merits of all governments may be tried; namely, Civil Liberty, Internal Order, Profperity, and Power. The Appendix contains fome judicious remarks on the high price of provisions; the chief remedy for which, propofed by this author, is a general inclofure of the wafte lands. Although we have endeavoured to do juftice to this able writer, by as full a statement as our limits would permit, yet the reader will find in the treatise itself many important facts and arguments, in addition to those which we have ftated, and derive much information as well as pleasure from the perufal of this perfpicuous, interesting, and patriotic work. ART. XIII. A Letter to the Hon. Spencer Perceval, SolicitorGeneral to his Majefty, in Confequence of the Notice given by him, in the laft Seffion of Parliament, that he would, in the prefent, bring forward a Bill for the Punishment of the Crime of Adultery. The Second Edition, with a Poftfcript, containing fome Obfervations on the reported Debates on Taylor's and Addifon's Divorce Bills. 8vo. 60 pp. Is. 6d. Rivingtons, Cobbet, &c. 1801. THE HE propofed Bill of the Solicitor-General, involving one of the most momentous legislative queftions that can be difcuffed, has given occafion to this tract. Though it does not openly bear his name, it is attributed to Mr. Bowles, and certainly exhibits very ftriking marks of his abilities, in the folemn and forcible ftyle of argument in which the neceffity of fuch a Bill is urged. In treating, at the opening of his Letter, on the importance of the inftitution of marriage, the author has, among many excellent remarks, introduced the following obfervation, admirably calculated to imprefs the minds of those whom the fubject immediately concerns. "Marriage is alfo neceffary to give to females their proper rank and confequence in fociety; without it they would be looked upon merely as objects of coarfe defire and fenfual gratification. But by marriage they attain their proper ftation of respect and usefulness. They have an opportunity afforded them of performing the duties for which they are calculated; duties not inferior to any that belong to the other sex. It is in confequence of marriage, and in proportion to its fanctity, that they are viewed with refpectful admiration, and protected with tender folicitude, while engaged in the interefting offices of maternal care and affection; that they acquire an influence by which they foften and polish the rougher fex; and that they are enabled to fhed on human life its choiceft bleffings, and to harmonize the whole system of society.” P. 3. After ftating very ably, and vindicating the feverity of the divine law, in its denunciation against the crime of adultery, the author adverts to the fingular defect of our own law, in not providing fanctions to oppose it, "Who then would believe it poffible, that, in a country profeffing Christianity, Adultery fhould not be liable to any punishment as a crime? This, however, is the cafe in the country in which we live! where the Adulterer may violate the marriage bed; destroy, for ever, the peace of families; bring difgrace and mifery upon an innocent offspring, and introduce among them a fpurious brood to fhare their legitimate rights; all this he may do, and there is no law in the whole criminal code to punifh or avenge! none to deter from an act fo atro cious in itfelf, and fo mifchievous in its confequences! So foul an of❤ fence against God and man is fubject to no other legal reftraint, than the right of the ured husband to civil damages, and the mild, and now wholly ineficient difcipline of the Ecclefiaftical Courts!" P. 12. In the opinion of this writer, the provifions indifpenfably neceffary in a Bill of this kind, are, " 1ft, to make adultery cognizable by the criminal courts, by fubjecting it to punishment; 2nd, to prohibit the intermarriage of the criminal parties." On these two points, in their turn, Mr. B. reafons with an ability very feldom rivalled. The effect of legislative fan&tion, in impreffing and diffufing a proper abhorrence of any crime, is justly urged, and the propriety of making this crime in particular the fubject of fuch impreffion is very clearly explained. In examining the fecond topic, that of the marriage of the parties, Mr. B. carefully, and as it feems triumphantly, removes all objections that have or can be raised to the prohibition. On the falfe pity which is endeavoured to be excited for the guilty, he is particularly clear and strong. The con clufion of the Letter, in which the example of France is adduced, is eminently worthy of notice. Thus we find that the moft polished people in Europe have been diftinguished as the most corrupt. They difcovered that, by a prefervation of appearances, they facilitated the gratification of their paffions. Under cover of what they called les bienfeances, they gave a loofe to the moft criminal exceffes. Among them Adultery was a kind of licenfed vice. It had its rules of decorum, and its laws of honour; and, unless it tranfgreffed thofe rules, or violated thofe laws, it was connived at by general confent. This profligate fyftem was carried fo far, as to amount to a convention, between husband and wife, not to interfere with each others amours, provided they were carried on with external decency. They mutually agreed to fmother the facred flame of connubial love, in the fierce fires of wild and lawlefs paffion. In fhort, this moft vicious people refembled a painted fepulchre, 5 fepulchre, fair to the view, but within a mass of filth and putrefac tion. "Sir, it deferves our most serious confideration, whether, though we have not yet, thank Heaven! attained fo dreadfully corrupted a fate of manners, we are not making faft approaches towards fuch a ftate. Of this, I fear, we exhibit the moft alarming of all fymptoms -a corruption of moral fentiment. It is certain, that Adultery no longer excites among us the fame abhorrence as heretofore. It is viewed every day with a more indulgent eye. It is connived at, and encouraged, even by fome, whofe perfonal conduct is irreproachable. It is holden out as an object of compaffion. It is growing into a fyf tem. It is beginning to have its laws of honour. All this has been allowed-nay, it has even been urged by thofe who oppofed the attempt which has been made to retrain it by law, and who pleaded, as a reafon against the probable effect of legislative interpofition, that Adulterers are better received than heretofore! Thus are we treading in the fteps of profligate France. May Heaven infpire our legiflators with wifdom and refolution to interpofe, while it is yet time, to check our perilous career; left we share the fate of our Gallic neighbours, who would not have been the victims of Revolution, if they had not first been the flaves of vice." P. 30. The Poftfcript abounds in paffages as remarkable for their importance and their energy, as thofe which we have cited from the Letter. The author, much to his honour, contends for the right of a wife to a divorce, on the plea of the hufband's infidelity; and in every point fhows himself as much the champion of the virtuous, as he is the opponent of the guilty. His indignation is juftly raised by the idea, fomewhere thrown out, of making the intermarriage of the parties the legal punishment of their offence. Such a degradation of marriage cannot be too ftrongly reprobated. Nor can any thing exceed the force and clearness with which this author argues against the notion of confidering marriage merely as a civil contract. Between this extreme, and that of reprefenting it, with the Papifts, as a perfe&t Sacrament, Mr. Bowles, with the utmolt clearness, draws the proper line. It will be plainly feen, from the account here given, that nothing can be more important than the topics handled in this tract, nor any thing more judicious, able, or impreflive, than the manner in which they are difcufled. ART, ART. XIV. Thoughts occafioned by the Perufal of Dr. Parr's Spital Sermon being a Reply to the Attacks of Dr. Parr, Mr. Mackintofb, &c. By William Godwin. 8vo. 82 pp. 2s. 6d. Robinfons. 1801.. IN N times of danger, mifchievous publications require as much critical care as the ableft works. John of Leyden was, for a moment, a more important author than Erafmus; and this fort of bad eminence" arifes much more from circumstances than from talent; for Montefquien would have been impotent, when Marat was irrefiftible. In fuch times, a critic is in a fituation fomewhat like that which we read of in the accounts of travellers in the forefts of Guiana, who must sometimes make as great an exertion to crush a reptile as to flay a lion. For reafons fuch as thefe, we have thought it right to bestow fome attention upon this forry pamphlet, which might have been entitled "The Hiftory of the Rife, Decline, and Fall of a fecond-hand Sophifter, who, after having written himself into fome notoriety, by ftolen paradoxes, has written himself down by original nonfenfe." At the beginning of the French Revolution, this writer thought he had an excellent opportunity of rifing from a book-maker to an author, by miniftering to the difeafed appetite for novelty which then prevailed. For this purpose he refolved to collect together all the immoral and impious abfurdities, which he found difperfed through the French writers of the laft half-century*. Au peu d'efprit que le bon homme avait, L'efprit d'autrui par fupplement fervait. Among other pofitions which he found in thefe writings were the following: that to love our parents, our children, or our country, is contemptible fuperftition; that to make or to obferve promifes or oaths, is immoral; that gratitude is a vice, marriage an odious monopoly, remorfe a prejudice, and crimes mere mistakes; that the murderer is no more an object of indignation or punishinent than the dagger with which he See the original texts of Rouffeau, Diderot, Helvetius, Lametrie, and the anonymous pamphlets which iffued in fuch multitudes from the Hotel d'Holbach, collected in the 5th volume of Les Lettres Hel wiennes, published at Paris in 1784, by which it will at firft fight appear that our author's whole labour confifted in tranflating these va luable truths into bad English, kills; finally, that all property is ufurpation, all government tyranny, all laws oppreffion, and all religion impoffure. He applied himself, in fhort, with great labour, to rake together the fcattered offal of all the peftilential fophifts of the age into one noisome heap, which he called a Treatife on Political Juftice. His pofitions were indeed borrowed (except the admirable discovery of the volunteer ploughs, which were no longer to need the tyrannical coercion of ploughmen) but no man before him had obliged the English public with a complete digest, and a convenient manual, of the whole theory of vice. To prevent the detection of plagiarifm, he fo disfigured and disguised what he had ftolen, that it was difficult to recognize the original writers in his tranflation. He caft off the literary merit, and preferved only the immorality. Diderot, though a ferocious and almoft frantic zealot of Atheism, was a man of extenfive knowledge; Rouffeau was a lunatic of great genius and eloquence; and Helvetius was a fhallow coxcomb, but a clear and lively writer. It was fcarcely poffible to diftinguifh the opinions of fuch writers in the pedantic, dull, cloudy jargon of a heavy compiler, who delivers bad metaphyfics in bad Englifh, who chills the reader whenever he makes an effort to be animated, and darkens the fubject whenever he labours to be precife. With this poor ftock of ftolen goods he set up for himfelf as a modern philofopher; and, fcanty as it was, he contrived to turn it to fome account in the "monster-breeding" years of 1792 and 1793. So rushing tides bring things obfcene to light, Foul wrecks emerge, and dead dogs fwim in fight; And G――n's profe comes up, and M—rr—y's strains. We gather from this pamphlet, as well as from report, that he perverted fome women and boys; and that even a few men, whose taste ought to have been better, admitted him into their It has been faid that the famous with, "Que le dernier des Rois foit etranglé dans les boyaux du dernier des pretres!" was afcribed to Diderot by his enemies. But, in a poem called les Eleuteromanes, written by Diderot, and published by his friend, M. Naigeon, in a complete edition of his works (Paris, 1798) we find the following couplet: "Et fes mains ourdiroient les entrailles d'un pretre which M. Roederer, in his Journal d'Oeconomie Politique, fays is quite excused by lyric enthusiasm. company; |