prerogative of Englishmen, are only a fhadow without a fubftance. A court chiefly applied to by the ignorant, and thofe who delight in the fweet, but poifonous feaft of revenge. court which multiplies the evils it was meant to redress; directed by craving leeches, who fuck the deepest where there is no blood to fpare; bungling artists, who in reducing the wart, destroy the limb; caufing long and painful fenfations, which, upon application, are inftantly cured by a court of requests.'

This picture, it must be owned, is not a very pleafing one; nor would it be difficult for a moderate artift to fet the fubject in a more agreeable point of view. Still lefs difficult would it be to deform the features of Mr. Hutton's favourite court of requests, by exhibiting fome of the cafes which have fallen under our own obfervation, of the mifconduct and incapacity of these immaculate diftributors of juftice: but we do not deem it at all neceffary to enter on fo wide a field. It is the principle to which we object,-the arbitrary determination by a fet of men who may be incapable of deciding on any fubject whatever, and whofe eftablifhment (for the fame reafons will operate to extend their jurifdiction, or to introduce a new one on like principles,) may ultimately tend to fap the foundation of what, notwithstanding Mr. Hutton's Philippic, we are ftill willing to ftyle that valuable prerogative of Englishmen, a jury.

At a time when our brethren in Scotland are fenfible of the want of this grand palladium of property, and fighing for the benefits of it;-when our neighbours abroad feem awake to the advantages of this part of our conftitution, and eagerly calling for the introduction of it; and while we are fatisfied that it ought not to be abandoned on any flight or partial view of its imperfections; we shall not give our voice for its abolition, in any cafe where it can be retained; and that it may be retained in the county courts, if properly reformed, we have no doubt. To county courts, therefore, we give the preference, notwithftanding the eulogium with which Mr. Hutton concludes his pamphlet, in the following corollaries:

That the concife, equitable, and cheap proceedings in a court of requests, are the most falubrious remedies yet difcovered; the frequent folicitations they excite to government for the establishment of fuch courts, is a pofitive proof of their utility; the people of England, after mature deliberation, feldom think wrong.

That a court of confcience is, perhaps, of all others, the moft diftant from arbitrary proceedings.

That the commifiioner has not one inducement to act wrong, but many to act right.-And,

That perfection is not to be found in any court, but of all the courts we know, perhaps a court of requeft comes the nearest.'

*This article has been omitted for fome time, by accident.

ART.

ART. XVI. The hiftorical Account of the Royal Hofpital for Seamen at Greenwich. 4to. pp. 150. 12s. Boards, Nicol. 1789.

IT

T is well obferved, in the introduction to this volume, that we cannot fail to admire the political wifdom of an inftitution, which unites attention to private diftrefs, with an effectual care of the public intereft. Such is the Hofpital at Greenwich: the firft idea of which noble charity is afcribed to Mary, confort of William III. Mr. Boyer, in his hiftory of King William and Queen Mary, is here faid thus to have expreffed himfelf on the fubject: "And the laft great project that her thoughts were working on, with relation to noble and royal provifion for difabled feamen, was particularly defigned to be fo conftituted, as to put them in a probable way of ending their days in the fear of God." King William, fenfible of its utility, readily acceded to the wishes of his royal confort: before her demife, a grant was made of a houfe built by Charles II. with certain lands in the manor of Eaft-Greenwich. This good beginning was fucceeded in the following years of that and future reigns, by royal grants, parliamentary aids, and private benefactions; to all which have been added feveral fources of fupply, fuch as, unclaimed, or forfeited shares of bounty and prize-money, fixpence per month from all feamen and marines, and the rents and profits of the forfeited eftates of the Earl of Derwentwater; by thefe, and many other means, this excellent charity has been, and ftill is, maintained. Refpecting the Derwentwater eftate, we obferve in a note, P. 55, the following paflage: By an act of parliament paffed in the 22d year of Geo. II. 30,000l. was granted for the relief of James Bartholomew Radcliffe, who was attainted for the rebellion in 1715.-In 1788, in confequence of a petition from the Earl of Newburg, fon of the above-mentioned James, for the restoration of the above eftate on certain conditions, an act paffed, granting to his Lordship, and his heirs male, a rentcharge of 2500l. per annum, to be paid by the treasurer of the hofpital.'-If we recollect right, Mr. James Clarke, in his Survey of the Lakes*, fuggefts a heavy complaint against the management of these estates, which may, perhaps, now be brought under better direction.

The fubject of this book is purfued under the following heads: Copies of King William's original grant and firft commiffion; fabric; revenue; conftitution; eftablishment of in and out penfioners; painted hall; chapel; council-room; infirmary; fchool, &c. Lift of the matters and governors from the inftitution to this time, and of the prefent directors.

*See Review for Dec. 1789, vol. lxxxi. p. 494.

Το

To the description of the painted-hall, a paper is added, which is rather curious. It is a memorial, which Sir James Thornhill, when he had finished the cieling and fides of the great faloon, in the year 1717, delivered to the directors, ftating the prices which were given for paintings of the like kind, at the banqueting-houfe, Whitehall, the Duke of Montague's, the palaces of Windfor, Hampton-court, &c. &c.— It appears that the whole of this celebrated work was not completed till 1727, and cost 66851. being after the rate of 31. per yard for the cieling, and 11. per yard for the fides. Several eminent painters were confulted by the directors, who reported the performance to be equal to any of the like kind in England, and fuperior in number of figures and ornaments :—but if we may judge from Sir James's memorial, the price of other works of this nature feems to have exceeded that allotted to the hall at Greenwich.

Another article in this volume, is an account of the ancient royal palace of Placentia in Eaft Greenwich. It was begun by Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, in the reign of Henry VI. and enlarged in feveral following reigns. Henry VIII. fpared no coft to render it fplendid and magnificent; and it continued a favourite refidence in the time of Charles I.-Charles II. finding the old palace greatly decayed, began a new erection, which he left unfinished, and which conftituted, as is obferved above, the first part of this famous hofpital. The name Placentia, is faid to have been given to the palace on account of its agreeable fituation.-Names ending in wich, generally lead us to think of falt-works: but it is probable that Greenwich was anciently Greenwick, vicus viridans, to which the word Eaft was prefixed, to diftinguish it from Deptford, which was heretofore called Weft-Greenwick.

This volume is adorned by a large and elegant perspective view of the hofpital, from the Thames; a view of the infirmary, the school and dormitary, and the old palace called Placentia.

ART. XVII. Mr. Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. [Article concluded from our laft Number, p. 326.]

HAVING already given our readers a taste of Mr. Burke's trifles; having ferved up his natural rights of man, which he himself confiders as trifles, and kickfhaws; having entertained them with his doughty attack on these rights; with his fine flourishes about the utter ruin and fubverfion of all peace and profperity in the poor afflicted kingdom of France; with his fantastic caricatura of that den of Anthropophagi, the Na

tional Affembly; with his richly-glowing tints and warm colouring of that well-improved and highly-finished group of horrors of the 6th of October; with his fublime and beautiful apotheofis of the great lady who was a principal object in that moft horrid, atrocious, and unnatural of all spectacles; and with his piteous, doleful, lamentation over the downfall of those grand and decorous principles and manners, that unbought grace of life, and nurfe of heroic enterprize, the old feudal and chivalrous spirit of Ariftocratic fealty-all which are so overwrought, and extravagantly befpangled, that we fear the generality of beholders will look on them alfo as gilt baubles and painted gewgaws: we fhall now proceed to fet before the public, fomething of a more folid and fubftantial nature.

In our former article, we remarked that, though Mr. Burke's edifice is founded on the French revolution, it seems chiefly defigned for the ufe of his own countrymen. Accordingly, having, in the true fpirit of papal Rome, condemned the right of private judgment, by fulminating his bull against the daring and licentious practice of putting men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason; inasmuch as this stock in each man is fmall, and that individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations, of ages,' and of ancient tradition; and having perceived that, in this country, all anathemas of the kind have, of late years, been fo difregarded, that it is the misfortune, (not as the heretical preachers of the rights of men think it, the glory,) of this age, that every things to be difcuffed:' Mr. Burke, for this reafon, as well as for the fatisfaction of thofe Frenchmen, (if any fuch there be,) who may wish to profit by examples, proposes to trouble his young correfpondent with a few thoughts on the nature of an established church; of an established monarchy; of an established Aristocracy; and of an established Democracy. Mr. B. fays a few thoughts: but, alas! he is fo little mafter of his own pen, and has fo little rule over his fancy, that the very firft of thefe heads, or topics, together with the many and various collateral dependencies into which his excurfive and ungoverned imagination branches it, takes up fo much of his time and paper, (more than an hundred pages,) that he has no room left for the remaining fubjects of difcuffion; and is forced to referve them for another opportunity.

An established church, or as Mr. B. quaintly terms it, the folemn confecration of the ftate, and of all that officiate in it;" (appearing thereby to confider the perfons not only of ecclefiaftical, but alfo of civil, governors, as being facred;) is requifite and neceffary, firft, he fays, in order that all who adminifter in the government of men, in which they ftand in the

6

perfon

perfon of God himself, fhould have high and worthy notions of their function and deftination; and fhould carry their views beyond the fordid pelf, and paltry praife, of this temporary scene of earthly greatnefs, to the bright profpect of the folid and permanent riches and glory of an endless immortality: but, fecondly, an established church is neceffary not only for magiftrates, but for the people alfo; and becomes more neceffary in proportion to the greater degree of liberty which they enjoy, in order to over-awe and restrain them from making an irreligious and wicked use of their freedom; to affift them in empty. ing themselves of all the luft of their own felfish will; and to teach and perfuade them to appoint wife and virtuous rulers to prefide over them. A third reafon for having an established church, we fhall give in Mr. B.'s own words:

But one of the first and most leading principles on which the commonwealth and the laws are confecrated, is left the temporary poffeffors and life-renters in it, unmindful of what they have received from their anceflors, or what is due to their pofterity, fhould act as if they were the entire mafters; that they fhould not think it amongst their rights to cut off the entail, or to commit waste on the inheritance, by deftroying at their pleasure the whole original fabric. of their fociety; hazarding to leave to thofe who come after them, a ruin instead of a habitation-and teaching thefe fucceffors as little to respect their contrivances, as they had themfelves refpected the inftitution of their forefathers. By this unprincipled facility of changing the fate as often, and as much, and in as many ways as there are floating fancies or fafhions, the whole chain and continuity of the commonwealth would be roken.. No one generation could link with the other. Men would become little better than the flies of a fummer.

And first of all the fcience of jurifprudence, the pride of the human intellect, which, with all its defects, redundancies, and errors, is the collected reafon of ages, combining the principles of original juftice with the infinite variety of human concerns, as a heap of old exploded errors, would be no longer ftudied. Perfonal felf-fufficiency and arrogance (the certain attendants upon all thofe who have never experienced a wifdom greater than their own) would ufurp the tribunal. Of course, no certain laws, establishing invariable grounds of hope and fear, would keep the actions of men. in a certain courfe, or direct them to a certain end. Nothing stable in the modes of holding property, or exercifing function, could form a folid ground on which any parent could fpeculate in the education of his offspring, or in a choice for their future establishment in the world. No principles would be early worked into the habits. As foon as the most able inftructor had completed his laborious courfe of inftitution, inflead of fending forth his pupil, accomplished in a virtuous difcipline, fitted to procure him attention and respect, in his place in fociety, he would find every thing altered; and that he had turned out a poor creature to the contempt and derifion of