Which caused a tuber, or a bump • Bother. You took some blood, Sir, from him ?— (Tench) Plenty Phlebotomiz'd him ounces twenty.' P. 73. Farmer Chubb, after a long examination, becomes impatient: • Chubb. My lord I wishes to be going, For 'tis a charming time for sowing.- So full of malice like, and spite. Bore. A fight! ho, ho! the truth's come out, P. 77. } The law-arguments which arise, are ingeniously fabricated to entertain. Bother'um cites a case: "Bother. Mathew, my lord, and Ollerton < Court. Where one a beating underwent By his own licence and consent, I mean, my lord, that famous beating, In Comberbach, 218, (two hundred eighteen) Court held and so 'twas understood, The licence void, the beating good Associate, hand me the record- (Bore) Hem-my lord? • Court. What say you to the cases quoted!-Bore. My lord, these cases I have noted; Mere nisi prius cases, loose, Loose law, my lord, quite out of use' Same law to boxing and to bruising.' P. 85. Bore. A is my finger, do ye see, My adversary's button, B; It Now, if my finger A I put on A knock'd B down upon the ground.' P. 86. The poem aptly terminates in glorious uncertainty,' without a decision. These gen'rous chiefs, resolv'd awhile to end Might still survive and other suits succeed, And future bards in loftier verse to plead.' P. 89. } Proofs of talent and legal discrimination may authorise our poet, on the subject of his own work, confidently to address his readers with the lawyer of Hudibras:- Not to flatter ye, YE HAVE AS GOOD AND FAIR A BATTERY, AS HEART CAN WISH.' We have alike attempted to perform our part, in faithfully reporting a well-argued case, which must instruct and delight every student of burlesque law. ART. VIII. Observations on reversionary Payments; on Schemes for providing Annuities for Widows, and for Persons in Old Age; on the Method of calculating the Values of Assurances on Lives; and on the national Debt. Also, Essays on different Subjects in the Doctrine of Life-Annuities and political Arithmetic; a Collection of new Tables, and a Postscript on the Population of the Kingdom. By Richard Price, D.D. F. R.S. The Whole new arranged, and enlarged by the Addition of algebraical and other Notes, the Solutions of several new Problems in the Doctrine of Annuities, and a general Introduction. By William Morgan, F. R. S. 2 Vols. 8vo. 18s. Boards. Cadell and Davies. 1803. THIS is the sixth edition of an inestimable work: its original worth is well known, and has been ascertained, not merely by the approbation of every scientific man in his closet, but by the flourishing state of a large society, established on the principles it inculcates, and which are amply exemplified by the talents and the assiduity of the editor. The present edition differs from those which have preceded it, in the arrangement of its parts, in the matter super-added, and in the improvement of the tables. Of the first, Mr. Morgan speaks in the following manner: • All that related to the same subject I have endeavoured, as far as circumstances would permit, to bring together; so that some of the chapters which composed the second, now form a part of the first volume, and on the contrary some chapters in the first are transposed into the second volume. By this means the whole is at least rendered more methodical, and the reader, in consequence, when studying any particular subject, will not be interrupted, as in the former editions, by having to examine different parts of the work before he finds all that has been written in it on that subject.' Vol. i. P. xiii.` It is necessary, however, to observe that in this new arrangement not the slightest variation has been made in the text, nor has any other improvement been intended by the notes and alterations in this edition, than to methodize the general plan of the work, and as far as possible to follow Dr. Price's practice of extending and adapting the information it contains to the circumstances of the present time." Vol. i. P. XV. The editor's additions consist in a very valuable preface, and a variety of notes, of which we need only observe, that they are worthy the man who has given, in the papers of the Royal Society, such proufs of intimate acquaintance with the subject in question, as have never before been offered by any other person. A complete statement is, moreover, added of the intercourse between Dr. Price and Mr. Pitt, on the subject of the national debt, tending to illustrate the conduct of the late minister, who, whatever may be his pretensions in other respects, does not appear to include gratitude in the list of his virtues.' The account of various societies, in former editions, was very interesting. This is continued in the present; and, as the Equitable Society is the most prominent of any, its prosperous state, as here exhibited, must be gratifying, not only to its numerous members, but to every reader who takes a pleasure in observing the constant exercise of prudence and liberality in the execution of an admirable plan. The Equitable Society, since these observations were written in the year 1783, has increased so immensely both in the number and magnitude of its insurances, as to become an institution of the first importance. In the year 1786, after a minute computation of the value of each separate assurance, the addition of 14 per cent, which had been made to the claims in 1792 for every annual payment prior ΤΟ that year, was increased to 24 per cent. In the years 1791, 1793, and 1795, still farther additions were made, amounting together to 4 per cent; so that the claims on all assurances of an earlier date than 1774 were more than doubled, and even those of so late a date as 1783 were increased nearly one half. But although the society never hazarded an addition without a thorough conviction of its safety founded on a comparison of the claims with the premiums and on the decrements of life among its members in each year, it wisely determined to proceed no further with these additions till the same investigation of its affairs had taken place, which had been first instituted in 1776, and repeated in 1786.-Accordingly, in the year 1800 this work (which from the increased number of assurances had become a most arduous and toilsome undertaking) was accomplished, and the result proved so highly favourable that another addition of £.2 per cent. was made to the claims, so that at this time the assurances of 1790 are increased 4.36 per cent.; those of 1780 £ 105 per cent, those of 1770 £.190 per cent, and those of 1762 £.258 per cent making in the whole a sum which in present value would fall very little short of half a million!It is unnecessary to expatiate on this subject, in order to shew the great benefit which this society has proved to the public. Proceeding always as it has hitherto done on the sure ground of computation, it never can incur any material danger. The many thousands of which it is now composed render the decrements of life al most uniform among its members, and from the experience of more than thirty years those decrements are found to be even one third lower than they are in the table from which the premiums are com~ puted. Provided therefore the same care is used in excluding bad lives, every addition to the business of the society must be an addition to its profits.-The increased number of members, by preventing it from being affected by any particular season of mortality, will also render those profits more uniform and secure; so that the stability of the society will be strengthened in proportion as its usefulness is extended. The only danger to which it is exposed arises from the greatness of its capital. If due regard be not paid to the immense demands which must hereafter come upon it.-If or on the contrary this capital be considered only as an accumulation of profit, and the members on this supposition should be tempted to make too frequent additions to the claims, the consequence, though distant, must ultimately be fatal. Hitherto great prudence and discretion have been manifested in the management of this society. No measure has been adopted which had the least tendency to diminish the capital without a previous investigation; and in order to secure the same prudence and discretion in the future conduct of its members, the society has lately provided by certain laws, that no allowance to claimants shall ever be made without a previous investigation of its affairs and the concurrence of four-fifths of its members at three successive general courts, and also that such allowance shall in no instance exceed two-thirds of the clear surplus stock of the society." By these restrictions, as far as human precaution can operate, the danger of intemperate measures is avoided; and there is every reason to hope that an institution, founded on such liberal principles and defended by such wholesome provisions, CRIT. REV. Vol:38. August, 1503. will not only be secure, but continue to improve in credit and pros➡ perity. Vol. i. P. 191. On some other societies, Mr. Morgan has passed a judgement which they would do well to weigh seriously: but he properly observes, in several places, that the fluctuation of stocks is a great impediment to every plan founded on the justest principles; for it should be recollected, that all societies, formed on principles of lives and payments, depend also on the interest of public money, and that the state of public credit must have a very considerable effect upon their operations. Hence, ill-constituted societies may be supported at a critical moment, in which, if money had maintained its original value, they must have sunk; and others, which have been formed on juster principles, may, for the same reason, in consequence of an opposite turn in public credit, meet with destruction. On the subject of the national debt, it is amusing to see the terrors of writers a few years back, and the apathy with which we endure its increase to a magnitude far beyond the utmost bounds of their imaginations. Even the editor himself seems to entertain greater fears than we should have expected from his judgement. If the debt have increased, the means of paying it have increased also: but it is dangerous to speak on such a subject; for, however capable a high-spirited nation may be of sustaining great burdens, yet the idle and extravagant additions made to them by the late minister must be severely felt; and & conued course of the same profusion must bring with it invitable ruin. The grand dispute, on the population of the country, is not, in the opinion of the editor, by any means settled by the late attempts to ascertain it. The gloomy apprehensions of Dr. Price are well known: the returns made from the parishes were calculated to counteract them; but, if such be not to be depended upon, it is to be lamented that the public was put to so unnecessary an expense. In consequense of an act of parliament passed for that purpose in the year 1802, a survey was made of the population of the kingdom; when it appeared from the accounts delivered in by the different surveyors that the number of houses in England and Wales amounted to 1,633,599, the number of families to 1,890,723, and the number of inhabitants to 9,343,575-of whom 4,715,711 were males, and 4,627,867 were females. These accounts, if they be correct, seem to contradict both observation and experience, not only in giving the proportion of inhabitants to a house much greater than they have been found in former cnumerations, but more particularly in making the number of males to exceed that of the females;-a circumstance I believe seldom or ever [never] known to have taken place in any other part of the world. They exhibit also the curious phenomemon of every five houses throughout |