HENRY IV., HENRY VIII., and the Queens MARY and ELIZABETH, the daughters of the last-mentioned Monarch. Coming down to a later period in our history, we shall find a memorable attempt to exercise the legislative right of limiting the succession to the Crown, in which a celebrated ancestor of Lord John RUSSELL took a leading part. We allude to the famous bill, called the Bill of Exclusion, for incapacitating JAMES, Duke of YORK, from succeeding to the Crown-on the ground of his being a Papist. That bill the Commons passed, but the Lords rejected-else the revolution of 1688 would have been unnecessary. For the part which he took in respect of the Bill of Exclusion, Lord RUSSELL was persecuted by the Popish party-who had the secret support and sympathy of CHARLES II.,—until the implacable hatred of the Duke (afterwards JAMES II) was gratified with his blood. On the scaffold-the tragedy of which was witnessed by JAMES with malignant satisfaction from an adjoining house-Lord RUSSELL raised his dying voice to warn the sorrowing multitude against Popery and its machinations. The events which England witnessed in a few years afterwards proved the prophetic wisdom that inspired the Protestant patriot in death. : The death of Lord RUSSELL gave confidence to JAMES:when he saw the headsman's axe strike the martyr, he thought that the cause of the REFORMED RELIGION had received a mortal blow. He was mistaken. Though the Bill of Exclusion which was brought into Parliament in the reign of CHARLES II. failed, another Bill of Exclusion was subsequently carried, by which that tyrannical vassal of Rome, and his direct male heirs, were effectually deprived of the Crown and its succession. In the preamble of this latter Bill of Exclusion, it is set forth as follows:-" Whereas the late KING JAMES II., by the assistance of divers evil counsellors, judges, and ministers, employed by him, did endeavour to subvert and extirpate the PROTESTANT RELIGION and the laws and liberties of the kingdom," --and several overt acts of treason to the State by the delinquent SOVEREIGN being specified-the bill goes on to declare the throne. vacant, and to limit the succession anew by vesting the Crown in WILLIAM (described as the deliverer of the kingdom from Popery and arbitrary power) and MARY, Prince and Princess of Orange, during their joint lives; and after their deaths, in the heirs of the body of the Princess: and for default of such issue, to the Princess ANNE of Denmark, (afterwards Queen ANNE,) and the heirs of her body: and for default of such issue, to the heirs of the body of the said Prince of Orange. This Bill of Exclusion and of new limitation-this bill which took away the sceptre from JAMES, and vested it in the House of Orange and Princess ANNE, is what is commonly called the BILL OF RIGHTS-because it declared the RIGHTS and LIBERTIES of the subject which Englishmen inherited from their ancestors, preparatory to settling the succession to the throne in consequence of JAMES's involuntary abdication. It was by this Bill of Rights that the oath of abjuration was enacted, by which the party taking it swears that he "does from his heart abhor, detest, and abjure, as impious and heretical, the damnable doctrine and position that princes, excommunicated or deprived by the POPE, or any authority of the See of Rome, may be deposed or murdered by their subjects;" and also declares that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate hath or ought to have any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm"-a declaration now falsified by the facts that pass under our notice every day. Next came that act for the further limitation of the Crown, and the better securing the rights and liberties of the subject, commonly called the ACT OF SETTLEMENT, which is the act from which Queen VICTORIA more immediately derives her title. The Act of Settlement was passed in the 12th and 13th year of the reign of WILLIAM III., and it enacts that, "Whosoever shall hereafter come to the possession of this Crown, shall join in communion with the Church of England as by law established." It also recites the following important provision. from the Bill of Rights: viz., "That all and every person and persons that then were or afterwards should be reconciled to, or should hold communion with the see or church of Rome, or should profess the Popish religion, or marry a Papist, should be excluded, and made for ever incapable to inherit, possess, or enjoy the Crown and Government of this realm and Ireland, and the dominions thereunto belonging; and in all and every such case, the people of these realms shall be and are hereby absolved from their allegiance; and that the Crown and Government shall from time to time descend to and be enjoyed by such person or persons, being Protestants, as should have inherited or enjoyed the same, in case the said person or persons so reconciled, holding communion, &c., were naturally dead." The act finally settles the inheritance of the Crown, in the most excellent Princess SOPHIA ELECTRESS and DUCHESS DOWAGER OF HANOVER, and the heirs of her body being Protestants, annexing the same forfeitures and disabilities to reconciliation with the church of Rome, or the intermarriage with a Papist, which had previously been enacted by the Bill of Rights. It is clear, then, that the old common-law right of succession to the Crown no longer exists. The limitation introduced by the Act of Settlement does indeed recognise and establish the old law of descent as to persons, but subject to a perpetual restriction as to religion; which makes the succession to the Crown a statutable, instead of a common-law right. A journal that seized the opportunity of the happy birth of an heir presumptive to the throne to enlighten the public mind on the law of succession, ought not to have omitted to state those limitations which we now supply, and by which the old law of succession, or jus coronæ, has been materially altered and restricted. * * Character of the Rt. Hon. John Philpot CURRAN, THAT Combination of rare qualities which enable an advocate to discharge his duty with equal effectiveness and brilliancy, belonged to Mr. CURRAN. As an orator, whose proper stage was the constitutional ground of law, and whose audience a British Jury, he surpassed in power and fame, every man whom that popular branch of our system has raised into public note, except his great contemporary ERSKINE. Like him, an elève of the TRIAL by JURY, the genius of CURRAN reflected back a moral glory upon the civil institution which had created him. This noble institution, which exercises the finest faculties of the mind, in union with the feelings that most interest men, upon subjects most sacred to humanity, forms a practical school of living eloquence, by the matter of constant excitement which it affords to a generous ambition. Though eloquence no longer flourishes even in this ground as it has done, yet, while such an institution lasts it can never perish altogether, even should the Senate sink under the weight of unrelieved calculation, and the genius of the Pulpit slumber at his post. Instances will at least occasionally happen of minds of cultivated vigour, disdaining a heartless sophistry, to vindicate the liberal character of law by the ardent and masculine defence of its humane principles, and the protection of endangered rights. It was in the worst of those times that inflict upon a country the most awful of human calamities, that the genius of CURRAN only rose to its full stature, and seized the public admiration. It was when the hatred of parties was carried to an exterminating excess-when the ruins of the social state were illumined by the horrid fires of civil war, that he peaceably devoted himself to his country. It was then that he appealed, in the spirit of a virtuous intrepidity, to the majestic protection of British law. It was then that he stood between the victim and his pursuer, and rose in ardour as danger accumulated. It was then that he dared to fill History with his fame, when confidence and honour perished around him, and society was a wilderness. He did not look for a retreat from the perils of public action, while he could command a voice in the service of the unfortunate. The greatest exercise of his mental powers was called forth by events that daunted others, and made them. look for refuge, even from their virtues, in a silent obscurity. It is well known how an armed force, upon a great occasion, checked the eloquence of Cicero; but every aggravation of terror brought to CURRAN only the halo of a new distinction. Above all vulgar ambition, his exertions were but the resolute and splendid performance of his duty, in saving from the furious collision of parties the best and noblest principles of the British constitution. We have seen what was his moral courage for the task: let us examine what were the talents that gave it effective operation. He His mind, though imaginative, as the poetic intellect was gifted with great practical talents, was always under the direction of a judgment which combined usefulness with splendour. could grasp, with uncommon quickness and vigour, the strong points of his subject, and develop them with original felicity. His reasoning faculty was naturally strong, but he had more fondly cultivated the power of illustration, in which he had a talent that was equally novel and exhaustless. His information was various, rather than profound; but he had the art of making his knowledge available to his argument, without chilling the fire of the imagination by the coldness of the memory. All that he acquired from books blended so with what his genius created, that it appeared to be the sudden effort of his natural powers, and in him recollection took the animated character of invention. His allusions were for the most part as classical as they were ardent he sometimes, however, indulged in the gothic style of decorating his subject, but often gained force by the sacrifice of taste; and though he took from his future fame, he was conscious of enhancing the present impression. He knew that in addressing a jury, those passages which most delight the critic (who closets himself to enjoy the luxuries of taste,) are frequently less effective than brilliant deviations from the standard of a pure excellence; and he did not so worship literary fame, as to avoid making a strong effort to preserve his client at the expense of some portion of his classical reputation. From the lightest fancy to the most daring sublimity, he could diversify his subject with a power prodigal of its resources. But that modification of fancy which is emphatically called wit, he possessed beyond any other public speaker that ever existed. It was with him a constantly expending and never wasted flame, -an effortless and magical |