that by them no wrong was left without a remedy, and yet, such has experience shown them to be, that not one in a hundred is now known or used-and also the doctrine of special pleading by which these writs were almost sure to be quashed or abated to the great augmentation of the king's royal revenue. The stranger would then be informed of the very ingenious fictions by which the king's courts had respectively acquired jurisdiction by supposing that the party had broken a close with force and arms, and also done the real thing complained of ;or that the plaintiff was the king's debtor, and less able to pay his debt if he sued in any court other than the king's exchequer; or that he was a close prisoner in the prison of the court, where he is required to be and appear; wherefore a process is addressed to the sheriff, to have his body if he can be found in the county; and if the sheriff return that he cannot find him, then another writ to another county, informing the sheriff of that other county that he cannot be found in the county where he is in prison, but is said to be lurking and wandering in his; wherefore he is commanded to take him if he can be found. This, with the whole train of the subtleties and vulgar contrivances that constitute the arts of petty litigation, with the statutes of amendments and jeofails, and all the unnecessary war of notices, motions, rules and affidavits, would certainly astonish the traveller after good knowledge, and incline him strongly to the opinion that Astrea did not lurk or wander in our bailiwicks; and that all such contrivances could only serve to give error more diversity and rumor more tongues. And what would he think of the parliamentary magic of the statute of uses; of the frustration of the intentions of a grantor, because it was not expressed in his deed that a dollar was in hand paid, when in truth no such thing was ever done, nor yet intended? Would he believe that such a case could exist in a land of common sense? What would he think of a fine sur cognizance de droit comme ceo qu'il a de son don, or sur cognizance de droit tantum, and all the goings out and comings in and vouching of Jacob Moreland; and what of this Jacob himself, who in spite of rotation in office, as for centuries held the lucrative charge of common vouchee? He might indeed say with Hamlet, "This fellow might be in his time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers. and his revenues; but is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate filled with fine dirt?"

If desirous of knowing how an estate in land was to be recovered from a wrongful possessor, he must first be taught the names of each particular wrong, as disseizen, abatement, intrision, deforcement, and so on: of the formedon in the descender and reverter; of writs of entry in the per, the cui,, and the post. And would he not exclaim, "Oh spare my aching sense, you craze my brain!" Then he might be consoled with that most

happy and beneficial method called ejectment, invented by the courts for the avoiding the difficulties and "impracticable nature of those ancient and bepraised writs, by the representation of a comedy, in which the dramatis persona are as follows:

The lessor of the Plaintiff, a real person, who seeks to recover his land.

James Jackson, an ideal person. who is supposed to take a lease and enter upon the land, and is called lessee of the plaintiff.

John Thrustout, an ideal person, who being of more muscular force, thrusts the other ideal person out; but being sorry for what he has done, writes a letter to the tenant in possession, that he must defend his own possession, as he means to be off.

The Defendant, a real person, who, on receiving the ideal letter from the ideal Thrustout, being much affected by its contents, applies to the court to be admitted to defend his own

cause.

The Judges, real persons, who indulge the defendant, on condition, however, that he will confess three ideal things, viz. lease entry, and ouster.

The most affecting scene is where the defendant balances between his concience and his interest; for if he will not consent to confess the three lies, though the real plaintiff is nonsuited as against him, yet he gets judgment against the ideal person Thrustout, and he, the real defendant, is for that cause turned out of possession. He. therefore, yields to the temptation, complies with the desire of the court, and openly declares the three lies to be three truths, and having so qualified himself to appear in the temple of justice, he is admitted to do so in the place of the ideal

man.

The other ideal persons are, the common law, who enters in triumph, and comes in the front with a train of sergeants, outer and inner barristers, attorneys, special pleaders, prothonotaries, secondaries, masters, clerks, pledges and summoners, amongst whom are the twin brothers John Doe, and Richard Roe, and their twin cousins John Den and Richard Fen.-Truth and common sense are discovered in the back ground in chains, weeping.

As soon as the stranger was made sensible of the superior advantages and benefits of this proceeding, he might be told of the fiction of the action of trover to try the truth of sales by supposing the goods to have been lost and found as the only way to " eviscerate the truth," of the great virtues of et ceteras and videlicits quod cums and obsque hocs, and the nonsuiting qualities of vi et armis, or the necessity of declaring that there was force and arms where there was none, and that a close was broken where there was none to break; why ships are laid up under the charge

of an officer called a scilecet or a to wit in St. Martins in the fields or in the town of Schoharie, and for brevity's sake he might be referred to that indispensable work in every American lawyers library, the ten volumes of Mr. Wentworth's pleadings as a table of reference to the copious stores of precedents. But would he not stand petrified as though he had seen the Gorgon's head with all the twisted serpents of which that on Minerva's shield was but the type?

In the fourth book, he would find a summary of the wars between the ancient and common law and the statutory invaders; how the statute repealed the common law, and the common law undermined the statute; how hardly those acts that protect the life and liberty of the subject, were won from prerogative and despotism, from trembling usurpers and excommunicated monarchs, who in their weaker moments and precarious situations, were reduced to the necessity of granting to their subjects the benefit of the law, the trial by jury, liberty of speech, and the right of petitioning, and such other happy and boasted privileges, for which on one hand a sanguinary code, the denial of counsel to address a jury for a prisoner standing at the bar for life or death; and on the other guilt and atrocity after the fullest proof and conviction, exultingly, triumph over the justice of the law, by the misspelling of a word, or the leaving out of a letter, as, for instance, the writing of undestood for understood, and other such things, passing all understanding. He would see in every page the westiges of ancient bigotry, ignorance, crafty superstition and ruthless persecution, against Jews and Quakers and Dissenters, Non-Conformists, Heretics, Witches and Papists, and many running sores not yet closed nor cicatrised, and evils yet menacing and “ potentially existing," which bad times, and corrupt judges may again call into activity, and as he contemplated" the dreadful accidents by flood and field" to which the most favourable changes have been due, and all the wounds and gashes which are visible upon the body of this common law, some before, and some behind, as the honor of the day happened to be lost or won, would he not say, this may have been a "champion grim, but not a leader sage"? and might not this disappointed Greek return at length somewhat reconciled to the dominion of the Turk? For though he might with truth be told, that the great abuses of past times had through the wisdom of our legislature, and of upright, patriotic and enlightened judges, (and to that truth we subscribe with all our hearts) been gradually corrected, and that gradual reformation would still farther proceed, and in time effected through succeeding decisions of the bench, as questions may arise before them, yet would the philosophic stranger be satisfied with such an answer? Would it appear wise or safe to a philosophic mind to have the law afloat, and its perfection depending upon the accidental occurrence of doubtful litigation, or that par

ticular cases should make the general law, and that some victim must be devoted to the establishing of every principle, and, Codrus-like, throw himself into the yawning gulph. It is for these reasons that we feel ourselves bound to declare in favor of the written code. And since we have judges of such tried worth, let them be put in requisition to do that which the people require.

We shall conclude by strongly recommending the reading of "The English Practice," the first work at the head of this article where many practical abuses very easy to be remedied, are pointed out with candour and precision. Its being imputed to the pen of Mr. Henry Sedgwick, is in itself the highest recommendation.

WILLIAM SAMPSON.

EXTRACT FROM THE LETTER OF A MASONIC FRIEND.

DEAR SIR,

Oct. 22. 1825.

I RECEIVED the manuscript and Jachin and Boaz safe. Your exposition of masonry is excellent. The three first degrees and Royal Arch are all that I know any thing about, and you have handled them well, you have only omitted some trivial ceremonies which are probably not used in all lodges. In the Royal Arch you have not given the mummery of the exultation as it is called, particularly the ceremony of making Noodle wrench the key stone from the arch, and that exquisite piece of child's play in leading him under the arches!

ANOTHER EXTRACT.

I HAVE found a note in Maclaine's translation of Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History Vol. 5. p. 78 about the Rosicrucians, who are there defined to be those, who, by means of Dew (Ros) supposed by them to be the most powerful solvent of gold, sought after gold, or light, in latin, lux, the three letters of which last word form a cross X (vir. LV X.) This seems fanciful; but nevertheless may perhaps be true. Fancy may also combine there with the Crux ansata or Triple Tau.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW TIMES.

Dorchester Gaol, Nov. 1, 1825, seventh year of imprisonment for an endeaSIR, vour to improve the public morals. LET, me if you please, have a little of calm reasoning with you, about Mr. Moses Elias Levi and the print of the "God for a shilling." I have seen your yesterday's paper, and I was surprised to see, that you could justify an act of rashness on the part of a fanatic. You seem to lament, that the Alderman made the Jew pay for the damage done! How did you feel on this head, when the front of your house was demolished, from the indignation of thousands at your conduct as a public writer, towards the late Queen? Did you pocket the resentment and say "I have deserved it?" That was not the act of one, but of many, a deliberate and spontaneous attack by almost every passer by. This case, at my shop, was the act of a fanatic; and it augurs well, that this print has been exhibited for many months, before one such fanatic was found in London. I have a Jewish or Christian stone, on my desk, that was thrown in the dark and which brake three panes of glass; but this silly Jew, was the first to feel that well known holy zeal among idolators, to break the window in open day.

Alderman Thompson did very right not to listen to the charge of felony; because no one can calmly suppose that the Jew, like his forefather Micah *, meant to steal a few Gods, or rather the metal set apart to make them. But as to the exhibition of this print being a misdemeanour, it is no more so, than those exhibitions which we have imitated, the engraved descriptions of the Indian Gods, by the Wesleyan Methodists. Let it be prosecuted as a misdemeanor and you shail bave a ridiculous print for every ridiculous passage in the Bible. What think you of a print of Jehovah shewing his back parts to Moses? What think you of an exhibition of a God making fig leaved aprons for naked Adam and Eve, and fitting them on, as if he were ashamed to look at his own work? What think you of the scene of Lot and his daughters? These and a hundred such shall be forth coming, if this print be prosecuted as a misdemeanor.

See Judges chap. 17, verses 1 to 5. Compare it with the Chinese advertisement of a manufacturer of Gods.