were of authority in the land; but it became a solemn question, how they could in conscience practically acquiesce, for themselves, their families, and their neighbourhoods, in a corrupt and perverting discipline of their minds in regard to the supreme concern of their salvation. To one portion, indeed, of these conscientious men, there was afforded a compromise. Those who had not so decidedly adopted the Calvinism of Whitefield as to be debarred from the resource, found in the system of Wesley a very commodious intermediate position for maintaining, as they fancied, and as their able leader intended, such an allegiance, in form, to the Church, as to escape the guilt and charge of schism, and at the same time for enjoying the genuine means of religious communion and instruction. This self-deception was among the most effectual of the early causes of the great success of the Wesleyan plan. There were other powerful ones, but this was among the most powerful. We have used the word self-deception,' for we should think nothing could be more palpably evident than that those were most certainly Dissenters, who expressly placed and prosecuted their system under the protection of the laws and regulations appointed in behalf of Dissenters, and who could not have carried on that system in any other way. And we think it has been very justly remarked by the Authors of the "His"tory of Dissenters," that the Wesleyan Methodists, to whose wide and zealous exertions and incalculable usefulness there needs no testimony of ours,-have been very slow to manifest an equitable disposition toward the original avowed Dissenters; inasmuch as, during the greater part of their progress, they have affected to disclaim the Dissenters, to stand on a different and as it were half consecrated ground, within the precincts of the Church, and on this ground to disallow the imputation of schism, alleging that they were not among the deserters and the enemies of the Church, when all the while they owed their existence with impunity to the protective institutes, the attainment and prolongation of which had cost the Dissenters a long account of great exertions and deep sufferings,-and when, too, the only thanks obtained from the Church for this pretended adherence, this disclaimer of combination with the Dissenters, were scorn and detestation.

For diverting so far away from the personal history of Dr. F., we must allege in excuse the example of his Biographer, who dwells at some length on the circumstances of the revival of religion, by the innovation of Whitefield and Wesley, and their zealous contemporaries, in the part of the country where the Dr.'s subsequent ministerial lot was cast, We return to

to him but to conclude our notice of the book.

Toward the latter part, there are many details of his con

C

S

nexion with important religious institutions, the Bible Society, the Baptist Missionary Society, and a new academical institution in Yorkshire for young ministers. Relatively to the Mission, there are some characteristic letters from Andrew Fuller. Near the close there are some interesting displays, in most instances in his own words, of Dr. F.'s mournful but pious sensibility under the loss of near relatives, and affecting references to the sensible approach of the end of all his labours and afflictions. The earnestness of his diligence was not to be abated by either his bereavements or his increasing infirmities. His invincible assiduity in preparing his Devotional Family Bible, which was not commenced till his sixty-eighth year, maintained an admirable rivalry with the best exertions of his most vigorous years. In one of his letters he says,

I often wonder that I have been enabled to sit to close study, for twelve or fourteen hours in the day, without any material injury to my health. The fact is, I am running a race with death at my heels, not knowing how soon he may overtake me. The work is formidable; but who can tell what the Almighty may intend to do by one of the weakest and most unworthy of his servants? At all events, so long as I am continued in a capacity for writing, I feel a strong inclination to persevere. Above two thousand close pages have cost me some labour.'

The entire manuscript amounted to near nine thousand quarto pages. No criticism is here necessary on the numerous writings of Dr. F., which are all recounted, with the circumstances prompting or attending them, by the Biographer. Several of them have been extensively and beneficially read, especially his Sick Man's Employ, Advice to Youth, and Essay on Anger. It is impossible for any writings to bear more unequivocal marks of piety, seriousness, and the worthiest intentions. As to literary quality, they were correct and perspicuous, and did not by an ambitious style affect to lay claim to mental endowments of the powerful or original order.

For a close, we transcribe the interesting paragraph which closes the Memoir.

It is not without sentiments of regret, mingled with other emotions, that the writer now lays down his pen. After having spent many of his evening and midnight hours, as it were, in converse with the deceased, by endeavouring to draw aside the curtain from days that are gone for ever, and by musing over his manuscript papers, the conclusion of his labours is like another separation, without the prospect of meeting again on this side the grave. He now commits the result of his researches to the public, with a sincere wish that a Divine blessing may accompany them, so that they may be in some measure instrumental in promoting and perpetuating those principles and that true spirit of Christianity, which are honourable to God and conducive to the best interests of mankind,'

Art. II. 1. A Vindication of the Criminal Law, and the Administration of Public Justice in England, from the Imputation of Cruelty. In a Charge delivered to the Grand Jury at the Assizes held at Ely, by Edward Christian, Esq. Barrister, Professor of the Laws of England at Cambridge, and Chief Justice of the Isle of Ely. 8vo. pp. 78. London, 1819.

2. The Substance of the Speech of Thomas Fowell Buxton, Esq. M.P. in the House of Commons, March 2, 1819, on the Motion of Sir J. Mackintosh, Bart. that "a Select Committee be appointed to consider of so much of the Criminal Laws as relates to Capital Punishments for Felonies." 8vo. pp. 34. London, 1819.

IT

T is not on account of any novelty or force in the remarks brought forward by the learned Professor in this Vindication of the Criminal Law, that we are induced to resume the discussion of a subject on which we have already stated at some length the grounds of our opinion; but because the appearance of such a publication evinces the necessity of keeping alive the general attention which has been attracted to this grand feature of our domestic policy; because it shews that there are prejudices in high places which will oppose the utmost force of resistance to any attempts to meliorate our penal code; and that therefore no relaxation of effort can be allowed to the friends of the desired reform, under the mistaken idea that its abstract wisdom, or the eloquence of its advocates, will ensure for it immediate success.

We have read this "Vindication" with emotions partaking of surprise, but still more of satisfaction; surprise that at this time of day, a gentleman filling a high judicial station, should have put forth a pamphlet on this momentous topic, exhibiting so much looseness of reasoning, confusion of ideas, and even want of information; satisfaction that the severity of the Criminal Law is shewn to be susceptible of no more plausible a vindication, and that it has found no abler advocate. It is not indeed often, that the lawyer and the legislator are combined in the same character with illustrious advantage. It is not even desirable, that those whose province it is to administer justice with sacred and implicit adherence to the letter of the laws as they exist, should have their habits of deferential and patient research disturbed, or the opinions carefully deduced from statutes and precedents, shaken or perplexed, by free and speculative reasonings. Now and then, an individual has been found to possess the opposite qualities of mind and habits of thought in so nicely balanced perfection and activity, as to be capable of passing immediately from the bar to the senate, without ever suffering his learning to obscure his notions of moral rectitude and humanity, or his private convictions to bias

his professional decisions. An individual of this rare description, standing equally high as a lawyer and as a philanthropist, commanding the deference even of the judicial bench, and conciliating the confidence and admiration of the public, whether as his clients, his constituents, or his opponents, has even within our own time appeared, reflecting lustre on bis profession, and doing as much honour as service to his country. But it would be too much to require of the most eminent among those he has left behind, that he should be a Romilly. Had that inestimable person, however, received the completion of his moral and legal education as a barrister in the Criminal Courts, instead of being a Chancery pleader, the phenomenon would have been still more striking. If the scenes in which the greater part of our time is necessarily past, the aspect under which we become familiarized with human nature, and the kind of business which employs our exertions, have any tendency to give a permanent determination to the opinions and eharacter, then, we cannot suppose otherwise than that the life of a barrister, passed, as Mr. Christian says his has been, and honourably passed, in the Criminal Courts, must, in the very nature of things, entail, like other professional avocations of an exclusive nature, some peculiar disadvantages. As an anatomist is prone to resolve every thing into organization, as adequate to explain all the phenomena of life, so, the lawyer may be led, by a similar perverseness, to attribute all the healthful or morbid appearances of society to the efficacy or inefficacy of law, and it will be natural to him to view as the sovereign remedy, the increase of its penalties. Habituated to the most disgusting specimens of depraved human nature, conversant with his fellow men chiefly under the character of nuisances or victims, he would be in danger of sinking in hopeless melancholy, were it not in the nature of the most painful impressions to become by reiteration, powerless. The veracity of the witness, the inflexibility of the judge, these are the only forms of virtue with which he is familiar: all the rest is the dry routine of necessary forms, the dexterity of counsel, and the apparatus of punishment. And yet, uninteresting, and in some respects disgusting, as are the circumstances attendant upon his profession, its importance, which is unquestionable, is not likely to

It will occur to the reader as an honourable exception to some of the following remarks, that this phenomenon is in some degree realized in the person of that distinguished member of the House of Commons, who is now endeavouring to follow up the measures which Sir Samuel Romilly had so much at heart. The late Recorder of Bombay has necessarily passed many years of his life under the disadvantageous circumstances alluded to.

lose any of its dimensions in his own eyes, as he learns to identify it with the safety, the very existence of society. The multiplication of offences rising up continually before him, and tending to exclude all other and more hopeful views of society, will place this connexion in the strongest light. No wonder, then, that the individual, especially if gifted originally with no very distinguished capacity or elevation of mind, should resent any attempt to disturb the veriest excrescence of the jurisprudential system, as endangering the peace and security of society.

We think that every allowance ought to be made for the prejudices of persons of consideration in their profession, when discovering out of the line of that profession, any remarkable deficiency of good sense or liberality. Those who are the highest authorities in declaring what the law is, are not the paramount authority in determining what it ought to be: nay, they should perhaps be the last persons to admit that it ought to be otherwise than it is. To check the rashness of legislation, and to prevent the introduction of anomalous enactments, it is most highly fit, that that which is at once the highest legislative and the ultimate judicial court, should call to its aid the administrators of the laws, and that they should even possess a certain ascendency in its decisions. But still, we must anticipate that the opinions of men trained up in these habits, will not uniformly harmonize with sound legislative wisdom; that they will sometimes seem to loiter behind the improving views and enlightened experience of the better part of society; and as laws are none the worse for being old, so, opinions may seem to such individuals, to lose no part of their venerable authority from becoming obsolete. When, therefore, these opinions are assailed, the tenacity with which they are held by their few remaining advocates, may possibly be found degenerating into petulant dogmatism.

The style in which Professor Christian has drawn up the present Vindication of the Criminal Law, will amply justify these remarks. He has thought proper to stigmatize the temperate expression of the prevalent feeling in favour of a legislative revision of the Penal Code, as a clamour against the laws of the country,' a clamour 'founded in a misrepresen'tation of facts, in a misapplied humanity, and a misconception and ignorance of the principles of the laws of England.' This is a serious and formidable charge, which, as implicating some of the first personages in the kingdom, some of the ablest statesmen, as well as some of the highest judicial characters, the Chief Justice of the Isle of Ely ought not to have been the person to bring forward rashly, or upon insufficient evidence.

The solitary document which is referred to in order to substantiate the above statement, is, the Petition of the Lord Mayor and the Corporation of the City of London presented to