talented reviewers even than E. S. J. have declared, long years ago, that the author of "Proverbial Philosophy" is a talented man.

2. The effect and teachings of the work. This, E. J. S. assures us, is the doctrine of mere passivity; but how he arrives at this judgment, from anything in the book itself, is a mystery, as he does not point out any passage inculcating that as the result of all its philosophy.

I have adverted to, and quoted, a few passages, indicating a contrary teaching. In some few particulars I should be disposed to differ from Mr. Tupper; but of all writings and books this might be said. The effect of this book, I maintain, is of a decidedly healthy character, and I do not find a trace of any advice that might be construed, as E. S. J. would fain have us believe, into a blind fatalism. On the contrary, it urges upon all, the necessity of thought and action, the delights of literature, the crime of inaction and mere money-getting, the power of man over man, the responsibilities of existence, the holiness and purity of our social institutions; and the author discourses of life and its relations as one would who wishes well to his fellows.

This book has stood the test of some twenty-five years of publicity. At first almost unknown to fame; gradually rising into estimation; and the result of worth-hostile criticism, and the scores of editions in America, and the forty editions here, testify to the immense circle of readers who have been charmed by the discoursings of our " Proverbial Philosophy." This popularity I maintain to be, in some degree at least, a test of its worth.

III. The language of the book. On this point I feel great difficulty in setting before the reader the great charm which lies in the language of "Proverbial Philosophy." A few examples must suffice. It is simple, telling, pure, and chaste. Let any one take up the book, and open it at any article, without design, and the chances are ten to one that he will not put it down till he has finished that article, whatever it may be. It is a great thing when a book can so fix the attention and charm the mind. How truly he writes of books, as though every word is his own experience in the matter,

"Monuments of mind, concrete wisdom of the wisest; sweet solaces of daily life; proofs and results of immortality.

Trees yielding all fruits, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.

Groves of knowledge, where all may eat, nor fear a flaming sword."

Every word comes direct from his mind, as it must from the mind of every man or woman who has a real love for books. To Tupper, and, let us hope, to all who are drawn within the bonds of brotherhood by this Magazine, they are

'Gentle comrades, kind advisers, friends, comforts, treasures, helps, governments, "diversities of tongues, who can weigh your worth ?"

The power of speech he well describes as a

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joy which the parasites of pleasure have not known,

Though earth, and air, and sea have gorged all the appetites of sense."

The tender ties of life he enters into and sets forth, in the pure, chaste eloquence of one who knows of what he writes. One of those he tells us is

"A mighty spiritual force, warring with the dulness of matter;

An angel mind breathed into a mortal, though fallen, yet how beautiful!"

Of the compass, and breadth, and force of his language, no example need be given. Those of his readers who are even hostile critics, must admit that marriage is a

happy lot, and hallowed even as the joy of angels."

If his advice were acted upon, the world would be a great deal better than it is.

"Marry not without means; for so shouldst thou tempt Providence:

But wait not for more than enough; for marriage is the DUTY of most men.
Grievous indeed must be the burden, that shall outweigh innocence and health;
And a well-assorted marriage hath not many cares."

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But to conclude. Tupper's "Proverbial Philosophy" can, think, be confidently recommended to the perusal of any man or woman; and that is a thing that cannot be said of all books. The few examples I have given must, I think, secure it against the charges E. S. J. brings against it; and I say that it is well worthy of its reputation, because it contains truth; because it points out earnestly that there is a nobility in life; that man has in him "faculties divine; that he is no mere machine, his is no mere animal life; that there is in him the seeds of eternity, a spirit that nothing, not even death itself, can quench; that, (in his own words,) though he may be tenant of a hovel to-day, he is. still "heir to the universe for ever;" that life is an earnest, a glorious reality, full of responsibilities, it is true (but who would be without them?) yet of happiness the most sweet, angel-like, and tender; pleasure the most real and pure. His theme accords with Longfellow's,

"Life is real, life is earnest,

And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul."

And when these merits are couched in language of the greatest purity, chastity, earnestness, and eloquence, what can we do with such a book? Denounce it as does our friend E. S. J.? or bid it God speed, and wish that it may, as it doubtless will, in spite of hostile criticism, maintain its reputation, and circulate among even a larger number of readers than it does now? I frankly own that I hold most heartily to the latter.

H. K.

Politics.

OUGHT MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER TO BE LEGALIZED?

AFFIRMATIVE ARTICLE.-II.

THE question proposed at the head of this paper is one that has important practical and social bearings. By many persons, the preservation of the law against marriage with a deceased wife's sister (or, perhaps more correctly, what is generally accepted as the law on that subject), is considered to be one of the strongest safeguards of our social morality and domestic purity. They indeed often take higher ground than this, in their advocacy of the present restrictions upon marriage. They regard the prohibition of marriage with a deceased wife's sister as taught by Moses in the Book of Leviticus, and they deem such prohibition binding upon all men for all time. It is thus, in their opinion, contrary to the revealed law of God to contract the marriage under discussion. They believe, that any alteration in our present marriage law is to be strenuously resisted. They believe themselves supported by considerations of expediency and religion. They may be so supported. We wait for proof.

On the other hand, there is a large and increasing class who consider, that on the same principles of expediency and religion, the sooner the present restrictions on marriage are removed, the better. Such persons do not believe that these restrictions were ever imposed by Moses, or if they were imposed upon the Jews, that therefore they affect us. We belong to that class. We think, on every account, that the present marriage law should be altered, and we proceed to give some reasons which appear to us sufficient for our belief. And first, as to the history of the marriage law in this country.

The bill for the law against marriage with a deceased wife's sister, as that law now exists, was brought into the House of Lords by Lord Lyndhurst, on June 1st, 1835, and received the Royal assent on the 31st of August in the same year. It is generally admitted, that before the passing of this Act (generally cited as 5th and 6th William IV., cap. 54), "there were several serious anomalies and inconveniences in that branch of our marriage laws, which comprises what are called 'the prohibited degrees. marriages were voidable by the canon law, and might have been set aside, in the Ecclesiastical Courts, at the suit of any person interested in the legal consequences of such marriages; but they could only be set aside during the lifetime of both the married

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parties; and until so set aside, they were valid in our Courts of Common Law. Hence the children of such marriages were liable to be bastardized at any time during the parents' lives: and as was observed by Lord Lyndhurst on introducing the Act, the legiti macy of such children might have remained in suspense for half a century,' should the parents, who had contracted such marriages, have so long survived.”*

It is not necessary to go into the history of the marriage law previous to the passing of Lord Lyndhurst's Act, further than to say, that the only Acts which have ever prohibited marriage with a deceased wife's sister by express statement, are the Acts of 25 Hen. VIII., c. 22, and 28 Hen. VIII., c. 7. The former Act was repealed by the latter and this Act again (28 Hen. VIII.) was repealed by the Act of 32 Hen. VIII., c. 38, which enacts, "That all persons are lawful to marry that be not prohibited by God's law; and that no reservation or prohibition (God's law except) shall trouble or impeach any marriage without the Levitical degrees."

This Act is still in force. It was repealed by the Act of 1 and 2 Phil. and Mary, c. 8, but was revived “ 'by the Act 1 Eliz., c. 1; but neither the Act 25 Hen. VIII., c. 22, nor that of 28 Hen. VIII., c. 7, was revived by the Act of Elizabeth; nor are the prohibitions contained in those statutes re-enacted, either by the Act of Elizabeth, or by any other Act of Parliament. The Act of Elizabeth, on the contrary, expressly declares, that all other laws and statutes, and the branches and clauses of any Act or statute, repealed by the said Act of 1 and 2 Phil. and Mary, and not in the present Act specially mentioned and revived, shall stand, remain, and be repealed and void, in such like manner and form as they were before the making of the Act.'" +

As far, then, as the statute law of the land is concerned, it is yet a question for judicial decision, whether or not that law prohibits marriage with a deceased wife's sister.‡

"Considerations on the State of the Law regarding Marriages with a Deceased Wife's Sister." By H. R. Reynolds, M.A., Barrister-at-Law, p. 5.

+ Reynolds, p. 16.

C. J. Erle says, "I incline to think that the marriage with the sister of a deceased wife is valid. It is objected, that the question turns on the intention of Parliament in using the expression prohibited degrees' in the Act 5th and 6th William IV., c. 54. It appears that the degree in question, and much more distant degrees, had been supposed to be prohibited before the time of Henry VIII.

66 In 1563, Archbishop Parker; and in 1603, the Convocation; and in 1605, the King, confirming their constitutions; and from that time, the Ecclesiastical Courts (which alone have direct cognizance of the question), have included the degree in question among the prohibited degrees.

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Therefore, when the 5th and 6th Will. IV. passed, there was a known class called the prohibited degrees; the statute does not define or alter the class, but adopts it; and then changes the result from voidable to void. As there was a

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No statutes now in force define the term "prohibited degrees," though, as C. J. Erle says, "There was a defined class known by the name of prohibited degrees"—this class being Archbishop Parker's "Table of Degrees." The statute of 32 Hen. VIII., c. 38, which was revised by 1st Elizabeth, "constituted the statute law of the realm, under which the legality of the marriages in question was to be tried, prior to the passing of Lord Lyndhurst's Act,— which Act, as we have before seen, made such marriages not only voidable, but void.* Now the enacting part of the statute 32 Hen. VIII., c. 38, begins by declaring that all persons are lawful to marry that are not prohibited by God's law." There was no Act of Parliament then in existence declaring that any particular marriages were prohibited by God's law. No mention had hitherto been made in the statute of any marriages forbidden by the Levitical prohibitions; and in the subsequent declarations of the statute with regard to the Levitical degrees, it is observable that the statute does not expressly enact that all persons are at liberty to marry who are not prohibited by the Levitical degrees; but the language of the Act is, that "no reservation or prohibition, God's law except, shall trouble or impeach any marriage without the

defined class known by the name of prohibited degrees, the intention to refer to that class must be presumed from the use of the name.

"As the statute applied to a known state of law then administered in the Ecclesiastical Courts, and left it as to the degrees unaltered, it would be taken to have confirmed it. But the answer is, that, by the 32nd Hen. VIII., c. 38, all marriages are enacted to be lawful unless prohibited by God's law; that the marriage in question is certainly not prohibited thereby, but, on the contrary, is approved of; that the false assumption of a prohibition in God's law in the 25th and 28th Hen. VIII., is superseded by the subsequent statute of 32nd Hen. VIII., which, in its application, requires the judge to ascertain what is prohibited by God's law, not what is erroneously supposed to be so.

That the statute of Queen Mary declares most forcibly that the degree in question was not prohibited, which is the latest statute on the subject, and therefore not binding.

"That neither the opinion of Archbishop Parker, nor the constitutions of a Convocation, nor any series of decisions in the Ecclesiastical Courts, are of the slightest avail against an Act of Parliament; and that, therefore, the degree in question, in 1835, was not prohibited, though erroneously supposed to be so.

"That, as the 5th and 6th Will. IV. did not alter the law as to the degrees themselves, the question is to be considered as it would have been before that Act passed.

"That centuries of mistake on the validity of marriages per verba de præsenti did not make them valid; so centuries of mistake as to the invalidity of the marriages in question will not render them invalid."-From opinion published in 1844. The reader will observe, that besides confirming the particular point for which it was quoted, this opinion confirms also the history given in the text. *This Act simply declares that all such marriages as were within the '". hibited degrees of affinity," and which had been solemnized prior to a given day, should be valid; and that all those solemnized after that day should be absolutely null and void.

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