them out in public.' He made a felection from them, and, in compliance with his directions, these volumes make their appearance. Befides these works, he wrote a fatirical opera, when young, against the author of Douglas, and David Hume, which the editor thinks it right to fupprefs; alfo a collection of Criminal Cafes, published in 1774; and fome Law Tracts, which it is in contemplation to publish. Of the works before us, the firft volume confifts of poems; the compofition of which feems to have been his early and conftant delight. When a boy he amufed his fchool-fellows with rhymes, and, in his latter days, compofed more than a hundred ftanzas to exprefs his abhorrence of war and tyranny. The editor invites criticifm by obferving that the latter are, perhaps, the most beautiful of his productions. It would be faftidious to deny that there is spirit and novelty in his perfonification of WAR. P. 155. In vain a helmet, large and tight, Nor can thy fabre's basket-hilt, Tho' ribbon-wreath'd, and double-gilt, Our author was the enemy of long poems, and not without cause, for he was incapable of continuing long in a confiftent train of thought. Who would expect, for instance, in an indignant Addrefs to the Powers at War,' enforcing topics of benevolence and humanity, a fentiment like this-alluding to the selection of men for military fervice: There is but one other poem of confiderable length; the pleafing story of Zeyn Alafnam feeking the ninth ftatue. This he has tranflated from the Arabian Nights into the eight fyllable verfe of Swift and Prior; he has not, like them, enlivened his tale by happy ftrokes of wit or fatire, and yet he has effectually repreffed those romantic and poetic feelings, which are requifite for the enjoyment of eastern extravagance, by the injudicious adoption of colloquial verse, and the abfurd introduction of domeftic allufions. The prince of Baffora is teafed by pamphleteers, and dunned by creditors; and is in danger of being arrefted by a warrant, iffued by the lord mayor and aldermen of the city of Bagdad. Correction must have been a painful task, or we should not fee paffages which might otherwife have been excellent, de graded graded by offenfive vulgarities. The greater part of the two following quatrains will, perhaps, remind our readers of the exquifite paftoral Ballad of Shenftone :— P. 147. How I fondled and flutter'd the rose I ever once thought on the flower. Inferior as are lord D.'s pretenfions to the character of poet, there is one little piece from which we might infer the capacity of rifing to excellence : With toilfome day's viciffitudes oppreft, The winds, exhausted, rather breathe than blow; Of Night the guardian, and of Stars the queen, Gives light and luftre to the folemn scene.' Yet this picture of repofe, to be allowed juft, must be confidered as a reprefentation of fome individual fcene, not as a deicription of the general phenomena of night, when the filence of the animated world ufually gives additional effect to the noise of the ftream, the wind, and the ocean. But the majority of the fmaller pieces are of the leaft poetical kind of poetry, the humourous and fatirical. As their pretenfions are lower, their fuccefs is higher, and, the best Argument; Thoughts on Divorces; the Satire on Johnson's Stile; the disappointed Epicures; the Parliamentary Duellifts; and the Metamorphofis; will be allowed a refpectable place among that clafs of verfes. As a fpecimen of his epigrammatic skill we extract the following 6 VERSES WRITTEN ON A PIANO-FORTE.-P. 122. Altho' not play'd this inftrument by wind, But noify foon, and boisterous, they grow: Juft fo with women, fools the men who court ye; Piano while you're maids;-but when you're married,-Forté.' The The larger volume contains Thoughts on various Subjects." They are not methodically arranged; we shall, therefore, notice them as connected by their fubjects. Among the juridical effays is an ingenious and fubtle inquiry, how a judge, whose opinion has been overruled, ought to vote in fubfequent and fubordinate queftions.' In a fuppofed cafe where it has previously been decided that a perfon is guilty, ought thofe judges who voted for his acquittal to take any fhare in the decifion concerning the the measure of punishment? -" P. 10. This,' fays our author, I apprehend, they ought to do. It may be said, they cannot, with a fafe confcience, as their opinion is against any punishment: but this is not solid; they vote for punishment upon compulfion, and a new state of the cafe: they ought to do juftice as much as they poffibly can, that is, be for the leaft punishment, as that comes nearest to what they think complete juftice and if they do not do fo, they commit very great injuftice :' because through their filence the feverer punishment may be inflicted. And P. 18. The maxim res judicata pro veritate habetur, does not apply here; it is a prefumption, only a just one, when the merits cannot be known, but it muft yield to truth; and the judge who voted against the determination, ought to pay no regard to it in fubfequent and fubordinate queftions." Out of this inquiry arifes another on the mode of putting queftions for decifion, but as, in our English courts, judges give their judgment upon the cafe generally, and not upon the legal principles, or diftinct points of argument, upon which the decifion may be supposed to reft; we leave this part of the essay to the profeffional reader. Under the head of Jury Trial' our readers will meet, among much important and valuable matter, with some remarks, which their zealous attachment to this precious and ineftimable inftitution will make them, at firft, regard with a jealous eye. P. 49. I am apt to think that this mode of trial owes much of its reputation to verdicts given against the crown in times of political controverfy, which were fometimes far from being juft. It is, however, I admit, the best mode in fuch times; but in ordinary cafes, I apprehend it is not. I do not recollect to have seen, in the course of my own practice for thirty-two years, one ordinary cafe; nor did I ever meet with a lawyer who could tell me, that in the courfe of his practice he had feen one fuch cafe, in which the jury had differed from the court, and were in the right.' They muft not, however, fuppofe his Lordship in the least unfriendly to liberty or popular privileges: he proceeds thus: P. 50. It is very clear to me, that they ought to be judges of the law; becaufe no man ought to be condemned to punishment, unless the crime be fo palpable as to be perceptible to the moft illiterate. There is more reafon for contefting their right to be judges of the fact; because to difcover the fact, or truth, in the confufion and obfcurity created by contradictory teftimonies, and eloquent pleadings, requires a degree of experience, knowledge, and ability, not to be expected expected in ordinary jurors. It may be faid that this is fupplied by the charge of the judge. It is fo, generally; but then this gives too much power to the judge, especially if he be entitled to felect the petit jury.' We notice the effay on Appeals merely to exprefs our aftonishment at the flagrant ignorance which his Lordfhip betrays, of english law. We have, indeed, in our courts, heard barristers confefs that they did not understand some of the technical formalities of Scotch practice. But that a judge on the bench at Edinburgh, an elegant scholar too, and a man of literary pretenfions, fhould be ignorant of the prominent features in the English fyftem of jurifprudence, even of the authority of the House of Lords, to whofe fuperior jurisdiction his own decifions are fubject, is a striking circumftance, and one not very credi table to the prefent ftate of legal information. P. 37. We never hear of an appeal to the house of peers from the king's bench, common pleas, &c.; the reason is, that in England they have another kind of appeal. The courts there, I believe, review the judgments of each other in a certain meeting and manner.' The very newspapers might have informed his Lordfhip of the frequency of fuch appeals. And a reference to B. iii. ch. 25, of his Blackstone, would have corrected his misconception of the appeals among the inferiour courts. The fact, in brief, is, that the king's bench alone poffeffes authority over the other courts, and that the exchequer chamber,' which, in certain cafes only, examines its proceedings, is a new court, formed of the common pleas and exchequer, without any reference to the diftinct powers of those courts; and that the house of lords is the dernier refort for the ultimate decifion of every civil action. Elfewhere our author obferves, that, jury trial is not known in the court of chancery, where the greatest part of litigated property depends,' and does not seem to be aware of the general practice of sending to trial by a jury, all difputed facts which, from their nature, are fufceptible of proof by the teftimony of indifferent persons. His remarks on the punishment of tranfportation concern the Scotch law, and the cafes of Mr. Muir, &c. He decidedly afferts the error of the judgment against them; maintains that they might legally have been banished, but ought not to have been transported; and very powerfully reprefents the cruelty of the fentence for crimes, which, it is confefled, deferve not capital punishment. P. 71. If a man has been condemned to death for theft, or fome other crime (for which that he fhould fuffer there is a reluctance,) he may very properly be pardoned, on condition that he agree to be tranfported to Botany Bay; because, though death may be the confequence, yet, as that is not certain, the offer is favourable: or, if the legiflature, fenfible that the over-feverity of the law has made the punishment of a crime capital, when it ought only to have been arbitrary, it may very properly change the punishment of certain death, into one which gives a chance of life; but it is plain, that tranfportation ought never to be inflicted but by way of mitigation.' The Ellay on the Origin and Progrefs of Literary Property was first published in the year 1772. And it certainly will not add to the legal reputation of the author, when compared with the learned and even elegant judgments given by the English judges in the year 1769, in the famous cafe of Millar and Taylor, reported in Burrow 2303; or, with the final difcuffion in the houfe of lords in the year 1774. The difpute, concerning the property of authors on their works after the expiration of the 14 years, fecured by the ftatute of the 8th of Anne, thirty years ago agitated the literary public. It fleeps at prefent; and as our author brings no valuable acceffion to the arguments before used, nor ftates thofe arguments with any force or originality, it is fufficient to obferve, that he oppofes the notion of literary property at common law. But we think it will be useful to give a fpecimen or two of his talents as a reafoner. The petitioners for the act of queen Anne stated that they had been accustomed to hold their copies As their property;' on which our author remarks, P. 83. That the narrative only fets forth, that there had been a conftant ufage of felling books, to be held as a property; which is a plain acknowledgment by the petitioners themselves, that there was here no real right of property, but only fomething which they had been pleased to view as a fort of property, or compare to a real property.' It would be a fufficient answer to obferve, that Mr. Horne Tooke fhews AS to be the German pronoun ES, and to mean the fame as it or which; but what renders his Lordship's criticifm most extraordinary, is the almoft invariable practice in the atteftation of wills; viz. that the party delivers it AS and for his last will.' Alfo the fame formulary is used in the execution of deeds; which would, according to his lordship, prove such inftruments not to be wills and deeds, but fomething refembling wills and deeds. P. 122. It may, no doubt, be faid, that the author's intention in publishing a book was to give to the purchafer of a fingle copy, a right of property to that individual copy, but no more. To this it is answered, that whatever is the neceffary confequence of an action, must be deemed intended by it. Now the neceffary confequence of printing and felling a book, is to make it common property; and no private bargain betwixt the author and bookfeller, can prevent a purchafer from making what ufe of his purchase he pleases.' It would be difficult, perhaps impoffible, to find in any argumentative work fo much folecifm in the compafs of three propofitions. To affert that no private bargain can prevent the purchaser from acting as he pleases, is to mistake the inability to prevent an illegal act, for incapacity to procure redress for it when committed. And the previous affertion, that the confe quence |