448 Literary and Critical Pro'emium. [June I, 



which lie so much laments, to the Inordinate Saxons. Ttie Saxons were all freemen, 



and uncalied-for increase of the ndniberof In liis researches, our author has not, like 



practitioners, in conjimclion with the seep- some others, sou-jht only to support hi* 



ticisni of the age. Science, he says, has own principles, for he acknowledges that 



been progressive; but the pro lessors" of the he fouud many things of the existence of 



healing art have stood still, or become re- which he was not previously aware. It 



trograde. " What," says the doctor, 

 s|)eakiMg of the increase of suidents, " are 

 the consequences of this rediiudancy? 

 How does the frame of the science become 

 affected? A science which, let its prac- 



had been long ascertained, that the Saxon 

 wittenagemote were annually elected by 

 the universal suffrage of the people; but 

 it was not generally known, that " Iher 

 were totally unacquainted with a House of 



tice be ever so pure, many think a tissue of Lords;" that Iheir judges and magistrates 



hypotheses, and nioie a tissue of absurdi- were tiective; that their kings had no veto; 



ties. From the earliest ages the healing and that it is even nncertain whether they 



art, we need not mention, has been de- were originally hereditary. These disco- 



bauched and debased more than any other veries, however, are not pressed upon the 



with the superstitions and errors of man. attention of those who would renovate our 



Bacon tells iis, there never was but one Constiiiiti'ni. Although what he (the 



rational physician np to his time, viz. Hip- major) now unfolds to England may show, 



pocrates; and, in days long posterior to that even a radical purification of her 



Bacon, we see the practice and principles Commons House would but imperfectly 



of even its luminaries, as Sydenham, restore the tkeory of her polity, yet he by 



Mead. Molyncnx, Radcliffe, &c. disgraced 

 too often with mystery and masquerade. 

 The lapid and steady diffusion of sound 

 light, which late days have exhibited, is 

 very far from having redeemed ns from 

 these stigmas; and we are still the shuttle- 

 cocks of fortune, and the jests of the 

 wise.'' 



Major CARTWRicriT, a veteran in his 

 eighty-third year, who, for nearly lialf-a- 

 century, has stood foremost in the long-de- 

 serted, but now thickening, ranks of radi 



no means proposes to the English reform- 

 ers any other practical line of conduct than 

 that which he has long been in the habit of 

 rrcommending. Although Major Cart- 

 wri:;ht is himself a believer in Divine 

 Revelation, he fearlessly asserts that Chris- 

 tianity never was, nor oiisht to be, "part 

 and parcel of the law of England. 'True 

 religion,'' he says, " is of too spiritual, 

 divine, and sacred, a character, tor such 

 profanation. To agree upon, and to 

 fiame a poliiical polity for a nation's free- 



ral reform, has piiiilislied a volume under dom, peace, and happiness on earth, is the 



the title of Tlie English Cnmlitutiim Pro- office of man: to furnish principles of 



duced and IlluHtiattd. Mr. Paine a^sei ted, religion, for preserving a sense of man's 



that no such thing as a Constitution dependence on iiie Creator, &c. is the 



existed in England; that the whole was sole province of God" With respect to 



merely a form of government without a the /eija/ point, his argument is nnanswera- 



Constitutinn, constituting itself with •-vhat ble : " Neither Cliiislians, nor Maltome- 



powers it pleased ; and then triuniphanlly Inns, nor Jews, nor Allteiits, had any hand 



challenged Mr. Burke to produce the Eng- in the first (Vaming of our Constitution ; for 



lish Consliliition. 'i'his challenge the it happened to be the work of Pagans.' 



major has accepted; and, wiih much Our limits leave us room only to add, that 



patient inyesiigalion, has at last succeeded we recommend this valuable work to the 



in presenting to the British public tl.e fun- perusal, not only of reformers, hut of those 



«lamental principles of the Political Code less ardent spirits wjio study the past, 



of our Saxon ancestors, by which tliey merely as a part of the history of their 



weie governed during a i)eriod of six hun- country, 



dred years, until it was destroyed by the A Voice from London to the Voice from St. 

 Norman conqneior. The elcnents of the Helena, or the Pitt System devehptd, by 

 Constitution of England are stated by the Peter Moore, esq m.p. is a publication 

 major to be: — "1. Those piinciples of intended to demonstrate the pacific views 

 truth and morality on which political of Napoleon with regard to this comitry. 

 liberty and social order depend. 2. A The document, in proof of this assertion, is 

 militia of all men capable of arms-bearing, a " History of two Missions to France, to 

 3. A wittenagemote annually elected by treat with Napoleon Bonaparte for Peace 

 the people for enacting laws. 4. Grand in 1799 and 1801," by Mr. Massaria. 

 and petit juries of the people, fairly drawn. This history was, it seems, drawn up in the 

 for applying the laws: and 5. A magistracy shape of a Memorial, the original draft of 

 elected by the people for duly performing which is in Mr. Moore's possession, and 

 all executive dutie.%" — All these elements delivered into the hands of Lord Bucking- 

 are shewn to have existed in the long-ad- hamshire, in order to procure a remunera. 

 ministered, though unwritten, Constitution tiou for Mr. Massaria's services. This 

 of the Saxons. It is acknowledged that, in gentleman, it seems, is a Corsican of the 

 those times, a species of slavery existed ; town of Ajaccio, also the birth-place of 

 but the thralls, or bondsmen; were not Napoleon, with whom he was iutiniately 

 1 and 



