valuable work the young reader is referred for an accurate knowledge of the BRITISH CONSTI

TUTION.

"I have endeavoured to delineate some rude outlines of a plan for the history of our Laws and Liberties, from their first rise and gradual progress among our British and Saxon ancestors, till their total eclipse at the Norman Conquest; from which they have gradually emerged, and risen to the perfection they now enjoy, at different periods of time. We have seen that the fundamental maxims and rules of the LAWS which regard the rights of PERSONS, and the rights of THINGS, the private injuries that may be offered to both, and the crimes which affect the public, have been, and are, every day improving; and are now franght with the accumulated wisdom of ages:--that the forms of administering justice came to perfection under Edward the First, and have not been much varied, nor always for the better, since :-that our religious liberties were fully established at the Reformation-but that the recovery of our civil and political liberties was a work of longer time-they not being thoroughly and completely regained, till after the restoration of King Charles-nor fully and explicitly acknowledged and defined till the era of the HAPPY REVO.. LUTION!

"Of a CONSTITUTION so wisely contrived, so strongly raised, and so highly finished, it is hard

to speak with that praise which is justly and severely its due: the thorough and attentive contemplation of it will furnish its best pangeyric. It hath been my endeavour to examine its solid foundations, to mark out its extensive plan, to explain the use and distribution of its parts, and from the harmonious concurrence of those several parts, to demonstrate the elegant proportion of THE WHOLE! We have taken occasion to admire at every turn the noble monuments of ancient simplicity, and the more curious refinement of modern art. Nor have its faults been concealed from view -for faults it has, lest we should be tempted to think it of more than human structure; defects chiefly arising from the decays of time, or the rage of unskilful improvements in latter ages. To sustain, to repair, to beautify this noble pile-is a charge intrusted principally to the nobility, and such gentlemen of the kingdom as are delegated by their country to Parliament. The protection of the liberty of BRITAIN is a duty which they owe to themselves who enjoy it-to their ancestors who transmitted it down-and to their posterity who will claim it at their hands-this,—the best birth-right, and noblest inheritance of mankind! *"

*The young reader is referred to an elegant work entitled ARMATA, in two parts. By Lord Erskine-of eloquent and patriotic celebrity.

The SIXTH AGE shifts Into the lean and slipper'd Pantaloon; With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side; His youthful hose well-sav'd, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound!