We wish our author had, in common with Blackstone, expressed his disapprobation of the severity of our criminal code. The multiplicity of capital punishments we shall always consider as a reproach to the English nation; though, numerous as they are, they bear no proportion to what they would be, were the law permitted to take its course. The offences deemed capital by the common law are few; the sanguinary complexion of the criminal law, as it now stands, has arisen from the injudicious tampering of the legislature. To us it appears evident, that the certainty of punishment will restrain offenders more than its severity; and that, when men are tempted to transgress, they do not weigh the emolument they had in view against the penalty awarded by law, but simply the probability of detection and punishment against that of impunity. Let the punishments be moderate, and this will be the most effectual means of rendering them certain. While nothing can exceed the trial by jury, and the dignified impartiality with which justice is administered, we are compelled to look upon the criminal code with very different emotions, and earnestly to wish it were carefully revised, and made more humane, simple, and precise.

As little can we concur with the author before us, in the defence he sets up of the donation of pensions and sinecures, where there are no pretensions of personal merit or honourable services. Standing quite aloof from party politics, we must

affirm, that to whatever extent such a practice exists, exactly in the same proportion is it a source of public calamity and disgrace. To look at it, as our author does, only in a pecuniary view, is to neglect the principal consideration. It is not merely or chiefly as a waste of public money, that the granting of sinecures and pensions to the undeserving ought to be condemned; the venality and corruption it indicates and produces is its worst feature, and an infallible symptom of a declining state. With these exceptions, we have accompanied the author with almost uninterrupted pleasure, and have been highly gratified with the good sense, the extensive information, and the unaffected piety he displays throughout the work. Though a firm and steady churchman himself, he manifests a truly christian spirit toward the protestant dissenters; and is so far from looking with an evil eye on the large toleration they enjoy, that he contemplates with evident satisfaction the laws on which that toleration is founded.

Of the style of this work, it is but justice to say, that, without aspiring to any high degree of ornament, it is pure, perspicuous, and correct, well suited to the subject on which it is employed.

As a fair specimen of Mr. C.'s manner of thinking, we beg leave to lay before our readers the following just and appropriate remarks on duelling :—

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"Deliberate duelling falls under the head of express malice; and the law of England has

"justly fixed the crime and punishment of murder upon both the principal and accessaries of this "most unchristian practice. Nothing more is 66 necessary with us, to check this daring violation "of all law, than the same firmness and integrity "in the trial of duellists which so eminently distin"guish an English jury on all other occasions.

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Perhaps it will be asked, what are men of "honour to do, if they must not appeal to the pistol and the sword? The answer is obvious: if one gentleman has offended another, he cannot give a more indisputable proof of genuine courage, "than by making a frank acknowledgement of "his fault, and asking forgiveness of the injured party. On the other hand, if he have received

an affront, he ought freely to forgive, as he hopes to be forgiven of God. And if either "of the parties aggravate the matter by sending "a challenge to fight, the other must not be a partaker of sin, if he would obey God rather "than man.

"Still it will be said, that a military or naval man, at least, must not decline a challenge, if "he would maintain the character of a man of courage. But is it not insulting the loyalty and

good sense of the brave defenders of our laws, "to imagine that they of all men must violate "them to preserve their honour; since the king "has expressly forbidden any military man to send "a challenge to fight a duel, upon pain of being "cashiered, if an officer; and of suffering corporal

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punishment, if a non-commissioned officer, or private soldier? Nor ought any officer or soldier "to upbraid another for refusing a challenge, "whom his Majesty positively declares he considers "as having only acted in obedience to his royal "orders; and fully acquits of any disgrace that may be attached to his conduct.* Besides, what "necessary connexion is there between the fool"hardiness of one who risks the eternal perdition "of his neighbour and of himself in an unlawful "combat, and the patriotic bravery of him who, when duty calls, boldly engages the enemy of "his king and country? None will dispute the courage of the excellent Colonel Gardiner, who "was slain at the battle of Preston Pans, in the "rebellion in 1745. Yet he once refused a chal

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lenge, with this dignified remark: I fear

sinning, though I do not fear fighting.' The "fact is, that fighting a duel is so far from being "a proof of a man's possessing true courage, "that it is an infallible mark of his cowardice.

For he is influenced by the fear of man,' whose "praise he loveth more than the praise of God."

* "See Articles of War, sec. 7."

"See Doddridge's Life of Colonel Gardiner, an interesting "piece of Biography, worthy the perusal of every officer in the "army and navy."

REVIEW

OF

ZEAL WITHOUT INNOVATION.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

IT was the opinion of some sincere friends of religion, that a republication of the following strictures might have its use in certain quarters, where the literary journal in which they first appeared may possibly not have extended. The writer of these remarks has nothing in view but the promotion of christian charity, the vindication of calumniated innocence, and the counteraction of those insidious arts by which designing men are seeking to advance their personal interest, or those of a party, at the expense of truth and justice. How far the author here animadverted upon falls under this description, must be left to the decision of an impartial public. If it be thought that more commendation ought to have been given in the following strictures to those parts of the work which are confessedly unexceptionable, the writer must be allowed to remark, that the effect of what is good in the performance is entirely defeated by the large infusion of what is of an opposite quality. In appreciating the merits of a writer, the general tendency of his work should be