necessary for the cultivation of the West India colonies, whether he has not an equal right to bear away European artists and artisans, as more expert than his fellow countrymen, and as necessary, therefore, to the promotion of industry and of the useful and polite Arts in his states.

• A White Code which my paternal goodness is about to prepare, 'shall legalize these measures, and shall be the standard of the Black Codes, published among you for the government of the • Antilles.'

I do not see,' pursues our Author, in a fine strain of contemptuous irony which subsequent events have almost converted from satire into history, I do not see what argu'ments could be opposed to those of this second Genseric.'

Si le succés couronnoit son entreprise, bientôt à ses pieds il verroit en extase et bouche béante, cette multitude d'individus qui dans tous pays n'ont que des idées, des sentimens d'emprunt. En flattant la cupidité par des pensions, la vanité par des décorations, il rendroit tous les arts tributaires. Au Parnasse, où il faut toujours quelqu' idole, on s'empresseroit de briser les statues des hommes qui auroient cessé d'etre puissans, pour y substituer celles des hommes qui le seroient devenus. Une foulé de livres seroient dédiés a Genseric, le grand, le bien aimé, etc: les savans attache. roient son nom à des decouvertes etrangéres à ses connoissances; la plupart des hommes de lettres chanteroient ses louanges; le génie même, ébloui par ses conquêtes, s'aviliroit peut-être en lui présentant des complimens adulateurs sous la forme de menace niaise, dans le genre de celle qu' adressoit Boileau à Louis XIV.

« Grand roi, cesse de vaincre, ou je cesse d'écrire.”

Des libellistes, humblement soumis à la censure de la police africaine, iroient journellement chercher le mot dordre dans une antichambre; ils seroient chargés de diffamer les écrivains qui refuseroient de prostituer leurs plumes et tout homme à caractére qui, 'même sans être frondeur, ne se déclareroit pas admirateur de Genseric; ils répéteroient, jusqu'à la satieté, qu'il est le Pére de ses sujets, l'objet de l'amour et de l'admiration generale; dans l'espérance qu'il digneroit abaisser sur eux un regard protecteur, ils canoniseroient le Salomon, le Titus, le Trajan, le Marc-Aurele, qui auroit daigné conquérir l'Europe et qui daignera la régénérer: et comme on apprécie presque toujours la légitimité des entreprises par leur issue & les résultats, on béniroit Genseric, on maudissoit son devancier jusqu'à ce que lui même fût supplanté par quelque autre dominateur qui seroit béni & maudit à son tour. L'Histoire de France depuis vingt-cinq ans dispense de chercher ailleurs des exemples à l'appui de cette assertion.'

The Author closes the first chapter of his work with a reference to the sensation produced among the Haytians by the obnoxious article in the Treaty of peace, and the formidable VOL. III. N. S.

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aspect which they would oppose to an invading army that should attempt to reduce them again to slavery. Their minds are imbued with this principle, that no individual may be deprived of his liberty, if he has not forfeited it by crime and been legally condemned. They know that the oppression of an individual is a menace against all the rest, an act of hostility against all mankind.' If they had had representatives at the Congress of Vienna, they would, no doubt, have procured the acknowledgement that the right of France to subjugate them, is as illusive as that which they might arrogate to themselves of subjugating France.

• To debase men, is the infallible way to render them vicious: slavery degrades at once the master and the slave: it hardens the heart, extinguishes the moral sense, and leads to all descriptions of calamity.'

Here we must suspend our notice of this interesting pamphlet. In our next Number we shall present to our readers an abstract of the second chapter, On the traffic and slavery of the Whites;' the subject of which is so distinct, that it may seem to many persons unconnected with that of the preceding pages. It exhibits to us a clergyman of the most intolerant Church, pleading for universal toleration, and maintaining the consistency of the true rights of man, with the rights of Cæsar and of God.

Art. VII. A Sermon occasioned by the Detection and Punishment of Criminals, guilty of Robberies and Murder in the Counties of Essex and Hertford; preached at Bishops Stortford, March 19, 1815. By William Chaplin, 8vo. pp. 34. Price 1s. Conder,

WE

E are not surprised that the Author of this judicious and impressive discourse was strongly urged to give it to the public. Not merely local interest and feelings must have been excited by the circumstances which gave it birth; but the nature of those circumstances, and especially their originating in a practice prevalent to a melancholy extent, and by many regarded with a lenient eye, gives to the subject an universal im portance.

In the month of March, 1814, the crimes of burglary and murder were committed by two men, at Berden, in the county of Essex. All attempts to discover the perpetrators were fruitless, until the following January; when two of the Bow-street officers, apprehended two labouring men residing in Bishop's Stortford. In their houses was found a large assortment of picklock keys, together with a complete

apparatus for housebreaking; besides many articles of different species of property evidently stolen. Some of these articles were sworn to by the proprietors who had lost them, and the culprits were committed to prison on their depositions; under strong suspicion, at the same time, of being concerned also in the murder at Berden After a short confinement in separate cells, they both confessed themselves guilty of that deed, each however accusing the other of being the actual perpetrator. At the ensuing assizes they were tried at Hertford, and convicted of robberies in that county,-and the sentence being suspended, they were subsequently conveyed to Chelmsford to take their trials for their deeds at Berden. On Monday the 13th of March, they were both executed in that town; together with two other men for murders in separate and distant parts of the county. -Such are the awful circumstances which gave rise to the following discourse.

Although the two malefactors first mentioned were not suspected of fouler deeds, yet it seems they were well known to be great poachers, and received very extensive and lucrative sanction in that nefarious practice.' pp. v, vi.

From the text, Ps. cxix. 158. the preacher draws a striking picture of the various characters of transgressors; expatiates on the grief which the true Christian must feel in beholding them; and presents appropriate considerations on the duty of avoiding of whatever may, directly or indirectly, sunction the deeds of transgressors, on the imperative duty of promoting true religion among all classes,-on personal humi liation, and on the inestimable excellency of the Gospel, and the way of salvation which it proposes to the guilty sons of

men.

If our limits permitted, we could extract many interesting passages but we must confine ourselves to a single point, the offence, before adverted to, of poaching, or obtaining game and fish by snares, nightly prowlings, and other illegal methods. Happy should we be if we could fix the attention of the relgious public on THIS IMPORTANT OBJECT. Few, perhaps, are aware that this crime,--the precursor of the most atrocious robberies and of many murders,-is extensively committed through the country. From thoughtlessness, culpable ignorance, or false inferences from their disapprobation of the Game-Laws, many even respectable persons do not hesitate to buy, for their own use or for sending as presents, the produce of this wicked practice: a practice which, like smuggling, is the bane of decency and industry, of morals, education, and religion, among the poor in many parts of England. By this HORRID PRACTICE, the vast demand of the London market for venison, hares, pheasants, &c., is, in a great measure, regularly supplied!-Many, no doubt, have been participants in this guilt, who, on becoming apprized of its nature and consequences, will shudder,

and will wash their hands from this blood of the souls and often of the bodies of men.

The Sermon before us is well calculated to assist the efforts of virtuous men and real patriots, in diffusing just views of this deplorable evil, and the means of reducing, and finally exterminating it.

I should be altogether,' says the preacher, unfit to stand in this place, if I did not on the present occasion, follow the strong impulse of my mind, and enter a public protest against such an infraction of order and of law.

It is a violation of the laws of the country. In answer to this, I know it has been said, that the laws in question are bad, fit only to be broken; and that some legislators themselves have been known to concur in breaking them.-With regard to the last part of the objection; there have been many makers of laws, whom I should be very sorry to see taken as patterns in morals: and as to the former part, it is possible that the statutes in question proceed upon a mistaken policy, as well for the proprietor as for the public. But this is not the place to discuss the quality of any particular law: it is, however, the place to state that no man has a right to take the laws into his own hand, and dispense with them whenever they may not agree with his individual opinion. If this monstrous notion were once admitted, it would open a way for the destruction of all law, and the removal of every barrier by which property is secured, and order preserved. You may dislike one law, your neighbour another, a third person another; thus the bonds of society would be broken, and the whole frame of government frittered away and undermined at every one's caprice. If any law be grievous and unjust, there are legitimate and constitutional methods of redress, to which a British public may resort, and which seldom fail of success. I will venture further to add, they never can ultimately fail, if judiciously and temperately persevered in.-Passive obedience and non-resistance are odious te nets, which have been long and universally exploded in Britain, in theory at least; and I hope my countrymen will ever explode them in practice. But, my hearers, in the name of every thing that is generous and good, let us be open and manly: it is unworthy of an honourable mind to be implicated in deeds which can only be accomplished by artifice and stealth. We are commanded by the highest authority, to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them*.-Let it also be considered that the infraction of law in this case, is principally done by a class of persons not much accustomed to discriminate in questions of such a nature. It is a hazardous experiment to sanction disobedience to law in such a quarter. It is making them familiar with that, which ought, if possible, ever to be kept far from their thoughts. From the breaking of one law, it is but a slight transition, with such persons, to the violation of another and perhaps the transition is slighter still from two to ten. Especially when countenanced by those who are considered as better

Eph. v. 11.

informed, and better disposed, for obvious reasons, to respect as they ought to do the laws and magistracy of their country.

It is not doing to others as you would have them do unto you. -If you purchase an estate, to which the legislature has attached certain privileges; you justly conclude you are entitled to the same, as comprised in that for which the consideration is given. Or if you derive it from your ancestors, they are legally attached to your inheritance. Now if (as is the case with most persons so situated,) your are at further expence for the security of what hath been so acquired, in what light, I ask, would you view the nightly spoiler, who should ravage and rob your peaceful domain? And more especially if his pursuits were accompanied (as is often the case) with resistance, and shedding the innocent blood of those to whom your orders had committed the protection of your lawful possessions? Let any one put himself in such situation, and then form his opinion on the propriety of sanctioning the practice in question.

It is the fruitful parent of the worst of crimes and miseries.-It leads to pilfering, and pilfering leads to housebreaking, housebreaking to murder, and murder to the gallows. I apprehend there is no doubt of the truth and reality of this statement, with regard to the unhappy individuals whose end hath given occasion for this discourse; and, not in reference to them only, but many besides There is reason to fear that this single practice, contributes much. by its tendency and its consequences, to swell the calendar of every assize; to people our gaols, to bind fetters on our countrymen, an lift up against them the executioner's arm. Behold then the effects of this deed of darkness, and judge whether it be not of too detestable a nature, to be countenanced by any one who would be deemed a friend to honesty and to the interests of society.' pp. 16—20.

Art. VIII. Familiar Poems. Moral and Religious. By Susannah Wilson. 18mo. pp. xii. 161. Price 2s. Darton and Co. 1814. AMONG the numerous attempts, misnamed poetical, whose

good intention is their only claim to indulgence, and whose piety alone absolves them from contempt, it is pleasing to meet with an instance of native talent surmounting the depressions of uneducated poverty, and presenting its artless offerings at the altar of truth. No rank has yet been fixed to which genius is confined; no circle struck, which it has not overstepped. Many a hidden biography would bear record how oft,

'the Muse has found,

Her blossoms on the wildest ground :'

and while we receive with reverence the products of successful culture, and the stores of laborious and polished research, it is with a simple feeling of pleasure, that we welcome the efforts of an un aspiring mind, wrought up by no classic invo