the Tract Society-one of the most useful and efficient of our popular religious institutions-identifying itself with a "Christian Miscellany," conducted by an anonymous Editor, unsanctioned by the names of its proper Officers, who ought to be responsible for its contents, and, in the style and character of its composition, far below some of the rival pennyworths. In the last Number, we open upon the following remarks on the heart.'

་

The difficulty' (of reconciling the phrase pure in heart with the doctrine of human depravity) perhaps consists in our misapprehension of the word heart: it is not unusual to confound it with the affections or feelings, desires or wishes, which indeed more or less influence, but are distinct from, the heart itself. The heart in man is his will or purpose.'

Is this a style of writing adapted to the readers of tracts? Is an Institution like the Tract Society to lend its sanction to the publication of crudities like this? The statement is as incorrect as it is muddy: the heart does mean the affections, both in Scripture and out of it, and to affirm the contrary can serve only to perplex a simple reader. Then for poetry, in the same Number, we have the dying Christian,' to the metrewe hope not the tune-of "Poor Mary Anne."

• When the spark of life is waning,

Weep not for me;

When the languid eye is straining,
Weep not for me,' &c.

The "Child's Companion" appears to be conducted in much better taste. With less of an official air about it, it is more worthy of the Society. But still we doubt the expediency of a general society like the one in question, entering the lists of authorship, and deviating so widely from its original plan, in order to cater to the passion for novelty. The character of the Society must greatly depend on the respectability of its publications. We have long regretted that these are not uniformly the best of their kind, either in style or matter. It is not a tract's being issued from No. 56, Paternoster Row, that will give it currency, if proper measures are not taken to secure the Institution against being outvied by private speculators in the quality of their articles.

We find that we have not room to notice Dr. Hawker-but he deserves an article for himself.

ART. XII. SELECT LITERARY INFORMATION.

ART. XIII. LIST OF WORKS RECENTLY PUBLISHED.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesinen. By Walter Savage Landor, Esq. 2 vols. 8vo. 11, 4s.

Memoirs of Captain Rock, the cele brated Irish Chieftain, with some account of his ancestors. Written by himself. f.cap. 8vo. 9s.

: Critical Researches in Philology and Geography; containing, L. Review of Jones's Persian Grammar, the eighth edition, with considerable additions and improvements, by the Rev. Samuel Lee, M.A. D.D. Professor of Arabic in the University of Cambridge. ¡. An Examination of the various Opinions that in Modern Times have been held respecting the Sources of the Ganges, and the correctness of the Lamas Map of Thibet. III. Review of an Arabic Vocabulary,

and Index to Richardson's Arabic Grammar, by James Noble, Teacher of Languages in Edinburgh. IV. Appendix.

Svo. Ss.

The Perennial Calendar, and Companion to the Almanac ; illustrating the events of every day in the year, as connected with History, Chronology, Botany, Natural History, Astronomy, Popular Customs, and Antiquities; with useful rules of health, observations on the weather, an explanation of the fasts and festivals of the Church, and other miscellaneous useful information. By Thomas Forster, F. L.S. M.B. &c. &c. Fellow of C. C. College, Cambridge, 8vo. 18s..

Fatal Errors and Fundamental Truths: illustrated in a series of narratives and essays. Copy 8vo. 9s.

The Spanish Daughter, sketched by the Rev. George But, late chaplain in ordinary to his majesty, corrected and revised by his daughter, Mrs. Sherwood, author of "Stories from the Church Catechism." 2 vols. post 8vo. 16s.

The Adventures and Sufferings of J. R. Jewitt, only survivor of the ship Boston, during a captivity of nearly three years among the savages of Nootka Sound with an account of their manners, mode of living, and religious opis nions of the natives. 12mo. 5s.

The History of Ancient and Modern Wines. With embellishments from the antique. 4to, 21. 2s...

4to. 10s. 6d..

The Parables of our Blessed Saviour, practically explained, selected from the larger commentary of the pious and eminent George Stanhope, D.D. late Dean of Canterbury. By the Rev. C. M. Mount, A. M. late Fellow of Corpus Rector of Christi College, Oxford; Helmdon: Minister of Christ Church, Bath; and Chaplain to the mast noble the Marquis of Ormond. 12mo. 4s. 6d.

Sermons on the Principal Events and Truths of Redemption. To which are annexed, an address and dissertation on the state of the departed, and the descent of Christ into hell. By John H. Hobart, D.D. Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the state of New York. 2 vols. 8vo. 11. Is

TRAVELS AND TOPOGRAPHY.

Travels in Brazil, in the years 1817, Undertaken by the 18, 19, and 20. command of his majesty the King of Bavaria, and published under bis special Patronage By Dr. John Von Spix, and Dr. Charles Von Martius, members of the Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences. Translated from the Gerinan. Svo. Vols. 1. and II. with plates 11. 4s..

Leaves from a Journal; or, Sketches of Rambles in North Britain and reland. By Andrew Bigelow, Medford, Massachusetts, Small 8vo. 6

THE

ECLECTIC REVIEW,

FOR JUNE, 1824.

Art. 1. An Inquiry into the present State of the Statute and Criminal Law of England. By John Miller, Esq. of Lincoln's Inn. 8vo. pp. 332. London. 1822.

TH

HIS work is the substance of two articles on the respective subjects of the Statute and Criminal Law, which appeared a few years ago in the Quarterly Review. Either the Author's parental affection for his productions, or an earnest desire of disseminating his opinions, has led to the republication now before us. They evince, we admit, considerable professional reading and much labour; but, as disquisitions, they are manifestly wanting in the liberal spirit of a sound philosophy. Upon the important subject of Criminal Law, we have many serious objections to urge against his argument and his inference; but we cordially agree with Mr. Miller on one point. The boundless accumulation of statutes and law reports, of which he complains, constitutes an evil of appalling magnitude, and renders law, which ought to be a clear and intelligible rule of action, a deceitful snare and a most impenetrable mystery. Too little notice has hitherto been taken of this alarming subject. Session after session, year after year, the Statute Book is swelled by new acts of parliament, made on the spur of an occasion," to use Lord Bacon's words, not framed ⚫ with a provident circumspection for the future. Every young senator tries his inexperienced hand on an act of parliament. Every grievance that happens in the circle of social life, is brought within the jurisdiction of parliament. Every body goes to parliament as to a parish pump, said the late Mr. Windham, when he was noticing this mania of legislation prevalent in the House of Commons. Hence, the discordant lumping together in one enactment, as in the Black Act, of different provisions, each having a different object. Hence,

the countless brood of statutes on the Game laws, and the innumerable penalties attached to acts which, at common law, were not punishable, and which had always been considered in the eye of law as indifferent. The preparation of these statutes is performed in the most slovenly and perfunctory manner. When the Government requires a smuggling law or an excise law, instructions are sent to the solicitor of the particular department of the executive, or to the person usually employed to draw acts of parliament, by whom they are hastily thrown into a sort of technical form, without the slightest consideration of the subject matter of the enactment, and with little or no attention to the operation or connexion of their clauses.

• The edition of the Statutes at Large by Tomlins and Raithby, which is the most condensed of any hitherto given to the public, forms sixteen volumes in quarto and two parts, from Magna Charta to the end of 1818: five volumes and a half of which comprise the acts from King John to the end of the reign of George II., and the remaining ten and a half are filled with those of the present reign. Since the Union with Ireland, a thick closely-printed volume has been published every two or three years, and the average number of public acts passed in each of the last eighteen years amounts to 140. At this rate of accumulation, their size at the end of the present century will have swelled to fifty of such ponderous quartos, and the number of public acts to 14,000~no inappropriate companion to the 800 or 1000 volumes of Reports which at that period are likely to compose a portion of the treasures of a lawyer's library. If any person should take the trouble to verify this statement, it will be found rather to fall below than exceed the truth, and when the surprize has ceased which it is calculated to awaken, the first question we are irresistibly impelled to ask, is, whether all this mass of legislation be indispensably necessary? If it is, it becomes our duty to submit to it with the resignation with which an inhabitant of the Alps eyes the progress of a superincumbent glacier, which he perceives year after year increasing and descending, and which he foresees must at no distant period overwhelm him. That such must be the effect of the present multiplication of laws, if suffered to continue, reasonable man can doubt • We,' says Lord Stair, in the Dedication to his Institutions of the Law of Scotland, as it stood in his time, • are not involved in the labyrinth of many and large statutes, whereof the posterior do ordinarily abrogate or derogate from the prior, that it requires a great part of a life to be prompt in all those windings, without which no man can with sincerity and confidence consult or plead, much less can the subjects, by their own industry, know where to rest, but must give more implicit faith to their judges and lawyers, than they need or ought to do to their divines. But the necessity of such a multitude of public laws ought not to be hastily admitted. If there is any one subject on which experience, and the concurring streams of knowledge of every kind, have given us an