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of M. Michaelis fuch a number of miftakes in making three or four thousand quotations, fome allowance ought furely to be made for Wetftein, who, in his moft laborious edition of the New Teftament, has produced a million of quotations. At the fame time, it should be remembered that the feverity of the Profeffor's ftrictures on Wetstein and others, in this chapter, does not proceed from the acrimony of criticifm; they are merely offered with a view of demonftrating the want of a new and accurate critical edition of the Greek Teftament. He particularly enumerates the qualifications for this undertaking; and, as it must be a work of vaft labour, too much for the greatest Hercules. in literature, he recommends a junction of learned men: but, when he observes that the learned in general are not of a social difpofition, he could have cherished no very fanguine hopes of its execution.

The last chapter, on the marks of diftinction and divifions of the New Teftament, equally evinces the unwearied attention which the Profeffor has paid to every part of his fubject.

Long as our account has been of this work, we quit it with the consciousness of not having done it the juftice which it merits. It will be found a very valuable library or stock book for Divines, opening a fpacious field for study, and containing many important hints and references. Whoever takes the pains to compare this 4th with the first edition will be fenfible of its far fuperior excellence; and, while he notices the Profeffor's change of opinion in feveral inftances, he will regard this as an almoft neceffary confequence of a real advancement in science. Ignorance is generally obftinate and pertinacious: but he who purfues his inquiries in the fields of literature will often be forced to abandon, as error, that which he once embraced for truth. He who paffes through life with the fame fentiments can have made no great additions to the stock of his knowlege.

As to the English editor, he has executed his talk with fo much ability, that the church in this country will no doubt Frepare for him fome diftinguifhed reward; while scholars on the continent will deem the University of Cambridge honoured by fuch a member, and will combine his fame with that of the learned German Profeffor.

IN

ART. VI. Major Cartwright's" Commonwealth in Danger." [Art. concluded from the laft Review, page 465.].

N fome parts of this work, our author makes diftinctions of interefts between different claffes of fociety, which in our opinion are as ill-founded in theory as they are in practice: his error, however, is amiable, for it flows from his philan

thropy;

thropy; he feels for the diftreffes of men in the humbler walks of life, and wishes to give them a weight and a consequence which ought to belong to them as fellow men. On this principle, he thus exclaims, p. 89.

What would be the condition of political fociety if the husbandman and the artizan 'were not members of it? Where would be the wealth, the ftrength, or grandeur of the ftate, if these perfons were abstracted? Would not grafs grow in our streets, and the country be a defart? Strip things of their outfide fhew, and men of external advantages, and then tell me whether he who weaves, or he who wears, the broad-cloth, is the most useful member of political fociety; or whether those whofe productive labour actually create the wealth of the state, and all the means of revenue, or those whofe only merit, like that of the hog in the ftie, is to confume, and to live on the labour of others, moft deferve the title of citizens.'

Inftead of afking which is the more useful member of fociety, the weaver or the wearer of broad cloth, we think that the author would have done better if, without depreciating either, he had contended that they were both neceffary to and dependant on each other. The wearer must certainly go naked, if there were no weaver; and the latter, who now lives exclufively by weaving, muft look out for fome other means of subfiftence, if he had to manufacture cloth only for his own confumption. We all have wants which all cannot supply; the fenfe of those wants ought to make us feel that we are all neceffary to each other, and fhould convince us that no class of men in the state can be truly called independent. The author will eafily fee to what we point our objection; and he will have candour enough to believe that we can have no wish but to fecond him in his efforts to fecure to every defcription of men, who are not criminals, nor ideots, the full enjoyment of those civil rights which make their liberty and property as fecure under the law, as even the highest and most favoured prerogative of the crown. What we principally would discountenance is that mode of reafoning, which feems to perceive no other way of bringing men to a level than by pulling down the clafs that is high we think it would be more worthy of an enlightened mind to make the level by raifing the depreffed fet to the height of the other.

Major Cartwright, it feems, would not reft perfectly fatisfied with merely the adoption of his own plan of arming all taxed housekeepers, and granting the right of univerfal fuffrage. There are other reforms which, in his opinion, ought also to take place but then he appears to think that they would affect rather the forms than the effence of our conftitution. He does not like that the king should be confidered as the fountain of legislation;

D 3

nor

nor that the laws fhould be faid to be made by his Majefty, by and with the confent of the Lords and Commons, according to the general ftyle of our acts of parliament: would not the style, he asks, run full as well thus:

"Be it therefore enacted by the people of this Commonwealth in Parliament affembled, with the counsel and affent of the Lords of Parliament and his Majefty, and by the fovereign authority of the fame."

In answer, we would obferve that he himself has elsewhere remarked that, notwithstanding the external appearances and trappings of state, the king of England was in reality no more than the chief magiftrate of a difguifed commonwealth. In other places, he objects only to the terms monarchy and monarch, as giving falfe notions of the English conftitution, in which the government is not in one man; and he fays that kingdom and king are well calculated to exprefs the true idea of this office and of the officer under our conftitution. Why then should we differ about mere words or forms, when the fubftance of liberty is in no way affected by them? If he were for abolishing the office. which certainly is not his object, then it would be of importance to make a change in certain names and forms: but, under the present circumftances, to call for fuch a change would naturally create alarms, and would make the enemies of reform feriously think that, in withstanding it, they were the champions of the conftitution. For our part, we believe Major C. to be a fteady supporter of limited royalty: but we confess that, if we entertained a contrary opinion, there are paffages in his work that would alarm us. We will lay fome of them before

our readers:

Having thus finished my obfervations on this chapter of Harrington, fo applicable to the healing measure I recommend; of calling our government by name, what we know it to be in fact, a COMMONWEALTH, let me explain the propriety of accommodating our language and our law to this juft, this neceffary, this important diflinction; a want of attention to which has too long caufed much incon. fiftency, much confufion of ideas, and much mischief. Our prefent legal language,, as well as what may be called our language of ftate, feems almoft wholly derived from the idea of living under a monarchy, and were fit only for fuch an arbitrary fyftem. Towards the king, it is a language of falsehood and fervile adulation, difgraceful to a free nation: towards the people, it is humiliating and degrading. It is a language which, if a king be not more than mortal, muft poifon his mind with defpotic ideas; and implant in it prejudices against the liberties of the people, which no information, no advice, no experience, can ever eradicate. All the lawyers and all their books, by monftrous fictions grounded on the pretenfions of feudal tyrants, fuppofe the king to be fole proprietor of all our lands, the fole fource of all our laws, and fovereign lord of all things and all perfons, in his Majefty's dominions.

• Hence

Hence all writs run in the king's name; no man kills a hare on his own manor, but under an authority fuppofed to flow from the grace and favour of the monarch, as Lord Paramount of all manors; and if, while his Majefty is botanizing at Kew, or amusing himself with cards at Windfor, two fifhwives pull caps at Billingfgate, and cause a fray in the street, it is " against the peace of our fovereign lord the king, his crown and dignity." Nay; the state, forfooth has no "collected will;" the millions do not even make our legiflative acts;-it is the king only who enacts, in and to which, indeed, the lords and commons advise and affent; and in the tail of the paragraph, I fuppofe by way of a little flattery, there is a bare admiffion of their having fome joint authority in the proceeding.'

• Lefs than what he (the author) has done, he could not reconcile to his own mind, when he contemplated the awful fituation of his country and of Europe; and the ftupendous difpenfations of Providence which are fo evidently operating a great change in the condition of the human race; preparing them by means of political reformation for the great moral reformation which is to follow. At fuch a period,--a period when all court policy is baffled by the ground it ftands on finking under it ;a period when the triumphs and the energies of republicanism on both fides the Atlantic, proclaim it to be the fpecies of government for every one who prefers the dignity of being a citizen to the debafement of being a fubje&t;—and a period to which the finger of divine prophecy more than feventeen hundred years ago diftinctly pointed, as to a time of awful events; and, in countries of great political depravity, but too probably, of a new chaos and a new creation, as in one inftance, we have already feen ;————'

In the abstract, it is certainly true that the republican form of government is calculated to give citizens a high opinion of themselves in the ftate; to eftablish the reign of the law; to fecure every class of individuals from oppreffion; to make the legiflature have conftantly for its object the common good, and the executive power to act with integrity under the eye of a people ever on the watch but it cannot be true that a man, who gives a preference to a republic, who thinks it the fpecies of government for every one who prefers the dignity of being a citizen to the debasement of being a fubject, can be a zealous fupporter of the British conftitution. He may be a very worthy honeft, upright, and well-meaning man; he may have in view the melioration of the condition of mankind: but he cannot be an admirer of a government by king, lords, and commons. Now, as we know that our author has ever expressed himself in praise of the conftitution of his country, and that it has been the ftudy of his life to renovate it, not to innovate on it, we are willing to hope that this little fally in favour of republicanifm was not the refult of any fettled predilection, but that he was betrayed into it only by a fudden admiration of the splendid victories that have been gained under its ftandard; or perhaps

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by an indignation of which we fhall perhaps hereafter see the caufe.

The following paffage will ferve to fhew that our author bears no ill-will to the royal and ariftocratic branches of our conftitution:

To his Majesty and the nobles of the land, the writer particularly and most earnestly recommends a difpaffionate confideration of what he has offered. In advifing them for their welfare, they have this ground for confiding in his fincerity, thas he has not been in the habit of courting their fmiles, nor of flattering their paffions. Under their own roofs, he wishes them advisers equally faithful; and equally folicitous to point out to them the things that belong to their peace, their intereft, and their honour.'

The confequences of the entrance of a victorious French army into London he thus defcribes :

Should the tri-coloured flag once fly on the Tower of London, from that moment, whatever might be the fate of the people, the privileges of nobility and the regal office must be annihilated. But confequences ftill more ferious might be found in the train of fuch an event. By a conqueft of this ifland, not only the British navy would be added to the marine of France; but Ireland also must fall; and the British empire in Afia and the West Indies be transferred to the conquerors; then truly poffeffing the dominion of the fea from pole to pole. Tell me not, that, with fuch prizes to contend for,-prizes which the conqueft of this island gives at once,-France will attack you at a distance and in detail !-No: If you put not instantly on the complete armour of reprefentation, and wield not the potent fword of a Saxon militia, you are a fubdued people! Succefs in this enterprise would fatisfy the great ambition of France. By making and occupying fuch conquefts, fhe would be difburdened of armies too numerous to be received back into her bofom: and the Convention, crowned with glory, and enjoying the full confidence of their constituents, would then have an opportunity of clofing their revolutionary labours, by giving a lafting conftitution and repofe to their country.'

We believe with our author that all thofe confequences would follow, were the French to be once masters of London: but we also believe that the decided fuperiority of our navy will prevent them from landing on our coaft; or that, fhould they, contrary to all probability, be able to elude the vigilance of our fleets, and to make good a landing, they will find their way to the grave much fooner than to London.

It was not to be fuppofed at this period that Major C. could write on the subject of reform, without touching on the late profecutions for high treafon. These extraordinary trials having already occupied fo much of the public attention, we will take little notice of them here: but we think that we owe it to the character of our author to make one extract, from the introduction,

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