There is one very obvious abfurdity in the scheme of this affembly. "Not only an 'unanimity of voices is neceffary to pafs any bill, and conftitute a decree of the Diet, but every bill muft likewife be aflented to unanimously, or none can take effect. Thus, if out of twenty bills, one should happen to be oppofed by a single voice, all the rest are thrown out, and the Diet meets, deliberates, and debates for fix weeks to no purpose. It is aftonishing that a rule fo contradictory to common fenfe, and attended with fuch fatal confequences, can maintain its place among a people by no means devoid of understanding." This unhappy circumftance confidered, it may be juftly queftioned, whether it is, on the whole, an advantage or a misfortune to the nation, that her greatest concerns, and most valuable interefts, are left to the decifion of this body: fuch as the declaring war, or concluding peace; the forming alliances; the election or marriage of the King; the impofition of taxes; the framing of laws; levying of forces, &c. For, to add to the other inconveniencies attending the constitution of the Diet, venality and corruption have found their way into that, as well as into fome great affemblies elfewhere. "Here, as in other countries, fay our Authors, the cry of Liberty is kept up for the fake of private intereft. Deputies come with a full refolution of profiting by their patriotifm, and not lowering their voice without a gratification. Determined to oppose the most falutary measures of the Court, they either withdraw from the affembly, proteft against all that fhall be tranfacted in their abfence, or elfe excite fuch a clamour as renders it neceflary for the Court to filence them by fome lucrative penfion, donation, or employment. Thus not only the bufinefs of the affembly is obftructed by its own Members, but frequently by largeffes from neighbouring powers, and fometimes by the liberality of an open enemy, who has the art of diftributing his money with difcretion." tend the King's perfon, ferve him as a privy-council, and direct that he fhall not infringe the conftitution. Whatever is ordained by thefe Deputies, and has the royal fanction, becomes valid, as an act of the whole Diet. It is therefore adopted, as a part of the conftitution, that four, at leaft, of the number fhall conftantly refide at Court, as Guardians of the public liberty, and Infpectors of the King's conduct. Penalties are annexed to any remiffnefs in their duty; and they are fined, for abfence, at the rate of two thousand livres for a layman, and fix thoufand for an ecclefiaftic." REV. Dec. 1762. Dd We We have here fome farther particulars relating to the Diet, worth tranfcribing, for the entertainment as well as the information of our Readers. "The afflux of people which the Diet occafions, is altogether aftonishing. Wherever it happens to fit, thirty or forty thoufand people are added to the ufual number of inhabitants. Here the Poles rival each other in pomp and profufion. The Nobility who are not deputed, attend with their families for pleasure they drink deep of their favourite liquor, Hungarian wine; and feafting and mirth are more purfued than the bufineis of the State. In confequence of their festivity, the Deputies come frequently intoxicated into the Diet, affront the King, excite tumults, harangue with the most abufive and factious eloquence, and fometimes occafion the diffoJution of the aflembly. From this general view it appears how inadequate the Diet is to the original intention. It was defigned for the fupreme Senate of the nation: it is, in fact, little more than a factious corrupted mafs, collected out of form, conducted with indecorum, and diffolved with as little. reafon as it was affembled; only because a certain number of weeks have elapfed, without regarding whether the business of the meeting hath been tranfacted. Such is the idea of the Polifh Diet we have been able to acquire, from the careful perufal of the beft authorities. It would almost be unneceffary to remark upon the abfurdity of requiring an unanimity of voices to every bill, by which a power is lodged in every capricious corrupted Member of rendering the meeting of this great affembly of the nation of no effect. This was intended as a barrier to Liberty; but it has unfortunately been the channel of corruption, faction, and confufion. The Poles imagined, that by this regulation they should ever prevent the Crown from gaining too great an afcendant; for though it was poffible to obtain a majority, it was not at all probable the royal influence fhould ever be able to bribe every individual of the Diet to furrender the rights and interefts of his country. Thus, to avoid defpotifm, they in fome measure gave a fanction to anarchy. Indeed, fo fenfible are the Poles of the inconveniencies of their conftitution, that fome reformations have been frequently attempted; and the most senfible of the nation acknowlege, that in almost all their wars with the Turks and Tartars, their prefervation was entirely owing to the immediate interpofition of the Deity, and not to human prudence or forefight. Yet, after all, it must be confefled, that a politic Prince may mould this turbulent mul titude agreeable to his inclinations, by foothing, cajoling, treating, and making pecuniary prefents. Befides, it is feldom that an individual dares venture to exert his privilege of denying his affent to what all the other Members have voted; the ftronger party being fometimes extremely liberal of that moft convincing of all proofs-a found drubbing." But, "perhaps, the most respectable department of the Polifh government, fay our Authors, is the Senate, composed of the Bishops, Palatines, Caftellans, and ten Officers of State, who derive a right from their dignities of fitting in that affembly; in all amounting to one hundred and forty-four Members, who are ftiled Senators of the kingdom, or Counfellors of the State, and have the title of Excellency, a dignity supported by no penfion or emoluments neceffarily annexed. The Senate prefides over the laws, is the Guardian of liberty, the Judge of right, and the Protector of justice and equity. The Members are nominated by the King, and they take an oath to the Republic before they are permitted to enter upon their functions. Their honours continue for life: at the general Diet they fit on the right and left of the Sovereign, according to their dignity, without regard to feniority. They are the Mediators between the Monarch and the fubject, and, in conjunction with the King, ratify all the laws paffed by the Nobility. The value they put on their dignities makes them defpife all other honours: even the titles offered by the Emperor have been rejected by Polish Senators, who thought their prefent dignities fuperior to that of Princes of the Empire. "We are Gentlemen of Poland, faid they, "and have power to treat of peace and war with our Mo"narch: your Imperial Majefty therefore injures us, by "imagining that we fhall be made greater by the flimfy title "of Princes of the Empire, than we are as real Senators of "the Republic of Poland." Such was the answer of the Senators who accompanied King Sigifmund to the Emperor, when his Polish Majefty vifited the Court of Vienna. As a Senator is bound by oath to maintain the liberties of the republic, it is thought no difrefpect to Majefty that they remind the Prince of his duty. They are his Counsellors, and this freedom of fpeech is an infeparable prerogative of their office." This abridgment of the Polish Hiftory is brought down to the year 1737, when his prefent Majefty acquired the peaceable poffeffion of the Crown, which had been difputed by the unfortunate, but truly refpectable, Stanislaus: who was first Dd 2 raifed raifed to the throne by Charles XII. King of Sweden, when that arbitrary Conqueror depofed Auguftus, father to the now reigning Prince. The thirty-fifth volume of this univerfal Compendium, contains the Hiftory of Ruffia; beginning with the commencement of the Ruffian Monarchy, in the ninth century; and concluding with the acceffion of the late unhappy Czar, Peter the third. We fhall give no extract from this volume; having fo frequently had occafion to lay before our Readers many particulars relating to this immenfe Empire. In the thirty-fixth volume we have part of the modern Hiftory of Italy; that of Florence being the entire fubject of this volume. It is a dry and barren compilation; a meagre abridgment of Aretini, Machiavel, Guicciardini, and other Hiftorians, who have given us, more at large, the Annals of this part of Europe. The thirty-feventh volume opens with the History of Bologna; that of Parma and Placentia follows; and then comes the Hiftory of the pious Republic of Geneva: which no confiftent Proteftant, no true friend of religious freedom, can perufe without refentment, without horror. For here it was that the fiery Bigot, Calvin, facrificed the learned Servetus, to the black Fury Fanaticifm; that infernal fpirit, which here likewife firft lighted up the torch of Superftition, that set fire to the pile in which the unhappy Gentil was confumed at Bern; and here it was that the infanity of the wretched Antoine fubjecting him to the more fatal frenzy of perfecuting zeal, involved him in the like miferable fate: falling, as thoufands more have fallen, a dreadful proof of the intolerating spirit of religious establishments !-O thou meek-eyed døve! the lovely fymbol of that firft pure faith which defcended from heaven to establish peace on earth and good will towards men, how fhort was thy abode with us! how foon, alas! wert thou changed into that fierce unrelenting vulture, whofe cruel beak hath been fo often ftained in the precious blood of honeft men!We have feen this mercilefs harpy, with horrid wings fanning the Smithfield fires; we have feen her prefiding in our Courts of Juftice, perched on the creft of the civil Magiftrate, like the bird of Athens on Minerva's helmet ;but thanks be to God! we have alto feen her driven from our favoured clime. May the never more be permitted to hover near the happy fhores of Britain! May LIBERTY ever maintain her unbounded empire over our minds; may TRUTH eternally eternally flourish under her auspicious reign; and, together with FREEDOM of ENQUIRY, prevail over every tyrant power, which fhall dare to infringe the facred rights of Confcience! The Hiftory of the Dutchy of Milan follows that of Geneva; after which we have the Hiftories of Modena and Ferrara, and of Mantua. The volume concludes with that of the House of Savoy, including Piedmont, and the other eftates of his Sardinian Majefty. Philofophical Tranfactions. Vol. LII. Part I. concluded. MATHEMATICAL PAPERS. Art. 4. A letter from the Rev. Nevil Mafkelyne, A. M. Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and F. R. S. containing a Theorem of the Aberration of the Rays of Light, refracted through a Lens, on account of the imperfections of the spherical figures Some years ago the ingenious Mr. John Dolland difcovered a method for correcting the aberation of the rays of light, arifing from the different refrangibility of the different forts of rays; this he effected by a combination of different kinds of glafs; he alfo invented a theorem fhewing the quantity of the aberration of the rays, refracted through a lens, on account of the imperfection of the spherical figure; by the application of which he was enabled to make the aberrations of the combined concave and convex object-glaffes perfectly equal, and confequently to correct one another. Mr. Mafkelyne has, in the paper before us, given a fimilar theorem for this purpose, and in fome refpects more easily applicable to practice than that of Mr. Dolland. Art. 11. A letter to the Rev. Dr. Brakenridge, concerning the Term and Period of human Life: in which the inequalities in conftructing, and the falfe conclufions drawn from Dr. Halley's Breflau Table, are fully proved; the fuppofed extraordinary healthfulness of that place is particularly examined and confuted; and its real flate equalled by divers places in England; the imperfection of all the Tables formed upon a thousand lives is fhewn; and a method propofed to obtain one much better. By T. W. A. M. |