156, That they sit at quarter sessions.

157. That they are the unpaid magistracy.

158. That they are

A. And strange things they sometimes do there. For instance, in Buckinghamshire, they sentenced John Doe to five months imprisonment for intending to assault the lord's hen pheasant, and Richard Roe to three, for assaulting the serf's daughter.

A. If they demand to be kept, they are

not.

A. Other men are so too. But it is good moral characters. impossible for all moral men to be kept.

159. That they are generous, brave, and humane.

160. That nobody could do without them.

A. All Englishmen from time immemorial, by their own account have been so

too.

A. Nobody could do without every body. But every body cannot be kept at the public expense.

In conclusion then, glut, commercial stagnation, distressed manufacturers, and the accumulation of bankruptcies, are all portions of one phenomenon, namely the artificial production of what Adam Smith calls the "stationary time." It is of no use to allow men a free trade in pocket-handkerchiefs and court-plaster, if the great trade in what every man must consume whether he blows his nose or not, is to be forbidden to advance. That portion of the benefit of foreign trade, which consists in the power of exchanging part of the national produce for something that is liked better, is retained; but that portion which consists in the power of making a positive increase in the produce and wealth of the community, is cut off by act of parliament. "It is in the progressive state, while the society is advancing to the further acquisition, rather than when it has acquired its full complement of riches, that the condition of the labouring poor, of the great body of the people, seems to be the happiest and the most comfortable. It is hard in the stationary, and miserable in the declining state. The progressive state is in reality the cheerful and the hearty state to all the different orders of the society. The stationary is dull; the declining, melancholy." A great commercial

1 Wealth of Nations, b. i, c. 8.

and naval people could never arrive at either of these undesirable points, or never under a period which is out of human ken,— except by the invention of corn laws. The continual relief given to the wants of the industrious by bursting through the circle of their present operations, has been nature's instrument from the creation, for the improvement of the globe; and the people which permits a line to be drawn about its industry which it shall not pass, has no right to complain of the sufferings which nature has connected with the infringement of her plan. In addition too to the individual suffering, a country in such circumstances, and surrounded with rival countries which either are not confined by similar enactments or have not reached the point at which such enactments are severely felt, must decline from day to day in relative importance ;-because it cuts off by its own act, the means of preserving its position in the race. Neither America

nor France needs be anxious to keep down the power of Great Britain, as long as its landlords can decide that it shall not be permitted to advance.

THE

CLAIMS OF SIR PHILIP FRANCIS

TO THE

AUTHORSHIP OF JUNIUS DISPROVED:

In a Letter addressed to Godfrey Higgins, Esq.

LONDON:-1827.

I. Dear Sir,-Accept this offering of respect from a friend, who admires your love of literature, your public principles, your moral worth, your social qualities, your generous spirit, and your frank and manly and independent character.

II. "The impression produced by a well-written Pamphlet," (Mr. Taylor's,) says Dr. Parr in a Letter, which has been already laid before the public," and an elaborate Critique on it in the Edinburgh Review, still direct the national faith towards Sir Philip Francis. He was too proud to tell a lie, and he disclaimed the Work. He was too vain to refuse celebrity, which he was conscious of deserving. He was too intrepid to shrink, when danger had nearly passed by. He was too irascible to keep the secret, by the publication of which he at this time of day could injure no party with which he is connected, nor any individual for whom he cared. Beside, dear Sir, we have many books of his Writings upon many subjects, and all of them stamped with the same character of mind. Their general lexis, (as we say in Greek,) has no resemblance to the lexis of Junius; and the resemblance in particulars can have far less weight than the resemblance of which there is no vestige. Francis uniformly writes English. There is Gallicism in Junius. Francis is furious, but not malevolent. Francis is never cool, and Junius is seldom ardent." In another Letter, which has been also laid before the public, Dr. Parr says:

"We must all grant that a strong case has been made out for Francis ; but I could set up very stout objections to those claims. It was not in his nature to keep a secret. He would have told it from vanity, or from his courage, or from his patriotism. His bitterness, his vivacity, his acuteness are stamped in characters very peculiar upon many publications, that bear his name; and very faint indeed is their resemblance to the spirit, and, in an extended sense of the word, to the style of Junius.”

Mr. Taylor will have serious difficulty in answering these objections to his hypothesis, made by such a master of style, such a judge of composition, and such an anatomist of the human heart as Dr. Parr. III. "It remains to consider the claim of Sir Philip Francis. This has been ably brought forward in two Pamphlets, intituled, A Discovery of the Author of the Letters of Junius, founded on such Evidence and Illustrations, as explain all the mysterious Circumstances and apparent Contradictions, which have contributed to the Concealment of this most important Secret of our Times:' And, The Identity of Junius with a distinguished Living Character established ; including the Supplement, consisting of Fac-similes of Hand-writing, and other Illustrations. (Printed for Taylor and Hessey in Fleet Street.) The external evidence, produced in these Pamphlets in favour of Sir Philip Francis, is very strong:-so strong, perhaps, that, if he had been tried upon it for a libel, and the case had rested upon the facts, from which this evidence is formed, the Judge would have directed the Jury to find him guilty. But the internal evidence against him, from the inequality of his acknowledged Writings, is also very strong if the able Author of the Article Junius in the Edinburgh Review for Nov. 1817, had not professed a different opinion, the present Writer would have pronounced it decisive. That respectable Writer produces several passages from the Works, of which Sir Philip was certainly the Author, and finds in them a similar tone and equal merit. With due deference to his authority, the Reminiscent begs leave to think that, if these passages show that Sir Philip was no mean Writer, they also prove that he was not Junius. To bring the question to a direct issue, are the glow and loftiness discernible in every page of Junius, once visible in any of these extracts? Where do we find in the Writings of Sir Philip, those thoughts that breathe, those words that burn, which Junius scatters in every page? a single drop of the cobra capella, which falls from Junius so often? The advocates of the claim in favour of Sir Philip urge, as a strong circumstance in its support, that without family, without patronage, without any one pretension to the notice of the King or the Minister, he was suddenly raised from an obscure seat in the War-office, to a situation of dignity and emolument, which a Nobleman would be happy to procure for his son. This, they say, shews that something was attached to Sir Philip Francis, which rendered the purchase of him, at that time, even at a very high price, an object to Government. Now at the critical moment, in which Sir Philip was thus promoted, Junius ceased to