The Privy Council was formerly the adviser of the king in all weighty matters of state. Affairs were debated and determined by vote in his presence, subject, however, to his pleasure. This body was, probably, too numerous for the dispatch of executive business. Some of the members of this body would be selected by the king for more private advice, as persons in whom he had greater confidence than the rest. This was an approximation to the Cabinet as now constituted. The period when this change became decidedly marked was in the reign of Charles I., though no formal constitutional change had yet been made. Speaking of this period Mr. Hallam says:-"The resolutions of the Crown, whether as to foreign alliances or the issuing of orders and proclamations at home, or any other overt act of government, were not finally taken without the deliberation and assent of that body (the Privy Council) whom the law recognized as its sworn and notorious counsellors." (Const. Hist., ii., p. 537.) The next step was to render the ratification of measures of state by the Privy Council a matter of form. In the reign of Wm. III. Mr. Hallam states, that "the distinction of the Cabinet from the Privy Council and the exclusion of the latter from all business of state became fully established." The feeling in favour of the old constitutional practice was sufficiently strong to occasion the introduction of a clause in the Act of Settlement (4 Anne, c. 8) providing that on the accession of the House of Hanover, all regulations upon measures of public policy should be debated in the Privy Council, and be signed by them; but the clause was repealed in about two years afterwards by 6 Anne, Mr. Hallam is of opinion that in devolving upon the Cabinet the functions formerly exercised by the Privy Council the power of the members of the executive government has been greatly increased, and their responsibility seriously diminished, even if it is not altogether illusory. But this is a matter on which there may be a difference of opinion. The change seems calculated to render an administration more consistent and efficient. The Privy Council is, even now, occa

c. 7.

sionally assembled to deliberate on public affairs, but only those counsellors attend who are summoned. Proclamations and orders still issue from the Privy Council, and for the reason, it is said, that the Cabinet Council is not a body recognized by law.

In France, the executive government is divided into nine departments, the heads of which constitute the cabinet. These are the Interior; Justice and Public Worship; Public Instruction; Public Works; Commerce and Agriculture; Finances; Foreign Affairs; War; Marine and Colonies.

In the United States of North America, the following officers of the executive government form the Cabinet, and hold their offices at the will of the President: Secretary of State; Secretary of the Treasury; Secretary of War; Secretary of the Navy; the Postmaster-General.

It is

CACHET, LETTRES DE, were letters proceeding from ard signed by the kings of France, and countersigned by a secretary of state. They were called also "lettres closes," or "sealed letters," to distinguish them from the "lettres patentes," which were in the nature of public documents and sealed with the great seal. Lettres de cachet were rarely employed to deprive men of their personal liberty before the seventeenth century. said that they were devised by Père Joseph under the administration of Richelieu. They were at first made use of occasionally as a means of delaying the course of justice; but during the reign of Louis XIV. they were obtained by any person who had sufficient influence with the king or his ministers, and persons were thus imprisoned for life, or for a long period, on the most frivolous pretexts, for the gratification of private pique or revenge, and without any reason being assigned for such punishment. The terms of a lettre de cachet were as follows:-" M. le Marquis de Launay, je vous fais cette lettre pour vous dire de recevoir dans mon château de la Bastille le Sieur -, et de l'y retenir jusqu'à nouvel ordre de ma part. Sur ce, je prie Dieu qu'il vous ait, M. le Marquis de Launay, en sa sainte garde." These letters, which gave power over personal

liberty, were openly sold in the reign of Louis XV. by the mistress of one of the ministers. "They were often given to the ministers, the mistresses, and favourites as cartes blanches, or only with the king's signature, so that the persons to whom they were given could insert such names and terms as they pleased." (Welcker.) The lettres de cachet were also granted by the king for the purpose of shielding his favourites or their friends from the consequences of their crimes; and thus were as pernicious in their operation as the protection afforded by the church to criminals in a former age. Their necessity was strongly maintained by the great families, as they were thus enabled to remove such of their connexions as had acted in a derogatory manner. During the contentions of the Mirabeau family, fifty-nine lettres de cachet were issued on the demand of one or other of its members. The independent members of the parliaments and of the magistracy were proscribed and punished by means of these warrants. This monstrous evil was swept away at the Revolution, after Louis XVI. had in vain endeavoured to remedy it.

(Mirabeau, Des Lettres de Cachet, &c., 1782; Translation, published at London, in two volumes, in 1787; Rotteck and Welcker, Staats-Lexicon, art. "Cachet, Lettres de," by Welcker.)

CANON (kavov), a rule. The several senses in which this word is used are all derivatives from its first original sense: and this sense it appears to have acquired, as itself a derivative from canna, (we use the Latin form, though in fact both canna and canon are Greek terms transplanted into the Latin language,) which signifies a reed or cane; such a plant as produced straight, round, smooth and even shoots, adapted to the purpose of a rule; or as we say, a ruler, used in drawing straight lines. The word cannon is the same with canon, and is applied to the instrument of war so called on account of its resemblance to a rule. The word canon is used in mathematics and in music and also to express certain rammatical rules formed by the critics. it is more particularly appropriated ense of a rule in respect of things

ecclesiastical. The word was so used by Saint Paul (Gal. vi. 16). And as many as walk according to this rule (canon), peace be on them and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.'

The rule here spoken of was the Christian rule, the rule or law of the Christian church: and as these rules became explained or amplified in subsequent times by popes, bishops, councils, whether general or particular, these new rules or explications of the fundamental rules of the Christian church were designated by the term canones or canons. The collected body of these canons forms what is called The Canon Law, which must be distinguished from the civil law. The civil law is the Roman law as now received in various countries of Europe. [ROMAN LAW.] A doctor of laws in Great Britain is a doctor of both civil and canon law.

Canon is also used for the rule of persons who are devoted to a life strictly religious: persons who live according to (religious) rule, such as praying at certain hours, and for a certain length of time, keeping themselves from marriage, eating particular kinds of meat, periodical fastings, and the like. It is applied to the book in which the rule was written, and which was read over to such professed persons from time to time: and since in such a book it was not unusual to enter also the names of persons who had been benefactors to the community, which names were recited from time to time with honour, and they were held and reputed to be holy persons or saints (saneti): the entry of such names formed what is meant by canonization, though in later times, when it was found that saints multiplied too fast, when every small religious community added any benefactor to their list, the term became confined to such persons as had their names enrolled in the great volume of which the pope, the head of the church, was the sole guardian. It was also applied to persons who lived under a rule: as the Augustinian canons, persons who adopted the rule of Saint Augustine. And here the distinction is to be observed of regular and secu lar canons. The regular canons were persons who were confined to their own

monasteries, where they practised their | rule; the secular canons were persons living indeed a religious life, or one according to some prescribed Christian form and order, but who nevertheless mixed more or less with the world, and discharged the various offices of Christianity for the edification of the laity. This was the species of canons that are found in the cathedral churches, or in other churches called conventual, as at Southwell in Nottinghamshire, which were all churches of very antient foundation, the centres of Christianity throughout an extensive district. There they lived a kind of monastic life under the presidency generally of a bishop; but went out occasionally to introduce Christian truth into districts into which it had not before penetrated, or to instruct the persons lately received into the church, and to perform for them the various ordinances of Christianity. As parish churches arose, the necessity for such visits from the canons in the cathedral churches was diminished. But the institution remained it was spared at the Reformation, and continues to the present day. These canons are sometimes called prebendaries, a name derived from their being endowed with land or tithe, as many of them are to a greater or less extent, which endowment is called a prebend. [PREBEND.] The canons have stalls in the cathedral churches, which are generally called prebendal stalls. They form the chapter in the expression the dean and chapter, and are still nominally what they actually once were, the council of the bishop for the administration of the affairs of his diocese.

The act 3 & 4 Vict. c. 113, enacted that henceforth all the members of chapter, except the dean, in every collegiate church in England, and in the cathedral churches of St. David and Llandaff, should be styled canons. By this act the term canon is to be applied to every residentiary member of chapter except the dean, heretofore styled either prebendary, canon, canonresidentiary, or residentiary; and the term "minor canon" includes every vicar, vicar-choral, priest-vicar, and senior vicar, being a member of the choir in any cathedral or collegiate church. A canonry,

except it is attached to any university office, cannot be held by a person who has not been six years in priest's orders. The term of residence fixed by the act for each canon is three months in the year at the least. The act suspends a great number of canonries, and limits the number to be held in future. The number suspended in the chapters of Canterbury, Durham, Worcester, and Westminster, is six each; Windsor, eight; Winchester, seven; Exeter, three; Hereford, one; and two each in the other cathedral chapters. The profits of the suspended canonries are vested in the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The suspension of a canonry may be removed under special circumstances, and in the manner provided by the act. The future number of canonries is fixed at six each for the chapters of Canterbury, Durham, Ely, and Westminster; five each for Winchester and Exeter; and four each for the other cathedral or collegiate churches of England; and two each for St. David's and Llandaff. The act increased the canonries of the chapters of Lincoln, and St. Paul's, London, to four. The number of minor canonries is not to exceed four, nor be less than two, for each cathedral or collegiate church, and the salaries are to be not less than 150l. Minor canons are not to hold any benefice beyond six miles from their cathedral church. The canonries are in the gift of the archbishops and bishops respectively, but the three canons of St. Paul's, London, are appointed by the crown. The minor canons are appointed by the respective chapters. In some cases it is provided that archdeaconries shall be annexed to canonries. The act also provided for the annexing of two canonries of Christchurch, Oxford, to two new professorships in the university; for annexing two of the canonries of Ely to the regius professorships of Hebrew and Greek at Cambridge; for annexing two canonries of Westminster to the rectories of St. Margaret's and St. John's, in the city of Westminster; and for founding honorary canonries in every cathedral church in England, in which there were not already founded any nonresidentiary prebends, dignities, or offices. The honorary canons are entitled to stalle,

and their number in each cathedral church is limited to twenty-four, who are appointed by the archbishops and bishops respectively. This honorary preferment may be held with two benefices. Doubts having been entertained as to the cathedral churches in which honorary canonries were to be founded, it was enacted in 4 & 5 Vict. c. 39, that such cathedral churches were to be those of Canterbury, Bristol, Carlisle, Chester, Durham, Ely, Gloucester, Norwich, Oxford, Peterborough, Ripon, Rochester, Winchester, and Worcester; and the collegiate church of Manchester, so soon as the same should become a cathedral church. The honorary canons have no emolument, nor any place in the chapter; but the patronage of chapters is restricted, and the canons, minor canons, and honorary canons are included amongst the persons to whom vacant benefices in the gift of the chapter must be presented.

From canon is formea canonical, which occurs in many ecclesiastical terms, as canonical hours, canonical sins, canonical punishment, canonical letters, canonical obedience, and canonical scriptures. The canonical scriptures are the usually received books of the Old and New Testa

ment.

CANON LAW, a collection of ecclesiastical constitutions for the regulation of the Church of Rome, consisting for the most part of ordinances of general and provincial councils, decrees promulgated by the popes with the sanction of the cardinals, and decretal epistles and bulls of the popes. The origin of the canon law is said to be coeval with the establishment of Christianity under the apostles and their immediate successors, who are supposed to have framed certain rules or canons for the government of the church. These are called the apostolical canons; and though the fact of their being the work of the apostles does not admit of proof, there is no doubt that they belong to a very early period of ecclesiastical history. These rules were subsequently enlarged and explained by general councils of the church. The canons of the four councils of Nice, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon (which were held at different imes in the fourth and fifth centuries),

received the sanction of the Emperor Justinian, A.D. 545. (Novel. 131, cap. 1.) The chapter referred to, after confirming the decrees of the four councils, adds, "we receive the doctrines of the aforesaid holy synods (i. e. councils, as the divine Scriptures, and their canons we observe as laws." Collections of these canons were made at an early period. The most remarkable of these collections, and that which seems to have been most generally received, is the Codex Canonum, which was compiled by Dionysius Exiguus, a Roman monk, A.D. 520. This body of constitutions, together with the capitularies of Charlemagne and the decrees of the popes from Siricius (A.D. 398) to Anastasius IV. (A.D. 11541. formed the principal part of the canon law until the twelfth century. The power of the popes was then rapidly increasing, and a uniform system of law was required for the regulation of ecclesiastical mat

ters

This necessity excited the activity of the ecclesiastic lawyers. After some minor compilations had appeared, a collection of the decrees made by the popes and cardinals was begun by Ivo, Bishop of Chartres, A.D. 1114, and perfected by Gratian, a Benedictine monk, in the year 1150, who first reduced these ecclesiastical constitutions into method. The work of Gratian is in three books, arranged and digested into titles and chapters in imita tion of the Pandects of Justinian, and is entitled 'Concordia discordantium Canonum,' but is commonly known by the name of Decretum Gratiani.' It com prises a series of canons and other eccle siastical constitutions from the time of Constantine the Great, at the beginning of the fourth, to that of Pope Alexander III., at the end of the twelfth century. The decretals, which were rescripts or letters of the popes in answer to questions of ecclesiastical matters submitted to them by private persons, and which had obtained the authority of laws, were first published A.D. 1234, in five books, by Raimond de Renafort, chaplain to Pope Gregory IX. This work, which consis almost entirely of rescripts issued by the later popes, especially Alexander III, Innocent III., Honorius III., and Gre