ful and direct. We admire the construction of parliament, in the mutual dependence of the two houses on each other, and the manly freedom of their proceedings. We should be better satisfied if the doors of the upper house were never opened but to those who had earned the distinction by public services, and if the floor of the lower were less often the arena of contending candidates for place. We respect and esteem that love of order and reverence for religion which has established and upheld a national form of worship, which protects with pious care the temples of God, and places his ministers by the side of the proudest nobles of the land. We sincerely regret that this sacred order should be supported by a tax so odious and unequal as that of tithes. Much more do we lament that a slight deviation from the national creed should exclude a very large portion of the people, who contribute their full share of the burden, not only from the honors and emoluments of the church, but from the exercise and enjoyment of some of the dearest and most valuable rights and privileges of citizens. We are far from underrating the law regulating the descent of landed property, which, while it upholds the consequence and independence of the nobility by perpetuating that superiority of fortune which is essential to the proper influence of the aris tocratic branch, has the happy effect of reducing the younger members of great families to a level with the people, by rais ing a mutual dependence between them for service and support. It is a cause of painful reflection, however, that this happy provision should be accompanied with some remains of feudal oppression that almost outweigh its advantages. The game laws, it must be allowed on all hands, are a foul blot on the English code. Little can be said for the glorious birthright of Englishmen, while the property in that which Providence has made common, the untamed tenants of the forest and the air, is restricted to the fortunate possessors of one hun dred pounds a year. No man, who is not possessed of property to this amount, can kill any species of game, even on his own grounds, and so revolting are these laws to the dictates of nature and reason, that in order to enforce them, the most barbarous means are necessarily resorted to on the part of the owners of game, and by a succession of statutes the punishment has been rendered more and more severe, until the killing of a hare or a partridge is little less penal than murder. Even ladium o subject e provoked informati concile v without to arraig attorneywhich is most dan ment. with pro sence of ogy that it is suffic loves his proceedin petty juri at present ever Eng powerful ating bad English member the pride England she has do to be done proudly, h lege to ad hearts.' cate of the expression Englishma cussions in public, hav pretty titl nation has it should s governmen hope that Even the trial by jury-the boast of Englishmen-the palladium of liberty, comes short of its object, and leaves the subject exposed to the most alarming of all attacks, that of a provoked and resentful minister. The existence of ex officio informations, which M. Cottu professes himself unable to reconcile with the genius of the English laws, we pronounce without hesitation to be utterly repugnant to it. The power to arraign an individual on any charge at the pleasure of the attorney-general without the intervention of a grand jury, which is denied to every other prosecutor, is reserved to the most dangerous and powerful of all prosecutors, the government. An administration with this engine in its hands, and with profligacy enough to employ it, need not regret the absence of the star chamber and high commission. It is no apology that this measure of prosecution is not often resorted to; it is sufficient that it exists, to alarm every Englishman who loves his liberty. The late attempts to bring this mode of proceeding into use have been met with so much spirit by the petty juries, that no very dangerous consequences from it are at present to be apprehended; but we do believe that whenever English liberty is doomed to fall, this will be the most powerful instrument of its destruction. With all these humiliating badges of ancient servitude about them, it becomes the English to talk modestly of their prerogatives. Let them remember that their present happy condition has not always been the pride of their nation. It is not two hundred years since England began to emerge from feudal darkness. In that time she has done much, but she must not forget that much remains to be done. The commons, who now carry themselves so proudly, have within a century and a half thought it a privilege to address their sovereign on the bended knees of their hearts.' The bench, which now appears the merciful advocate of the accused, has within half that time descended to expressions of wanton cruelty or vindictive malice, which an Englishman of the present day shudders to recall. The discussions in parliament, which are now spread daily before the public, have within sixty years been communicated under the pretty title of debates in the senate of Lilliput.' When a nation has achieved so much, it is greatly to be regretted that it should stop short of the highest degree of excellence in government, to which humanity can reach. We cannot but hope that much may yet be done, and we sincerely wish suc cess to all endeavors for the advancement of the happiness of Britain. At present, however, those nations, who admire and are desirous to imitate her, should be reminded, that in transplanting her invaluable constitution, many excrescencies are to be pruned, and many distortions to be corrected. M. Cottu in the closing chapters points out to his countrymen some of the difficulties which present themselves in the adoption of the English municipal regulations. These difficulties, he observes, arise not only from the prejudices which have survived the changes legally effected in the ancient constitution of the kingdom, but still more from those which have been produced by the revolution.' A nation like France, which has plunged from the severest despotism to the wildest democracy, and has thence passed under the iron yoke of military oppression, can hardly be in a condition to adopt and carry into operation a code the most complicated that human. ingenuity has ever framed. To make way for its admission, a thousand prejudices are to be eradicated; the people are to be prepared by education to know the value and importance of self government; and in order to produce this effect it is necessary that they should learn to estimate themselves, and to obey the law, and perform the duties of citizens for the sake of themselves and their children, and not because they are bidden. M. Cottu seems to have discovered what is little understood in these days of paper constitutions and bills of rights; that it is freemen who make the government, and not the government that makes freemen; that the only foundation of rational liberty is a general diffusion of knowledge, and of religious and moral principle. He recommends as the first and indispensable measure the establishment of an aristocracy, and to this end he advises the restoration of the law of primogeniture. In the present state of France we have no doubt of the correctness of this course. Every thing in that country tends to the extreme of democracy. The blind devotion to rank and titles, which prevailed there before the revolution, has given place to the opposite spirit. The doctrine of perect equality is still as strong, though not as fashionable, as it vas thirty years since; every distinction between citizen and citizen is looked upon with jealousy. For a republican form f government France is entirely unprepared, and a monarchy n such a state, without some intermediate barrier against the ncroachments of the people, must be despotic, if it can exist at all. py if sh ART. XV princi transla as wer the Am 2. An Int the use ciples pp. 21 3. Elemer the Fr Cambr 4. Element Institut of Lond of the st land. 1818-1 THESE fo matics, inter of Cambrid and Euler's into college the universit ing Trigono lowed, we u the usual ap 路 at all. To build up this aristocracy, to lay aside gradually the military police, to establish the liberty of the press, to accustom the people to govern and to be governed by each other, to substitute the ambition of civil distinction for that of military glory, to rear sound principles of morals in the place of superstition on the one hand, and infidelity on the other, will demand a long and severe trial, if indeed it do not prove to be impracticable. In the mean time this ill fated country must be content to reap the bitter fruits of past errors, happy if she can ever attain the proud station which her rival has so long enjoyed. ART. XVII.—1. An Elementary Treatise on Arithmetic, taken principally from the Arithmetic of S. F. Lacroix, and translated into English, with such alterations and additions as were found necessary, in order to adapt it to the use of the American student. pp. 128. 2. An Introduction to the Elements of Algebra, designed for the use of those who are acquainted only with the first principles of Arithmetic. Selected from the Algebra of Euler. pp. 218. 3. Elements of Algebra, by S. F. Lacroix. Translated from the French, for the use of the Students of the University at Cambridge, New England. pp. 263. 4. Elements of Geometry, by S. M. Legendre, member of the Institute and the Legion of Honor, of the Royal Society of London, &c. Translated from the French for the use of the students of the University at Cambridge, New England. pp. 208. Cambridge, N. E. Hilliard & Metcalf, 1818-1820. THESE four volumes form part of a course of pure mathematics, intended for the use of the students at the university of Cambridge. The two first, containing the Arithmetic and Euler's Algebra, are to be studied previous to admission into college; the others form the text books of instruction at the university. A fifth volume has already appeared, containing Trigonometry and Analytical Geometry, and will be followed, we understand, in a few weeks, by a sixth, to contain the usual applications, and complete the course. It is sometimes objected to the study of mathematics, that it contracts the mind, and, by circumscribing its view, opposes the exercise of invention; that it tends to form a mechanical and skeptical character, rendering the mind incapable of comprehending an extensive subject, and insensible to those nice shades of evidence, and unsusceptible of that accurate perception of beauty and truth, so requisite to quick and fair judg ment in matters of taste and morals. This charge, if well founded, would be sufficient to prove this study to be dangerous; and we have no doubt that a belief more or less confident, of its justice, still operates on many persons in prejudice of mathematical pursuits. It would not be difficult, by reasoning on the nature of the science, and its necessary effects on the mind, to obviate most of these objections. We might mention the many surprising discoveries that have been made in it, and the power of making them, which the study of certain parts communicates, by leading the mind along the natural path of invention. We might show, that if, on the one hand, the view is circumscribed in a particular proposition, while the attention is fixed to a single point; so, on the other, few employments give exercise to a greater grasp and comprehension of mind than the keeping in sight an ultimate object, through all the parts of a long mathematical treatise, and observing the bearing, which each argument and each proposition have on the final one. We might notice too the nature of the investigations in the higher algebra, more abstract and general than the language employed in the metaphysical and moral sciences will admit. In fine, if exposing our weakness could add to our strength, we might point to those parts of analysis, where the path of discovery is so dark, and the mental process so subtle and evanescent, that the most profound masters, while they have with wonder admitted the certainty of the conclusion, have been staggered and divided about the nature, and even the truth of the principles, by which it is attained. But it is unnecessary to confute by argument, when we have such unbounded evidence from history how groundless are these objections. We may then ask whether all the geometry of Greece could quench or restrain the creative genius and glowing imagination of Plato? Whether the astonishing reach of mind, the proud originality and independence, the faultless taste and eloquent sensibility displayed in the most perfect w strong pre cal cultiv the human this bound regulating tration, or imagery o exquisite for years fessorship It is chi of instruct that we pro gene to the strong and sooner, and great advan to call that founded on Greek. Th ment and cu instruction i to call forth faculties; a tion of his we know no of the mind, and Greek. for the purp delicate disc the differend ics which en defined. B ing, differin beauty of an |