The inconvenience flowing from such a system may be at once perceived business impeded, crowded gaols, vast expenses incurred by the state for nothing, prisoners subjected to three or four successive arraignments, and growing grey in confinement, without the power of obtaining a definitive trial. Such a state of things was intolerable in practice; nor does it indeed exist, provision having been made against it, as we are about to explain.

The courts, finding in the code of criminal process, no means of obviating the abuse just specified, and feeling the urgent necessity of so doing, have fastened on article 338, by which a president is allowed, when there result from investigation during the trial one or more aggravating circumstances, to present to the jury a fresh question relative to them. From this, the courts have drawn the inference that the president was authorized to present to the jury all the points collateral to those of the act of accusation.

Assuredly, the framer of the law was far from suspecting that this article would ever receive such an extension. He had only adopted it to furnish the means of perfecting the accusation, when it came to be aggravated by fresh depositions, proving a circumstance which was unknown at the examination, such as the being an accessary, escalade, or forcible entry; but he by no means contemplated establishing the right of presenting collateral questions. Consequently, when the first complainants against collateral questions presented by the presidents of the courts of assize came before the court of cassation, this court was at first extremely surprised at the strange construction put upon article 338; but it was soon convinced of the impossibility, in practice, of foregoing a legal interpretation by which courts of assize acquired the power of presenting questions collateral with those of the accusation; and that it was necessary, since the above latitude was not laid down in the code, to supply it by giving to one of its articles a construction so urgently required.

But the wording of this article soon gave rise to another abuse, of which we daily experience the inconveniences. By its tenor, the president alone is to present the aggravating circumstance; and in like manner, according to the allowed construction, it is still he who is authorized to present the collateral questions. Hence it follows, that, in a great number of cases, a prisoner's fate is in the hands of the president.'

But, among the many provisions which denote an adamantine and unpitying hardness of heart in the legislator, is that which excludes all compassion from the bosom of a juror. When they retire to deliberate, a mass of documentary evidence, the acte d'accusation and other papers extrinsic to the question before them, and which they are required to read, is put into their hands; and it often happens that the perusal of them dissipates the favourable impressions made upon them during the trial. More than this. In the apartment to which they retire, appears in large characters, a memento taken from

the code. Il est défendu aux jurés de penser aux dispositions des loix pénales, et de considérer les suites que pourra avoir par rapport a l'accusé, la déclaration qu'ils ont a faire.' So that if a punishment most outrageously disproportionate in point of severity, is annexed to the offence, the jury cannot so modify their verdict as to subject the prisoner to a more lenient penalty. It not unfrequently happens, that the president, apprehensive lest the jury should soften their verdict in consideration of the consequences of it upon the culprit, prohibits the penal code from finding its way to them, pending their deliberations.

We have now brought to a conclusion our sketch of that portion of the law of France, which pertains to its criminal process. Much yet remains to be said on an equally important branch of jurisprudence,-its scale of punishments. But we are admonished by the length of our article, that we must abstain, at least for the present, from that interesting disquisition. We take our leave, therefore, of M. Cottû, with general sentiments of satisfaction for the animated eulogy which he has pronounced upon the forms and the spirit of British jurisprudence, and with our sincere and inmost wishes that they hereafter be infused into that of France, to mitigate its severities, and to correct its anomalies.

may

Art. II. A Summary of the Principles and History of Popery, in five Lectures, on the Pretensions and Abuses of the Church of Rome. By John Birt. 8vo. pp. 176. Price 4s. London. 1823.

AT a time when Popery is making rapid strides, and Protes

tants in general have lost the zeal which once animated them, we consider the publication we have just announced as peculiarly seasonable. What may be the ultimate effect of the efforts made by the adherents of the Church of Rome to propagate its tenets, aided by the apathy of the opposite party, it is not for us to conjecture. Certain it is, there never was a period when the members of the papal community were so active and enterprising, or Protestants so torpid and indifferent. Innumerable symptoms appear of a prevailing disposition to contemplate the doctrines of Popery with less disgust, and to witness their progress with less alarm, than has ever been known since the Reformation. All the zeal and activity are on one side; and while every absurdity is retained, and every pretension defended, which formerly drew upon Popery the indignation and abhorrence of all enlightened Christians, we should be ready to conclude from the altered state of public

Code d'Instruct. Crim. Art. 342.

1

feeling, that a system once so obnoxious had undergone some momentous revolution. We seem, on this occasion, to have interpreted in its most literal sense the injunction of "hoping "all things and believing all things." We persist in maintaining that the adherents to Popery are materially changed, in contradiction to their express disavowal; and while they make a boast of the infallibility of their creed, and the unalterable nature of their religion, we persist in the belief of its having experienced we know not what melioration and improvement. In most instances, when men are deceived, it is the effect of art and contrivance on the part of those who delude them in this, the deception originates with ourselves; and instead of bearing false witness against our neighbour, such is the excess of our candour, that we refuse to credit the unfavourable testimony which he bears of himself.

There is, in the meantine, nothing reciprocal in this strange method of proceeding: we pipe to them, but they will not dance. Our concessions, instead of softening and mollifying, seem to have no other effect upon them, than to elate their pride and augment their arrogance.

An equal change in the state of feeling towards an object which has itself undergone no alteration whatever, and where the party by which it is displayed profess to adhere to their ancient tenets, it would be difficult to specify. To inquire into the causes of this singular phenomenon, would lead to discussion foreign to our present purpose. Let it suffice to remark, that it may partly be ascribed to the length of time which has elapsed since we have had actual experience of the enormous cruelties of the papal system, and to the fancied security we possess against their recurrence; partly to the agitation of a great political question, which seems to have had the effect of identifying the cause of Popery with that of Protestant Dissenters. The impression of the past has in a manner spent itself; and in many, its place is occupied by an eagerness to grasp at present advantages, and to lay hold of every expedient, for shaking off the restraints which a narrow and timid policy has imposed. The influence of these circumstances has been much aided by that indifference to religious truth. which too often shelters itself under the mask of candour; and to such an extent has this humour been carried, that distinguished leaders in Parliament have not scrupled to represent the controversy between the Papists and the Protestants as turning on obscure and unintelligible points of doctrine, scarcely worth the attention of enlightened minds; while a beneficed clergyman of some distinction, has treated the whole subject as of no more importance than the idle disputes

agitated by the schoolmen. It was but a few years since, that a celebrated nobleman, in the House of Peers, vehemently condemned the oath of abjuration for applying the term superstitious to the doctrine of transubstantiation. In exactly the same spirit, the appellation of Papist is exchanged for Catholic,-a concession which the adherents of the Church of Rome well know how to improve, as amounting to little short of a formal surrender of the point at issue. For, if the Papists are really entitled to the name of Catholics, Protestants of every denomination are involved in the guilt of schism.

This revolution in the feelings of a great portion of the public, has probably been not a little promoted by another cause. The present times are eminently distinguished by the efforts employed for the extension of vital religion each denomination of Christians has taken its station, and contributed its part towards the diffusion of evangelical sentiments. The consequence has been, that the professors of serious piety are multiplied, and form at present a very conspicuous branch of the community. The space which they occupy in the minds of the public, is not merely proportioned to their numerical importance, still less to their rank in society. It is in a great measure derived from the publicity of their proceedings, and the numerous associations for the promotion of pious and benevolent objects, which they have originated and supported. By these means, their discriminating doc trines essential to vital piety have become better known, and more fully discussed than heretofore. However beneficial,

as to its general effects, such a state of things may have been, one consequence which might be expected, has been the result. The opposition of the enemies of religion has become more virulent, their hatred more heated and inflamed, and they have turned with no small complacency to the contemplation of a system which forms a striking contrast to the object of their detestation. Popery, in the ordinary state of its profession, combines the "form of godliness" with a total denial of its power. A heap of unmeaning ceremonies, adapted to fascinate the imagination, and engage the senses,implicit faith in human authority, combined with an utter neglect of Divine teaching,-ignorance the most profound, joined to dogmatism the most presumptuous,-a vigilant exclusion of biblical knowledge, together with a total extinction of free inquiry,--present the spectacle of religion, lying in state, surrounded with the silent pomp of death. The very absurdities of such a religion render it less unacceptable to men whose decided hostility to truth inclines them to view with complacency, whatever obscures its beauty, or impedes

its operation. Of all the corruptions of Christianity which have prevailed to any considerable extent, Popery presents the most numerous points of contrast to the simple doctrines of the Gospel; and just in proportion as it gains ground, the religion of Christ must decline.

On these accounts, though we are far from supposing, that Popery, were it triumphant, would allow toleration to any denomination of Protestants, we have the utmost confidence, that the professors of evangelical piety would be its first victims. The party most opposed to them, look to Papists as their natural ally, on whose assistance in the suppression of what they are pleased to denominate fanaticism and enthusiasm, they may always depend; they may, therefore, without presumption, promise themselves the distinction conferred on Ulysses, that of being last devoured.

Whether Popery will ever be permitted, in the inscrutable counsels of Heaven, again to darken and overspread the land, is an inquiry in which it is foreign to our province to engage. It is certain that the members of the Romish community are at this moment on the tip-toe of expectation, indulging the most sanguine hopes, suggested by the temper of the times, of soon recovering all that they have lost, and of seeing the pretended rights of their church restored in their full splendour. If any thing can realize such an expectation, it is undoubtedly the torpor and indifference of Protestants, combined with the incredible zeal and activity of Papists; and universal observation shews what these are capable of effecting,-how often they compensate the disadvantages arising from paucity of number, as well as almost every kind of inequality.

From a settled persuasion that Popery still is, what it always was, a detestable system of impiety, cruelty, and imposture, fabricated by the father of lies, we feel thankful at witnessing any judicious attempt to expose its enormities, and retard its progress. The lectures published some years since by Mr. Fletcher, are well adapted for this purpose, and entitle their excellent Author to the esteem and gratitude of the public. "The Protestant," a series of periodical papers composed by Mr. Mc Gaver, of Glasgow, contains the fullest delineation of the popish system, and the most powerful confutation of its principles in a popular style, of any work we have seen. Whoever wishes to see Popery drawn to the life in its hideous wickedness and deformity, will find abundant satisfaction in the pages of that writer.

The Author before us has been studious of conciseness, and has contented himself with exhibiting a brief, but a very correct and impressive outline of that copious subject. As