circulation of table talk. It would operate more unfavourably than the gloom of November is said, by foreigners, to operate on the nerves of Englishmen--and after such a suspension of news, I am afraid the papers would contain nothing but accounts of sudden deaths, which had happened in the interval, with the deliberate opinion of the coroner's jury :---“ Died for want of intelligence!!" "Let us praise Newspapers," says Dr. Johnson. "One of the principal amusements of the idler is to read the works of those minute historians, the writers of news, who, though contemptuously overlooked by the composers of bulky volumes, are yet necessary in a nation where inuch wealth produces much leisure, and one part of the people has nothing to do but observe the lives and fortunes of the other." L. THE MELANGE. No. II., CHACUN A SON GOUT. PRECIOUS RELICS.. A Monke preaching to the people, having founde a verye rich feather of some strange foule, intended to make his parishoners beleeve it was a plume of the angel Gabriel: certaine good companions, his familiars, noting his knaverie, secretlie stole out of his casket the feather, and put in coales. Well, Mass Monke come once into his pulpit, after a long exordium, tolde to the people what a relique he had, one of the feathers of the angell Gabriell; but, putting his hande into his caskett, and finding nothing but coales, straight founde the knot in the rush, and said hee had taken the wrong caskett; but yet brought them a relique no less precious, which was the coales that Saint Laurence was roasted on: so that making crosses with them upon their garmentes, he departed with monkish credit. Spanish Masquerado, by Robert Greene, 1589. QUEEN ELIZABETH.. The following copy of an original letter from this Queen to Heaton, bishop of Ely, is taken from the Register of Ely: "Proud Prelate, "I understand you are backward in complying with your agreement: but I would have you to know, that I, who made you what you are, can unmake you; and if you do not forthwith fulfil your engagement, by I will immediately unfrock you. Yours as you demean yourself, ELIZABETH." Heaton, it seems, had promised the Queen to exchange some part of the land belonging to the see for an equivalent, and did so; but it was in consequence of the above letter. JUDGE FORSTER..A short time before this great lawyer's death, he went the Oxford Circuit, in the hottest part of one of the hottest summers that had been remembered. He was so far advanced in life as to be scarce capable of doing the duties which belonged to his office, and when the grand jury of Worcester attended for the charge, addressed them as follows: "Gentlemen, the weather is very hot, I am very old, and you are very well acquainted with what is your duty: I have no doubt but you will practise it." LORD THURLOW AND MR. PITT..Mr. Pitt was suffi ciently notorious for the positiveness with which he delivered and supported his opinions. Lord Thurlow, when Chancellor, once rebuked him in his own way. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was disputing at a cabinet. dinner, on the energy and beauty of the Latin language., In support of the superiority which he maintained it to have over the English, he asserted, that two negatives made a thing more positive than one affirmative possibly could..." Then," said Lord Thurlow, "your father and mother must have been two negatives, to have made such a damned positive fellow as you are." LAW AND EQUITY. JUSTICE," the mistress and queen of all the vir tues, "* the basis of all social virtue as well as happiness, the very corner-stone on which society is built---this very justice, if exercised too rigorously, would often be found, amidst the combinations and entanglements of human affairs, even to border upon injustice; insomuch that the civilians have established it into a maxim, that, “extreme justice is extreme injustice”---summum jus summa injuria. It should seem therefore, that the magistrate, to whom the execution of justice is committed, must not only do justly, but (in the language of the Prophet) also love mercy. I do not mean, that he should ever act otherwise than the laws direct, or at any time dispense with the right execution of them; but only, that he be governed therein, as often as he can, by the spirit rather than the letter of them. For in the law, as well as in the gospel, the letter frequently killeth: as when any statute, from a new and different situation of things and persons, gradually brought on by course of time and change of manners, enforceth proceedings different from, or, it may be, contrary to, the true original intent and meaning of it. The office, therefore, of a magistrate, a justice of peace for instance, should be in part a kind of a petty chancery; a court of equity, as well as a court of justice, where a man, although pursued by law, may yet be redressed by reason, so often as the case will admit of it; and that will be as often as the spirit of any law or statute shall be found to clash with its letter. Mean while, it must be carefully noted, that the magistrate has no power to decide according to equity, when it is opposed to written and positive law, or stands in contradistinction to it-no, not even the judge, much less the justice. It is a maxim, ubi lex non distinguit, * Omnium domina et regina virtutum. Cicero de Offic. III. 6.— According to an ancient Greek moralist, every other virtue is comprehended in that of justice: Ἐν δὲ δικαιοσύνη συλλήβδην πάσ' perns. Theoguis, nec nos distinguere debemus ; and again, judicandum ex legibus, non de legibus: and an ancient pronounced it very dangerous for a judge to seem more humane than the law; φαίνεσθαι φιλανθρωπότερον το νόμο. The danger consists in its opening a latitude of interpretation, and thereby giving room to sublety and chicanery, which, by gradually weakening, would in time destroy the authority and tenor of law: for, "though all general laws are attended with inconveniencies, when applied to particular cases; yet these inconveniencies are justly supposed to be fewer, than what would result from full discretionary powers in every magistrate." Hume.---So that the dispensation of equity seems reserved, and with good reason, not to the judge who is tied down by his rules, but to the law-giver or supreme legislator: according to that well-known maxim, ejus est interpretari cujus est condere. Thus Constantine the emperor: Inter æquitatem jusque interpositam interpretationem nobis solis et oportet et licet inspicere. Cod. 1. 14. 1. See also Taylor's Elements of Civil Law, p. 90, &c. It is not meant, therefore, as is said above, that the magistrate should ever dispense with law, or act against it; but only, that he should, as far as he can, temper it with lenity and forbearance, when the letter is found to run counter to the spirit. For instance; our ancient Saxon laws nominally punished theft with death, when the thing stolen exceeded the value of twelve pence : yet the criminal was permitted to redeem his life with money. But, by 9 Hen. I. in 1109, this power of redemption was taken away: the law continues in force to this very day; and death is the punishment of a inan who steals above twelve-pennyworth of goods, although the value of twelve pence now is near forty times less than when the law was made. Here the spirit is absolutely outraged by the letter: and therefore might not a justice, when a delinquent of this sort is brought, endeavour to soften the rigour of this law; or rather to evade it, by depreciating the value of the thing stolen, by suffering the matter to be compromised between the parties, and, where the character of the offender will admit of it, instead of pursuing the severities of justice, by tempering the whole procedure with mercy?This, and similar modes of acting, may be said indeed to be straining points; but, unless such points be strained occasionally, magistrates must often act, not only against the spirit of the laws, but against the dictates of reason, and the feelings of their own hearts.---Sir Henry Spelman took occasion, from this law, to complain that "while every thing else was risen in its value, and become dearer, the life of man had continually grown cheaper." * Fortescue has a remarkable passage concerning this law. “The civil law," says he, "where a theft is manifest, adjudged the criminal to restore fourfold; for a theft not so manifest, twofold: but the laws of ́England, in either case, punish the party with death, provided the thing stolen exceeds the value of twelve pence." But, is not this comparison between Ciril and English law astonishingly made by a man, who was writing an apology for the latter against the former ? What is it nothing to settle a proportion between crimes and punishments? and shall one man, who steals an utensil worth thirteen pence, be deemed an equal offender against society, and suffer the same punishment, with another, who plunders a house, and murders all the family?----See Beccaria, an Italian marquis, Upon Crimes and Punishments. ERRORS OCCASIONED BY OUR PASSIONS. THE Passions lead us into Error, because they fix our attention to that particular part of the object they present to us, not allowing us to view it on every side. A King passionately affects the title of conqueror. Victory, says he, calls me to the remotest part of the earth : I shall fight; I shall gain the victory; I shall load mine enemy with chains, and the terror of my name, like an impenetrable rampart, will defend the entrance of my empire. Inebriated with this hope, he forgets that fortune is inconstant; and, that the victor shares the load of misery, almost equally with the vanquished. He does not perceive, that the welfare of his subjects is * Glossar. in voce Laricinium. |