frequently paffed a majority, as he would be afhamed to advance in private converfation. I fay nothing of cruelty, oppreffion, injustice, and the like, because these are fairly to be accounted for in all affemblies, as beft gratifying the paffions and interests of leaders; which is a point of such high confideration, that all others must give place to it. But I would be understood here to speak only of opinions ridiculous, foolish, and abfurd; with conclufions and actions fuitable to them, at the fame time when the most reasonable propofitions are often unanimously rejected. And as all affemblies of men are liable to this accufation, fo likewise there are natural abfurdities from which the wifeft ftates are not exempt; which proceed less from the nature of their climate, than that of their government; the Gauls, the Britons, the Spaniards, and Italians, having retained very little of the characters given them in antient hiftory.

By these, and the like reflections, I have been often led to confider fome public abfurdities in our own country, moft of which are, in my opinion, directly against the rules of right reason, and are attended with great inconveniencies to the state. I fhall mention fuch of them as come into memory, without obferving any method; and I fhall give my reason why I take them to be abfurd in their nature, and pernicious in their consequence.

It is abfurd that any perfon, who profeffes a different form of worship, from that which is national, should be trufted with a vote for electing members into the house of commons: because every

man

man is full of zeal for his own religion, although he regards not morality; and therefore will endeavour to his utmost, to bring in a reprefentative of his own principles, which, if they be popular, may endanger the religion established; and which, as it has formerly happened, may alter the whole frame of government.

A standing army in England, whether in time of peace or war, is a direct abfurdity: for it is no part of our business to be a warlike nation, otherwife than by our fleets. In foreign wars we have no concern, farther than in conjunction with allies, whom we may either affift by fea, or by foreign troops paid with our money: but mercenary troops in England, can be of no ufe, except to awe senates, and thereby promote arbitrary power, in a monarchy, or oligarchy.

That the election of fenators fhould be of any charge to the candidates, is an abfurdity; but that it fhould be fo to a miniftry, is a manifeft acknowledgement of the worst designs. If a ministry intended the fervice of their prince and country, or well understood wherein their own security best confifted, (as it is impoffible that a parliament freely elected, according to the original institution, can do any hurt to a tolerable prince or tolerable ministry) they would use the strongest methods to leave the people to their own free choice: the members would then confift of persons, who had best estates in the neighbourhood or county, or at least, never of ftrangers. And furely this is at least full as requifite a circumftance to a legiflator, as to VOL. X.

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a jury

a juryman, who ought to be, if poffible, ex vicinio; fince fuch perfons, muft be fuppofed the best judges, of the wants and defires, of their several boroughs and counties. To choofe a representative for Berwick, whofe eftate is at Land's End, would have been thought in former times a very great folecifm. How much more as it is at prefent, where fo many perfons are returned for boroughs, who do not poffefs a foot of land in the kingdom?

By the old conftitution, whoever poffeffed a freehold in land, by which he was a gainer of forty fhillings a year, had the privilege to vote for a knight of the fhire. The good effects of this law are wholly eluded, partly by the courfe of time, and partly by corruption. Forty fhillings, in those ages, were equal to twenty pounds in ours; and therefore it was then a want of fagacity, to fix that privilege to a determinate fum, rather than to a certain quantity of land, arable or pasture, able to produce a certain quantity of corn or hay. And therefore it is highly abfurd, and against the intent of the law, that this defect is not regulated.

But the matter is ftill worfe; for any gentleman can, upon occafion, make as many freeholders, as his eftate or fettlement will allow, by making leafes for life of land at a rack rent of forty fhillings; where a tenant, who is not worth one farthing a year when his rent is paid, fhall be held a legal voter for a perfon to reprefent his county. Neither do I enter into half the frauds that are practifed upon this occafion.

It is likewife abfurd, that boroughs decayed are not abfolutely extinguished, because the returned members do in reality reprefent nobody at all; and that several large towns are not reprefented, though full of induftrious townfmen, who much advance the trade of the kingdom.

The claim of fenators, to have themselves and fervants exempted from law-fuits and arrefts, is manifeftly abfurd. The proceedings at law are already so fcandalous a grievance, upon account of the delays, that they little need any addition. Whoever is either not able, or not willing, to pay his juft debts, or, to keep other men out of their lands, would evade the decifion of the law, is furely but ill-qualified to be a legiflator. A criminal with as good reafon might fit on the bench, with a power of condemning men to be hanged for their honefty. By the annual fitting of parliaments, and the days of privilege preceding and fubfequent, a fenator is one half of the year beyond the reach of common juftice.

That the facred perfon of a fenator's footman shall be free from arreft, although he undoes the poor ale-wife by running on fcore, is a circumftance of equal wifdom and justice, to avoid the great evil of his master's lady wanting her complement of liveries behind the coach.

SHORT

REMARKS

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BISHOP BURNET'S HISTORY,

T

HIS author is in moft particulars the worst qualified for an hiftorian that ever I met with. His ftyle is rough, full of improprieties, in expreffions often Scotch, and often fuch as are used by the meanest people. He discovers a great scarcity of words and phrases, by repeating the same feveral hundred times, for want of capacity to vary them. His observations are mean and trite, and often falfe. His Secret History is generally very made up of coffee-houfe fcandals, or at best from reports at the third, fourth, or fifth hand. The account of the Pretender's birth, would only become an old woman in a chimney-corner. His vanity runs intolerably through the whole book, affecting to have been of confequence at nineteen years old, and while he was a little Scotch parfon of 40 pounds a year. He was a gentleman born, and in the time of his youth and vigour, drew in an old maiden daughter of a Scotch Earl to marry him. His characters are miferably wrought, in many things mistaken, and all of them detracting, except of those who were friends to the Prefbyterians.

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