us, it was fo far from being impolitic, that nothing ever proved eventually more prejudicial to his fucceffors, than the unfuc cessful attempts they made to revive the ftipulations of Falaife. If his lordship imagines, that the terms of that conven tion would have been inviolably fubmitted to, by the future kings of Scotland, had Richard not renounced its validity, fuch a conjecture is certainly not authorifed by the evidence of hiftory. In the reign of Edward I. when that monarch, by the most fraudulent violation of faith and justice, had obtained a more formidable footing in Scotland than was demanded by Henry as a fecurity for the ratification of the convention of Falaife, could the Scots be reconciled to acknowledge the dependency of their crown? or did they not in the next reign, fuccefsfully affert its ancient independency? Upon the whole, this claim of the fuperiority of England over Scotland, was no less groundless in its origin than fatal by the confequences that refulted from it. The prosecution of it ferved only to expose the injuftice of the claim, to roufe the Scots to the higheft pitch of enthufiafm for the liberty of their country, and to lavish the blood of England in a caufe as fruitless and romantic as that of the crufades.- With reluctance we have been drawn into this invidious difcuffion, but the inviolable truth of hiftory would mot permit us to decline it; and we think it more glorious for England to abandon a claim which is not tenable, than to infift upon the validity of a convention extorted only by the rigours of an accidental captivity. The jailor of the prifon at Falaife, had Henry refigned to that perfonage the entire disposal of the king of Scot land, might, we doubt not, have obtained from William the fame temporary homage which was extorted by his royal maf ter, if ambition should have prompted him to demand it. Let us, therefore, for ever renounce this puerile pretension, so inconfiftent with magnanimity, injurious to the honour of a free and unconquered people, and which we heartily with had been erased from the elegant work now before us.

The noble author juftly obferves, that the glory of fully establishing itinerant judges in England, belongs to Henry II. by whom that useful improvement in the conftitution was revived and regularly settled. The concurrence of the parliament held at Northampton to this falutary method of adminiftering justice over the kingdom, is the most remarkable inftance to be found in the English annals, of the facrifice of hereditary power to public utility. Though the legislature, however, had now begun to conceive more juft ideas of political refinement, the fyftem of the feudal jurifprudence ftill retained

its

its barbarity. His lord fhip makes many judicious obfervations on the criminal law of those times. How much a fevere exertion of the penal ftatutes was at this time wanted, will appear from the following anecdote.

While Henry was thus adminiftering juftice to foreign potentates, a brother of earl Ferrars was privily murdered, by night, within the walls of London. The murderers were unknown; so that the king could not take the vengeance he defired for this gen. tleman's blood, on thofe by whofe hands it had been shed; but he happened to have in his power another criminal, by whofe punishment he fecured the future peace of his capital against fuch crimes, which were become common there. For, during the diforders of the late inteftine wars, the whole government of the kingdom being relaxed, it was grown into a custom for companies of a hundred or more young men, fons or relations of the principal citizens of London, to fally forth in the night, and plunder the houses of other wealthy people, affaulting and killing thofe whom they met in their way; which spread fuch a terror through the town, that few perfons dared to go out of their houfes after it was dark. In the year eleven hundred and seventy-four, one of these riotous bands befet the house of a wealthy citizen, whofe name is not mentioned: but he, having happily received fome intelligence of their defign, armed himself, and his fervants, and a company of his friends, with whom he waited their coming. They broke into the house, led by one Andrew Buquinte, who, feeing the mafter advancing to refift him, ftruck at his breast with a knife, but could not pierce the corflett with which it was covered. The mafter inftantly drew his fword, and cut off Buquinte's hand, at the fame time loudly calling on his friends for aid. The other rioters fied; but the wounded man was feized, and delivered up the next morning to Richard de Lucy, jufticiary of the realm, who committed him to prifon. For a pardon he was brought to impeach his accomplices, of whom many were taken, and among them one John Senex, a citizen of the first rank, and of great wealth. He was tried by the water ordeal, and failing to clear himself lay under fentence of death till the king fhould have leifure to determine about him, which it feems he had not till this time. Five hundred marks, equivalent to five thousand pounds in these days, were of. fered for his life: but, the times requiring an example, Henry ordered that judgement fhould be executed upon him, and he was hanged. What was done with the other prifoners, we are not told : but henceforwards no more riots were heard of in the city during the course of this reign.'

While Henry applied himself with unremitting diligence to reform the state of the kingdom, he neglected not fuch regulations as tended to render it formidable in war. For this purpose, he obtained the confent of his parliament to a law for the arming of his people, which the noble author very juftly confiders as one of the most memorable acts of his reign. His lordship obferves, that the ancient conftitutution of England had always intended what this ftatute enacted; as all freholders were required by the common law of. the land, to assist in oppofing and driving out invaders : but

the

the want of care to provide the burgeffes and free focmen, who did not hold any fiefs by military tenures, with proper arms, rendered that obligation of little or no effect. This law reflects equal honour on Henry's policy and public virtue for while it reftrained the power of his barons, it was a proof that he had refolved to govern his people by a mild and just administration.

::

The noble author concludes his Hiftory with a comparison between king Henry I. and king Henry II. which is drawn with so masterly a hand, that we do not hesitate to place it in competition with the most excellent of the kind in Plutarch.

In a separate volume is contained the authorities on which the preceding is founded, and on thefe his lordship makes many critical and judicious obfervations. At the conclufion of the whole, we are favoured with fome remarks on the Englifh orthography, which, as coming from fo high an autho. rity, we shall here communicate.

There are several falfe fpellings in the different parts of this edition, which the reader himself will eafily correct. But, with regard to the ancient and modern orthography, I would here ob. ferve, that the former feems to me much better than the latter in many particulars. For inftance, I think that many of our words derived from the Latin, fuch as candour, favour, honour, the u was inferted, and ought to be continued, to mark the true pronunciation, which has more of the u than of the o; and likewise to diftinguish the English from the Latin, by a different termination. The French, for the fame reasons, write candeur, faveur, honeur, instead of candor, favor, honor. I alfo think, that in the words which our language has derived immediately from the French, though remotely from the Latin, the French fpelling fhould be followed, except with regard to the termination of them; as, for example, entire, which comes from the French entier, fhould not be written (as it is by fome modern authors) intire, after the Latin word integer, but with an e at the beginning of it; and yet with a different termination, to vary it from the French, as well as from the Latin, and fo make it our own. It moreover, seems to me, that the perfect tenfe and the participle paffive of words which end in efs, afs, or ifs, fuch as poffefs, express, pass, difmifs, ought to be diftinguished from the imperfect tenfe of thofe verbs, by writing poljeft, expreft, past, difmift, instead of poffeffed, expressed, passed, difmiffed for whatever makes the fenfe more diftinct and perfpicuous is ufeful in a language. At prefent our fpelling, from the changes introduced within these last thirty years, is under no fettled rule.'

This work is the moft copious of any that has been publifhed on a particular portion of English hiftory, and throws a light on the tranfactions of Henry II. as confpicuous as the fplendor of his reign. In point of compofition, it is written with an uniform elegance and purity of language, without ever deviating into the tract of declamation, by which the writers of illuftrious periods of hiftory are often led aftray.

For

For difficulty of execution, for fidelity of reprefentation, and for perfpicuity of ftile, we may affirm it with truth, to be among the most eminent of historical productions.

II. A Tour in Scotland. MDCCLXIX. 8vo. 75. 6d. White. THE author of this work is Mr. Pennant, the ingenious na

turalift who lately favoured the public with three volumes of British Zoology. Before the completion of that undertaking, he had not reflected on the expediency of vifiting Scotland; imagining, it is probable, that the fpecies of animals were much the fame in the fouth and north parts of the island. He appears, however, to have loft no time in entering upon his excurfion as foon as he had conceived the project; and we have only to regret, that he performed it with a celerity too great to admit of his procuring full and accurate information of the natural history and antiquities of the parts of the country through which he travelled. It must be acknowledged, at the fame time, confidering the rapidity of his progrefs, that his observations are remarkably extensive, and that he entertains us with a great variety of curious and interefting particulars.

Mr. Pennant fet out on this Tour, from Chefter, on the 26th of June, 1769, and begins his narration with an account of that ancient city, which is remarkable for the structure of its four principal streets. They appear as if excavated out of the earth, and sunk many feet beneath the furface. Carriages drive below the level of the kitchens, on a line with the ranges of fhops, over which, on each fide of the streets, paffengers walk from end to end, in covered galleries. There is here an antique gothic chapter-houfe, much admired for its elegant fimplicity. Many Roman antiquities are alfo found about this city, which was the Deva and Devana of Antonine, and the ftation of the Legio vicefima victrix. Among these, the prin cipal are the hypocauft, and a rude fculpture of the Dea Armigera Minerva, with her bird and her altar, cut on the face of a rock, in a small field adjacent to the town.

From Chefter, the author fhaped his courfe through Buxton, Chesterfield, and Lincoln. He obferves, that the birds which inhabit the different fens in that country, are very numerous, and that he never met with a finer field for the ob fervation of the zoologift. But the greatest curiofity in these parts, is the heronry at Creffi-Hall, fix miles from Spalding.

The herons, fays he, refort there in February to repair their nefts, fettle there in the fpring to breed, and quit the place during winter. They are numerous as rooks, and their nefts fo crouded together, that myself and the company that was with me counted

not

not fewer than eighty in one tree. I here had opportunity of detecting my own mistake, and that of other ornithologists, in making two fpecies of herons; for I found that the crested heron was only the male of the other: it made a most beautiful appearance with its fnowy neck and long creft ftreaming with the wind. The family who owned this place was of the fame name with thefe birds, which feems to be the principal inducement for preserving them. In the time of Michael Drayton,

'Here ftalk'd the ftately crane, as tho' he march'd in war.' But at prefent this bird is quite unknown in our island; but every other fpecies enumerated by that obfervant poet still are found in this fenny tract, or its neighbourhood.'

Mr. Pennant remarks, that the eaftern coast of the kingdom is very unfavourable to trees, for that, except fome woods in the neighbourhood of Burron-Conftable, and a few other places of which he takes notice in his progrefs, there is a great nakedness from the Humber, as far as the extremity of Caith nefs.

On difcourfing with fome intelligent fishermen at Scarborough, he was informed of a fingular phenomenon they obferve annually about the spawning of fish.

At the distance of 4 or 5 leagues from fhore, during the months of July and Auguft, it is remarked, that at the depth of 6 or 7 fathom from the furface, the water appears to be faturated with a thick jelly, filled with the ova of fifh, which reaches 10 or 12 fathoms deeper; this is known by its adhering to the ropes the cobles anchor with when they are fishing, for they find the first 6 or 7 fathom of rope free from spawn, the next 10 or 12 covered with flimy matter, the remainder again free to the bottom. They fuppofe this gelatinous ftuff to fupply the new born fry with food, and that it is alfo a protection to the spawn, as being disagreeable to the larger fish to swim in."

This phenomenon is called by the feamen, the flowering of the water, and, as Mr. Pennant remarks, was obferved by Mr. Ofbeck in fouth lat. 35, 36, in his return from China. The following is the account of Alnwick-Caftle.

At Alnwick, a fmall town, the traveller is difappointed with the fituation and environs of the caftle, the refidence of the Percies, the antient earls of Northumberland. You look in vain for any marks of the grandeur of the feudal age; for trophies won by a family eminent in our annals for military prowefs and deeds of chivalry; for halls hung with helms and haberks, or with the fpoils of the chace; for extenfive forefts, and venerable oaks. You look in vain for the helmet on the tower, the antient fignal of hofpita. lity to the traveller, or for the grey-headed porter to conduct him to the hall of entertainment, The numerous train, whofe countenances gave welcome to him on his way, are now no more; and instead of the difinterefted ufher of the old times, he is attended by a valet eager to receive the fees of admittance.

There is vaft grandeur in the appearance of the outfide of the caftle; the towers magnificent, but injured by the numpers of rude ftatues crouded on the battlements. The apart

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