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hospitality, and especially to support a well appointed table, at which the appearance of game is but a reasonable indulgence? Why, it cannot be denied that three fourths of the legitimate consumers of game in the present day can only procure it by tempting others to a positive breach of the laws; for they can get it by no other means except by purchase from those who employ the country poacher in almost every rural village in the kingdom, or corrupt the land-owner's gamekeeper, on half the extensive properties of England, to take it for them. And what is, if possible, still more absurd, unjust, and insane than the other parts of this notable arrangement, while the poulterer, the poacher, and the gamekeeper, are exposed to heavy and ruinous penalties for selling this game, the ultimate purchaser or consumer, who is certainly the prime mover of the whole transaction, offends against no law whatsoever (at least against no human law) in placing the almost irresistible temptation in their way." P. 13.

But here, he leaves entirely out of bis account, that immense supply of game which is sent by country gentlemen as presents to that class of persons for whose hospitable entertainments he wishes honestly to provide, and which forms one of those reciprocations of kindness, which are the best bands and ligaments of society. Though we do not, therefore, mean to represent our author as failing altogether in this link of his chain of reasoning, yet most certainly it is inconclusive in the same proportion that the alledged evil is obviated by the friendly disLibutions of game from those who under the existing laws are qualified to kill it.

Of the dreadful effects of the temptation amongst the lower orders, our author's representation is perfectly correct, and is as follows:

"I trust it will scarcely be necessary to enlarge upon their destructive moral tendency further than briefly to detail effects which almost every country newspaper must have made familiar to my readers. Discontent against their superiors is one of the first effects produced by the Game Laws among the lower orders. Finding himself employed as the agent to transfer the property of one rich man to another, who is obnoxious to no punishment for receiving it, the poacher, when discovered and convicted, perceiving himself to be the only victim, is tempted to think that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor; an observation which a poacher made in my presence the other day. This feeling is carefully fostered by his employers, who studiously represent game to be every man's property, tyrannically preserved for the benefit of a few, and therefore that it is at least fair if not meritorious to attack it; whereas certainly no man can have the slightest equitable claim to it except by purchase, who has had no shave

in the expense of rearing and preserving it. Frequent breaches of the peace, murders, and homicides, are the natural result of the continual contests which are kept alive in a parish, between different portions of its armed population. The regular army, as it may be called, of Gamekeepers and their assistants are assailed in their nightly bivouac by the irregular tirailleurs of the bands of poachers; and the savage spirit and consequences of a war of posts are perpetuated in every village. All moral ideas of right and wrong are confounded; all love of the spirit of peace and humanity are banished from the breasts of the contending parties; and even the shedding of a neighbour's blood is considered matter of triumph among their several advocates.-As the poet states of a profligate alehouse-keeper:

"He praised the poacher, precious child of fun,
Who shot the keeper with his own spring gun."

CRABBE.

"That this condition of things should ultimately prepare the minds of the lower classes for every crime to which the circumstances of their station can'tempt them is not surprising-nor that the calendar which records the most atrocious enormities should be filled with the names of those, who, upon first starting in the career of poaching, would have shrunk with horror from a contemplation of the crimes which they were afterwards the most forward to commit.

"The habit of nightly plunder,

"When steals the vagrant from his warm retreat, To rove a prowler, and be deem'd a cheat,”

by depriving the poor man of the conscious integrity of his conduct, deprives him of more than half his motives to abstain from crime. He acquires the feelings, the fears, the suspicions of the thief: he considers himself as in a state of warfare with all the honest part of the community, and as justified by his new system of opinions and associations to attack them and their property. Failing his success in the wood, the field, and the forest, he resorts to the hen-roost or the sheep-fold. He becomes a felon confessed or convicted: and with feelings and habits corrupted and perverted by the process just described, what principle of restraint can any longer operate to prevent him from the most desperate undertakings-from the extremes of burglary and murder? The whole process is as simple and natural as it is in most cases inevitable; and the proprietor of game may tremble to think from what a little cloud, apparently no bigger than a man's hand, all this storm of vice. misery, and corruption, to the poor themselves, and to their innocent wives and children, has evolved." P. 18.

After more discussion of the subject, the author proceeds to suggest a remedy for the great evils he has described, prefacing it with a further summary of the cause from which these evils

proceed.

proceed. What he proposes as an amelioration of the game laws is expressed as follows:

"My proposed alterations then, in the present Game Laws, amount on the whole to the following enactments:

"1. That game may be legally exposed to sale.

"2. That owners and occupiers of more than thirty or forty acres of land may, under certain restrictions, take and kill game upon their own occupations.

"3. That qualified persons shall not sport upon preserved and 'enclosed ground (after notice to abstain), under a penalty of five pounds.

"I trust they will be candidly and impartially considered. I have, undoubtedly, exhibited a moral evil of great magnitude, which every good man must wish to see remedied; and of which the legislature of a free and enlightened country ought to be deeply ́ashamed. I have taken some pains to show that the proposed remedies would go far to extenuate at least if not entirely to remove the complaint. If the argument be at all supported by fair reasoning, all I presume to ask is that it shall be met in the same manner, and that the just conclusion, whatever it be, may be honestly acted upon. Above all, I deprecate the evasion of it by the hacknied pretence of a dread of innovation; an argument which, when applied to a moral evil, proved or admitted, appears the most degrading and disgraceful by which a great and wise nation can be influenced. For to what does it, in fact, amount, but to a fear of improvement; to a dereliction of moral duty; to an admission of apathy and idleness, where zeal and exertion are imperatively requisite; to a confession of incapacity for those very purposes for which systems of polity were instituted, and governments invested with power? And to what does it inevitably lead, but to the production of the very mischief it pretends to dread? The ultimate, and not distant, result of all permission of moral evil is the destruction of civil society: whereas it is to the last degree idle to assert that it cannot be checked by renovating laws, without leading an enlightened and considerate people to destroy the acknowledged foundations of their own happiness and tranquillity. The conclusion of the French revolution, among its other benefits, has, I trust, brought to a close the abuse of this contemptible argument. "You will perceive that the provisions I have ventured to recommend do not involve any radical abolition or change of the Game Laws, and that they have especially avoided the plausible expedient which I have frequently heard recommended, of making Game the absolute property of the owner of the soil on which it is found, and placing it under the same protection as all other property: a scheme prohibited by the very nature of the animal, and which would prodigiously enhance the severity of the present laws. It would give the proprietor of every little spot of ground the power of indicting. for a larceny a neighbour who had pursued a partridge or hare

across

across his hedge and killed it; and would establish in every parish in the kingdom a set of petty persecutors, from whom no man who carried a gun could be for an instant free, unless he were the lord' and owner of all the country in his neighbourhood. On the contrary, I think that the plan I have traced out is a considerable re laxation of the severity of the present laws, while at the same time it promises to promote a great increase in the breed of game, provides much more certainly for its preservation, and without materially curtailing the amusements and advantages enjoyed by the sportsmen at present privileged, extends them to a wide circle of others, who in the present state of society (it would be mere attachment to old and obsolete prejudice to deny it) are equally entitled by their station and property to enjoy them.”

The pamphlet concludes with an appeal to every friend of good order and sound morals to unite in petitioning the Legislature for an alteration in the game laws, so as to render them consistent with the peace, morality, and good order of their neighbourhoods. And an Appendix follows, containing a sketch of the proposed petition, and of an act of parliament for carrying the objects of the pamphlet into execution. We must again repeat in conclusion, that we earnestly hope due attention will be paid to the many and cogent arguments which the pamphlet contains, for the revision of a code of laws, enacted under very different circumstances than those which now exist on these subjects, now that the promise of permanent repose affords leisure for the revision of statutes relating to our internal polity. The evil it deprecates has encreased, and is encreasing, and ought to be diminished; and from the number of idle hands thrown out of employment, in consequence of the peace, by the disbanding of many regiments, and the paying off of many ships, &c. &c. who are now scattered all over England, seeking subsistence, but in too many instances unable to find it, a present remedy is the more loudly and urgently called for. We trust, therefore, that amongst the many very important subjects of domestic legislation which require the speedy attention of parliament, the Game Laws will be brought in due rotation before it, as a subject in common with many others, just adverted to, deeply involving the permanent interests of the country.

ART. VII. The Chronicles of Scotland by David Lindsay of Pitscottie, published from several old Manuscripts. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 638. 11. 1s. Edinburgh, Constable; Longman and Co. 1814.

IN the genuine and authentic Chronicles of ancient days there is much amusement to be derived from their quaintness, if there

G

is

VOL. V. JAN. 1816

is no instruction to be drawn from their history. The volumes. before us contain much curious and interesting matter, and cannot fail in parts to engage the attention of the reader. Mr. Dalyell who has undertaken the labour of editing them, seems to think that it is not satisfactorily established who is their real author. He supposes that we certainly owe this work to the successive labours of different individuals who flourished at different intervals. We much wish that Mr. Dalyell had given his reasons for this opinion; for from the internal evidence we should certainly have supposed it to have been the work of one writer, and he a Lindsay: for the Lindsays are heroes wherever they appear. As no reason therefore is given to the contrary, we are willing to attribute to Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie all the merit of the work. In the prefatory notice to two later transcripts he has claimed it, and till his claims be proved to be unfounded, we are willing to allow them. The continuation by other hands is certainly very meagre.

The first circumstance that must strike the reader, is the extraordinary usage of certain English words, to which custom has assigned a very different meaning. In p. 165, we are told that the people justified the captain of the house, signifying that they hanged him, or put him to death. Again James III. was advised to make use of this aforesaid justification against certain evil counsellors whom he had committed to the castle of Edinburgh. We know not how far this usage of the word will be relished by some of our puritanical brethren...

We have the word continue, signifying to defer the conclusion of, but not implying that the action proceeds without interruption. "The Proveist hearing this, desired my Lord Bishop to con tinew the matter till the morne."

The Cambridge formulary "Nos continuamus hanc disputa tionem," was probably introduced at a time when the English used continue in the same sense.

In p. 29 we have the proposition by, which is generally spelt be, signifying "contrary to." So again p. 285, by the consent of her Lords, i. e. in opposition to their wishes.

In the following passage we have the word malice in the sense of the French malaise, trouble, affliction.

"This meane tyme the king of Scotland oversaw not to give dew reverence to the queine with the rest of hir dames, and in special to Magdalene, the kingis dochter, quho was ryding in ane chariott, becaus shoe was seiklie, and might not ryd vpoun hors. Yitt notwithstanding all hir seiknes and malice, fra tyme shoe saw the king of Scotland, and spak with him, shoe became so enamoured with him, and loved him so weill, that shoe wold have ng man alive to hir husband." P. 367.

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