confiftent with Magna Charta. That ftatute, it is true, does not condemn the practice of preffing in exprefs, terms, but it fays, that "no man fhali be taken, but by the judgment of

his peers, or by the law of the land. Now, by thefe words the law of the land, is to be understood without due process of law; as may be collected from the expofition of a fubfequent fatute, and of the ablest commentators. If this therefore be the true interpretation of those words, it will be difficult to prove that the practice of preffing, is confiftent with the claufe in question.

At the fame time, it must be admitted, that, in cases of neceffity, the public has a right to the fervice of mariners. But whenever the falus populi, the fupreme law, requires this ufeful body of men, to be, by force, put under hardships fo inconfiftent with the temper and genius of a free government; this neceffity may be provided for by a temporary ftatute, as it was in the reign of Charles the ift, and as has been practifed with refpect to marines: for it is not eafy to affign a valid reafon, why the liberty of a mariner, fhould not be as fecure as that of a marine.

It will be unneceffary to dwell longer on the subject of thefe reports. We will only obferve, that, among other remarkable cafes, is that of the thieftakers, which is very fully reported with the arguments of the judges; and which is a remarkable inftance of the great caution and tenderness of our law. The reader will likewife find the cafe of the earl of Ferrers, on which the two following questions were put to the judges.

1. Whether a peer indicted of felony and murder, and tried and convicted thereof before the lords in parliament, ought to receive judgment for the fame according to the provifions of the act of parliament of the 25th year of his majefty's reign?

2. Suppofing a peer fo indicted and convicted ought by law to receive fuch judgment as aforefaid, and the day appointed by the judgment for execution fhould lapfe before hexecution done, whether a new time may be appointed execution, and by whom?

opinion with regard to the first point, is well known event of the Earl's execution. As to the fecond, fwered thus, " Suppofing the day appointed by the it for execution fhould lapfe before fuch execution

done,

(which however the law will not prefume) we are all of opinion, that a new time may be appointed for the execution; either by the bigh Court of Parliament, before which fuch peer fhall have been attainted, or by the Court of King's Bench, the parliament not then fitting; the record of the attainder being properly removed into that court."

The reafons given in fupport of their opinion concerning the fecond queftion, are curious: and we must not omit to take notice of a diftinction, little known, which is here made between a proceeding in the court of the High Steward, and that before the King in Parliament. The name, ftile and title of office is the fame in both cafes; but the office, the powers and preheminences annexed to it differ very widely. In the court of the High Steward, he alone is judge in all points of law and practice. The peers triers are merely judges of fact.-But in a trial of a peer in full parliament, or, to fpeak with legal precifion, before the king in parliament, for a capital offence, the cafe is quite otherwife. Every peer prefent at the trial, voteth upon every question of law and fact; and the question is carried by the major vote; the high fteward himself voting merely as a peer, and member of that court, in common with the rest of the peers, and in no other light.

In short, it may be concluded from the reafons here affigned, that the High Steward is only as chairman, or speaker, pro tempore, during the trial, and until judgment, for the fake of regularity and order; many inftances being cited, where the court hath done various acts, plainly judicial, before the appointment of an High Steward, and ever after the commiffion diffolved.

Hitherto the learned Judge has appeared in the light of a reporter, but it is from the four difcourfes annexed to the report, that he will derive most honour, and that his readers will reap most benefit. The first relates to the fubject of High Treafon, on which head, he takes occafion to cenfure the unbecoming part which king James took in a profecu tion for High Treafon, by condescending to inftruct the attorney-general (Bacon) who fubmitted to the drudgery of founding the opinions of the judges upon the point of law, before it was thought adviseable to risk it at an open trial. "Is it poffible," the writer thus nobly expreffes himself, 4 that a gentleman of Bacon's great talents could fubmit to fervice fo much below his rank and character? But he fubmitted to it, and acquitted himself notably in it. AvaREV. Aug. 1762.

K

rice

rice, I think, was not his ruling paffion. But whenever a falfe ambition, ever reftlefs in the purfuit of the honours which the crown alone can confer, happeneth to ftimulate a heart otherwife formed for great and noble purfuits, it hath frequently betrayed it into meafures full as mean as avarice itfelf could have fuggefted, to the wretched animals who live and die under her dominion. For theie paffions, however they may feem to be at variance, have ordinarily produced the fame effects. Both degrade the man, both contract his views into the little point of felf-intereft, and equally steel the heart against the rebukes of confcience, or the fenfe of true honour." Every reader of fenfibility muft applaud the good sense, spirit and dignity of these reflections; and if any thing can add force to these indignant fentiments, it is the circumftance of their proceeding from one of the Judges of a court, generally thought too much inclined to favour the prerogative.

The two following difcourfes treat of homicide, and of accomplices. In the laft, the learned Judge animadverts on Tome paflages in the writings of the lord chief-juftice Hale, relative to the principles of the revolution. His Lordship concludes, from the judgment against Mortimer, that Edward II. in the opinion of thofe times, was STILL A KING, though deprived of the actual administration of his kingdom." This notion Judge Fofter refutes in the most clear and fatiffactory manner.

"Edward II." he obferves," in the interval between his depofition and his death, was most commonly ftiled, as he is in the beginning of this record, Dominis Edwardus nuper Rex Anglia, Pater Domini Regis nunc. But I would not be thought to infer from this record, what may, I think, be reasonably inferred from thofe worded in the fame manner in the life time of the king. For this being a proceeding after his death, he was with ftrict propriety tiled Nuper Rex, whatever opinion the parliament might entertain concerning him, or the proceedings against him. What I would obferve is, that as the words nuper rex import no more than that he lately was King, and do by no means imply that he continued fo to his death, it cannot be inferred from any thing in this record, that in the opinion of that parliament he did continue to bear the regal character after his depofition. This, I say, cannot be inferred from the words nuper rex. And the words upon which his Lordfhip groundeth his opinion, Ipfius domini regit,predicti domini regis, &c. &c. have in this record

7

a plain

a plain reference to the perfon named at the beginning under the ftile of Nuper Rex."

He proves from other inconteftible arguments, that the treafon with which Mortimer was charged was confidered as a treafon against the king on the throne, and him alone.Such as the charge of accrcaching royal power, which could never be confidered in any other light, than as an offence against the crown and dignity of him, who, for the time being, was actually invested with the regal power.

The learned Judge then proceeds to refute other notions of Lord Hale, which are injurious to the principles of the Revolution: and he obferves, that the radical mistake of the advocates for hereditary right, arifes from this, "They seem not to have fufficiently attended to the nature and ends of civil power, whereof the regal dignity is a principal branch. They feem to have confidered the crown and royal dignity merely as a defcendable PROPERTY; as an estate or intereft vefted in the poffeffor, for the emolument and grandeur of himself and heirs, in a regular invariable course of descent. And therefore in queftions touching the fucceffion, they conftantly refort to the fame narrow rules and maxims of law and juftice, by which queftions of meer. property, the title to a pigstye, or a lay-ftall, are governed. And thence conclude, that the legislature itfelf cannot, without manifest injuftice, interrupt the ancient, legal, established order of fucceffion. It cannot, fay they, without injuftice, give to one branch of the Royal Family, what by right of blood belongeth to another.

"Thus they argue. And if I could conceive of the crown, as of an inheritance of meer property, I fhould be tempted to argue in the fame manner. But had they confidered the crown and royal dignity, as a defcendable OFFICE, AS A TRUST for millions, and extending its influence to generations yet unborn: had they confidered it in that light, they would foon have difcovered the principle upon which the right of the legislature to interpofe in cafes of neceffity is manifeftly founded and that is the falus populi, already men¬ tioned upon a like occafion.

"There is, and for many ages paft hath been, a certain order of hereditary fucceffion eftablished among us. But it was for the fake of the whole, and to avoid the many inconveniences to which an uncertain fucceffion is fubject, that this order of hereditary fucceffion ever took place. For nobody

can fay, that this or any other particular mode of government is founded in natural right. Nature discovered the neceffity of civil government, but the feveral modes of it are either matters of choice, or refulting from meer neceffity or accident. Therefore," he concludes, "whenever the fafety of the whole requireth it, they must, like all rules of pofitive inftitution, be fubject to the controul of the fupreme power in every state."

Upon the whole, this able defender of the rights of civil liberty, has clearly expofed the fallacy and abfurdity of that flavifh doctrine, which militates against the principles of the Revolution,-Principles, which every good citizen is bound in duty to support; and which every man of fenfe and fpirit will maintain, from a conviction of their direct tendency to preferve the freedom of the British conftitution, and confequently to promote the happiness of its members.

An Effay on the Bite of a Mad Dog. By Daniel Peter Layard, M. D. Member of the College of Physicians, and of the Royal Society. 8vo. 2 s. 6 d. Rivington.

IN

N this Writer's Preface, which gives a kind of analyfis of his pamphlet, he justly acknowledges the whole of it to be chiefly a compilation, with a modeft vix ea noftra voco; adding, he has only illuftrated and attempted to reconcile the various opinions of others, and to fix upon the most rational method of cure, from a full conviction, that fuch cure is in reality a practicable thing." This circumftance of its compilation (tho' not without frequent infertions, reflections, and even fome cafes from our author) makes it unnecessary to present any formal abstract, from the much greater part of it, to our medical readers, whom we may generally fuppofe provided with the originals Dr. Layard has quoted or referred to. Paffing over therefore the Introduction, and the three firft Sections, (but not without having read them) we come to the fourth, entitled Obfervations.

This fection contains feven cafes; four, of patients bit by mad dogs; two, of perfons bit by a mad cow after the bite of a mad dog; and one of a woman, who tafted, or imagined fhe had tafted, the flaver of this cow, who is faid to have died mad. Of these seven cafes, only one, to our recollection, has been already printed: and all the patients are af