firms, that they received little falary befides the fees and per quifites of their office:" and he holds them out by implication as unacquainted with fplendor, and as ordinary perfons. Yet their greatnefs was overgrown; and they belonged to the prime nobility, of whofe power he every where speaks in terms which are extravagant.

I am thus induced to fufpect, that this hiftorian has not attended to the aula regis, and the "officers of the crown," any more than to the general spirit of the feudal fyftem itself. And I obferve, that in another performance of his, he seems to lofe fight altogether of this court and thefe officers. It is thence, I imagine, that he defcribes the jufliza of Aragon as an officer only known to that country; and that he ventures to reafon, and in a formal method, under the idea of this inftitution as a peculiarity. Yet the jufliza or juflicia of Aragon was an officer who was familiar to every feudal state. Though his powers were to vary under different governments, he was every where a part of the aula regis. He was the jufticier whom I mention in the text. He made his appearance, not only in Aragon, but in Normandy, in Sicily, in France, in England, and in Scotland.'

The fubject of the fifth chapter is the national council. Dr. Stuart remarks, that the king's court, and the high court of parliament, are almoft always confounded. By lord' Kaims, the parliament is confidered as the fame with the king's baron courts; and this opinion likewife, our author obferves, is adopted by Dr. Robertfon. But there is the strongest reafon to conclude that these courts were totally diftin&t.

The obligation of the royal vaffals, fays Dr. Stuart, to at tend the hall of the fovereign, and to be fuitors to his court, did not confer upon them the privileges of legislators. Yet this, I conjecture, is the principle from which thefe writers would derive the conftitution of parliaments. It is very clear from hiftory, that, in the different countries of Europe, the power of the general councils or parliaments, in very ancient times, was frequently exercifed, even to the prejudice and deftruction of kings themfelves. Now, on the fuppofition that fuch courts were the king's baron-courts, it must follow, that the vaffals of the prince might affemble in his palace, to controul his authority, to punith his delinquence, and to throw him down from royalty. This, furely, could not be the cafe.

The palace of the prince was the proper place for the tenants in capite, to conftitute his baron-court, or the aula regis. But general councils or parliaments were usually to be held in churches, abbeys, and castles.

of

In the king's court, we fee the meetings of a fuperior and his vaffals. In the parliament, we fee the conftituent parts the ftate in deliberation about its affairs and profperity. In the

former, the king was a great object. In the latter, he appears with a diminished fplendour.

There feems no point in hiftory more obvious, than that there was a moft effential diftinction between the king's court, and the court of the nation, between the aula regis and the parliament. Yet, I acknowledge, that, in ancient books, when courts or councils are mentioned, it is often difficult to say, whether the allufion may be intended to exprefs the former or the Jatter. There are, however, actual examples where the application admits not of doubt; and, in fuch examples, we must fee and acknowledge the reality of their diftinctions. Thus, curia is ufed with precifion, in expreffing the court of the king, as well as the court of the nation; and the magnum concilium is made, to peculiarife the convention of the king and his nobles, as well as the affembly of the eftates or the parliament.'

Our author obferves, that it has been usual to represent the boroughs as being in a uniform ftate of great wretchedness, from the earliest times till the establishment of corporations in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; but this opinion, he thinks, is extremely ill founded, and can be applicable only to thofe periods when the feudal inftitutions had begun to decline. On the contrary he maintains, that the first condition of the towns and people must have been a state of freedom and happiness, and even that burgeffes were the true and ancient commons of the kingdom. In fupport of this idea he produces a variety of evidence, worthy of attention, and of which the following is a part.

• A charter, of a religious endowment at Dunfermline, by Malcolm III, makes an exprefs mention of the parliamentary powers of the people. But what, it is to be asked, was the rank of the people in this age? Before the days of James I. the inferior tenants of the crown were the lesser barons, and they appeared perfonally in our parliaments. Before the invention, therefore, of the knights of the shire, when the people are recorded as a part of the parliament, the allufion must be made to the burgees. It is, accordingly, to the parliamentary powers of the burgefes, that this charter has appealed; and, in fact, before it fpeaks of the people, it had enumerated the bigher orders of the legislature.

The preamble to the acts of William the Lion, who began to reign in the year 1165, is in these words.

"Statuta, five affifae regis Wilhelmi, regis Scotiae, factae apud Perth, coram epifcopis, abbatibus, baronibus, et aliis probis hominibus terrae fuae.'

• In the body of his laws there are these notices.

"Affifa regis Wilhelmi, facta apud Perth, quam epifcopi, abbates, comites, barones, thani, et tota communitas regni, tenere firmiter juraverunt."

"Item, rex Wilhelmus ftatuit apud Sconam, per commune concilium regni fui.”

In the ftatutes of Alexander II. the paffages which follow 'deferve to be confidered.

"Statuit dominus rex Alexander, illuftris rex Scotiae, de concilio, et affenfu venerabilium patrum, epifcoporum, abbatum, comitum, baronum, ac proborum hominum fuorum Scotiae." "Statuit rex per confilium et affenfum totius communitatis fuae."

:

The preamble to the laws of Robert I. is in these words, "In Dei nomine, Amen. Robertus Dei gratia, Rex Scotorum, anno regni fui decimo tertio, die Dominica proxima, cum continuatione dierum, poft feftum Sancti Andreae Apoftoli, fubfequentium refidens apud Sconam in plano parliamento fuo tento ibidem; habitoque folemni tractatu, cum epifcopis, abbatibus, prioribus, comitibus, baronibus, et aliis magnatibus, de communitate totius regni ibidem congregatis, fuper variis et arduis negotiis, ipfum et regnum fuum tangentibus, atque in futuro tangere valentibus: ad honorem Dei, et fanctae matris ecclefiae, et ad emendationem terrae fuae, tuitionem populi, et ad pacem terrae fuae manutenendam, et affirmandam. De communi concilio, et expreffo confenfu, omnium praelatorum, et libere tenentium praedictorum ac totius communitatis praedictae; ordinavit condidit, et ftabilivit ftatuta infra fcripta ; ab omnibus per totum regnum fuum perpetuo, et inviolabiliter obfervanda.”

When the prelates, the nobles, and the tenants in capite, or the leffer barons, are expreffed as parts of the legislative body, the meaning of the terms employed are obvious. But what were the probi homines in the laws of William and Alexander? They muft point to another branch of the legislature. Thus, when John Baliol told Edward I. that he could not, and dared not exprefs any fentiment which concerned his kingdom, "without confulting his people," inconfultis probis bominibus regni fui, he meant fomething more than the fanction of the prelates, the nobles, and the tenants in capite. The extenfiveness of his expreffion is crampt and confined when applied only to thefe. He muft have alluded to the reprefentatives of the people, and to their parliamentary power, as well as to the legislative authority of the prelates, the nobles, and the tenants in capite. Now," these representatives of the people" muft have been the burgeffes; for there were yet no " knights of the fhire." And thus the expreffion of Balliol, in its extenfivenefs, is eafily comprehended, and had a reference to the whole kingdom.

The terms commune concilium, in the laws of William and Robert, expreffing the nationality of parliaments, confirm this conclufion, and receive a confirmation from it in their turn.

The fame thing is to be faid of the words tota communitas in the laws of William, Alexander, and Robert. And as to the expreffion magnates in thofe of the laft, in an allufion to the reprefentation of the people, it was, by no means, mifapplied.

For,

For, in England, it appears exactly in the fame fenfe; and we know, both from Rymer and Petyt, that, in that kingdom,, noble, most noble, most illuftrious, most gracious feigniors, monfeigniors, and fires, were appellations of the commons.

But, to give a weight to thefe particulars, and a decision to this fubject, I appeal to an actual and complete evidence, not only of the reprefentation of the people, but of a grant of money by them in the reign of William the Lion.

"Hoc anno Rex Scotiae Willelmus magnum tenuit concilium apud Strivelyn, ubi interfuit frater ejus comes David de Huntyngdon, paulo poft feftum San&ti Michaëlis; ubi, petito ab optimatibus auxilio, pro pecunia regi Angliae folvenda, pro-. miferunt fe daturos decem mille marcas, praeter burgenfes regni, qui fex millia marcarum promiferunt, praeter ecclefias, fuper quas nihil imponere praefumpferunt."

Here there is mention of the three eftates of the realm, the nobles, the burgeffes, and the clergy.'

Befides the fubjects above-mentioned, the author treats of fome other topics of confequence towards illuftrating the conftitution of Scotland; fuch as the lords of the articles, and the power of the court of feffion. In all thofe enquiries, it must be acknowledged, he discovers much acutenefs and penetra tion, as well as force of argument; and by his acquaintance with the ancient ftatutes of Scotland, he enjoys a great ad vantage over hiftorical writers and antiquaries, who are not converfant in the laws of the country.

The Speeches of Ifæus in Causes concerning the Law of Succeffion to Property at Athens, with a prefatory Difcourfe, Nates critical and biftorical, and a Commentary. By William Jones, Efq. 4to. 10s. 6d. boards. Dilly.

SAUS was the master of Demofthenes, and is by fome fuppofed to have been a Chalcidian; by others, with a greater appearance of probability, an Athenian. But whatever country may claim the honour of being his birth-place, it is certain, that he was educated at Athens, where he became famous as a pleader of caufes, foon after the Peloponnefian war. The time of his birth may be nearly afcertained by reasoning from the known or fuppofed dates of his fpeeches. It is probable he was born about the 90th Olympiad; that is, about 418 years before the Chriftian æra.

This orator appears to have confined his talents to the nar row limits of the bar, and the compofition of forenfic arguments, and not to have taken any part in the affairs of ftate. And this may be the reason, why most of the ancients, who

are

are fo copious in praifing the fmoothnefs of Ifocrates, the graces of Lyfias, the founding periods of Efchines, the dignity of Lycurgus, and the united force and elegance of Hyperides, fay nothing of Ifæus. For all these were eminent in public life, or at leaft compofed orations on fubjects of a public nature, on treaties and embaffies, on the various events of an obftinate war, &c. which may be fuppofed to attract the notice of scholars in general much more than fpeeches on private causes. His tranflator, however, is of opinion, that if he had taken any part in administration, and harangued the people on important occafions, his great capacity and application, his ardent and nervous oratory, must foon have been diftinguifhed by his contemporaries, and would have been celebrated by the hiftorians of his country.

He has however been mentioned with applaufe by feveral ancient writers. Dionyfius Halicarnaffeus, in a treatise, Hepr TWV AT¶Inav pnTogar, On the Attic Orators, difplays the peculiar excellence of Ifæus, and the originality of his genius. His name is indeed but barely mentioned by Quintilian, and, if we rightly recollect, not at all by Cicero. But Plutarch has left us a treatise, which he calls Biot Tv Sena pпTopwv, the Lives of the ten Orators, viz. Antiphon, Andocides, Lyfias, Ifocrates, Ifæus, fchines, Lycurgus, Demofthenes, Hyperides, and Dinarchus; in which he gives us fome particulars of the life of Ifæus, and an honourable account of his writings.

This ancient orator must be carefully diftinguished from another of the fame name, who feems to have flourished at Rome, in the reign of Trajan or Domitian; for he is highly extolled by the younger Pliny, and incidentally by Juvenal, as a wonderfully rapid fpeaker; and a fketch of his life is drawn by Philoftratus, who calls him an Affyrian, and adds, that in his youth he was extremely addicted to the pleafures of love and wine, and was remarked for the foppery of his dress; but that he afterwards changed his courfe of life, and became, as it were, a new man. It is evident, that the declaimer, of whom they speak, had nothing in common with our orator, but the volubility of his language, and his name; which, Mr. Jones thinks, might be affumed, as that of Ifocrates alfo was taken by one of the later fophifts, who wrote the Inftru&ions to Demonicus.

As the Athenian orator is but little known, we shall fubjoin the tranflator's account of the different editions of his works.

In whatever eftimation Isus may be holden by his tranf lator's contemporaries, it is certain that he flood very high in

the