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watch over themselves." Did any other people keep a strict watch over themselves? Will any people ever keep a strict watch over themselves? No, furely. Is not this then, a fufficient reafon for inftituting a fenate for keeping a strict watch over them? Is not this a fufficient reafon for feparating the whole executive power from them, which they know will and muft corrupt them, throw them off their guard, and render it impoffible for them to keep a ftrict watch over themselves? «‹ They did not obferve the rules of a free state." Did any people that ever attempted to exercife unlimited power, obferve the rules of a free ftate? Is it poffible they fhould, any more than obey, without fin, the law of nature and nature's God?... "The people were won by fpecious pretences, and deluded by created neceffities, to intruft the management of affairs into fome particular hands." And will not the people always be won by fpecious pretences, when they are unchecked? Is any people more fagacious or fenfible than the Athenians, those ten thoufand citizens who had four hundred thousand flaves to maintain them at leifure and study? Will not a few capital characters in a fingle affembly always have the power to excite a war, and thus create a neceffity of commanders? Has not a General a party of courfe? Are not all his officers and men at his devotion fo long as to acquire habits of it? When a General faves a nation from destruction, as the people think, and brings home triumph, peace, glory, and profperity to his country, is there not an affection, veneration, gratitude, admiration, and adoration of him, that no people can refill? It is want of patriotifm not to adore him— it is enmity to liberty-it is treafon. His judgment, which is his will, becomes the law: reafon will allay a hurricane as foon; and if the executive and judicial power are in the people, they at once give him both, in fubftance at first, and not long afterwards in form. The reprefentatives lofe all authority before him; if they difoblige him, they are left out by their conflituents at the next election, and one of his idolaters is chofen.'

Though the judicious reader will perceive that thefe obfervations are the dictates of found fenfe, grounded on experience, yet, if we judge of the fentiments of the people of America by the writings that are popular among them, we fear that fuch remarks will not, at the prefent moment, be received with all the cordiality which he may with. The Author feems, himself, to think fo; and, if we mistake not, he has employed his utmost addrefs to exprefs them fo as not to give difguft. Probably, many of those paffages which we confider as defects, may be afcribed to this caufe. The regal authority, it is well known, is exceedingly difliked by many of the Americans; and an hereditary nobility is looked on as little lefs deftructive the community; yet it is plain, from innumerable parts of his work, that Dr. Adams confiders thefe two claffes of men, as being, under certain circumftances, not only harmlefs, but moft ufeful, as bulwarks of freedom. Openly to avow thefe principles might

The words within double commas, are Nedham's arguments.

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have fruftrated his aim, and to fupprefs his notions on that head would have been mean and difingenuous. He has chofen to fteer a middle courfe; and he thus explains himself:

It may be, and is admitted, that a free government is moft natural, and only fuitable to the reason of mankind; but it by no means follows, "that the other forms, as a standing power in the hands of a particular perfon, as a King; or of a fet number of great ones, as in a Senate;" much less that a mixture of the three fimple forms "are, befide the dictates of nature, and mere artificial devices of great men, fquared only to ferve the ends and interefts of the avarice, pride, and ambition of a few, to a vaffaling of the community." If the original and fountain of all power and government is the people, as undoubtedly it is, the people have as clear a right to erect a fimple monarchy, ariftocracy, or democracy, or an equal mixture, or any other mixture of all three, if they judge it for their liberty, happinefs, and profperity, as they have to erect a democracy; and infinitely greater and better men than Marchamont Nedham, and the wifeft nations that ever lived, have preferred fuch mixtures, and even with fuch flanding powers, as ingredients in their compofitions. But even thofe nations who choose to referve in their own hands the periodical choice of the firft magiftrate, fenate, and affembly, at certain ftated periods, have as clear a right to appoint a first magiftrate for life as for years, and for perpetuity in his defcendants as for life, When I fay for perpetuity, or for life, it is always meant to imply, that the fame people have at all times a right to interpofe, and to depofe for mal-administration-to appoint a new. No appointment of a king or fenate, or any ftanding power, can be, in the nature of things, for a longer period than quamdiu fe bene gefferit, the whole nation being judge. An appointment for life, or perpetuity, can be no more than an appointment till further order; but further order can only be given by the nation: and until the nation fhall have given the order, an eftate for life, or in fee, is held in the office. It must be a great occafion which can induce a nation to take fuch a fubject into confideration, and make a change. Until a change is made, an hereditary limited monarch is the reprefentative of the whole nation, for the management of the executive power, as much as the houfe of reprefentatives is, as one branch of the legislature, and as guardian of the public purfe; and a houfe of lords too, or a ftanding fenate, reprefents the nation for other purposes, viz. as a watch fet upon both the reprefentatives and the executive power. The people are the fountain and original of the power of kings and lords, governors and fenates, as well as the houfe of commons, or affembly of reprefentatives: AND IF THE PEOPLE ARE SUFFICIENT

LY ENLIGHTENED TO SEE ALL THE DANGERS THAT SURROUND

THEM, they will always be reprefented, by a diftin&t perfonage to manage the whole of the executive power, a diftin&t jenate, to be guardians of property against levellers for the purposes of plunder, to be a repofitory of the national tradition of public maxims, cuftoms, and manners, and to be controulers in turn both of kings and their minifters on one fide, and the reprefentatives of the people on the other, when either discover a difpofition to do wrong; and a diftinct house of reprefentatives, to be the guardians of the public purfe, and to protect the people in their turn

6

againf

against both kings and nobles. A fcience certainly comprehends all the principles in nature which belong to the fubject. The principles in nature which relate to government cannot all be known, without a knowledge of the hiftory of mankind. The English conftitution is the only one which has confidered and provided for all cafes that are known to have GENERALLY, indeed to have ALWAYS happened in the progress of every nation; it is therefore the only feientific government. To fay then that standing powers have been erected as mere artificial devices of great men, to ferve the ends of avarice, pride, and ambition of a few, to the vaffalizing of the community," is to declaim and abufe. Standing powers have been inftituted to avoid greater evils, corruption, fedition, war, and bloodfhed in elections; it is the people's bufinefs, therefore, to find out fome method of avoiding them, without ftanding powers. The Americans flatter themselves they have hit upon it; and no doubt they have for a time, perhaps a long one: but this remains to be proved by experi

ence.'

From these extracts the reader will be able to form an idea of the general tendency of this work, and the mode of reasoning adopted by the Author. It is not, indeed, as its title fays, a defence of the American conflitutions; but it is a warm defence of the conftitution of Great Britain. It is the best anti-democratical treatife that we have feen; for Dr. Adams appears to dread that that is the extreme to which his countrymen will naturally lean-and he has exerted his beft endeavours to obviate that evil.

The volume concludes with a copy of the new conftitution of government for the United States of America now under the confideration of the different States, and agreed to by most of them. In the last section, he ably refutes fome notions of Montefquieu, which have been too long acquiefced in without examination. A copious Index to the three volumes is fubjoined.

On the whole, we confider this latter part of the work, as a valuable addition to the public ftock of political writings. The Author here discovers a great extent of reading; not that kind of reading which confifts of ftoring up names and dates only, but that which difcriminates between realities and appearances, and diftinguishes pretexts from actual caufes. Hiftory has been fo feldom studied in this way, that we are of opinion, if Dr. Adams should ever find leisure to re-digeft this part of his work, and give it its highest polish and beft arrangement, it will be an acceptable prefent to the republic of letters, as it would tend to correct many popular errors that have been too long current among mankind.

ART.

ART. II. Archeologia: or, Mifcellaneous Tracts relating to Antiquity. Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London. Vol. VIII. 4to. 11. 1s. Boards. White, &c. 1787.

WE always perufe with pleasure thofe volumes with which

the Antiquarian Society fometimes favour the Public, and did the nature of our work allow it, would willingly devote a few more pages to them than we can now fpare. An account of the last volume will be found in the Reviews for February and April 1786, p. 116 & 266. The number of articles in this publication is thirty-feven, befide an Appendix: we proceed, as ufual, to give fome diftinct account of each.

The Rev. Samuel Pegge introduces them by, A Sketch of the Hiftory of the Afylum, or Sanctuary, from its Origin to the final Abolition of it in the Reign of James I. This differtation is divided into two parts; the first takes a general view of fanctuary, as in ufe anciently and abroad;' the fecond examines how matters were carried here in our own ifland.' A fhort but just relation is given of the Mofaic inftitution of this kind, which appears wholly different from what prevailed in other countries, and to have had its foundation in wifdom and compaffion. The Greeks, and alfo the Romans, had their Afyla; but they often were productive of great evil. It could hardly have been expected, that in fuch a reign as that of Tiberius, they should have been regulated, if not fuppreffed, at least for a time, as we are told by Suetonius and Tacitus. Mr. Pegge very properly points out the different motives of the inftitution in Judea and in Greece; in the former, he obferves, it fprung from a motive of tenderness toward innocent men; in the latter, it proceeded from a blind reverence and devotion to the facredness of the place of refuge, and the deity or hero fuppofed to prefide over it. Chriftianity ought to have checked the practice, and certainly would, had its dictates been really regarded; but ftate-policy knows too well the benefit that may arife from fuperftition; and interested churchmen were very fenfible that great advantages might flow from the inftitution for the aggrandifement of their order, and the increase of their power. To what excefs it was carried, and what wickedness it occafioned, is in fome degree known to every one who is at all converfant with hiftory. Boniface V.* is commonly reputed the founder, fays Mr. Pegge, of that peftilent mode of fanctuary which afterward prevailed fo generally in the Weft. It is rather wonderful that the Reformation did not entirely diffolve the practice in this country: this is here afcribed to the exceffive clamour which the body of the clergy would have made at fuch an attempt. In the reign of James I. the

About the beginning of the 7th century.

old

old ufage of fan&tuary was, however, wifely and totally abolifhed.

The article which follows is of a more critical and learned kind, and to fome readers will be interefting. It is written by Francis Philip Gourdin, a Benedictine of the congregation of St. Maur, who ftyles his tract, Reafons for doubting whether the Genii of particular Perfons, or Lares properly fo called, be really Panthea: by the latter word, we are probably to underftand fuch Gods as have the fymbols or attributes of feveral deities belonging to them. We cannot pretend to accompany him in his enquiry, which he concludes by adding, I think therefore I have reason on my fide, when I fay that the name of Lares, or Dii Domeftici, was only beftowed on the Dii Majores, becaufe their images were placed in houfes in the Lararium, but that they were never confounded with the Lares properly fo called.'

Mr. Pegge appears again in Obfervations on the Stanton Moor Urns; in a letter to Major Rooke *. He takes particular notice of the fingular difcovery of one urn enclofed, or buried as it were, within another. He fuppofes that it appertained to the Britons, who, if not before, yet certainly after, they were Romanized, used urn-burial. He adds fome remarks on the pofitions of the circles and barrows, which he confiders as myfterious, and worthy of farther attention.

An Account of Stone Coffins, &c. found on making fome Alterations and Repairs in Cambridge Cafile, by the Rev. Robert Mafters, B. D. Rector of Landbeach, contains nothing particularly curious. Another letter on the fame fubject, relating to a fimilar difcovery, forms the 5th number in this volume,

Mifcellaneous Obfervations on Parish Registers; addreffed by John Bowle, F. S. A. to the honourable Daines Barrington. Here it appears that parochial regifters had been in ufe in Spain some years before their introduction to England, which was in confequence of the injunction of Thomas Lord Cromwell. But though Mr. Bowle remarks that regifters were kept in Spain thirty-two years earlier than in England, we obferve that they were enjoined by Lord Cromwell in the year 1538; and that among burials in the register of Sherborne, we are told of William Howell, bermit of St. John the Baptift, 1538.

The letter to the Rev. James Douglas, from John Pownal, Efq. on a Roman Tile found at Reculver in Kent, requires only to be mentioned; there are fome rude fcrawls on it which may perhaps be intended as an infcription, and may therefore ferve to engage the attention of thofe who have ingenuity and leifure.

Dr. Glafs's letter to Mr. Marfden furnishes a more curious, or more important, fubject of enquiry: it is On the Affinity of cer

* See Rev. for April 1784, p. 265; and Feb. 1786, p. 124.

tain

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