120 
up to eulogium as he proceeded. We 
need not say that. Mr. Brodie’s view of 
the question, like our own, is entirely at 
variance with this of Mr, Hume, whose 
leading position is, that previous. to the 
accession of the Stuarts, the English 
government was, by law and custom, 
as arbitrary a despotism as that of Tur- 
key. .Mr. Brodie satisfactorily proves 
the reverse of this to be the fact, and 
demonstrates that its institutions were 
founded on principles of: liberty from 
the time of the Saxons. 
Mr. Croker’s bookmaking work, Lady 
Suffolk’s correspondence, next receives 
a smart castigation, under the appella- 
tion of “ Catch-penny.” It in reality 
constitutes a most faded and insipid, and 
trashy assemblage of the civility, condo- 
lence, compliments, visits, births, mar- 
riages and deaths of the by-gone world 
of fashion, as ever, in conjunction with 
“ ratafia and opium,” assisted an old 
dowager Rouée to keep awake or fall to 
sleep; and the sooner it is dismissed to 
the “ bourne from whence no traveller 
returns,” the better. 
The Review of French Romances, 
which constitutes Article VII, breathes a 
lighter and a gayer strain; and most 
richly does M. le Vicomte D’Arlin- 
4 
court’s jumbled balderdash, compound- 
ed of mineralogy and sentiment, of fairy 
fiction and experimental philosophy, de- 
serve the critical extinguisher, which the 
sly irony and solemn banter of the 
reviewers has contributed to place 
upon it. 
Mr. Bentham, on the Law of Evidence, 
Criminal Procedure and Publicity, fur- 
nishes the eighth article, and is treated 
with the consideration, attention, and 
respect which every thing which comes 
from the pen of that experienced juris- 
consult and veteran legislator deserves. 
If there be one subject more than 
another the knowledge of which ought 
to be generally diffused, and which ought 
to be treated as a science, it is that of 
criminal jurisprudence. Yet how wide 
of this is the fact. Every man in Eng- 
land is supposed, in law, to have a know- 
ledge of all the laws which govern his 
conduct : a fiction which common sense 
rejects as an impossibility. The laws 
of England form such an enormous 
chaos of wisdom and error, - foresight, 
contradiction, and verbosity, that the 
longest life, the clearest memory, and 
the acutest judgment, would be insuffi- 
cient to collect, arrange, and retain the 
undigested and indigestible mass. . There 
are now between 700 and 800 Acts of 
Philosophy of Contemporary Criticism. 
[Sept. 1, 
Parliament applicable to Criminal Law. 
The Code Napoleon awards the punish- 
ment of death to six cases only; the 
English Code to 200: the consequence 
is that the first is executed; but ours 
is rendered inoperative by its extreme 
Draconian severity. 
The next Review, under the designa- 
tion of Italy, details the scenes of out- 
rage and the acts of proscription and 
blood, with which that fine and classic 
country dear to the associations of the 
scholar, the artist, and the patriot, has 
been filled, and by which it has -been 
humiliated, under the auspices of the 
Holy Alliance. One is sickened at the 
details of these enormities, and yet it is 
salutary to peruse them, in order to in- 
fer hope from despair. The re-action 
that such a system of violence must 
eventually. produce, cannot be distant. 
Extreme measures, instead of being to 
be depreciated, are rather to be desired 
on the part of the Holy Triumvirs; for 
the more inveterately they close the 
steam valve of augmenting intellect, the 
more quickly will the suppressing power 
be blown to atoms by the mental energy 
which it emprisons. 
The last article in the Review em- 
braces the subject .which occupied so 
much of Parliamentary interest during 
the latter part of the late session, 
namely, the Insurrection of Demerara 
and the West-India Missions. It is able, 
explicit, cogent, and-complete; and 
bears the impress of an_indefatigable 
hand and master mind. With the gene- 
ral view of the arguments in this paper 
we need scarcely say that. we concur. 
At the same time, we are bound to add 
our candid and impartial opinion, that 
that the cause of the abolitionists, the 
missionaries, and the negroes, would 
be benefited, if it were less frequently 
and vehemently stirred. The language 
of passion and exaggeration has been 
too freely borrowed and too profusely 
‘lavished in adorning and supporting a 
cause, momentous and vital in all its 
features, bearings, and results, and in 
which the coldest reasoning and the 
calmest judgment are pre-eminently 
necessary. The claims of one class of 
our fellow subjects are not to be neg- 
lected, while advancing those of ano- 
ther. Temperate argument gains in 
strength what it loses in violence; and 
it is an axiom that will never fail either 
the statesthan or the private individual, 
that the golden mean is best. Truth lies 
midway between the two extremes, of 
opinion, 
