No. 5.-THE CASKETS. THE setting sun with levell'd ray Tints such as rainbow never gave, And sheds a beam of parting light On Noirmont's sands, and Pleinheaume's height, And Michael's castle grey, with antique tracery dight. Far to the pale horizon's verge, Where Casket's dreadful ledge is seen, With its faint streak of whitening surge; As rushing past the craggy steep, The wildly circling currents sweep, And in the deepest calm their restless turmoil keep. Ye dismal rocks! in Ocean wide, Have ye thus lone for ever stood? Or did some earthquake's force divide, And fling your fragments on the flood? Or were ye from some island rent, Or were ye hills, when ocean's pent Rush'd from their hanging beds and drown'd some continent Now bid yon warm and cloudless sky, O'er Winter's horrid shadowy range, With whirlwinds lash'd, and black with rain, 'Neath gloomy clouds that mourn this lovely night in vain. When from their bed the waves are cast, The lightning's glance on them is thrown, And 'twixt the pauses of the blast Is heard the crashing thunder's moan. And headlong from the boundless West The billows heave their giant crest, What curdling horrors then must on the Caskets rest! But when before yon beacons blaz'd, To guide the stranger on his way, And o'er the desert waters rais'd Afar the life-preserving ray; E'er yet yon triple tow'rs defied, The howling winds,-the raging tide And rear'd their heads on high in all-contemning pride; Could we, disastrous rocks! explore Your awful depths,-their leaves unfold, Scenes should we read, that evermore, In harrowing numbers might be told; Strains that in thought should waft us there, The struggling mariners' cries to hear, Th'elements' heedless roar,-destruction and despair. Full rich and plenteous was the prey Engulph'd then 'neath your breakers hoarse; But never as that fatal day, (Long ages since have held their course,) When with the flower of Normandy, Young William breath'd his latest sigh, And helpless sunk, amid your gurgling waves to die. And oft on you the bark was thrown, Fraught with the wealth of Eastern climes, And countless luxuries unknown, To the rude natives of those times. But man with persevering skill, Hath quelled your sterner powers of ill, And triumphantly reared yon trophy of his will. Then dash along wild western wave, Upon the Casket's iron shore, Tumultuous too the Swinge may rave, And through the Race the currents roar Then onwards, still, dark billows bound, And hoarser yet, ye rocks, resound, Huge bulwark of the deep! to fence the isles around. Yet all must pass your dread defiles Ere they attain these Southern skies, And boldly toil their fearful miles As poets feigned, in classic lore, The blessed shade could reach Elysium's happy shore. S. BARBET, PRINTER, NEW-STREET, GUERNSEY, P. THE GUERNSEY & JERSEY MAGAZINE. NOVEMBER, 1836. ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF PARLIAMENT. If the different classes of a community had a clear apprehension of their true interests, each would be convinced that its own particular interests are best promoted by those means which tend in the greatest degree to promote the interests of the whole. Ignorance, however, by preventing men from perceiving the links by which the interests of a community are bound together, has generally given rise to a very different train of thinking; and the various classes of a community have been led to imagine that the best way to promote their respective interests was to obstruct the interests of every other class. The prejudices thus originating with ignorance have been so confirmed by the arts of designing men, that it is scarcely possible for reason to eradicate them. Legislators, in general, have not been wiser than the people for whom they had to frame laws. Almost every legislator has had his favourite class, whom he resolved to exalt at the expense of all the rest. All history is full of this perversion of justice. The Brahminical creed divided the whole population into four classes, and declared that their relative rights and duties should continue throughout all generations, as they were originally constituted. Among the Persians, a peculiar class alone were allowed to ride on horseback. Among the Romans, tradesmen were degraded in order to exalt the profession of husbandmen. Under the old government of France, the industrious classes of the community were insulted and oppressed in order to accumulate wealth and honours on the military and ecclesiastical orders. Even those who have followed different modes of productive industry have in a similar manner endeavoured to aggrandize themselves by mutual encroachment on each other; and their designs have been as ignorantly abetted by legislators. It is to this spirit of pursuing individual interests to the detriment of Vol. II.-No. 5. 17 general interests, that we may attribute the numerous restrictions on free trade, that impoverish nations as well as individuals. The history of parliament, both in its construction and in its acts, affords abundant evidence of the truth of these opinions. Its members have always been elected on an exclusive principle, and their measures have ever tended to sacrifice public, to private, good. We believe that no record exists containing so foul a mass of folly and injustice, as the parliamentary statutes, promulgated by what Castlereagh so delighted in calling the "collective wisdom." Nor is this extraordinary, when we consider, first, that the members legislated for their own personal interests; and, secondly, that the vast majority were totally incompetent, from want of knowledge, to take an enlarged and comprehensive view of any intricate question. Thus it is that the moderns have inherited a legacy of blunders, and that the whole time of the reformed parliament has been devoted, and must continue to be devoted, to remodelling the principles of the constitution. As the acts of a parliament will almost entirely depend on its construction, we propose, in this article, to offer some general remarks on the qualifications both of the electors and the members, and in order to give greater perspicuity to the subject, we shall slightly sketch the more prominent features of our legislative assemblies, from their original foundation down to the enactment of the reform bill. When William had gained the victory of Hastings, he marched towards London, and found, like other conquerors, an easy passage to the throne, when the prince is slain and his army defeated. The English offered him the peaceable possession of a crown which he was in a condition to have seized by force, rather choosing to see the brows of the victor encircled with a crown than with a helmet, and wishing rather to be governed by the sceptre than the sword. He was, accordingly, installed with all the solemnities of the Saxon coronation, and immediately afterwards annihilated all those laws which these solemnities were instituted to perpetuate. He at once established the feudal system of Normandy, the only one he understood; he divided all the lands of England into knights' fees, to be holden of himself by military tenure; and as not one of the English had any share in this general distribution, their estates being forfeited on account of their adherence to Harold, and by subsequent rebellions, it is plain they could have had no political importance, since none but the vassals of the crown had seats in the feudal parliament. At this period there was but one legislative assembly, in which the temporal and spiritual barons sat, not because they had the nominal title of peers of the realm, as is the case in modern times, but because they held their estates 66 per baroniam," by the tenure of barony, an obligation which compelled them to serve the king in his wars personally and with their retainers; or in other words, on condition of their being taxed to pay the standing army out of the proceeds of their lands. That obligation has ceased, but the privilege of legislation remains; they still have the benefit of the bond, but are released from its conditions. To these tenures in capite, from which legislative power was derived, many other incidents were attached deteriorating their value, and they were liable to escheat and forfeiture. The ambition of William was not satisfied with a crown, while his authority was limited by his powerful barons. He devised every expedient to reduce their influence, by con- . fiscating their estates, and, before he died, the English had the melancholy pleasure of seeing that his heavy hand pressed as hard on the Normans as on themselves. His successors followed his example, till at last this struggle terminated in the reign of John, when the barons, compelled to make common cause, to a certain extent, with the people, extorted the great charter at Runnymede. Had not the evil been here arrested, the barons themselves must, one by one, have dropped like falling stars into the centre of power, and the aristocracy been swallowed up in an unlimited monarchy. The people, already trained to subjection, would have been an easy prey to the prince in the meridian of his authority; and despotism, encircled by an army of mercenaries, would have scattered terror among a nation of slaves. But though the great charter liberated the nation from the tyranny of one man, it conferred no substantial freedom on the masses. The baronial aristocracy alone felt the immediate and direct benefit of that great measure. Yet was it the precursor of English liberty, as it now exists, not from any volition of the peers of those days, but from the effect of circumstances which they never foresaw. Our next point, therefore, is to show by what steps the democracy of England, without being drawn forth into personal action, were enabled to act with more than physical force; in what manner they acquired a political mint in which they could deposit the privileges gradually acquired, and into which every future accumulation of powers, flowing from increase of property and the thriving arts of peace, might silently and imperceptibly fall, gently bringing down the scale without convulsing the balance. "In the early times of our legal constitution," says Blackstone, "the king's greater barons, who had a large extent of territory held under the crown, granted out frequently smaller manors to inferior persons, to be holden of themselves, which do, therefore, now continue to be held under a superior lord, who is called, in such cases, the lord paramount over all these manors; and his seignory is frequently termed an honour, not a manor, especially if it has belonged to an ancient feudal baron, or been at any time in the hands of the crown. In imitation whereof, these inferior lords began to carve out and grant to others still more minute estates, to be held as of themselves, and were so proceeding downwards, ad infinitum, till the superior lords observed, that by this method of subinfeudation they lost all their feudal profits of wardships, marriages, and escheats, which fell into the hands of these mesne or middle lords, who were the immediate superiors of the terre-tenant, or him who occupied the land; and also that the mesne lords themselves were so impoverished thereby, that they were disabled from performing their services to their own superiors."* To remedy these inconveniences, a law was passed in the eighteenth year of the reign of Edward the First, commonly called Quia emptores terrarum. By this act the people were allowed to dispose of their estates, but the original tenure was made to follow the land through all its alienations; consequently, when the king's immediate vassal divided his property, by sale, into smaller baronies, the purchaser had, from thenceforward, no feudal connection with the seller, but held immediately from the king, according to the ancient tenure of the land; and if these purchasers alienated to others the lands so purchased, still the tenure continued and remained in the land. The great barons were very urgent to have this law passed, that the lands which they had sold before the act might not be liable to subinfeudation, but might return to themselves by escheats, on failure of heirs, or by forfeiture, in cases of felony; but they did not foresee that the multiplication of their own body would, in the end, annihilate its consequences, and raise up a new order in the state: indeed, the tenancies in capite were increasing rapidly before this act; for, when a large barony escheated, or was forfeited to the crown, it was generally divided, and granted to more than one occupant; and frequently these baronies descended to several females, who inherited as co-partners. It was in consequence of this multiplication of tenures in capite that the smaller barons were summoned per vicecomites, and not like the greater ones, as early as the reign of king John,-their numbers being too great to address writs to them all; but this multiplication would probably never have produced a genuine house of commons without the operation of this act, as the following remark will make more apparent. We have already stated that every tenant in capite had a seat in the legislative assembly, by virtue of this tenure. Now, when the system of subinfeudation was introduced, and the construction given to the statute, Quia emptores terrarum, began to work its effects, it is plain that the tenants in capite must have numerically increased to a vast amount, as an estate, originally held by a single individual, would be parcelled out among several holders, and each of these became at once * Commentaries, vol. 2, p. 91. |