of the proof that would have been given thereby to the nation of the fincerity of oppofition, but becaufe I do verily believe from my foul, that if it had, daring as minifters are and have been, they would not have prefumed to have gone the lengths they have done in the open violation of the conftitution; though upheld, as they fay they are, by parliament, by the country gentlemen, and by their long tribe of obfequious addreffers."

We should have had no objection to make to this article of lord Abingdon's political creed, had he not been fo very pofitive in declaring he does verily believe it from his foul. It is with propriety, therefore, he proceeds to explode Mr. Burke's affertion, that all oppofition in parliament, where the name of America appears, is vain and frivolous." His lordfhip, here, introduces a curious diftinction between obedience to the laws and allegiance to the state.

"Allegiance is one thing, obedience another. Allegiance is due to the king, fo long as, in his executive capacity, he fhall protect the rights of the people. Obedience is due to the laws, when founded on the conftitution: but when they are fubverfive of the constitution, then difobedience instead of obedience is due; and refistance becomes the law of the land."

We with our noble author had explained himself a little. He talks of the laws of parliament, as if laws could be made by the two houfes of parliament without the concurrence of the king. The laws are made by the whole body of the legislature, reprefentative of the whole people, or of the ftate; whofe authority is fupreme and to which both obedience and allegiance are due. His diftin&tion, therefore, about fupremacy and allegiance, as due only to the king, is merely verbal. Who, fays he, "ever heard of the oaths of fupremacy and of allegiance to the parliament? And why, are they not taken to the parliament? because they are due to the king and not to the parliament; and it is not fit that the parlia ment fhould invade the rights of this imperial crown. Let each poffefs its own, and fo the conftitution will be preferved." We conceive his Lordship to be a little mistaken here.-That the oaths of allegiance and fupremacy are taken to the king and not to the parliament, is because the king is vefted with the executive power of the ftate; fuch oaths are taken, therefore, to him as to the proper officer; reprefenting the body of the ftate.-Would Lord Abingdon infinuate that the crown is poffeffed of other rights and prerogatives than those, with which it is vefted by the ftate in parliament? Is he fupreme out, and independent of parliament? Is the king poffeffed of any power, that is not given him by and for the ufe of the ftate? If not, the diftinction he affects to cftablifh iş merely

oficial.

official.-In like manner he makes a diftinction without a dif ference, or would found a very dangerous doctrine on a chimerical diftinction, when he fays obedience is due to the laws when founded on the conftitution, &c, Is the conftitution of a ftate independent of the laws of the ftate, or does not rather the conftitution confift of its fyftem of laws? Blackstone fays, it is in the power of the legiflature to change the conftitation. And why fhould it not, if the legiflature be, as they are, reprefentative of the whole body of the people? Is the conftitution of England like the ancient laws of the Medes and Perfians, which they affected to hold unalterable? If it were, the people would be enflaved by their own conftitution.We apprehend that his lordfhip may have been mifled, in his notions about our political conftitution, by his friend, the flagellator, De Lolme; whofe treatife on the fubject, however ingenious, is in a great degree imaginary.-Be this as it may, it is certainly a palpable blunder to fay that refiftance to the faws of the land, however conftitutional fuch laws may be, or however conflitutional fuch refiftance, "becomes the law of the land".

His lordship proceeds to give Mr. Burke a merited lash for giving up political rectitude for civil difcretion; by the latter of which, that gentleman infinuates, that ftates may be as well governed as by the former.-On which the woeful remembrance of the lafhes, his lordship received at Westminsterfchool from his preceptor Dr. Markham, suggest a retaliation on the Archbishop of York.

"Much stress has been laid on the alterations that have been made in the established religion, in order to fhew the right of parliament to omnipotency it is the doctrine of Sir William Blackstone: but as the moft able chymist cannot extract that from any given thing, which does not exist in its nature, fo is this precedent, for this reason, by no means a cafe in point. In the first place, religion has nothing to do with the civil rights of the state. It is fet apart from them, and belongs to the church,"

Here his lordship fubjoins the following note.

"I am aware how much I here differ from the very able prelate, who is for harnefling Church and State together, like coach and horfes, that he as one of the drivers may enjoy the finack of the whip; a fmack which he cannot forget, and which he gave me reafon to remember when I was at Westminster school: but as I am now out of his clutches, fo I hope I am out of his books too, at least such as are akin to his political fermons. Vide Archbishop of York's Sermon, p. 20."

From the pertnefs and puerility of this note, we cannot help fufpecting that, however hearty and worthy of remembrance the fmack in queftion might be, the pupil was a forward lad and richly deferved it. Perhaps he would have been made

8

wife enough to forget it had it been repeated. At least, this telling of tales out of fchool, and that fo many years after wards, feems to indicate that the tell-tale is ftill a fchool-boy and deferves to be whipped. The ferious and manly reader will judge from his lordfhip's ludicrous definition of religion. "The established religion," fays he, " is no more than that drefs, which the ftate taylors have provided for religion to go to court in; and the fame taylors, that made this dress, can alter it, as we have feen, and as the fafhion of the times changes."

His lordship's notions of religious faith feem alfo to be curious. "What act of parliament," fays he, "can make me believe that three is one, or one is three, if I do not chufe to believe it?" So then it feems that his lordship's belief depends on his choice: he can believe what he chufes. The article beforementioned, which he fo folemnly declared he believed upon his foul, is doubtlefs of this kind. It is a court fafhion, this mode of belief, fince the publication of Soame Jenyns's laft effay.

Nor is our noble author's idea of government a jot more extraordinary than his notions of religion.

"In short, my idea of this government, to speak as a lawyer would do, is, that parliaments, as I have faid before, are the trustees of the people, the conflitution the deed of truft, wherein they fand feized to afes only; and thefe ufes being named, they cannot depart from them: but for their due performance are accountable to thofe by whofe conveyance the truft was made. The right is therefore fiduciary, the power limited Or as a mathematician would fay, more in the road of demonstration; the conftitution is a circle, the laws the radii of that circle, drawn on its furface with the pen of parliament, and it is the known quality of a circle, that its radii cannot exceed its circumference, whilft the people, like the compaffes, are fixed in the center, and de fcribe the circle."

How cleverly has his lordship here squared the political circle. Mathematicians, however, as we are, we do not comprehend the allufion, nor fee the propriety of its application.-We are juft as much puzzled with his conftitutional conundrum of the compact between the parliament and the people. The legiflative body is by no means a truftce for the people; there is no deed of truft fubfifting between them; they are the reprefentative body of the whole people. It is high treafon, therefore, against the majesty of the people, for individuals to refift the legiflative body on any pretence whatever. If the majority of the members of the reprefentative body, indeed, a& contrary to the will of the majority of the people, the latter have their remedy againft the body by amputating fuch obnoxious members; but no otherwife. If, indeed, the whole

repre

1

representative body be corrupt, if all its members are obnox ious, but that is a fuppofition not to be made, even in these times of political apoftacy. At a juncture when even a Burke forfook the field inglorious, there was one faithful Abdiel to be found." Among a hoft unfaithful, faithful only he !"

"I ftood fingle and alone in this bufinefs," fays his lordship: Mr. Burke's hoft of noble friends did not think it expedient. Inexpediency prevented them.-Inexpediency! curfe on the term."-Don't fwear, my lord; people will think you angry, and we muft leave you. For the reader's fake, however, we cannot close this article, without the laft paragragh, which is attended with a curious note and runs thus:

"Upon the whole, when I perceive a war, and fuch a war too, fo weakly fupported, and yet fo violently purfued; when I find the most elevated of the church, preaching and publishing to the world paffive obedience and non-refiftance to the fupremacy of law *, whether that law be right or wrong, whether it be good or bad, whether it be to establish Popery or Proteftantifm, whether it be enacted by an honest, or by a corrupt and abandoned parliament; when I fee men that were pilloried in the reign of good old George II. penfioned in this, and for the fame reafons; when I hear of others hired to root out the very idea of public virtue from the minds, and tear bene

The Archbishop of York fays, "the foundation of legal freedom, is the fupremacy of law." This I fuppofe is an apology for his Grace's allegiance to the Quebec-Act, and for his making this act a pattern for cramming bifhopricks down the throats of the Americans, by the help of the civil power, that is, on the points of bayonets †. See his Sermon, p. 19: and p. 24.

His lordship fays too, "As there are in the nature of things, but two "forts of government; that of law, and that of force; it wants no argu

ment to prove that under the laft freedom cannot fubfift." This is a diftinction without a difference; for when law is contrary to the natural or civil rights of mankind, it is force, and the worst of all force: for it is as "a wolf in theep's cloathing," and cometh unawares, “like a thief in the night. See p. 19. of the above fermon.

Again, his lordship fays, "Thefe indeed" (that is "defpotifm and anarchy) have ufually gone together, for no anarchy ever prevailed, which did not end in defpotifm." This is a bull, but an Irish one; and not a Popith bull. If, where anarchy prevails defpotifm ends, anarchy and defpotifm cannot ufually go together. See p. 20.

His grace will excufe the attention I have paid him in the course of my obfervations: but as I am unfortunately one of thofe parties who have (according to him) "no principle belonging to them," and are “in the laft ftage of political depravity," I was willing to examine, a little, his lordfhip's principles; that if I approved them, I might adopt them 1.

This cramming bithopricks down throats with the points of bayonets, is a curious piece of rhetoric. Dr. Markham was wrong; old Buby would have given the other mack.

That is if he chofe; for as he believes, fe it is to be prefumed he ap Proves what he chufes.

wolence

volence from the hearts of Englishmen; when I reflect-but why add more to the black catalogue of public dangers? it is time to look at home: it is time, even with Stentorian voice, to call for union among the friends of the conftitution it is time that private opinion fhould yield to public fafety; it is time that we keep both "watch and ward," for if the liberties of our fellow-fubjects in America are to be taken from them, it is for the ideot only to fuppofe that we can preferve our own. The dagger uplifted against the breast of America, is meant for the heart of Old England. Non agitur de vecti- › galibus, Libertas in dubio eft.

"In fine these are my fentiments, and these my principles. They are the principles of the conftitution; and under this perfuafion swhilft I have figned them with my name, I will, if neceflary, as readily, feal them with my blood."

Brave words! fine world! Hoftefs, my fupper; come.
Oh, how I wish this tavern were my

drum.

FALSTAFF.

A complete Treatife of Electricity in Theory and Practice; with original Experiments. By Tiberius Cavallo. 8vo. 6s. Dilly.

Although we have no great opinion of profeffed complete treatifes in general; we have no particular objection to make to the defign or execution of the prefent, except that its limits are too confined to contain compleatly every thing effential to fo extenfive a fubject. As a concife and copious abstract of the moft important circumftances and obfervations, it hath confiderable merit; nor can we fpeak of its contents in a more modeft and fatisfactory manner than is done by the author himfelf in his preface.

"The defign of the following Treatife is, to prefent to the public a comprehensive view of the prefent ftate of Electricity, reduced into as fmall a compafs as the nature of the science would admit. It is divided into four parts, in each of which are contained such particulars, as had lefs connection with the rest; and the distinct view of which, it was thought, might be a means of preventing a confufion of ideas in the minds of those readers, who before have not been much converfant with the fubject.

"The first part treats of the laws of Electricity only; i. e. of fuch natural laws concerning Electricity, as by innumerable experiments, have been found uniformly true, and are independent on any hypothefis. In this part, the Author has not defcended to any particulars, which were not clearly ascertained, or which were inconfiderable; but he has, at the fame time, taken care not to omit any thing material, or which feemed to promife future discoveries.

"The fecond part is merely hypothetical; relating not to facts, but to opinions. The great improbability of most of theie hypothefes VOL. VI. determined

Ee