be taken from Pontius Pilate's houfe; being the fame that our Saviour frequently afcended to undergo examination.

I have practifed myself to look at the Catholic ceremonies with temper; but this fcene was fo infinitely ridiculous, that, without any evil intentions, I threw a whole body of pilgrims into the utmost confternation.

The fair-cafe confifts of eight-and-twenty marble fteps; each of which may hold about ten people abreaft, and at this feafon of the year it is conftantly crowded. The pope himself durft not mount it on his feet.-Upwards of two hundred pilgrims were at this inftant afcending, to pay homage to the crucifix, on their knees, and in this attitude moving on from ftep to ftep towards the top - Figure to yourfelf this group-They first appeared to me to be afflicted with the hip gout-they moved like horfes with the ftringhalt-I could fill have borne it all, had I not feen Abel grubbing on in the midst of them, which made me burft into fuch a fit of laughter, that the holy ones were thrown into fuch a fcene of confufion as you have never witneffed. Suddenly recollecting the expence of plush breeches, I com. manded Abel to defcend.-Enthufiafm had deafened him to every worldly confideration; and, what added to my chagrin was, that the pilgrims had greatly the advantage of him, ten out of eleven being fans culottes-fo finding all remonftrance ineffectual, I waited to fee the conclufion of the ceremony.

The holy receptacle at the top contains a fplendid crucifix, furrounded by about a dozen portable faints, which are fhewn off by a ftrong light in the back ground; and it has much the appearance of a magic lantern. As the pilgrims advance they batter their foreheads against the upper ftep, more or less according to their fuperftition, or the weight of fin that overwhelms them; and then, as the fame method of defcent, being as I have informed you, upon their knees, might poffibly be more rapid, they go off at the top through two narrow paffages or defiles that look like a couple of cracks in the wall; which, I fuppofe, are intended to answer the purpose of a weighing machine, to afcertain how much they are wafted by falling and praying.

It was evident that they had not used the fame artificial means of reducing themfelves, that a Newmarket jockey does, by wearing a dozen flannel waistcoats at a time, for most of them were barely covered with the remnant of a shirt-what fatting might have done I know not, but am apt to give very little credit to the effect of their prayers. Indeed there was a more natural way of accounting for their leannefs, as most of them had walked fome hundreds of miles previous to the ceremony; and we may difcover a caufe for the trange attitude which they ufed on the occafion, by conjecturing, that being leg-weary, they had recourfe to their knees by way of a change.

Thefe narrow paffages did well enough for a mortified taper catholic, (one or two of whom I have feen towards the conclufion of Lent, reduced to fuch a point that one might almost have threaded a bodkin with them) but in nowife answered the purpose of your portly well-fed proteftant; fo Abel, as was eafy to foresee, fuck faft in the

middle-feveral of them endeavoured to pull him through, till at last he was fo completely wedged in that he could neither get backwards nor forwards-Finding him in this fituation, the pilgrims were fuddenly difarmed of fufficient ftrength to withstand the temptations of their old pilfering fyftem; fo one ran away with his hat, another clawed hold of his hair, and had very nearly fcalped him, fuppofing it to be a wig-In short, after a violent exertion, Abel effected his efcape, and promifed to make no more religious experiments for the prefent; but is perfuaded that he should never have got through, had it not been for the interference of the crucifix and portable faints.'

Our only advice to the reader, with respect to this work, is, not to fit down to it after he has been regaling with Duke Humphrey, but to take it up when a good dinner and a chearful glafs have difpofed him to be pleased with what he reads, he knows not why and cares not wherefore."

We observe that the author, who is fo happy in the patronage of Duke Humphrey, has a numerous lift of titled friends; his subscribers, except a few ladies and divines, are all nobles, baronets, and efquires.

ART. XXII. The Hiftory of France, from the most early Records, to the Death of Louis XVI. The ancient Part by William Beckford, Efq. Author of a Defcriptive Account of the Island of Jamaica. The modern Part by an English Gentleman, who has been fome Time refident in Paris. 4 Vols. 8vo. 11. 4s. Boards. Jordan. 1794.

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ESIDES the English translations formerly published of several French hiftorians, and the original hiftory of France given in the Modern Univerfal Hiftory, the public has lately been presented with two hiftories of France, one written at full length by Mr. Gifford, in four volumes quarto*, the other judiciously abridged in three volumes octavo. It might feem that thefe publications would be amply fufficient to supply the wants of the public on this fubject. Curiofity is, however, at prefent fo much awakened with refpect to the affairs of France, that Mr. Beckford and his affociate have prefumed that there is ftill room for another hiftory of that nation. The work which their joint labours have produced is, however, by no means either a complete or an uniform hiftory. The political character of it is indeed throughout liberal; and the authors are agreed in affixing a deferved ftigma on the tyranny which, with very few exceptions, has difgraced the French monarchy from its commencement to its termination:-but the literary character of the work is very unequal. The antient part, written by Mr. Beckford, which comes down to the end of the reign of Charles VI. and fills the first two volumes and part of the * Rev. N. S. vols. x. and xi. and vols. ii. and iii.

E.

APP. REV. VOL. XVI.

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third, is written with confiderable energy of thought, and with fome attention to the graces of compofition: but the latter part is a dry journal of facts, enlivened with no embellishments of ftyle. We fhall give a fpecimen of Mr. Beckford's manner of writing, in his review of the ftate of the people in France at the close of the Carlovingian line, about the end of the tenth century :

The people, the most numerous, as the most useful clafs of the community, were all, more or lefs, flaves, under the arbitrary dominion of the feudal barons. Subjected to the most difgraceful fervices, oppreffed by the most perfevering cruelty, and overwhelmed by the moft intolerable taxes, there was scarcely any diftinction left between the freeman and the flave. Every lord was the unlicenced tyrant of his demefnes, which was a real prifon to his fubjects. With the name of freemen, they had not the liberty to difpofe of their effects, either by any act during life, or by a teftamentary difpofition at their decease. In default of children, not domefticated in the fief, the baron became the heir of their respective properties. They were not permitted to marry without his confent, and his permiffion was feldom obtained but by purchase. They could not terminate a fuit, once commenced, by accommodation, left it should deprive him of the perquifites of his court. If they obeyed not his fummons in time of war, they were liable, with their defcendants, to be reduced to flavery. This precarious ftate of mifery, in perpetual dread of fome additional burden, or fubject, upon the most trivia! pretences, to a confifcation of all their goods, induced many to make a voluntary surrender of themfelves, in the expectation of experiencing lefs inhumanity.

• While those attached to the duties of husbandry were thus afflicted by the iron hand of power, thofe refident in the towns were not in a better fituation. Living together without any civil ties, they were cruelly fubjected to the tyranny of the counts, whofe castles, erected contiguously to their places of refidence, kept them in conftant fubjection to his will. The most trifling conceffion, although purchased from their lord, was deemed a favour. They were compelled to fupply their haughty fuperior and his companions, whenever he lived among them, with every kind of neceffary. Their commodities, expofed to fale, were heavily taxed, or, in fome places, interdicted from a public market, or fo monopolized by the baron, as to cause them to be thereby prevented from receiving any advantage from their exertions, and thus proved an effectual check upon their induftry. Even the domeftics of the most potent chieftains took under their protection robbers and banditti.'

The rife of the peerage has been a matter much difputed, its foundation having been attributed to Charlemagne, and with as little probability to Hugh Capet and Robert. Peers, as the Count of Boulainvilliers obferves, were more ancient than the peerage; were coeval with the fiefs, the enjoyment of which conferred a right to execute juftice in conjunction with their equals. Thus the vaffals of the monarch in his court were peers one with another; fo their vaffals in the courts were in the like fituation with each other; and peers implied not, therefore, at that period, any fuperior dignity.

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There was a diftinction made between the vaffals of the crown, and thofe of the duchy of France, although united in the perfon of Hugh Capet. Of the number that held immediately of the crown at the acceffion of that Prince, fuch as the Dukes of Guienne, Normandy, Burgundy, the Counts of Flanders, Thouloufe, and others, they were reduced, by the reign of Philip Auguftus, to only fix; the moft powerful having probably obtained a fuperiority by the gradual lapfe of time; and to thofe above mentioned, it feems to be generally allowed that fix of the mott dignified clergy were affociated by Lewis the Young, to affift at the coronation of his fon Philip Auguftus; and, from that period, they were fixed at twelve, who, confined to that number, were confidered as peers of France, with all their peculiar and local privileges.

That there was not any general affembly of the nation under the latter Princes of the Carlovingian line, or the firft of the Capetian monarchy, in which refided a legislative authority, extending over the community at large, is proved by the ftate of the feudal government above described, and by the collection of the laws of France. The laft Capitulary, digefted by Monfieur Baluze, was at the clofe of the reign of Charles the Simple; and the first Ordonnance of the kings, which appears to have extended to the whole kingdom, was in the reign of Philip Auguftus; fo that, in the fpace of two hundred and feventy years, no new law was added to the ftatutary code of the Gallic monarchy.

The affize courts of the early Princes of the third race were the fame as thofe held by their vaffals, the jurifdiction of which extended only within their own demefnes, and were called together, at stated times, with peculiar pomp and ceremony, the lower clafs of barons. feldom holding theirs but when exprefsly required by their vaffals. Women who inherited a fief, were likewife competent to hold their courts. Three or four perfons were fufficient to fit in judgment; and when a baron could not affemble a proper number, it was cuftomary to borrow the vaffals of a neighbouring lord.

With the feudal law was introduced the right of primogeniture; a custom entirely unknown under the princes of the first race, in which the fons divided equally amongst them the inheritance of their fathers. When fiefs became hereditary, feniority was fully established, as well in the crown as the fief, which was in itself confidered as no more than a great fief. Surnames, alfo, became in ufe about the fame time: the nobles derived them from their territories, the lower orders from the places of their births, and not unfrequently from either perfonal advantages or defects.

The revenues of the princes arofe from nearly the fame fource, the produce of their own demefnes; the perquifites of their courts of juftice; fome fmall rights upon their vaffals, as upon the marriage of his eldeft fon, or daughter; and the ta es upon the Jews, who were deemed the property of the lord within whofe lands they refided.

Manners, as may be easily fuppofed in this undetermined ftate of government, were ftill barbarous. Without any check upon their natural ferocity, the barons exercifed the moft unjustifiable acts of syranny: the people, poor and contemptible, were funk, as were

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their

their defpots, in the most profound ignorance: few of the nobles could either read or write: there were no titles to poffeffions but ufage, no authentic deeds of marriage but tradition; hence, what was entrusted to memory was foon loft. The want therefore of records, occafioned thofe perpetual disputes relative to fucceffion, and to the degrees of kindred: a circumftance of which the clergy availed themselves. All arts, but thofe of war, were held in contempt. Surrounded by his vaffals and dependents, the powerful baron, when not employed in fome predatory inroad upon the lands of his neighbour, commonly refided at his country feat, where military exercises, and the fports of the field, were his only occupations. Without arts, fciences, commerce, they even lived without the most flight connexion with neighbouring provinces; a fingular inftance of which is preferved, among others, in the collection of Dom Bouquet. An abbot of Cluny in Burgundy, being requested to remove his monks to Saint Maur des Foffés near Paris, excused himself from undertaking fo long a journey into a ftrange and unknown land. If any perfon travelled from one part of the kingdom to the other, he was obliged to acknowledge himfelf within a year and a day the vaffal of the lord in whose territory he had fettled, or be fubject to heavy penalties; and the wretched inhabitants of the maritime provinces, who fought protection from the Normans by flying into the interior parts of the country, renounced one tyrant for another, by being immediately reduced to a state of fervitude.'

The work is incorrectly printed, and the engravings cannot be ftyled excellent.

E. ART. XXIII. Plutarch's Treatife upon the Distinction between a Friend and Flatterer: With Remarks. By Thomas Northmore, Efq. M. A. F. S. A. 8vo. pp. 132. 4s. Boards. Payne. 1793.

F writings fo richly ftored with the treasures of hiftory and philofophy as thofe of Plutarch, it is much to be regretted that an entire English verfion, adapted to the improved tafte of the present times, has not appeared. The tafk has, indeed, been in part executed with ability and judgment in Langhorne's tranflation of Plutarch's Lives: but much yet remains to be done with refpect to thofe mifcellaneous pieces commonly known under the title of his Morals. One of the most pleasing of the pieces is here prefented to the public in a drefs which does much credit to the tranflator's judgment and tafte. Mr. N. has been very attentive to correctness of verfion, and has only allowed himself fuch a degree of freedom of interpretation, as was requifite for the fake of idiomatic propriety and harmonious arrangement. The difference between an elegant and a rude exhibition of the fame fentiments, every reader, who has cultivated a tafte for the graces of compofition, will perceive from comparing the two following verfions of the fame paffage; the former from the tranflation by various hands published in 1694; the latter by