elected as representatives, and afterwards extended by usurpation to the electors; particularly on the Restoration of Charles II., when, under the Statute of the 13th year of that reign, the resident corporators were expelled from their offices by the King's commissions; and the great officers of state, and other persons, were introduced in their stead-another manifest encroachment upon the ancient simplicity of these institutions.

9th. That although these usurpations were in some places corrected after the Restoration, yet in others they were improperly continued, and were subsequently sanctioned by legal authority.

10th." That the result of supporting these usurpations, and the various usages which in different places have sprung out of them, has produced an anomalous, complicated, and unintelligible system, which has given birth to a distinct branch of the law, relative to Corporations-more intricate and mysterious than any other; not known by those who act under it, altogether hid from the unlearned, and but partially revealed to the learned.

11th. "That nothing can restore these municipal institutions to a reasonable and practical form, but re-establishing the ancient uniformity of their rights and privi, leges; by which means they may be equally known and understood by all classes; and any abuse, or departure from the general principle, would be instantly corrected by the influence of public opinion, or by uniform judicial determinations."-Introd. p. v.-vi.

The learned Serjeant, whose name stands first upon the title page, has already, in two or three publications, and, especially, in his Report of the West Looe Case, published in 1823, endeavoured, rather unsuccessfully, to draw the public attention to his opinions upon this subject. For ourselves, we are somewhat inclined to favour his notions as to the persons who were anciently denominated burgesses; and, we think, if the facts are to be depended upon, it is pretty clearly made out that the first direct Charter of Incorporation, according to the legal meaning of that word, was granted in the reign of Henry VI. Further than this we cannot go; and our confidence in the correctness of even these conclusions, so far as that confidence rests upon the present volumes, would be much stronger if the authors had arrived at them as the results of a purely literary inquiry. Here it is not so. The object of the authors is not literary but political. Their work constitutes the case' of one of the parties in a great political contest; and on that account, as well as on account of the carelessness of its authors as to facts, ought to be received with extreme caution. If no direct incorporation took place until the reign of Henry VI., we cannot think the authors have shewn that the thing meant was not well known, and, in substance, practised long anterior to that time. Many of the arguments of our authors upon, these points, and especially that relating to grants to burgesses and their heirs, instead of to them and their successors,' seem to us (not to speak it profanely') mere quibbles. For any thing we have found in these volumes, we cannot consent to overturn the old doctrine of inferring the existence of Corporate privileges from the nature of the ancient grants of liberties;-a doctrine first sanctioned by our Courts when the subject must have been full within their knowledge, and only 27 years (not 127 years, as erroneously stated by our authors in the Introd. p. xxxiii.), after the grant of the first Charter of direct incorporation.

6

But after all, the main point in these volumes is the political question, and there the object of the authors is to establish in all corporations a general suffrage of inhabitant householders. "These persons," say they, were the burgesses at the Common Law; by our antiquarian skill we have discovered them in the Saxon Laws, we have disinterred them from Domesday ;-their right could not legally be lost by non-use, or lapse of time; nor can there be any prescription against it in Corporations, because

Corporations did not exist until after the reign of Richard I., the legal period of prescription; nor can it be taken away by Charter, being a right over which the Executive has no control. Go back then to the institutions of your ancestors; revive the practices of a people whom you are foolishly accustomed to disregard; our scheme once existed amongst your forefathers, and where is the person bold or conceited enough to suppose that he can devise any thing better?" We fear a great deal of this reasoning is too refined for ears profane,' and even to those who can fully enter into it, we do not imagine it will be found very convincing. The science of government, it has been over and over again remarked, in the spirit if not in the very words of Burke, is eminently practical. It is a science in which the means ought to be studied almost solely with a view to the end proposed, and remedies applied with a direct aim at the evil intended to be eradicated. Can it be wise policy to adopt a scheme, the fitness of which is not shewn, but merely that it existed many centuries ago? Can it be good argument, that because at an early period of our history the inhabitants were the burgesses, therefore they ought to be the burgesses now? Many a slow century since that day hath fill'd Its course,"

66

and produced such changes in the whole framework of society, that it is easier for us to imagine the condition of almost any other people than that of our own Saxon ancestors. A nation, the bulk of whose population were slaves, has purified from slavery even the very air it breathes; a people sunk in superstition have had their minds cleansed by the influences of a better faith; a country which successively became the prey of every bold invader, has risen to the dignity of one of the foremost states in all the world;' men comparatively unskilled in arts, manufactures, and commerce, have been succeeded by a race who, retaining their hereditary love of enterprise, are yet distinguished for ingenuity and refinement: but all these incontestable differences are to be as mere dust in the balance, the faulty institutions of the present day are to be replaced by others with respect to which all that is contended is that they existed in a by-gone state of society. This is indeed to clothe the man in the habiliments of the child! As reasonable would it be in case of the repair of one of our stately cathedrals, to replace it with a timber church erected after the fashion of the Saxons, -a heresy which if proposed would doubtless find

"Some sober brow

To bless it, and approve it with a text;"

as reasonable to impose upon us the shackles of the free-borgh or pledge system because some persons complain of our police. 'The wisdom of our ancestors' has become a bye-word, a phrase of ridicule and contempt, solely in consequence of follies like this. Their wisdom was truly shown in permitting their worn-out systems to fall into desuetude, and in gradually adapting their institutions to the increasing wants and altered situations of the people. The antiquary may find delight in reviving the faded images of their peculiarities, the statesman may derive practical lessons from tracing the rise and fall of their jurisdictions; but it never can be wise to reconstruct, in altered circumstances, institutions which were permitted to sink gradually into decay by people who for several centuries had experience of their practical effects, merely because the politicians of the present day are dissatisfied with the existing form of municipal government. Useful institutions are seldom permitted to fall into disuse, and the

mere fact that any usage has become obsolete, goes far towards showing that society has outgrown it, and that it has become inapplicable to the circumstances and condition of the people.

But the argument against this scheme can be carried much further than this. No general attempt is made in this work to prove that any practical benefit would be likely to result from this contemplated return to ancient institutions ;-the authors have limited themselves upon this head to a few remarks,, inferences, and assertions, scattered throughout their work. Indeed, the practical grievances complained of are not explained, and therefore the authors could not very well discuss their proposed remedy. In the few instances in which they have entered into anything like a defence of their schemes, we find them about as correct in their facts as we have shewn them to be in their antiquarian details. Southwold happens to be a borough in which all the inhabitants are burgesses. It is a small town situate upon the coast of Suffolk, considerably frequented as a watering place, but remarkable for nothing, that we ever heard of, but the battle of Solebay fought near it in the year 1672. The peculiarity in its municipal constitution gave it favour in the eyes of our authors, and occasioned a passage in their work more explanatory upon the advantages of household suffrage than any other we have found.

"Southwold never was a parliamentary borough, and had nothing to boast of but its separate jurisdiction from the county, which was given to it by the Act of Henry VII. and under which it has been most effectively governed to the present day, affording one of the best specimens of the practical effect of our ancient institutions, whilst unperverted and unabused, that is to be met with in the kingdom; scarcely presenting an instance of a criminal trial, or a civil law-suit, for many years. Property is respected and protected by the local administration of the law, and order and good government preserved in the most exemplary manner, under the local authorities.

"Other places may perhaps vie with it in this particular; but the observation is material with respect to Southwold, because, as there has been no temptation for parliamentary or political purposes, to pervert or abuse its exclusive privileges, they have continued in their original, unaltered purity, and consequently their efficacy can be distinctly ascertained."*-Vol. ii. p. 1057.

A more unfortunate statement could not possibly have been made. Southwold is situate in an agricultural district, where there are few temptations to crime, and consequently, it is undoubtedly true, that as to criminal trials they seldom occur, and that the offences committed are generally trivial;—a statement which would be found correct of any other similar town; but for civil law suits' it has dealt in them by wholesale from the very earliest times. Where was the learned Serjeant when Westminster Hall was lately called upon solemnly to determine the right to a cask of whiskey litigated by this Corporation? They failed in their suit, but rather than pay the expense to which they had put their opponents, this honourable Corporation" permitted their servant, against whom the action had been brought, and whom they had defended at their own cost, to take the benefit of the Insolvent Act; by which manœuvre they threw the expense of their litigious conduct upon

That these gentlemen have no great local knowledge of Southwold, is evident from their having described it as eleven' miles distant from Dunwich, a mistake arising out of their having misunderstood the Roman numerals II. to mean eleven. The same mistake has, in the next page, converted a boat with 'two' oars into a boat with eleven' oars!-Vide vol II. p. 1053. The two miles' mentioned in the document referred to, are the long miles of our ancestors. Southwold and Dunwich are between four and five miles apart.

the persons wronged. When the report of the Corporation Commissioners is made, we shall be surprised if a sum between four and five hundred pounds be not inserted for the expenses paid by the Corporation of Southwold, for the defence of this action. This whiskey case followed hard' upon some other trials in which the Corporation expended 2317., and for some time past they have been involved in another litigation of a very expensive character; we trust the Serjeant and his coadjutor will have gratitude briefs. It will probably be thought that a town thus prone to litigation must have a well-stockit mailen,' and that this indulgence in legal luxuries is merely an indication of an over-filled town chest. Alas! they have considerable estates-but they are deeply mortgaged; they have an extensive and valuable common-but they have depreciated it by mismanagement; they have revenues-but they are decreasing. Perhaps they give attention to improvements, and adorn their town with public buildings? Bear witness for them their New Town Hall,' erected at a comparatively enormous expence, and which is at once a wonder and disgrace; perhaps they expend money in the maintenance of institutions for education, and other useful public purposes? They had a Burgh school, but learning and litigation were opposed; both were costly, and both could not therefore be maintained. In Southwold litigation has ever thriven, but the school has been discontinued. There is scarcely a branch of their expenditure in which the public has not suffered from mismanagement; and, notwithstanding their love of litigation, the appearance of that portion of the town nearest to the sea, indicates how much the public rights have suffered from encroachments. Party feuds prevail to an extent which certainly equals that to which they are carried in most parliamentary boroughs. Their assemblies are disorderly meetings, in which the sweet voices' of the burgesses are sometimes swayed by interested cunning and sometimes by mere dreamers of dreams. Nothing is certain amongst them but disagreement and misgovernment; as a public body they have all the vices of a democracy without its strength. No borough indeed can exhibit a more entire and total practical refutation of the household burgess scheme than Southwold the Pure! And is this surprising? Is it unequalled? On the contrary, does it not agree with the experience of every day? It is within the knowledge of every man, and has been established before Parliamentary Committees, that the most popular Corporations are not the purest, or the best governed; and when the results of the late enquiry are laid before the public, which will probably be the case before these pages see the light, we are confident it will be found that the power of governing by select bodies in Corporations, which it is the fashion of the times to call an abuse,' has been generally exercised in a satisfactory manner, and been attended with considerable practical advantages. That such bodies have imperfections,-that, if it be so, there is in their nature a tendency to abuse, does not furnish any argument exclusively against them. It is unfortunately equally applicable to all forms of government. At any event, they have not the peculiar and fatal instability which must attend government by popular assemblies, in which opinions are hastily formed, adopted at once without consideration or judgment, and just as capriciously abandoned.

We might multiply remarks upon these volumes, but must forbear. Our observations have already extended to a length which nothing but the great importance of the subject can justify. We join cordially with the public at large in their estimation of the professional talents of these

authors; we cheerfully bear our testimony to the excellent manner in which justice is administered by the learned Serjeant, as a local judge, in several places; but for the reasons we have given, and many others which could be adduced, we do not think that, either historically or politically, this work is entitled to any great share of public confidence.

Amongst the municipal and other manuscript documents first printed in these volumes, there are some which we should like to have submitted to our readers, but we have not left ourselves room. Any one who will take the trouble to go through the work will occasionally find some new and curious matter; as for instance, the account of the proceedings at Ipswich upon the acceptance of King John's Charter; the Yarmouth Leet Rolls; and various letters and documents relating to the recommendation and nomination of members for boroughs. Some of these would have been far better printed entire in an appendix; but, with due caution as to the accuracy of the authors, they may be found useful.

DIARY OF A LOVER OF LITERATURE.

(Continued from p. 133.)

1809.

June 17. Read Sir Robert Naunton's Fragmenta Regalia, consisting of remarks on Queen Elizabeth and her principal favourites, interesting as coming from a contemporary, but written with such affectation and quaintness, as often render the narrative provokingly obscure. Lord Hunsdon's Letter to Lord Burleigh appended to Carey's Memoirs, evinces more spirit than we should have supposed would have been shown towards the Royal termagant Queen.

June 19. Parr, in his Notes to his Letter on Fox, p. 200, is for abolishing, und liturá, our Penal Code, and substituting a better; and he seems to think that all objection to this sweeping annihilation of old statutes will be removed by the instantaneous operation of new ones ready prepared for the purpose. I hope I am above that pedantic professional technical horror at innovation in our laws, which is the provoking let to all improvements, but I cannot forget that with the old statutes must be removed all those contentions upon them by which dissension has been limited, where we would most wish to see it restricted; and that with the new ones, let them be penned with what accuracy and precision they may, interpretation must expatiate for a long time very much at large-a most formidable difficulty surely in the minds of all considerate men.-Fearn assured me it was Parr* to whom Boswell alludes, as the eminent literary character who said of Herbert Croft's Life of Young-' It has all Johnson's pomp without his force,' &c.

June 25. Read Lord Holland's Introduction to Fox's History, admirably well written. I cannot help thinking, that Fox's restriction of history exclusively to narrative, is pedantic and irrational: that nothing contentious or disquisitionary should be admitted into the body of the narrative, I readily allow; and in this respect both Hume and Robertson and Gibbon are occasionally in some measure faulty: but what just objection can there possibly be to throwing such matter, with notes, into a separate dissertation? I am better pleased

* See Boswell's Johnson, by Croker, vol. iv. p. 429, where this speech is given by Mr. Malone to Mr. Burke, not to Dr. Parr, though it is much in the Doctor's best manner. The criticism on the work alluded to, is as just in its decision, as it is forcible in its expression. Nothing but indolence could have made Johnson adopt it.-ED.