suppose he had lefs conviction of the mifchief he was doing; and it is also impoffible to suppose, that he could seriously think any obligation to print Bolingbroke's infidelity, in confequence of his injunction, equivalent to the obligation he was under to fupprefs it, arifing from the duty, which, as a man, he owed to human nature.'

This obfervation of the Editor's is undoubtedly right, on the fuppofition of his lordship's writings, here alluded to, being intended to fubvert all religion, as the Editor's mode of expreffion feems to imply but if, on a candid examination, and with an unlimited veneration for truth, and truth only, it fhould appear that Lord B. was only a mistaken writer, and did not publish his fentiments merely on that principle of diabolism here charged upon him, but only to controvert a system which he was fo unhappy as not to believe,-will not this cenfure, then, appear to have been fomewhat uncharitably, and too harfhly, expreffed? and will it not seem to be a cruel infult on the noble writer's memory? With all his faults, furely Lord Bolingbroke was a man, though, perhaps, an erring and inconfiftent one; but our humane and generous Editor chufes to rake up his afhes, and hold them up to the abhorrence of mankind, as though every particle of them were a devil!-How differently, how handsomely, and with what delicacy does Lord Cornbury exprefs his fentiments on the fame fubject, in his letter to Mr. Mallet, on hearing that he was appointed to publish Lord B's pofthumous works! We are obliged to our Editor for inferting, in this collection, a copy of that letter, together with Mr. Mallet's anfwer, from the originals depofited in the British Museum, by the widow Mallet; and our Readers will, no doubt be glad to see them.

• Lord Hyde to David Mallet, Efq;

Paris, March 7, N. S. 1752.

I learn from England, Sir, that Lord Bolingbroke has left his manuscripts to you. His friends muft fee with fatisfaction thofe title-deeds of his reputation in the hands of the Author of the life of the great Lord Bacon; and you will have had the diftinguished honour of having been guardian to the fame of two of the greatest geniuses which our country, and perhaps humanity, has produced; but with greater honour to you in this last inftance, because you are fuch by the defignation and choice of the Author himself.

'What works of his you may have for the public I know not. That, for which I was folicitous, because I believe it would be most inftructive to the world, and might be moft for his honour, he told me himself he had laid afide; I mean the history of the great tranfactions of Europe from the time when he began to confider and know them. There remains of that, I believe,

no

no more than a fummary review; which I had the good for tune fome time ago to draw from him, upon an application which I made to him to direct me in the ftudy of history. You will probably have feen that fummary review, which is in a collection of letters upon hiftory, which he did me the honour to write me. It is but a sketch of the work he had propofed to himself; but it is the fketch of Lord Bolingbroke. He will probably have told you, that thofe letters were by his direction delivered up by me to Mr. Pope, who burnt, as he told me, the manufcripts, and printed off by a private prefs fome very few copies, which were to be confidered ftill as manuscripts, one of which Mr. Pope kept, and fent another to Lord Bolingbroke. Sir William Wyndham, Lord Bathurst, Lord Marchmont, Mr. Murray, and Mr. Lyttelton, I think, had each one. I do not remember to have been told of any copies given, except to myfelf, who have always preferved mine, as I would a MS. which was not my own, obferving not only the reftrictions which Lord Bolingbroke himself had recommended to me, but fecuring likewife, as far as I could, even in cafe of my death, that this work fhould never become public from that copy, which is in my poffeffion. I enlarge upon this, because I think myself particularly obliged, out of regard to Lord Bolingbroke, to give this account of that work to the person whom he has entrusted with all his writings, in cafe you might not have known this particularity. And at the fame time I think it my duty, to the memory of Lord Bolingbroke, to myfelf, and to the world too, to fay fomething more to you in relation to this work.

It is a work, Sir, which will inftruct mankind, and do honour to its Author; and yet I will take upon me to say, that for the fake of both, you must publish it with caution.

The greatest men have their faults, and fometimes the greateft faults; but the faults of fuperior minds are the least indifferent, both to themselves and to fociety. Humanity is interefted in the fame of those who excelled in it; but it is interefted before all in the good of fociety, and in the peace of the minds of the individuals that compofe it. Lord Bolingbroke's mind embraced all objects, and looked far into all; but not without a ftrong mixture of paffions, which will always neceffarily beget fome prejudices, and follow more. And on the fubject of Religion particularly (whatever was the motive that inflamed his paffions upon that fubject chiefly) his paffions were the moft ftrong; and I will venture to fay (when called upon, as I think, to fay what I have faid more than once to himself, with the deference due to his age and extraordinary talents), his paffions upon that fubject did prevent his otherwife fuperior reafon from feeing, that, even in a political light only, he hurt himself,

himself, and wounded fociety, by striking at establishments, upon which the conduct at leaft of fociety depends, and by ftriving to overturn in men's minds the fyftems which experience at leaft has juftified, and which authority at least has rendered refpectable, as neceflary to public order and to private peace, without fuggefting to their minds a better, or indeed any fyftem. 'You will find, Sir, what I fay to be true in a part of the work I mentioned, where he digreffes upon the criticism of church history.

"While this work remained in the hands only of those I have mentioned (except, as I have been telling you, to himself and to them in private converfation) I have otherwise been filent upon that fubject; but I must now fay to you, Sir, that for the world's fake and for his, that part of the work ought by no means to be communicated further. And you fee, that it is a digreffion not neceffary to that work. If this digression should be made public, it will be cenfured, it must be cenfured, it ought to be cenfured. It will be criticifed too by able pens, whofe erudition, as well as their reafonings, will not be eafily anfwered. In fuch a cafe, I fhall owe to myself and to the world to disclaim publicly that part of a work, which he did me the honour to addrefs to me; but I owe to the regard which he has fometimes expreffed for me, to difclaim it rather privately to you, Sir, who are intrufted with his writings, and to recommend to you to fupprefs that part of the work, as a good citizen of the world, for the world's peace, as one intrufted and obliged by Lord Bolingbroke, not to raise new ftorms to his memory.

I am, Sir, your very humble fervant, Hyde.'

This polite and delicate letter (we fpeak not, altogether, of the language in which it is written) is, as our Editor very juftly obferves, a monument that will do more honour to Lord Cornbury's memory*, than all that mere wit or valour has atchieved fince the world began.'-The following is Mr. Mallet's answer:

• My Lord,

I received a very real pleafure, and at the fame time a fenfible concern, from the letter your lordship has honoured me with. Nothing could be more agreeable to me than the favourable opinion of one, whom I have long admired for every quality that enters into an eftimable and an amiable character; but then nothing can occafion me more uneafinefs than not to be able to fupprefs that part of a work which you would have kept from public view.

The book was printed off before your lordship's letter reached my hands; but this confideration alone would have appeared This worthy nobleman died in the year following the date of the foregoing letter, by a fall from his horse. D. v. Ju'

F

trifling

trifling to me. I apprehend, that I cannot, without being unfaithful to the truft reposed in me, omit or alter any thing in those works, which my Lord Bolingbroke had deliberately prepared for the prefs, and I will publifh no other. As to this in particular, his repeated commands to me were, that it fhould be printed exactly according to the copy he himself, in all the leifure of retirement, had corrected with that view.

Upon the whole, if your lordship fhould think it neceffary to difclaim the reflections on Sacred Hiftory, by which I prefume is meant fome public and authentic declaration, that your notions on this head differ intirely from thofe of your noble friend; even in this cafe I am fure you will do it with all the delicacy natural to your own disposition, and with all the tendernefs to his memory, that the particular regard he always bore you can deferve. I am, with the greatest refpect,

6 My Lord, &c.

On Mr. Mallet's letter no remarks are neceffary; and we fhould now return to the remaining contents of the fecond volume of this collection: but the article being extended to a length fufficient for one of our numbers, we muft refume the fubject in our next.

Observations on the Statutes, chiefly the more ancient, from Magna Charta to the twenty-first of fames the First, Ch. xxvii. with an Appendix; being a Propofal for new modelling the Statutes. Quarto. 14 s. bound. Baker, &c.

TH

HE vaft bulk, confufion, and inconfiftency, of our statute law, has long remained a reproach to the legislation of this country: and for ages paft, all who have thought on the fubject, have acknowledged the neceffity of retrenching and methodizing them by rejecting fuch as are obfolete or expired, and digesting the feveral difcordant acts relative to the fame matter, into one clear and uniform law.

But before a tafk of this nature is undertaken, it is requifite not only that they who attempt it fhould have a competent knowledge of the antient and modern ftatutes, but that there fhould be leifure, unanimity, and induftry, in the legislature, to revife and perfect their labours.

The oblervations before us will be of great ufe to any one who would wish to be thoroughly acquainted with the meaning and spirit of our antiquated laws: and the learned obfervator has, by his lively and ingenious illuftrations, rendered fo dry a purfuit perfectly entertaining.

A work of this kind, which is a comment on feveral ftatutes relative to various fubjects, does not admit of being epitomized;

bus

but we earnestly reccommend it to the perufal of the curious Reader; we can only add in general, that the Writer difcovers a vaft fund of learning, both legal and claffical, and difplays great judgement and acuteness in the application of it.

What principally recommends thefe obfervations however, and what is indeed one of the greatest excellencies in a lawyer, (for fuch we prefume the obfervator to be) is the laudable. attention he pays, throughout, to the principles of liberty; but which more particularly appears in the following comment on the ftatute of the 3 Ed. I. concerning those who spread falfe news, &c. to create difcord between the king and his people.

"Scandal and defamation," fays the Obfervator, " must at this time have been chiefly propagated by converfation, as few could read, and still fewer could write-The Rev. Mr. Percy, in his curious Collection of antient ballads (published in 1765) hath given us a fatyre or libel upon Richard, king of the Romans, and brother to Henry the Third, which was wrote by one of the adherents to Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicefter. This ballad, Mr. Percy fays, affords a curious fpecimen of the liberty affumed by the good people of this land, of abufing their kings and princes at pleafure-As the ballad (by a circumftance) is fixed to have been written in the year 1265, which was but feven years before the paffing of the prefent ftatute, it is not improbable, that it might have occafioned this part of the law. -Be this as it may, we do not find much in the year books, or other old reporters, till the great cafe, entitled, xxt' ikony, de libellis famofis (in Lord Coke's 5th report) which is the foundation of what hath fince been confidered as law with respect to libels, and which was determined in the third year of King James the First, by which time printing began to be tolerably cheap. As every thing which relates to the publication of what may be deemed a libel, is of fo interefting a nature to the liberty of the fubject (ever so closely connected with the liberty of the prefs), I hope I may be indulged in fome few obfervations upon the doctrine delivered in that cafe, and the particular circumstances which might occafion an extraordinary zeal and warmth in the court-The libel then condemned was a fatyrical ballad (at least it is stated to be a compofition in metre) upon an archbishop of Canterbury, who was then dead, and likewife his fucceffor-An archbishop of Canterbury, in more modern times, would probably have only laughed at it, or invited the author to dinner; but the then archbishop (under pretence of the infult upon the memory of his predeceffor) brought the confitentem reum before that English inquifition the Star-chamber-The archbishop was the first judge, from his rank at least, in this tyrannical court, and therefore an infult upon the prefident could not but excite their warmeft indignaVol. XXXII. p. 242,