Five o'clock on Wednesday morning we hauled the Anchor, but were soon obliged to drop it again in consequence of a thick fog, which our Captain feared would continue the whole day; but about nine it cleared off and we sailed slowly along, close by the shore of a very beautiful Island forty miles from Cuxhaven, the wind continuing slack. This Holme or Island is about a mile and a half in length, wedge-shaped, well wooded, with glades of the liveliest green, and rendered more interesting by the remarkably neat farm house on it. It seemed made for retirement without solitude-a place that would allure one's Friends while it precluded the impertinent calls of mere Visitors. The shores of the Elbe now became more beautiful, with rich meadows and trees running like a low wall along the River's edge; and peering over them, neat houses and (especially on the right bank) a profusion of steeple-spires, white, black, or red. An instinctive taste teaches men to build their churches in flat countries with spire-steeples, which as they cannot be referred to any other object, point as with silent finger to the sky and stars, and sometimes when they reflect the brazen light of a rich though rainy sun-set, appear like a pyramid of flame burning heaven-ward. I remember once, and once only, to have seen a spire in a narrow valley of a mountainous country. The effect was not only mean but ludicrous, and reminded me against my will of an extinguisher; the close neighbourhood of the high mountain, at the foot of which it stood, had so completely dwarfed it, and deprived it of all connection with the sky or clouds. Forty six English miles from Cuxhaven, and sixteen from Hamburg, the Danish Village Veder ornaments the left bank with its black steeple, and close by it the wild and pastoral Hamlet of Schulau. Hitherto both the right and left bank, green to the very brink and level with the River, resembled the shores of a park canal. The trees and houses were alike low, sometimes the low trees overtopping the yet lower houses, sometimes the low houses rising above the yet lower trees. But at Schulau the left bank rises at once forty or fifty feet, and stares on the River with its perpendicular fassade of sand, thinly patched with tufts of green. The Elbe continued to present a more and more lively spectacle from the multitude of fishing boats and the flocks of sea gulls wheeling round them, the clamorous rivals and companions of the Fishermen; till we came to Blankaness, a most interesting Village scattered amid scattered trees, over three hills in three divisions. Each of the three hills stares upon the River, with faces of bare sand, with which the Boats with their bare poles, standing in files along the banks, made a sort of fantastic harmony. Between each fassade lies a green and woody dell, each deeper than the other. In short it is a large Village made up of individual Cottages, each Cottage in the centre of its own little Wood or Orchard, and each with its own separate path: a Village with a labyrinth of paths, or rather a neighbourhood of Houses! It is inhabited by Fishermen and Boat-makers, the Blankanese Boats being in great request through the whole navigation of the Elbe. Here first we saw the Spires of Hamburg, and from hence as far as Altona the left bank of the Elbe is uncommonly pleasing, considered as the vicinity of an industrious and republican City-in that style of beauty, or rather prettiness, that might tempt the Citizen into the Country and yet gratify the taste which he had acquired in the Town. Summer Houses and Chinese show-work are every where scattered along the high and green banks; the boards of the farm-houses left unplaistered and gaily painted with green and yellow; and scarcely a tree not cut into shapes and made to re-. mind the human being of his own power and intelligence instead of the wisdom of nature. Still, however, these are links of connection between Town and Country, and far better than the affectation of tastes and enjoyments for which mens' habits have disqualified them. Pass them by on Saturdays and Sundays with the Burgers of Hamburg smoking their Pipes, the Women and Children feasting in the Alcoves of Box and Yew, and it becomes a a nature of its own. On Wednesday, four o'clock, we left the Vessel and passing with trouble through the huge masses of Shipping that seemed to choke the wide Elbe from Altona upward, we were at length landed at the Boom House, Hamburg. PENRITH: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. BROWN; AND SOLD BY THE FRIEND. No. 15. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1809. I have not intentionally either hidden or disguised the Truth, like an Advocate ashamed of his Client, or a bribed Accomptant who falsifies the quotient to make the Bankrupt's Ledgers square with the Creditor's Inventory. My conscience forbids the use of falsehood and the arts of concealment and were it otherwise, yet I am persuaded, that a system which has produced and protected so great prosperity, cannot stand in need of them. If therefore Honesty and the Knowledge of the whole Truth be the things you aim at, you will find my principles suited to your ends and as I like not the democratic forms, so am I not fond of any others above the rest. That a succession of wise and godly men may be secured to the nation in the highest power, is that to which I have directed your attention in this Essay, which if you will read, perhaps you may see the error of those principles which have led you into errors of practice. I wrote it purposely for the use of the multitude of well-meaning people, that are tempted in these times to usurp Authority and meddle with Government before they have any call from Duty or tolerable understanding of its' Principles. I never intended it for Learned Men versed in Politics; but for such as will be Practitioners before they have been Students. BAXTER'S Holy Commonwealth, or Political Aphorisms. THE metaphysical (or as I have proposed to call them, metapolitical) reasonings hitherto discussed, belong to Government in the abstract. But there is a second class of Reasoners, who argue for a change in our government from former usage and from Statutes still in force or which have been repealed, (so these writers affirm) either through a corrupt influence, or to ward off temporary hazard or inconvenience. This Class, which is rendered illustrious by the names of many intelligent and virtuous Patriots, are Advocates for reform in the literal sense of the word. They wish to bring back the Government of Great Britain to a certain form, which they affirm it to have once possessed and would melt the bullion anew in order to recast it in the original mould. The answer to all arguments of this nature is obvious, and to my understanding appears decisive. These Reformers assume the character of Legislators or of Advisers of the Legislature, not that of Law Judges or of appellants to Courts of Law. Sundry Statutes concerning the rights of electors and the mode of election still exist; so likewise do sundry statutes on other subjects (on Witchcraft for instance) which change of circumstances have rendered obsolete, or increased information shewn to be absurd. It is evident, therefore, that the expediency of the regulations prescribed by them and their suitableness to the existing circumstances of the Kingdom, must first be proved and on this proof must be rested all rational elaims for the enforcement of the Statutes that have not, no less than for the re-enacting of those that have been, repealed. If the authority of the men, who first enacted the Laws in question, is to weigh with us, it must be on the presumption that they were wise men. But the wis dom of Legislation consists in the adaptation of Laws to Circumstances. If then it can be proved, that the circumstances, under which those laws were enacted, no longer exist; and that other circumstances altogether different, and in some instances opposite, have taken their place; we have the best grounds for supposing, that if the men were now alive, they would not pass the same Statutes. In other words, the spirit of the Statute interpreted by the intention of the Legislator would annul the Letter of it. It is not indeed impossible, that by a rare felicity of accident, the same law may apply to two sets of circumstances. But surely the presumption is, that regulations well adapted for the manners, the social distinctions, and the state of property, of opinion, and of external relations, of England in the reign of Alfred, or even in that of Edward the first, will not be well suited to Great Britain at the close of the reign of George the third. For instance at the time when the greater part of the Cottagers and inferior Farmers were in a state of Villenage, when Sussex alone contained seven thousand and the Isle of Wight twelve hundred Families of Bondsmen, it was the Law of the Land that every Freeman should vote in the Assembly of the Nation personally or by his representative. An act of Parliament in the year 1660 confirmed what a concurrence of causes had previously effected: every Englishman is now born free, the Laws of the Land are the Birth-right of every Native, and with the exception of a few honorary privileges all Classes obey the same Laws. Now, argues one of our political Writers, it being made the Constitution of the Land by our Saxon Ancestors, that every Freeman should have a vote, and all Englishmen being now born free, therefore, by the Constitution of the Land, every Englishman has now a right to a vote. How shall we reply to this without breach of that Respect, to which the Reasoner at least, if not the Reasoning, is entitled? If it be the definition of a Pun, that it is the confusion of two different meanings under the same or some similar sound, we might almost characterize this argument as being grounded on a grave Pun. Our Ancestors established the right of voting in a particular Class of men forming at that time the middle rank of Society, and known to be all of them, or almost all, legal Proprietors-and these were then called the Freemen of England: therefore they established it in the lowest Classes of Society, in those who possess no Property, because these too are now called by the same name!! This is the same kind of Logic as that on the strength of which a Mameluke Bey extorted a large contribution from the Egyptian Jews: "it is my duty," said he, "to make men pay their just debts. The Jews borrowed a large Treasure from the Egyptians, which has not been repaid. But you are the Jews, and on you, therefore, I call for the repayment." Besides, if a law is to be interpreted by the known intention of its' makers, the Parliament in 1660, which declared all natives of England freemen, but neither altered nor meant thereby to alter the limitations of the right of election, did to all intents and purposes except that right from the common privileges of Englishmen, as Englishmen. In A moment's reflection may convince us, that every single Statute is made under the knowledge of all the other Laws, with which it is meant to co-exist, and by which its' action is to be modified and determined. the legislative as in the religious Code, the text must not be taken without the context. Now, I think, we may safely leave it to the Reformers themselves to make choice between the civil and political privileges of Englishmen at present, considered as one Sum Total, and those of our Ancestors in any former period of our History, considered as another, on the old principle, take one and leave the other; but whichever you take, take it all or none. Laws seldom become obsolete as long as they are both useful and practicable; but should there be an exception, there |