ART. XIX. The Alteration of the Conftitution of the Houfe of Commons, and the Inequality of the Land-Tax, confidered conjointly. By J. Brand, Cl. M. A. 8vo. Evans. 1793.

THIS tract is part of a general Effay a general Effay on the change of the Reprefentation of the People," hereafter to be publifhed. We do not hesitate to predict, that if the Effay at large fhall prove as full of information and argument as this part of it is, it will be one of the most sober and able difcuffions of this important queftion which have ever issued from the Prefs. The introduction, which we thall extract at full length, will give our readers an idea, not only of the detached part of the fubject contained in this tract, but alfo of the projected Effay in general.

"A measure of fuch importance as an alteration of the Conftitution of the Third Eftate, certainly requires to be examined in every point of view, before it be carried into execution. It may be confidered as to its general or local confequence: the firft, as affecting the whole kingdom; the fecond, the larger diftrict of it.

"It will affect the kingdom in general, by producing a change in the prefent proportion of power, in the Executive and Legislative Departments of the State. For its advocates hold out, that it will diminifh confiderably that poffeffed by the Crown, and at the fame time reduce that of the Peers; while the ftrength of the popular branch of the Legislature is to receive fome confiderable increafe. It is not (that I know of) fo much as pretended, that the effective powers of the King, and the Houfe of Lords, are to be decreased in the fame proportion; it feems on the contrary, that the greater ceffion is to be demanded of the Crown. Hence the power of the Upper Houfe will become relatively greater, compared with that of the Sovereign; and relatively much lefs, compared with the increased power of the Commons; or a total change will take place, in the prefent proportion of power

of the Three Eftates.

"The effect of this change upon the whole kingdom, taken as a whole, I do not intend at prefent to enter into; but to examine its confequences to a particular district of great magnitude and importance, the fouthern and eastern counties: and folely with respect to the tax upon land.

This part of the kingdom comprehends the counties of Middlefex, Surry, Hertford, Bedford, Cambridge, Kent, Effex, Norfolk, Suffolk, Berks, Buckingham, and Oxford. With refpect to the metropolis, thefe may be called the home district or counties; and the remainder of England and Wales, the remote district or divifion.

To the former of these diftricts, I confider the prefent propofed alteration of the Conftitution of the Lower Houfe, as a meafore attended with great danger; becaufe, as near as its termination is, it is not very probable that the prefent century will clapfe, or at leaft be

long

1

long clapfed, before the amount of the land-tax will be augmented: and though the reprefentatives of the landed property of the remote diftrict, have now a very confiderable majority over thofe of the home counties in the Lower Houfe; yet, by the moft fober plans of this al teration which I have feen, it will, in future, be doubled. Now the burthen of the tax on the latter, is much greater than that on the former; and thus all relief to this great exifting difproportion will be rendered impoffible; the prefent affeffment will be made the bafis of the additions to the charges of this tax, which muft in future take place and the difference of the actual and proportional payment of the remote district, already very great, will receive a further agmentation. Now (all confideration of the metropolis being conftantly left out of the queftion) the direct confequence of this muft be, that the fuperior celerity with which the remote district has been advancing in opulence, during the courfe of the prefent century (aided, befides its natural advantages, by the exifting inequality of the land-tax) will become greater by a fecond artificial acceleration, which will arife from this fecond defalcation of their payment to the public charge: and the relative decline of the home district, will be precipitated in the fame degree.

"One confequence of this may be here laid down: it directly follows from a fuppofition of its truth, that if it fhould be granted that a change of Conftitution of the Houfe of Commons is otherwife expedient (a fuppofition which, though not attacked here, is not to be taken as hereby admitted) ftill it ought not to take place, until its dangerous confequences be guarded againft! which are not only that of perpetuating an old fyftem of the groffeft inequality of the public burthens of the two divifions of the kingdom, but also that of aggravating its oppreffive difparity by new augmentations. This must be guarded againft, previous to intrufting the remote counties with double their prefent majority of members in the Houfe of Commons: until that be done, a prudential justice, a regard for a fair equality, if these things have any exiftence more than in name, demand the measure to be poftponed. And hence it follows, not only that the prefent is not the proper feafon to effect this alteration; but that fuch a period has not yet occurred fince the Revolution; and that it is a hap py circumftance, that no attempt to carry it into execution has hitherto fucceeded. This is the legitimate confequence of the argument, the fummary of which is laid down above: its feveral branches are now to be entered into, particularly and feparately.

"But it has often been urged by the inhabitants of the remote diftrict, that the expediency and juftice of the continuation of the prefent affeffment, have been established upon good and folid reafons; and they may be inclined to alledge," that this argument ought to be treated as a dilatory plea only against a neceffary reform; and that "the bringing it forward, at this juncture, points out the propriety of carrying this great conftitutional measure into immediate execution, " even for the quiet of the home divifion; who, when they fee the ab"folute impoffibility of fucceeding in their unjust and impolitic pretenfions, will filently abandon them: and the imaginary grievance,

"the

"the real difcontent it has always foftered, and all their chimerica expectations, will fink into oblivion together." As the general argument may thus be attempted to be answered; this objection, and the confequences drawn from it, will be anticipated by treating the fubject in the following order.

ft. An account will be given of the cause of the inequality of this taxation.

"2d. The arguments in favour of its continuance will be all stated; and fuch as do not find a more natural place under a following head, will be here answered.

3d. The circumstances will be laid down which tend to prove, thạt the amount of the Land-tax must be increased.

4th. The measure of the difproportion of the charge upon the two diftricts, will be determined, and its effect affigned.

5th. The number of county members to be added to thofe of the home and remote divifions, will be shown, according to the plans of this change, brought forward in 1785, and 1790: and thence the great addition of power, which would be fo required by the remote district, in the Lower House, will be proved."

We shall earnestly expect the larger performance which the author has promifed; in which that most important of all public measures, an alteration of the Conftitution of the Houfe of Commons, is to be examined in every point of view. Impatient as many reformers are to commence, or rather to dispatch at one ftroke, this arduous task, there is, perhaps, no one political queftion, the whole bearing of which is fo little understood, as this of a Parliamentary Reform; and the writer who shall best assist his countrymen in obtaining a full understanding of this fubject, well deferve to be hailed as Euergetes, by the present and many future generations.

The Appendix to this very able tract prefents us with several curious tables of calculations in political arithmetic, and fome important remarks on the Estimate of Mr. Chalmers, a work much ufed throughout this publication.

ART. XX. Shakspeare Illuftrated, by an Affemblage of Portraits and Views, appropriated to the whole Suite of that Author's Hiftorical Dramas. To which are added, Portraits of Actors, Editors, &c. 4to. 71. 155. London: Publithed according to Act of Parliament, by S. and E. Harding, No. 102, Pall-mall. 1793.

AS a book of Prints without letter prefs, this hardly comes within the province of the Critic; but a British Critic, "Shaksperiani nihil a fe alienum putat :"-and a work so ju

diciously

diciously calculated as this is to illuftrate many paffages of our illuftrious bard, certainly deferves peculiar attention. It may be confidered as a companion to all the editions of Shakspeare, and though from its quarto form it seems beft calculated to accompany the edition of Sir Thomas Hanmer, the plates are not too large to be bound up with Mr. Stevens's late edition, in which manner several very fplendid fets have already been made up*. The plan of the publifher has been to procure reprefentations, fuch as could be found, where any were extant, of every remarkable perfonage and place mentioned in the hiftorical Dramas of our great Poet: and the refult of his labour is a very confiderable collection, which every true Shakesperian will turn over with pleasure.

Oppofite to the frontifpiece is the famous head belonging to the Chandos family, the defence of which we ftill expect from the pen of Mr. Malone. Our readers will find fome mention of the differences of opinion concerning this head, in our first volume, page 56. Such an argument will not, perhaps, be allowed much validity, but to our apprehenfion, the phyfiognomy of this head fpeaks ftrongly in favour of its authenticity. A ftrong expreffion of good fenfe, with all that mildness and fweetness of temper which tradition, and the evidence of his own writings, afcribe to the Bard of Avon, are very confpicuous in this portrait; which, if it do not give us the real countenance of Shakspeare, as we would fain believe, exhibits an admirably well-imagined character of him. We fancy alfo a likeness between this and the coarse portrait in the folio, allowing for the great difference of execution.

Some of the portraits of Royal heads belonging to France are taken from the engravings of De Bie, which are, perhaps, of fufficient authority; the view of Angiers, which is the 6th plate, unluckily reprefents the fide next the river, and not the gates of that city, which are the part introduced into the Drama; the head of Richard II. from the curious ancient picture in the Jerufalem Chamber at Westminster, is very delicately engraved by Gardiner. The engravings altogether are of various degrees of merit, as the fubject feem to demand more or less attention, and are executed by various hands; fome are taken from originals preferved in the British Museum, and others collected from various quarters. There may be, perhaps, in many inftances a want of fatisfactory authority for the genuineness of the portraits, or their resemblance to the perfons represented; nevertheless, it is pleafing to have fuch fpecimens as we can obtain, to give the mind fome definite ideas to recur to. Some of our ancient buildings now in ruins are here reprefented as

There are fets alfo of folio fize, at 97. 6s.

they

they formerly were, from ancient drawings: among these are, the Caftles of Pontefract, Kenelworth, &c. Where nothing better can be obtained, the ruins, as they now ftand, are given from the defigns of Capt. Grose. Among the heads we would particularly point out to notice, is that of the Earl of Effex, by Bartolozzi, from a beautiful miniature by Oliver, in the collection of the prefent Earl of Orford; and that of John Duke of Bedford, Regent of France, from Mr. Edwards's most valuable Miffal, prefented by that Nobleman himself to Henry the Sixth.

We cannot, however, undertake to fpecify all that is curious or worthy of attention in this publication, but we can fafely recommend it to thofe lovers of Shakspeare, who are in circumstances to indulge themselves in literary luxuries.

BRITISH CATALOGUE.

POETRY.

ART. 21. Flowers from Sharon; or Original Poems on divine Subjes By Richard Lee. London: Printed for the Author, and fold by J. Deighton, Holborn, &c. 8vo. 35. 1794.

The Flowers from Sharon, we are compelled to remark, bear on very ftriking resemblance to the Flowers of Parnaffus; and as the Author profeffes to have culled his bloffoms from the Mountains of Jewish, rather than of the Grecian fame, it might be invidious to examine them upon the ftricter laws by which the productions of the latter are ufually judged.

Mr. Lee has indeed given us to understand, in his Preface, that the carnal eye will find little gratification in this his fpiritual bouquet; and, if the measures of approbation are to determine the proportion of fpirituality, we fear it will be our fate to pafs, in the judgment of this author, for Critics of carnal discernment.

Since the days of Pope, Poetry has become a task of no ordinary execution. The public tafte, vitiated by wild and irregular effufions, then first received a just direction ; and demanded of those who afpired to the rank of Poets, harmony of numbers, and correctness of verfification.

We cannot compliment Mr. Lee upon either of thefe grounds, as he has fuffered his mufe (who is uniformly fpiritual) to carry him into the groffeft violation of Poetical decorum. What taste can fupport fuch measure and fentiment as are conveyed in the following pallage:

"Oh! my poor ftupid heart! how cold!

Almoft a trifler."

What