motley form with new additions of their own invention. Fox, indeed, is not chargeable with thefe inventions; his ignorant and inelegant fimplicity places him beyond the reach of fufpicion in this matter; but it is, at the fame time, undoubtedly certain, that all his doctrine concerning the internal word, and the divine light within, its operations and effects, was either borrowed from the writings of the myftics, which were, at that time, in the hands of many, or at leaft picked up from the converfation and expreffions of fome perfons of the myftic order. The tenets, however, which this blunt and illiterate man expreffed in a rude, confufed, and ambiguous manner, were dreffed up and prefented under a different form by the masterly hands of Barclay, Keith, Fisher and Penn, who digefted them with fuch fagacity and art, that they affumed the afpect of a regular fyftem. The Quakers may, therefore, be deemed with reafon, the principal branch of the myftics, as they not only embraced the precepts of their bidden wisdom, but even faw its whole tendency, and adopted, without hesitation, all its confequen ces. (To be concluded in our next.) An Account of Capt. Glafs, the Particulars of whofe unfortunate Fate was given in our Magazine for December P. 774. CA APT. GLASS was a native of Scotland, and bred a furgeon; in that capacity he made fome voyages to the coast of Guiney, and was at length mafter of a Guiney-fhip, in which ftation he continued till the late war began Having faved a good fum of money in trade, he ventured part of it on board a privateer, and went himself as captain. not three days at fea before the fhip's crew mutinied; but at length, by fair fpeeches, were pacified; and till more fo by the capture of a French merchantman of great value, which followed immediately. He was This good fortune was foon difpelled by the appearance of an enemy's frigate about twice his ftrength, with which, however, he engaged. The conteft was very warm for more than two hours; but another French fhip appearing, Capt. Glafs was obliged to ftrike, with the lofs of more than half his crew, and himself hot through the fhoulder. He remained fome time in a French prifon in the West Indies, and was treated with much feverity, but being at laft exchanged, he embarked the remainder of his fortune upon another adventure in the privateering way. He was again taken prifoner, and his whole fortune at once destroyed. Upon being released a second time, he was employed by merchants in their fervice to and from the Weft-Indies, and was taken prisoner no less than seven times during the last war. However, he had, upon the conclufion of the late peace, amaffed about two thousand pounds, and being an excellent feaman, he refolved in his own fhip, to go upon a discovery. He found out a new harbour on the coaft of Africa, between the river Senegal and cape de Verd, to which he supposed a very great trade might be driven. He returned to England and laid his discovery before the miniftry; and at length obtained an exclufive trade to his own harbour for twenty years. Having prepared for his departure, with the afliftance of one or two merchants, he left England, and arrived at the newfound harbour, He fent one of his men on thore with propofitions of trade, but the natives murdered him the moment he landed. Capt. Glafs found means to inform the King of the country of the wrong done him, and the mutual advantages that might accrue from trading thither. The King feemed to be pleafed with his propofal, only to get him the more fecurely in his power; but Glafs, being on his guard, he failed in effecting his defign. The King's next attempt was to poifon the crew by provifions fent as prefents to the Captain, this alfo failed of effect but Glass, for want of neceffaries, was obliged to go to the Canaries in an open boat, in order to buy fome from the Spaniards. In the mean time the favages fell upon his fhip, but they were repulled by the crew; and the fhip being obliged to quit the harbour, and not finding her Captain return, failed for England, where the arrived in safety. In the mean time, the unfortunate Captain landed upon one of the Canary Inlands, and prefented his petition to the Spanish Governor, but who, instead of treating him with the defired hofpitality, threw him into prison as a spy, and there kept kept him for fome months, without pen, ink or paper. He at lenght bethought himself of writing with a piece of charcoal on a buifcuit, to a Captain of an English man of war then in the harbour, who though with much difficulty, and after being previously fent to prifon himself, at length effected the Captain's releafe. Here he continued for fome time, till his wife and daughter (a beautiful girl of eleven years old) came to him from home, and from the Canaries they all joyfully embarked for England on board the Sandwich, Capt. Cochran, commander. Glass now fuppofed that all his danger was over, for the fhip had come within fight of his native country, when part of the crew mutinied and fecretly refolved to murder all the reft; which they effected; and Capt. Glafs, his wife and daughter, and Capt. Cochran, and others, were all barbarously killed and thrown over-board. On the Original Manner of Creation, and Privileges of the English Nobility. Extracted from Dr. Blackfione's Commentaries on the Laws of England, lately published. A Duke, though it be with us, as a mere title of nobility, inferior in point of antiquity to many others, yet it is fuperior to all of them in rank; being the first title of dignity after the royal family. Among the Saxons the Latin name of dukes, duces, is very frequent, and fignified, as among the Romans, the commanders or leaders of their armies, whom in their own language they called Heretoga; and in the laws of Henry I. (as tranflated by Lambard) we find them called beretochii. But after the Norman conqueft, which changed the military polity of the nation, the kings themselves continuing for many generations dukes of Normandy, they would not honour any fubjects with that title, till the time of Edward the third; who, claiming to be king of France, and thereby lofing the ducal in the royal dignity, in the eleventh year of his reign created his fon Edward the black prince, duke of Cornwall: and many, of the royal family especially, were afterwards raifed to the fame honour. However, in the reign of queen Elizabeth, A. D. 1572, the whole order became utterly extinct but it was revived about : fifty years afterwards by her fucceffor, who was remarkably prodigal of honours, in the perfon of George Villiers duke of Buckingham, 2. A marquis, marchio, is the next degree of nobility. His office formerly was (for dignity and duty never were feparated by our ancestors) to guard the frontiers and limits of the kingdom; which were called the marches, from the Teutonic word, marche, a limit: as, in particular, were the marches of Wales and Scotland, while they continued to be enemies countries. The persons who had command there, were called lords marchers, or marqueffes; whofe authority was abolished by statute 27 Hen. VIII. c. 27: though the title had long before been made a mere enfign of honour; Robert Vere, earl of Oxford, being created marquefs of Dublin, by Richard II. in the eighth year of his reign. 3. An earl is a title of nobility fo antient, that its original cannot clearly be traced out. Thus much feems tolerably certain, that among the Saxons they were called ealdormen, quafi elder men, fignifying the fame as fenior or fenator among the Romans; and alfo fchiremen, becaufe they had each of them the civil government of a feveral divifion or fhire. On the irruption of the Danes, they changed the name to eorles, which, according to Camden, fignified the fame in their language. In Latin they are called comites (a title firft ufed in the empire) from being the king's attendants; "a focietate nomen fumpferunt, reges enim tales fibi afficiant." After the Norman conqueft they were for fome time called counts, or countees, from the French; but they did not long retain that name themselves, though their fhires are from thence called counties to this day. It is now become a mere title, they having nothing to do with the government of the county; which is now entirely devolved on the fheriff, the earl's deputy, or vice comes. In all writs, and commiffions, and other formal inftruments, the king, when he mentions any peer of the degree of an earl, always ftiles him "trufty and well-beloved coufin" an appellation as antient as the reign of Henry IV; who being either by his wife, his mother, or his fifters, actually related or allied to every earl in the kingdom, artfully and conftantly acknowledged that connexion in all his letters and other pub lic acts; from whence the ufage has defcended to his fucceffors, though the reafon has long ago failed. 4. The name of vice-comes or viscount was afterwards made ufe of as an arbitrary title of honour, without any fhadow of office pertaining to it, by Henry the fixth; when in the eighteenth year of his reign, he created John Beaumont a peer, by the name of viscount Beaumont, which was the first inftance of the kind. 5. A baron's is the most general and univerfal title of the nobility; for originally every one of the peers of fuperior rank had alfo a barony annexed to his other titles. But it hath fometimes happened that, when an antient baron hath been raised to a new degree of peerage, in the course of a few generations the two titles have defcended differently; one perhaps to the male defcendants, the other to the heirs general; whereby the earldom or other fuperior title hath fubfiited without a barony and there are alfo modern inftances where earls and vifcounts have been created without annexing a barony to their other honours: fo that now the rules does not hold univerfally that all peers are barons. The original and antiquity of baronies has occafioned great enquiries among our Englih antiquarians. The moft probable opinion feems to be, that they were the fame with our prefent lords of manors; to which the name of court baron, (which is the lord's court, an incident to every manor) gives fome countenance. It may be collected from king John's Magna Charta, that originally all lords of manors, or barons, that held of the king in capite, bad feats in the great council or pariament, till about the reign of that Pr. the conflux of them became fo large and troublefome, that the king was obliged to divide them, and fummon only the greater barons in perfon; leaving the fmall ones to be fummoned by the theriff, and (as it is faid) to fit by the reprefentation in another house; which gave rife to the feparation of the two houfes of parliament. By degrees the title came to be confined to the greater barons, or lords of parliament only; and there were no other barons among the peerage but fuch as were fummoned by writ, in respect of the tenure of their lands or baronies, till Richard the fecond firit made it a mere title of honour, by conferring it on divers perfons by his letters patent. Having made this fhort enquiry into the original of our feveral degrees of nobility, I fhall next confider the manner in which they may be created. The right of peerage feems to have been originally territorial; that is, annexed to lands, honours, caftles, manors, and the like, the proprietors and poffeffors of which were (in right of those estates) allowed to be peers of the realm, and were fummoned to parliament to do fuit and service to their fovereign: and, when the land was alienated, the dignity paffed with it as appendant. Thus the bishops ftill fit in the houfe of lords in right of fucceffion to certain antient baronies annexed, or fuppofed to be annexed, to their epifcopal lands: and thus, in 11 Hen. VI. the poffeffion of the castle of Arundel was adjudged to confer an earldom on its poffeffor. But afterwards, when alienations grew to be frequent, the dignity of peerage was confined to the lineage of the party enobled, and instead of territorial became perfonal. Actual proof of a tenure by barony became no longer neceffary to conftitute a lord of parliament; but the record of the writ of fummons to them or their ancestors was admitted as a fufficient evidence of the tenure. Peers are now created either by writ, or by patent for those who claim by prescription muft fuppofe either a writ or patent made to their ancestors; though by length of time it is loft. The creation by writ, or the king's letter, is a fummons to attend the houfe of peers, by the ftile and title of that barony, which the king is pleafed to confer that by patent is a royal grant to a fubject of any dignity and degree of peerage. The creation by writ is the more antient way; but a man is not ennobled thereby, unless he actually takes his feat in the houfe of lords: and therefore the moft ufual, because the fureft, way is to grant the dignity by patent, which enfures to a man and his heirs according to the limitation thereof, though he never himself makes ufe of it. Yet it is frequent to call up the eldest fon of a peer to the house of lords, by writ of fummons, in the name of his father's barony: because in that cafe there is no danger of his children's lofing the nobility in cafe he never takes : his feat; for they will fucceed to their made for their trial when accufed of trea- Yet if a all the nobility are pares, and there. fore it is no degradation. A peer, or peerefs (either in her own right or by marriage) cannot be arrested in civil cafes: and they have alfo many peculiar privileges annexed to their peerage in the courfe of judicial proceedings. A pcer, fitting in judgment, gives not his virdiet upon oath, like an ordinary juryman, but upon his honour: he answers alfo to bills in chancery upon his honour, and not upon his oath; but, when he is examined as a witnefs either in civil or criminal cafes, he must be fworn for the refpect, which the law fhews to the honour of a peer, does not extend fo far as to over. turn a fettled maxim, that in judicio non creditur nifi juratis. The honour of peers is however fo highly tendered by the law, that it is much more penal to fpread falfe reports of them and certain other great officers of the realm, than of other men: fcandal against them being called by the peculiar name of fcandalum magnatum; and fubject to peculiar punifhment by divers antient ftatutes. : A peer cannot loofe his nobility, but by death or attainder: though there was an inftance, in the reign of Edward the fourth, of the degradation of George Neville duke of Bedford by act of parliament, on account of his poverty, which rendered him unable to fupport his dignity. But this is a fingular intance: which ferves at the fame time, by having happened, to fhew the power of parliament; and, by having happened but once, to fhew how tender the parliament hath been, in exerting fo high a power. It hath been faid indeed, that if a baron wafte his eftate, fo that he is not able to fupport the degree, the king may degrade him : but it is expreffly held by later authorities, that a peer cannot be degraded but by ac& of parliament. The Powers of the Pen. A Poem. Ad dreffed to John Curre, Efq; —pe&tus inaniter angit, Irritat, mulcet, falfis terroribus implet, Ut magus, & modú me Thebis, modo pɔnit Athenis. O (Entire, price 25.) HOR. NE glafs of Helicon, and then Nor Nor talifman, nor charm, nor fpell, Drawn by old Homer's hand, the rofe Fades the thick leafy grove? the Pen In a fine phrenfy of the foul, The fhadowy forms of real things; If the invention be but new, Or Ward fome Panacean pill Thefe, and a thousand whims like these, No other trophies can I raise, When full-ear'd harveft crowns the land, Safe |