1823.] Mr. Green on Distraining for Rent. 



ration, the divided cistern should be so be liable for the consequences, 

 placed under tiio discharging-pipe, 

 and the levers should be so adjusted, 

 that, at the still's beginning to send 

 spirit, tiie same would Call into the 

 compartment at one end of the cis- 

 tern ; and, on ceasing to send over 

 spirit, the distilled water wotild fall 

 into the compartment at the ottier 

 end. Y. 



407 



If you 

 do not choose to attend to what I say, 

 you may disregard it ; but, if yoti do 

 disregard it, some of you will tind to 

 your cost that you have been acting 

 illegally." W. Green. 



Knightsbridge. 



To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 



SIR, 



YOUR correspondent Mr. Laccy, 

 in your Nuinbc^r for the 1st of 

 March, states, tliat in mtikiug distraints 

 for rent, it is a common and very re- 

 prehensible practice to seize " infi- 

 nitely more goods than will cover the 

 rent due, selling them all, and then 

 returning the overplus of money to the 

 party seized upon;" and says he be- 

 lieves this to be lavv. 



Mr. Lacey is wrong in this belief, — 

 at least so says Chief Justice Abbot; 

 and it is of great importance that 

 both the puijlic and the distraining 

 brokers should not be misinformed on 

 this point, lest the latter should be 

 encouraged to practise, and the for- 

 mer be led to submit to, a most oppres- 

 sive illegality. 



I was present in the Court of King's 

 Bench, a few months since, during the 

 trial of a cause, in which the plaintiff's 

 name was Branscomb, but the defen- 

 dant's I do not remember. It was an 

 action for a trespass in keeping posses- 

 sion after the rent had been tendered. 

 In the course of the trial, the distrain- 

 ing broker was examined; and from 

 him it appeared, that, as soon as he 

 entered tlie place, he took an inven- 

 tory of tlie goods, in which he speci- 

 fically named as many articles as he 

 thought would pay the rent and 

 charges; ;iiid that he concluded it by 

 . JHlding, "and the rest of the furniture 

 on the premises." Chief Justice Abbot 

 immediately declared that to be illegal. 

 'I'he broker r<!plied, that it was (uisto- 

 mar> to name as many things as wouhl 

 1)0 enough, and then to include the 

 rest in a lump, for fear that thtjre 

 should be any deficiency. After the 

 broker's ('\aiiiin:ilion was closed, the 

 judge addnssed him in these terms: 

 — "Atlend (o me, man: jou are not 

 to lay hiimls on every thing you can 

 find, when you go to make a seizure ; 

 you are bound lo exercise some judg- 

 ment upon the value in the first in- 

 Bfance, or y.ui or jour employers will 



Foi- the Monthly Magazine. 



THE GERMAN STUDENT. 



NO. xxviir. 



WIELAND (continued). 



WIELAND undertook in 1773 tiie 

 publication of a monthly mis- 

 cellany or magazine, entitled " the 

 German Mercury," of which the form 

 was in some degree copied from the 

 then popular Mercure de France. It 

 did not consist exclusively of lueiibra- 

 tiinis of his own ; he was especially 

 assisted with literary notices : but 

 whatever he wrote henceforth was 

 there first exhibited to public curiosity 

 and criticism, and afterwards sepa- 

 rately republished in a revised and 

 amended state. This practice of first 

 printing a sort of waste-paper edition 

 of works that are intended for perma- 

 nence, and of subse(iuently issuing 

 them in a more splendid form, is of 

 good example ; it is preferable to the 

 L'inglish habit of beginning with a 

 quarto, and descending to an octavo 

 or duodecimo ; because on our plan 

 the best and finest copies have the 

 worst text, and blemishes indicated 

 by the critics are only corrected in the 

 cheap editions. The " German Mer- 

 cury" included no selections from 

 newspapers ; but it commented, with 

 Athenian freedom and urbanity, on all 

 the higher topics of European polished 

 conversation. The effusions of litera- 

 ture, the productions of art, remark- 

 able lives and political events, all the 

 opinions and interests of men, were 

 canvassed with an exquisite sense of 

 their proportionate and enduring im- 

 portance, with comprehensive informa- 

 tion and learning, with higldy philoso- 

 |)!iie and cosnio-polilical views, and 

 wilh an atlraetion of manner, which 

 wanted, indeed, the rapidity and sti- 

 mubiney of Voltaire, but not his vari- 

 ous r(;sourccs of imagination. It was 

 (his "Mercury" which in fact gained 

 for Weimar the appellation of the 

 German Athens; during more than 

 twenty years it remained the favourite 

 journal of the cultivated classes of 

 Germany; it selcited and brought out 

 the topics which were to oecujjy and 

 to interest the fashionable and the 

 polished 



