may require, will earn for me, not only as a bare alms at your hands, that support which, however scanty, I can elsewhere only receive as an unmerited indulgence. Since I did a few days please your eye, I may still please it a few days longer:-perhaps a few days longer therefore I may still wish to live; and when that last blessing, your love, is gone by,-when my cheek, faded with grief, has lost the last attraction that could arrest your favour, then tell me so, that, burthening you no longer, I may retire-and die !'"—(III. 64, 65.)

Her silent despair, and patient misery, when she finds that she has not only ruined herself with the world, but lost his affections also, has the beauty of the deepest tragedy.

"Nothing but the most unremitting tenderness on my part could in some degree have revived her drooping spirits.-But when, after my excursion, and the act of justice on Sophia in which it ended, I reappeared before the still trembling Euphrosyne, she saw too soon that that cordial of the heart must not be expected. One look she cast upon my countenance, as I sat down in silence, sufficed to inform her of my total change of sentiments-and the responsive look by which it was met, tore for ever from her breast the last seeds of hope and confidence. Like the wounded snail she shrunk within herself, and thenceforth, cloked in unceasing sadness, never more expanded to the sunshine of joy. With her buoyancy of spirits she seemed even to lose all her quickness of intellect, nay all her readiness of speech; so that, not only fearing to embark with her in serious conversation, but even finding no response in her mind to lighter topics, I at last began to nauseate her seeming torpor and dulness, and to roam abroad even more frequently than before a partner of my fate remained at home, to count the tedious hours of my absence; while she-poor miserable creaturedreading the sneers of an unfeeling world, passed her time under my roof in dismal and heart-breaking solitude.-Had the most patient endurance of the most intemperate salies been able to soothe my disappointment and to soften my hardness, Euphrosyne's angelic sweetness must at last have conquered: but in my jaundiced eye her resignation only tended to strengthen the conviction of her shame: and I saw in her forbearance nothing but the consequence of her debasement, and the consciousness of her guilt. 'Did her heart,' thought I, 'bear witness to a purity on which my audacity dared first to cast a blemish, she could not remain thus tame, thus spiritless, under such an aggravation of my wrongs; and either she would be the first to quit my merciless roof, or at least she would not so fearfully avoid giving me even the most unfounded pretence for denying her its shelter. She must merit her sufferings to bear them so meekly!'-Hence, even when moved to real pity by gentleness so enduring, I seldom relented in my apparent sternness."-(III. 72–74.)

With this we end our extracts from Anastasius. We consider it as a work in which great and extraordinary talent is evinced. It abounds in eloquent and sublime passages,—in sense,-in knowledge of history,-and in know. ledge of human character;-but not in wit. It is too long and if this novel perish, and is forgotten, it will be solely on that account. If it be the picture of vice, so is Clarissa Harlowe, and so is Tom Jones. There are no sensual and glowing descriptions in Anastasius,-nothing which corrupts the morals by inflaming the imagination of youth; and we are quite certain that every reader ends this novel with a greater disgust at vice, and a more thorough conviction of the necessity of subjugating passion, than he feels from reading either of the celebrated works we have just mentioned. The sum of our eulogium is that Mr. Hope, without being very successful in his story, or remarkably skilful in the delineation of character, has written a novel, which all clever people of a certain age should read, because it is full of marvellously fine things.

SPRING GUNS AND MAN TRAPS. (E. REVIEW, March, 1821.) The Shooter's Guide. By J. B. JOHNSON. 12mo. Edwards and Knibb. 1819. WHEN Lord Dacre (then Mr. Brand) brought into the House of Commons his bill for the amendment of the Game Laws, a system of greater mercy and humanity was in vain recommended to that popular branch of the Legislature. The interests of humanity, and the interests of the lord of the manor were not, however, opposed to each other; nor any attempt made to deny the superior importance of the last. No such bold or alarming topics were

agitated; but it was contended, that if the laws were less ferocious, there would be more partridges-if the lower orders of mankind were not torn from their families and banished to Botany Bay, hares and pheasants would be increased in number, or, at least, not diminished. It is not, however, till after long experience, that mankind ever think of recurring to humane expedients for effecting their objects. The rulers who ride the people never think of coaxing and patting till they have worn out the lashes of their whips, and broken the rowels of their spurs. The legislators of the trigger replied, that two laws had lately passed which would answer their purpose of preserving game: the one, an act for transporting men found with arms in their hands for the purposes of killing game in the night; the other, an act for rendering the buyers of the game equally guilty with the seller, and for involving both in the same penalty. Three seasons have elapsed since the last of these laws was passed: and we appeal to the experience of all the great towns in England, whether the difficulty of procuring game is in the slightest degree increased?-whether hares, partridges, and pheasants are not purchased with as much facility as before the passing this act?-whether the price of such unlawful commodities is even in the slightest degree increased? Let the Assize and Sessions' Calendars bear witness whether the law for transporting poachers has not had the most direct tendency to encourage brutal assaults and ferocious murders. There is hardly now a Jail-delivery in which some gamekeeper has not murdered a poacher-or some poacher a gamekeeper. If the question concerned the payment of five pounds, a poacher would hardly risk his life rather than be taken; but when he is to go to Botany Bay for seven years, he summons together his brother poachers -they get brave from rum, numbers, and despair- and a bloody battle

ensues.

Game

Another method by which it is attempted to defeat the depredations of the poacher, is, by setting spring guns to murder any person who comes within their reach; and it is to this last new feature in the supposed Game Laws to which, on the present occasion, we intend principally to confine our notice. We utterly disclaim all hostility to the Game Laws in general. ought to belong to those who feed it. All the landowners in England are fairly entitled to all the game in England. These laws are constructed upon a basis of substantial justice; but there is a great deal of absurdity and tyranny mingled with them, and a perpetual and vehement desire on the part of the country gentlemen to push the provisions of these laws up to the highest point of tyrannical severity.

"Is it lawful to put to death by a spring gun, or any other machine, an unqualified person trespassing upon your woods or fields in pursuit of game, and who has received due notice of your intention, and of the risk to which he is exposed?" This, we think, is stating the question as fairly as can be stated. We purposely exclude gardens, orchards, and all contiguity to the dwellinghouse. We exclude, also, all felonious intention on the part of the deceased. The object of his expedition shall be proved to be game; and the notice he received of his danger shall be allowed to be as complete as possible. It must also be part of the case, that the spring gun was placed there for the express purpose of defending the game, by killing or wounding the poacher, or spreading terror, or doing anything that a reasonable man ought to know would happen from such a proceeding.

Suppose any gentleman were to give notice that all other persons must abstain from his manors; that he himself and his servants paraded the woods and fields with loaded pistols and blunderbusses, and would shoot anybody who fired at a partridge; and suppose he were to keep his word, and shoot

through the head some rash trespasser who defied his bravado, and was determined to have his sport:-Is there any doubt that he would be guilty of murder? We suppose no resistance on the part of the trespasser; but that the moment he passes the line of demarkation with his dogs and gun, If this is he is shot dead by the proprietor of the land from behind a tree. not murder, what is murder? We will make the case a little better for the homicide Squire. It shall be night; the poacher, an unqualified person, steps over the line of demarkation with his nets and snares, and is instantly shot through the head by the pistol of the proprietor. We have no doubt that this would be murder-that it ought to be considered as murder, and punished as murder. We think this so clear, that it would be a waste of time to argue it. There is no kind of resistance on the part of the deceased; no attempt to run away; he is not even challenged: but instantly shot dead by the proprietor of the wood, for no other crime than the intention of killing game unlawfully. We do not suppose that any man, possessed of the elements of law and common sense, would deny this to be a case of murder, let the previous notice to the deceased have been as perfect as it could be. It is true, a trespasser in the park may be killed; but then it is when he will not render himself to the keepers, upon a hue and a cry to stand to the king's peace. But deer are property, game is not; and this power of slaying deer-stealers is by the 21st Edward I. de Malifactoribus in Parcis, and by 3rd and 4th William & Mary, c. 10. So rioters may be killed, houseburners, ravishers, felons refusing to be arrested, felons escaping, felons breaking gaol, men resisting a civil process-may all be put to death. All these cases of justifiable homicide are laid down and admitted into our books. But who ever heard that to pistol a poacher was justifiable homicide? It has long been decided, that it is unlawful to kill a dog who is pursuing game in a manor. "To decide the contrary," says Lord Ellenborough, "would outrage reason and sense."-Vere v. Lord Cawdor and King, 11 East, 386. Pointers have always been treated by the Legislature with great delicacy and consideration. To "wish to be a dog, and to bay the moon," is not quite so mad a wish as the poet thought it. If these things are so, what is the difference between the act of firing yourself, and placing an engine which does the same thing? In the one case, your hand pulls the trigger; in the other, it places the wire which communicates with the trigger, and causes the death of the trespasser. There is the same intention of slaying in both cases-there is precisely the same human agency in both cases; only the steps are rather more numerous in the latter case. As to the bad effects of allowing proprietors of game to put trespassers to death at once, or to set guns that will do it, we can have no hesitation in saying, that the first method, of giving the power of life and death to Esquires, would be by far the most humane. For, as we have observed in a previous Essay on the Game Laws, a live armigeral spring gun would distinguish an accidental trespasser from a real poacher-a woman or a boy from a man-perhaps might spare a friend or an acquaintance-or a father of a family with ten childrenor a small freeholder who voted for Administration. But this new rural artil. lery must destroy, without mercy and selection, every one who approaches it. In the case of Ilot versus Wilks, Esq., the four judges, Abbot, Bailey, Holroyd, and Best, gave their opinions seriatim on points connected with this question. In this case, as reported in Chetwynd's edition of Burn's Justice, 1820, vol. ii. p. 500, Abbot Č. J. observes as follows:

"I cannot say that repeated and increasing acts of aggression may not reasonably call for increased means of defence and protection. I believe that many of the persons who cause engines of this description to be placed in their grounds, do not do so with an intention to injure any person, but really believe that the publication of notices will prevent any person

from sustaining an injury; and that no person, having the notice given him, will be weak and foolish enough to expose himself to the perilous consequences of his trespass. Many persons who place such engines in their grounds do so for the purpose of preventing, by means of terror, injury to their property, rather than from any motive of doing malicious injury.”

“Increased means of defence and protection," but increased (his Lordship should remember) from the payment of five pounds to instant death-and instant death inflicted, not by the arm of law, but by the arm of the proprietor; -could the Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench intend to say, that the impossibility of putting an end to poaching by other means would justify the infliction of death upon the offender? Is he so ignorant of the philosophy of punishing, as to imagine he has nothing to do but to give ten stripes instead of two, a hundred instead of ten, and a thousand, if a hundred will not do? to substitute prison for pecuniary fines, and the gallows instead of the gaol? It is impossible so enlightened a judge can forget that the sympathies of mankind must be consulted; that it would be wrong to break a person upon the wheel for stealing a penny loaf, and that gradations in punishment must be carefully accommodated to gradations in crime; that if poaching is punished more than mankind in general think it ought to be punished, the fault will either escape with impunity, or the delinquent be driven to desperation; that if poaching and murder are punished equally, every poacher will be an assassin. Besides, too, if the principle is right in the unlimited and unqualified manner in which the Chief Justice puts it—if defence goes on increasing with aggression, the Legislature at least must determine upon their equal pace. If an act of Parliament made it a capital offence to poach upon a manor, as it is to commit a burglary in a dwelling-house, it might then be as lawful to shoot a person for trespassing upon your manor, as it is to kill a thief for breaking into your house. But the real question is—and so in sound reasoning his Lordship should have put it-"If the law at this moment determine the aggression to be in such a state that it merits only a pecuniary fine after summons and proof, has any sporadic squire the right to say that it shall be punished with death, before any summons and without any proof?"

It appears to us, too, very singular to say that many persons who cause engines of this description to be placed in their ground, do not do so with an intention of injuring any person, but really believe that the publication of notices will prevent any person from sustaining an injury, and that no person, having the notice given him, will be weak and foolish enough to expose himself to the perilous consequences of his trespass. But if this be the real belief of the engineer-if he think the mere notice will keep people away-then he must think it a mere inutility that the guns should be placed at all: if he think that many will be deterred, and a few come, then he must mean to shoot those few. He who believes his gun will never be called upon to do its duty, need set no gun, and trust to rumour of their being set, or being loaded, for his protection. Against the gun and the powder we have no complaint; they are perfectly fair and admissible: our quarrel is with the bullets. He who sets a loaded gun means it should go off if it is touched. But what signifies the mere empty wish that there may be no mischief, when I perform an action which my common sense tells me may produce the worst mischief? If I hear a great noise in the street, and fire a bullet to keep people quiet, I may not perhaps have intended to kill; I may have wished to have produced quiet, by mere terror, and I may have expressed a strong hope that my object has been effected without the destruction of human life. Still I have done that which every man of sound intellect knows is likely to kill; and if anyone fall from my act, I am guilty of murder. "Further" (says Lord Coke), "if there be an evil intent, though that intent extendeth not to death, it is murder. Thus, if a man, knowing that

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many people are in the street, throw a stone over the wall, intending only to frighten them, or to give them a little hurt, and thereupon one is killed-this' is murder-for he had an ill intent; though that intent extended not to death, and though he knew not the party slain." 3 Inst. 57. If a man be not mad, he must be presumed to foresee common consequences; if he puts a bullet into a spring gun-he must be supposed to foresee that it will kill any poacher who touches the wire-and to that consequence he must stand. We do not suppose all preservers of game to be so bloodily inclined that they would prefer the death of a poacher to his staying away. Their object is to preserve game; they have no objection to preserve the lives of their fellow creatures also, if both can exist at the same time; if not, the least worthy of God's creatures must fall-the rustic without a soul,-not the Christian partridge-not the immortal pheasant-not the rational woodcock, or the accountable hare.

The Chief Justice quotes the instance of glass and spikes fixed upon walls. He cannot mean to infer from this, because the law connives at the infliction of such small punishments for the protection of property, that it does allow, or ought to allow, proprietors to proceed to the punishment of death. Small means of annoying trespassers may be consistently admitted by the law, though more severe ones are forbidden, and ought to be forbidden; unless it follows that what is good in any degree is good in the highest degree. You may correct a servant boy with a switch; but if you bruise him sorely, you are liable to be indicted—if you kill him, you are hanged. A blacksmith corrected his servant with a bar of iron: the boy died, and the blacksmith was executed. Grey's Case, Kel. 64, 65. A woman kicked and stamped on the belly of her child-she was found guilty of murder. 1 East, P. C. 261. Si immoderate suo jure utatur, tunc reus homocidii sit. There is, besides, this additional difference in the two cases put by the Chief Justice, that no publication of notices can be so plain, in the case of the guns, as the sight of the glass or the spikes; for a trespasser may not believe in the notice which he receives, or he may think he shall see the gun, and so avoid it, or that he may have the good luck to avoid it, if he does not see it; whereas, of the presence of the glass or the spikes he can have no doubt; and he has no hope of placing his hand in any spot where they are not. In the one case he cuts his fingers upon full and perfect notice of his own senses; in the other case, he loses his life after a notice which he may disbelieve, and by an engine which he may hope to escape. Mr. Justice Bailey observes, in the same case, that it is not an indictable offence to set spring guns: perhaps not. It is not an indictable offence to go about with a loaded pistol, intending to shoot anybody who grins at you: but, if you do it, you are hanged: many inchoate acts are innocent, the consumma. tion of which is a capital offence.

There is not a case where the motto applies of Volenti non fit injuria. The man does not will to be hurt, but he wills to get the game; and, with that rash confidence natural to many characters, believes he shall avoid the evil and gain the good. On the contrary, it is a case which exactly arranges itself under the maxim, Quando aliquid prohibetur ex directo, prohibetur et per obliquum. Give what notice he may, the proprietor cannot lawfully shoot a trespasser (who neither runs nor resists) with a loaded pistol ;-he cannot do it ex directo;-how then can he do it per obliquum, by arranging on the ground the pistol which commits the murder?

Mr. Justice Best delivers the following opinion. His Lordship concluded as follows:

"This case has been discussed at the bar as if these engines were exclusively resorted to for the protection of game; but I consider them as lawfully applicable to the protection of every species of property against unlawful trespassers. But if even they might not lawfully