of the Antique has been copied from ancient Coins ; a fpecies of imitation conftantly practifed by the most accurate obfervers of COSTUME, Raphael, Pouffin, and Le Brun: the success of whose practice will always recommend the study of these Antiquities to the Profeffors and Lovers of the Arts, as long as a taste shall remain for propriety of defign and juftness of manners; for fimple elegance, and the true, unexaggerated fublime.

II. As in the ftudy of Antiquities the most pleasing and valuable object is the developement of Manners and Customs, fo the pleasure of fuch enquiry becomes doubly interesting, when employed in the investigation of the Ancient manners and venerable monuments of our own country.

1. Of the various fources from whence the History of Manners may be deduced, there feems to be none which contains fuch

9 Winkelman, p. 3. 257. Addison on Ancient Medals, p. 25. Sir Joshua Reynold's Difcourfes, p. 179, 180.

certain and pofitive information, as the study of CIVIL INSTITUTIONS'. In the government and laws of a people are discoverable ftriking features which mark their true character and manners. We there behold the genius of a Nation exhibited in its native form, undisguifed by partial reprefentation, and unmutilated by imperfect miscellaneous tradition.

The general difpofition of the Attic Law points out at once the character of that liberal, humane, and polished people: not lefs evidently than the dignity of mind and military genius of Rome appears in her political conftitution and form of government. Nor are the manners of our own ancestors lefs discernible in the inftitutions which they have transmitted to pofterity. In that celebrated Code, which is esteemed the most

Taylor, pag. 159.

Cicero de Oratore, Lib. I. c. 43. "Nam five quem antiqua ftudia delectant, plurima eft et in " omni jure civili, et in Pontificum libris, et in XII tabulis, antiquitatis effigies."

The laws of Hoel Dda, publifhed by Wotton under the Title of Leges Wallicæ Ecclefiafticæ et Civiles HOELI Boni. See Taylor (ubi fupra,) and Barrington on the Statutes, Pref. p. 6.

regular fyftem extant of ancient laws, we contemplate with pleasure the fimplicity and frugality of our British Ancestors. While in the Norman inftitutes we trace in bold outlines the martial spirit of the feudal Baron.

But the Ancient Laws of a people not only exhibit ONE view of their genius and characteristic manners: they likewife mark their PROGRESSION, and gradual refinement. And here the British Antiquary, besides the natural attachment and generous partiality to the Antiquities of his own country, has a great advantage in a regular series of Laws through the several periods of our History, over the Roman Codes and Inftitutes, and the more mutilated fragments of Grecian jurifprudence. To a liberal and inquifitive mind nothing can be more pleafing than to obferve how the manners of a people wear off their original roughness and ferocity, and by the united influence of religion, learning, and Commerce, polish into humanity. Efpecially as it affords a grateful antidote to the common and melancholy declamation

against

against the Times, to find that many enormities of tyranny, cruelty, injuftice, and general depravity, are now unheard of, which anciently were frequent objects of penal cenfuret.

2. The laws then are the moft faithful records of the genius, the GENERAL character of a people. But there are many PECULIARITIES of private life, and many inferiour foibles of domeftic character, which

Barrington, Pref. p. 4. And Obfervat. p. 117, 118. The Study of ancient Laws is not without its recommendation, in other refpects, to the learned Antiquary, the Scholar, and the Critic, on account of their ufual accuracy and purity of Language. TAYLOR obferves (p. 19.) that the Civilians hold the Language of the Digefts or Pandects to be so pure, that the Roman Language might be fairly deduced from it, were all other Roman writers loft. In BARRINGTON'S Obfervations on the Statutes, p. 398. mention is made of an extraordinary inftance of the purity of the Spanish Language ufed in their ancient Laws, which is affirmed by a Spanish Lawyer to be more intelligible than other Laws made fix hundred Years afterwards. The fame diligent and entertaining writer on the Statutes obferves that the modern English comes infinitely nearer to the English of the Legislature in their acts, than the tranflation of the Bible, and thinks the fuppofition that the English of the Bible hath fixed the Language, to have been too implicitly admitted. And it has been remarked by others that many fine examples of Eloquence and purity of Language occur in the charges which are to be found in the ftate Trials.

are

are objects rather of ridicule than of the gravity and feverity of law. The magistrate therefore leaves fuch to the cognizance of wit, and the chastisement of fatire. This inquiry will naturally conduct us to the ample, the curious, the valuable treasures of our old POETRY"; where we fhall find that to the ingenuity of our old Poets, we are indebted for fome of the most animated Pictures of ancient manners: which (though often indelicate and overcharged,) will always recommend themselves to liberal curiofity, ever delighted with the delineation of new manners and the customs of less polished Ages. And as human nature is in fome refpects always the fame, we are pleased in

" A knowledge of our oldeft Poets, and the ancient manners and cuftoms described by them, is neceffary for the understanding of the Poets which fucceeded, and formed on thofe models the peculiarities of their ftile, tafte, and compofition. (See WARTON'S Observations on Spenfer, Vol. II. p. 264.) Till this method of illuftration was pursued by their laft and beft Critics, many remote allufions and obfolete cuftoms in SPENSER and SHAKESPEARE were either neglected, or. perverfely explained by obfervations drawn from claffical refources, which were often as ill placed as they were learned and ingenious.

these