appears from the authority of Sir William Dugdale.

2. The bones, thought to be those of the anchoress Rosia, were but lately discovered in a cell at Royston, entire, fair, and undecayed, though they must have lain interred for several centuries, as is proved by Dr. Stukely.

3. But our own country, nay, almost this neighbourhood, supplies another instance: for, in January, 1747, was found by Mr. Stovin, accompanied by a reverend gentleman, the bones, in part, of some recluse, in the cell at Lindholm, near Hatfield. They were believed to be those of William of Lindholm, a hermit, who had long made this cave his habitation.

4. In February, 1744, part of Woburn abbey being pulled down, a large portion of a corpse appeared, even with the flesh on, and which bore cutting with a knife; though it is certain this had lain above 200 years, and how much longer is doubtful; for this abbey was founded in 1145, and dissolved in 1538 or 9.

What would have been said, what believed, if this had been an accident to the bones in question?

Further, my lord, it is not yet out of living memory, that a little distance from Knaresborough, in a field, part of the manor of the worthy and patriot Baronet, who does that borough the honour to represent it in parliament, were found, in digging for gravel, not one human skeleton only, but five or six, deposited side by side, with each an urn placed at its head, as your lordship knows was usual in ancient inter

ments.

About the same time, and in another field, almost close to this borough, was discovered also, in searching for gravel, another hu

man skeleton; but the piety of the same worthy gentleman ordered both the pits to be filled up again, commendably unwilling to disturb the dead.

Is the invention of these bones forgotten, then, or industriously concealed, that the discovery of those in question may appear the more singular and extraordinary? Whereas, in fact, there is nothing extraordinary in it. My Lord, almost every place conceals such remains. In fields, in hills, in highway sides, in commons, lie frequent and unsuspected bones. And our present allotments for rest for the departed, is but of some centuries.

Another particular seems not to claim a little of your lordship's notice, and that of the gentlemen of the jury; which is, that perhaps no example occurs of more than one skeleton being found in one cell; and in the cell in question was found but one; agreeable, in this, to the peculiarity of every other known cell in Britain. Not the invention of one skeleton, then, but of two, would have appeared suspicious and uncommon.

But then, my lord, to attempt to identify these, when even to identify living men sometimes has proved so difficult, as in the case of Perkin Warbeck and Lambert Symnel at home, and of Don Sebastian abroad, will be looked upon perhaps as an attempt to determine what is indeterminable. And I hope too it will not pass unconsidered here, where gentlemen believe with caution, think with reason, and decide with humanity, what interest the endeavours to do this is calculated to serve in assigning proper personality to those bones, whose particular appropriation can only appear to eternal Omniscience.

Permit me, my lord, also

very humbly to remonstrate, that, us human bones appear to have been the inseparable adjuncts of every cell, even any person's naming such a place at random as containing them, in this case, shews him rather unfortunate than conscious prescient, and that these at tendants on every hermitage only accidentally concurred with this conjecture. A mere casual coin cidence of words and things.

But it seems another skeleton has been discovered by some la bourer, which was full as confidently averred to be Clark's as this. My Lord, must some of the living, if it promotes some interest, be made answerable for all the bones that earth has concealed, and chance exposed? And might not a place where bones lay be mentioned by a person by chance, as well as found by a labourer by chance? Or, is it more criminal accidentally to name where bones lie, than accidentally to find where they lie?

Here too is a human skull produced, which is fractured; but was this the cause, or was it the consequence of death; was it owing to violence, or was it the effect of natural decay? If it was violence, was that violence before or after death? My lord, in May 1732, the remains of William Lord Archbishop of this province were taken up, by permission, in this cathedral, and the bones of the skull were found broken; yet certainly he died by no violence offered to him alive, that could occasion that fracture there.

• Let it be considered, my lord, that upon the dissolution of religious houses, and the commencement of the Reformation, the ra vages of those times both affected the living and the dead. In search after imaginary treasures,

coffins were broken up, graves and vaults dug open, monuments ransack'd, and shrines demolished; your Lordship knows that these violations proceeded so far, as to occasion parliamentary authority to restrain them; and it did, about the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. I entreat your Lordship suffer not the violences, the depredations, and the iniquities of those times to be imputed to this.

Moreover, what gentleman here is ignorant that Knaresbor ough had a castle; which, though now a ruin, was once considerable both for its strength and garrison. All know it was vigorously besieg ed by the arms of the parliament; at which siege, in sallies, conflicts, flights, pursuits, many fell in all the places round it: and where they fell were buried; for every place, my lord, is burial earth in war; and many, questionless, of these rest yet unknown, whose bones futurity shall discover.

I hope, with all imaginable submission, that what has been said will not be thought impertìnent to this indictment; and that it will be far from the wisdom, the learning, and the integrity of this place, to impute to the living what zeal in its fury may have done ; what nature may have taken off, and piety interred; or what war alone may have destroyed, alone deposited.

As to the circumstances that have been raked together, I have nothing to observe; but that all circumstances whatsoever are precarious, and have been but too fre quently found lamentably fallible; even the strongest have failed. They may rise to the utmost degree of probability; yet are they but probability still. Why need I name to your lordship the two Harri sons recorded in Dr. Howel, whe

both suffered on circumstances, because of the sudden disappear ance of their lodger, who was in credit, had contracted debts, borrowed money and went off unseen, and returned again a great many years after their execution? Why name the intricate affair of Jacques du Moulin, under King Charles II. related by a gentleman who was council for the crown? and why the unhappy Coleman, who suffered innocent, though convicted upon positive evidence, and whose children perished for want, because the world uncharitably believed the father guilty. Why mention the perjury of Smith, incautiously admitted King's evidence; who, to screen himself, equally accused Faircloth and Loveday of the murder of Dunn; the first of whom, in 1749, was executed at Wincester; and Loveday was about to suffer at Reading, had not Smith been proved perjured, to the satisfaction of the court, by the surgeon of the Gosport hospital.

I SHALL not be suspected of having borrowed the lesson from antiquity, when I say, that to live according to the law of his being is the glory of every rational mind. Indeed, we are taught this lesson by our own experience, as well as by volumes of philosophy. If we look around us, and survey the sublime objects of nature, we shall find that they all obey that primitive rule, which was imparted to them by their divine author. "If," Vol. III. No. 9.

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guishing faintness, begin to stand and to rest himself; if the moon should wander from her beaten course, the times and seasons of the year blend themselves by disordered and confused mixture, the winds breathe out their last gasp, the clouds yield no rain, the earth be defeated of heavenly influence, the fruits of the earth pine away, as children at the withered breasts of their mother, no longer able, to them relief; what would become of man himself, whom these things do now all serve?" Where would empires and communities exist, and where would man find rest to his weary feet, if he should forget, and they should cease to obey, those laws, which regulate the conduct of beings superiour and subordinate? The principles of these laws flow from the fountains of nature and philosophy; and the study of them expands the powers of the intellect, while it gives life and activity to the virtues of the heart.

Ancient lawgivers enlisted poetry and musick in the civilization of society, and in extending the influence of the laws. In the early stages of Grecian history the judicial codes were expressed in verse and adapted to musick. Let us not however suppose, that the science of jurisprudence lost any