successively made in it, and of its practical administration. When a period subsequent to its commencement is adopted, the author is expected to give us, as correctly as possible, the existing state of the Constitution at the period he selects, and to trace, with a fair and steady hand, all the mutations it may have undergone, down to the time when he closes his work. There is no country in Europe, in which the subject of its own Constitution has been more repeatedly and thoroughly discussed, than England; and perhaps there is none, in which there can be more room for discussion.

When inferences are to be drawn, not from what is prescribed, but from what is done, the same measure may, to opposite partisans, appear to be either a violation of the Constitution, or a conformity to it. Precedents are invoked on one side, as giving a sanction, while the other considers them only as antecedent outrages. On this subject, we need not to enter into detail. Every reader of English history is familiar with the opposite and often irreconcilable views, which their whig and tory writers take of the same transaction.

Mr. Hallam professes not to be the blind zealot of any party; and in truth we cannot call this a party work. So far as relates to the intentions of the author, it is entitled to a favourable reception; and we have finished the perusal of it, with a full conviction, that he has not wilfully misrepresented any fact, nor perverted any reasoning of others. His leaning, however, is to the side of the whigs, and his book is dedicated to the Marquis of Lansdowne.

In the preface, we were struck with a passage, which seems to imply, that the author doubted the precision of the title he had adopted. He declares his intention to be, to display, more fully than his predecessors, the state of government during the reigns he has selected.

The state of government, he tells us, is "loosely denominated the Constitution." If we are to understand, that, in his opinion, there is no fixed and permanent combination of principles, to which the rulers are bound to conform, but that the state of government, like the state of the weather, is variable and uncertain, we must regard it as an extraordinary acknowledgment from an Englishman, the general boast of whose countrymen is, not only the excellence of their Constitution, but the permanent security it affords. The history of the state of government in England, from the reign of Henry VII. to that of George III., would, however, have been an awkward title; and a comprehensive word was substituted, which harmonizes with popular opinion.

The belief that they have a fixed Constitution is, indeed, the down that fills the pillows of the English; and it may be thought

unnatural in one of their own number, to disturb their repose. But when they look, with affected or with genuine pity, on other nations, the slaves of despotism, they must bear to be told, that a power, completely despotic, potentially exists among themselves, and that the people themselves contribute, at stated periods, to the continued duration of this power. When they deride the fancied security that republicans perceive in written Constitutions, they must submit to hear how unstable is that, which can only be made out from the Acts of legislators under no restraint; Acts which it would be absurd to term unconstitutional, since those very Acts form the Constitution. For these purposes, they need no better text-book than the work of Mr. Hallam.

In two ponderous quartos, one containing 600, and the other upwards of 700 pages, he has encountered the laborious task of tracing the mutable character, or rather the gradual progress, of the Constitution, for nearly three centuries.

Confining himself, as he observes in the preface, to this portion of the history of his country, he abstains from more than a cursory mention of either military or political transactions, which do not bear on this primary object. For some occasional deviations he apologizes; and the apology may be cheerfully accepted. The work might have been enlivened, if he had less rigidly adhered to his plan; if he had more frequently indulged us with references to personal character, the variation of manners, and the events of foreign or internal war. But he scarcely ever wanders far from the path he has marked out; he indulges in few effusions of fancy; he seldom engages in profound discussion; but, like a lawyer in Westminster Hall, keeps closely to his brief. This consistency is not to be dispraised. There is excellent authority for it:

-Servetur ad imum,

Qualis ab incepto processerit et sibi constet. Those works, which are intended as books of reference, ought confessedly to be so constructed.

In the outset, we detect a little inaccuracy.

He begins, by observing, that the government of England has been, "at all times recorded by history," one of those mixed or limited monarchies, which the Celtic or Gothic tribes appear universally to have established, in preference to the coarse despotism of Eastern nations, the more artificial tyranny of Rome and Constantinople, or the models of republican polity on the coasts of the Mediterranean. History, however, certainly has recorded a period, when the monarchy of England cannot be Isaid to have been limited or mixed.

On the Norman conquest, all the fair features of the Saxon governments were swept away. In a former work of the same author-the History of the Middle Ages-he has more truly ob

served, that, however mildly the government of William I. began, his yoke soon became heavy. "The English were oppressed, were subdued, and oppressed again. After a very few years, they sank in despair, and yielded for a century to the indignities of a comparatively small body of strangers. So possible is it for a nation to be kept in permanent servitude," &c. These are the author's own words; and no one can reconcile this just delineation of the absolute power exercised by the race of the Normans, for so long a space, with the idea of a mixed or limited monarchy, "during all times recorded in history."

The only resistance to the will of the sovereign, was that which proceeded from the Barons. The people, the commons, either from apathy or apprehension, were mere spectators of conflicts, which they did not create, and could not control. The baronial power, partly by the exertions of the monarch, and partly by the change of manners, was afterwards gradually weakened; and the inferior classes, by a slow progression, became more important and more respected. In each successive reign, according to the character of the individual on the throne, the royal prerogative was impaired or increased, and popular rights were contracted or enlarged; but what was gained by the people was seldom entirely relinquished. Yet, as will be found, the very increase of popular power endangered its own continuance, and a principle, which we shall hereafter endeavour to explain, may one day suddenly destroy the basis of its own existence.

We shall now proceed to a short analysis of a work, which we have read with gratification, though not with eyes insensible to its defects. We meet occasionally with unsound reasoning; sometimes, though not frequently, with apparent inaccuracy as to facts. The sense is sometimes, though rarely, obscured by the diction; and the thought is generally oppressed by the superabundance of words.-If the work were reduced to half its present length, it would be more intelligible and more useful.

The period chosen for its commencement, is one, when the nation was in a state of repose; when the Battle of Bosworth Field had terminated the last military contest for the crown, and the kingdom had become the undisputed property of Henry VII. The principal circumstances in the polity of England, on the accession of Henry VII., are stated to be as follows::

1. That the King could levy no sort of new tax upon the people, except by the grant of his Parliament.

2. That no new law could be made, whether "of a general or temporary nature," without the previous assent of the same assembly. The author probably means a law of a general or special nature. Private or local Acts of Parliament are not necessarily temporary.

3. No man could be committed to prison, but by a legal war

rant specifying his offence, and by an usage nearly tantamount to constitutional rights, he must be speedily brought to trial by means of regular sessions of gaol delivery. This is perhaps too strongly stated. It was not till after the Restoration that a statute was passed, giving the benefit of a writ of habeas corpus to a prisoner who was not brought to trial at the second session after his commitment; and the occasion of passing that law, was the length of confinement which they frequently underwent.

4. The party accused, was entitled to a public trial by a jury of the vicinage. Civil rights, so far as they depended on matters of fact, wore subject to the same kind of decision.

5. The officers of the crown, violating the rights of the subject, were liable to the suit of an individual, and could not plead in their justification, any warrant or order of the King.

These five points comprehend as complete safeguards for public liberty, and individual security, as could reasonably be devised.

In respect to the composition of Parliament, a statute which has been strangely omitted in the printed volumes, but has been lately brought to light, is remarkable. It was passed in the fifteenth year of the unfortunate Edward II., and is expressed in the following clear and distinct terms. "The matters to be established for the estate of the King, and of his heirs, and for the estate of the realm and of the people, should be treated, accorded, and established in Parliament, by the King, and by the assent of the prelates, earls, and barons, and the commonalty of the realm, according as had been before accustomed." This short Act is of as much value, as the whole of the diffusive, minute, and miscellaneous Magna Charta. The famous 29th article, that no free man shall henceforth be taken, imprisoned, or disseised, &c., except by the judgment of his peers, or the law of the land, is so far insufficient, as it does not describe what that law is, or may be; but when it is expressly declared by what authority laws shall be made, when no measure respecting the estate of the realm can be of any validity as a law, unless it is founded on the concurrence of the three branches of the legislature, the subject has all the security that can be given by a statute; and Magna Charta itself, however reverenced, is no more than a revocable statute.

Our author is not inclined to concede to Henry VII. all the praise of sound judgment, which he has received from others; and he even dissents from the opinion of Lord Bacon on the merits of the laws passed during his reign. That acute observer has said, that the laws of this monarch were "deep, and not vulgar, not made on the spur of the occasion, but out of providence for the future," &c. When we consider, says Mr. Hallam, how very few kings or statesmen, have displayed this prospective

wisdom and benevolence in legislation, we may hesitate a little to bestow so rare a praise upon Henry. "Like the laws of all other times, his statutes seem to have had no further aim, than to remove some immediate mischief, or to promote some particular end."

To meet with a remark so singular and so incorrect, in the beginning of the book, tends to impress us with no favourable idea of what is to follow. The genuine office of legislation, the formation of statutes in other times and other places, is not merely to remove particular mischiefs, or promote particular ends. But if the remark is confined to the statutes of Great Britain, it exhibits her in a light either odious or contemptible, and degrades her legislation below the general level. This, however, cannot be the meaning of the author. Laws are necessarily prospective; they are to provide for the future; the only exceptions, are those stains upon humanity, termed ex post facto laws, including bills of attainder. The latter, although abhorred by every liberal and sound mind in modern times, our author, when treating of Sir John Fenwick's case, in a later reign, seems unaccountably inclined rather to palliate than to condemn. In our American Constitution, it is expressly forbidden to pass ex post facto laws, or bills of attainder; and the judicial power would instantly declare such laws to be void.

But whatever were the merits of this prince in his legislative character, the measures of his executive authority were marked by sordid views, enforced by systematic and unfeeling severity. In these we may trace the state of government, and must suppose that we recognise the Constitution as it was then understood. In the development of the modes adopted to gratify the royal rapacity, the author has perhaps committed a mistake, in representing the inquisitions, returned upon the allegations of escheats, as unimpeachable.

The earliest judicial histories assert the right of the injured party to traverse the inquisition, or, in plainer language, to deny its truth, and have a trial by jury. It is only when he neglects to claim this right, or when it is finally decided against him, that the record is conclusive. Yet even from these extortions, severely as they were felt by individuals, some general benefit resulted, according to our author's opinion:

"The avarice of Henry VII., as it rendered his government unpopular, which had always been penurious, must be deemed a drawback from the wisdom ascribed to him, though, by his good fortune, it answered the end of invigorating his power. By these fines and forfeitures, he impoverished and intimidated the nobility. The earl of Oxford compounded, by the payment of 15,000 pounds, for the penalties he had incurred by keeping retainers in livery, a practice mischievous and illegal, but too customary to have been punished before this reign. Even the king's clemency seems to have sprung from the sordid motive of selling pardons; and it has been shown, that he made a profit of every office in his court, and received money for conferring bishoprics."