute book, procure the repeal of obsolete statutes, endeavour to make our law proceedings less expensive, in short, not acquiesce in the general supposition, that no improvements can be introduced into our laws and our administration of them. Much good might be done by patient, intelligent men; but the most sullen, and unenlightened, and unfeeling opposition must be more or less expected from our courts of law, and all who are connected with them.

"Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land,"

—that is, would you improve laws, and keep people from being ruined

"All fear, none aid you, and few understand."

This note was written in the year 1808, and the author has since lived to see and admire the humane and intelligent efforts of Sir S. Romilly, Sir J. Mackintosh, Mr. Peel, and Mr. Brougham.

VII.

Sir John Fortescue, Chancellor to Henry VI.

Two treatises of his have come down to us, that seem quite decisive of the question relative to our monarchy, as understood in early times, whether arbitrary or not. The first is,-De Laudibus Legum Angliæ.

The distinction that the chancellor every where makes, is between "power royal" and "power politick," that is, arbitrary monarchy and limited; and he lays it down, that the kings of England are not like other kings and emperors, but are limited.

(Translation quite close and exact.)

Chap. 9th. "For the king of England cannot alter nor change the laws of his realme at his pleasure: for why? he governeth his people by power, not only royal, but also politique. If his power over them were royal only, then he might change the laws of his realm, and charge his subjects with tallage and other burdens without their consent; such is the dominion that the civil laws purporte when they say, the prince his pleasure hath the force of a law. But from this much differeth the power of a king, whose government over his people is politique, for he can neither change laws without the consent of his subjects, not yet charge them with strange impositions against their wills," &c. &c.

"Nam non potest rex Angliæ ad libitum suum," &c. &c.

In chapter 18th, he observes :

"Sed non, sic Angliæ statuta oriri possunt," &c.

"But statutes cannot thus passe in England, forsomuch as they are made, not only by the prince's pleasure, but also by the assent of the whole realm, so that of necessity they must procure the wealth of the people," &c. &c.— "Seeing they are ordained not by the device of one man alone, or of a hundred wise counsellors only, but of more than three hundred chosen men," &c. &c.-" as they that know the fashion of the parliament of England, and the order and manner of calling them together, are able more distinctly to declare," &c. &c.

The young prince (Henry's son Prince Edward), to whom the discourse is addressed, asks-"Since the laws of England are, as he sees, so good, why some of his progenitors have gone about to bring in the civil laws?" &c.

"In those laws," says the Chancellor "the prince's pleasure standeth in force of a law quite contrary to the decrees of the laws of England," &c. &c.

But to rule the people by government politique is no yoke but liberty and great security, not only to the subjects, but also to the king himself. And to show this, the chancellor considers "the inconveniences that happen in the realm of France, through regal government alone."

He then treats of "the commodities that procede of the joynt government politique and regal in the realme of England."

Then, "a comparison of the worthiness of both the regiments."

The whole work is very concise, but full of curious matter.

VIII.

Original Insignificancy of the House of Commons.

In the beginning of the reign of Richard II. we find the following passage:

As to the aid the king demanded of his commons for the defence, &c. &c. the Commons said, "That in the last parliament the same things were shown to them in behalf of the king," &c. &c. "That in hopes of the promise held out to them to be discharged of taillage, they granted a greater sum than had been asked; and after their grievous losses, and the low value of their corn and chattels, they concluded with praying the king to excuse them, not being able to bear any charge for pure poverty" (par pure povertie).

To all which Monsieur Richard le Scroop (who it seems was steward of the household) answered making protestation:

"That he knew of no such promise made in the last parliament, and saving the honour and reverence due to the king and lords, what the Commons said was not true" (le dit de la Commun en celle partie ne contient ne verité). This, at a time, when if such language had been used by Monsieur le Scroop to the lords, the floor of the assembly would have been instantly covered with gauntlets.

When the feudal system declined, the power which could not then be occupied by the commons (the nobility had been swept away by the civil wars), fell into the possession of the crown, a natural and constant claimant.

The liberties of England were therefore in great danger, when princes so able, as those of the house of Tudor, were to be followed by princes so arbitrary, as those of the house of Stuart.

The two great efforts of Henry VII. were, first, to destroy the power of the aristocracy; secondly, to amass treasures to render the crown independent: his ambition and avarice ministered to each other.

But the first point he could not attempt to carry without advancing the power of the commons. He could not, for instance, open the way to the lords to alienate their lands, without giving the commons an opportunity of purchasing them; that is, of turning their mercantile affluence into constitutional importance.

The second point, however, was of a different nature. He could not amass the treasures which he wished, without encroaching upon the exclusive right of parliament to levey money; and if the practices, pretences, and prerogatives, which he introduced, advanced, and renewed, had not been resisted by our ancestors in the time of Charles I., the liberties of England must gradually have decayed.

Sir Thomas More, when young, resisted Henry the Seventh's demand from the commons of about three-fifteenths for the marriage of his daughter; the king actually threw More's father, then a judge, into the Tower, and fined him one hundred pounds. Had not the king died, Sir Thomas was determined to have gone over sea, thinking, "that being in the king's indignation, he could not live in England without great danger."-See Roper's Life.

The Life of Henry VII. has been written by Lord Bacon: such a man as

Bacon can never write without profitably exercising, sometimes the understanding, sometimes the imagination of his reader; yet, on the whole, the work will disappoint him.

The circumstances, indeed, in which Lord Bacon was placed, rendered it impossible for him to exercise the superior powers of his mind with any tolerable freedom. He wrote his history of Henry VII. during the period of his disgrace under the reign of James I.

It was not for Lord Bacon to reprobate the robberies of Henry VII. when he had himself received money for the perversion of justice; or at least had been accused and disgraced for corrupt practices and connivances. It was not for Lord Bacon to assert, as he had once done, the popular principles of the English constitution, while writing under the eye of a monarch like James I., one not only impressed with the divine nature of his prerogative, but one to whose humanity he owed his liberty at the time, and the very means of his subsistence.

The faults of ordinary men may be buried in their tombs; but the very frailties of men of genius may be the lamentation of ages.

The laws of Henry VII. merit the consideration of the student.

It was the intention of these laws, to advance the husbandry, manufactures, and general commerce of the country.

The observations of Lord Bacon, and the subsequent criticisms of Hume, will afford the student a lesson in that most difficult and important of all practical sciences, the science of political economy.

On the subjects that belong to this science, it may I think be observed, that from the extent and variety of the points to be considered, the first impressions are almost always wrong.

Practical men, as they are called, are therefore pretty generally mistaken on all such subjects; particularly where they think themselves exclusively entitled to decide.

Practical men are fitted, and fitted only, to furnish facts and details, which it is afterwards the business, and the proper business of the philosopher or statesman to make the foundation of his general reasonings and permanent laws.

So fallacious are first impressions, so remote and invisible is often the general principle that ought ultimately to decide us, that even the philosopher himself must, on such subjects, be much indebted to experience.

Our ancestors could not be inferior in understanding to ourselves: who could be superior to Lord Bacon? Yet the laws of Henry VII. which Lord Bacon extols, and which would appear wise perhaps to the generality of men at this day (1808), are shown by Mr. Hume to be founded on narrow views, and to be the very reverse of what Lord Bacon supposed them to be.

It is on account of Mr. Hume's observations on the subjects of political economy, that the appendices of his History are so valuable. Different portions in his work are likewise in this manner rendered valuable, more particularly the estimates which he gives of a reign when he comes to the close of it.

Look at his account of the miscellaneous transactions, for instance, of Edward II. "The kingdom of England," says he, "was affected with a