may be made out by any substantial inhabitant of the place, in the presence of two or more witnesses. A copy of the bill must be prefixed to all protests, with the indorsements transcribed verbatim, with an account of the reasons given by the party why he does not honour the bill.

The protest must be made in the regular hours of business, and in sufficient time to have it sent to the holder's correspondent by the very next post after acceptance is refused; for if it be not sent by that time, with a letter of advice, the holder will be construed to have discharged the drawee and the other parties entitled to notice and noting alone is not sufficient; there must absolutely be a protest to render the preceding parties liable.

But it has been adjudged, that a copy of the protest need not be sent with the notice of non-acceptance.

Neither is it proper that the holder should send the bill itself to his correspondent; he must retain it, in order to demand payment of the drawee when it becomes due.

If a bill be left with a merchant to accept, which is lost or mislaid, he to whom it is payable is to request the merchant to give him a note for the payment, according to the time limited in the bill; otherwise there must be two protests, the one for non acceptance, and the other for nonpayment; and though such note be given, yet if the merchant happens to fail, there must be a protest for nonpayment, in order to charge the drawer.

Besides the protest for non-acceptance and non-payment, there may also be a protest for better security: this is proper when a merchant, who has accepted a bill, happens to become insolvent, or is publicly reported to have failed in his credit, before the bill he has accepted becomes due, or when the holder has any reason to suppose it will not be paid: in any of these cases he may cause a notary to demand better security, and on that being refused, make protest for want of it; which protest must, as in other cases, be sent away by the next post, that the remitter or drawer may

take the proper means to obtain better security.

Protests made in this country, in order to their being received in evidence, must be written on paper stamped with a proper stamp.

In the case of an inland bill, the protest for non-acceptance is merely the means of entitling the holder to an accumulative remedy for interest, damages, &c. and the want of it not destroying the holder's right to the principal sum, as it would in the case of a foreign bill, it need not be made; and as it is said, is in point of practice very seldom made; but notice must be given of the non-acceptance, otherwise the holder takes the risk upon himself.

The form of the protest must always be conformable to the custom of the country where it is made.

With respect to what is sufficient notice, it seems that both in the case of a foreign and inland bill, sending notice by the post is sufficient, even though the letter should miscarry; and where there is no post, it is sufficient to send by the ordinary mode of conveyance. The holder of a note wrote to the defendant, who was one of the indorsers, to say it was dishonoured, and put the letter in the post, but there was no evidence that it ever reached the defendant; and the Court held that sending the letter by the post was quite sufficient.

In the case of a foreign bill, it is sufficient to send it by the first packet or regular ship bound to the place to which it is to be sent.

If, on presentment for payment, the person who ought to pay the bill, refuses so to de, it is generally incumbent on the holder immediately to protest it, if the bill was foreign; and whether foreign or inland, to give notice of the dishonour to those parties to whom he means to resort for payment, or they will be dis◄ charged from their respective obligations. The observations relative to notice of non-acceptance are so immediately applicable to those of non-payment, that it will be unnecessary to mention when such notice is requisite, or by or to whom it should be

sent.

To such of the parties as reside in the place where the presentment was made, the notice must be given, at the farthest, by the expiration of the day following the failure; and, if possible, on the same: to those who reside elsewhere, by the next post.

7

The reason why protest and notice are required, is merely that the parties from whom the owner received the bill, may immediately call on those who are liable to them for an indemnity; we may therefore infer, that it would be perfectly immaterial from whom the notice of non-acceptance is received, provided it be brought home to the knowledge of the party entitled to insist on the want of it.

Where an inland bill is protested for non-acceptance, if the protest or notice thereof be not sent within fourteen days after it is made, the drawer or indorser will not be liable to damages, &c.

The protest for non-payment of a foreign bill, which is made by a notary public, varies in point of form, according to the country in which it is made. In England it must be stamped with a proper stamp: it should not bear date before the bill is due; but as it must be made on the last day of grace, it may generally bear date on that day.

In general, no person should pay in honour of another person, before the bill has been protested for nonpayment; and it is said that he should not even then make payment before he has declared to a notary public for whose honour he intends making it; of which declaration the notary must give an account to the parties concerned, either in the protest itself, or in a separate instru

ment.

A protest is absolutely necessary in case the drawee cannot be found; and notice of such protest for non-acceptance and non-payment must be given to the drawer within a reasonable time; for though the drawer is bound to the party to whom the bill is payable, till payment be actually made, yet it is with this condition and proviso, that protest shall be made in due time, and a lawful and Ingenuous diligence used for the ob

taining payment of the money; and the reason thereof is, that the drawer might have had effects, or other means of his upon whom he drew, to reimburse himself the bill, which, for want of timely notice, he had remitted or lost, and it were unreasonable the drawer should suffer through such neglect.

If acceptance be not given to a bill of exchange, an action will lie against the indorser as well as the drawer, without waiting till the time when the bill will become due.

If a bill be drawn upon A, and he accepts it, and afterwards refuses payment, upon which the bill is protested, the person to whom it is payable may bring several actions against the acceptor and drawee; for the protest is no discharge of the acceptor.

On receiving notice of the non-acceptance or non-payment of a bill, or other negociable instrument, the party should give notice to such persons as are liable to him, and against whom he must prove notice.

The bankruptcy or known insolvency of any of the parties to a negociable instrument, is no excuse for want of notice.

No person ever yet arrived at so high a summit of knowledge, but what it was possible to proceed higher. To the field of knowledge there are a thousand entrances, and the trees that grow therein bear as many different fruits. There are a vast number of hills therein, some of which are easy in the ascent, and some are totally without the means of ascension. It is very remarkable, but the hills are so diversified as to cause the ascent as it grows more difficult, to be more pleasing by reason of the many fruits and flowers which grow thereon. Those hills which none could reach near the top, have often been attempted. He that was supposed to have climbed the highest, was the great Sir Isaac Newton. There have been many try to go to as great a height, by placing their feet on the same marks as he left behind him, and which will never, while the hill stands, become obliterated, the ground being of such a texture as to defy the power of any art to wash it away, or any sudden convulsions of the earth to remove that part of the hill; but they have invariably fallen in the attempt, and some too have suffered very considerably by it.

Love.

There is no passion so powerful as love, and none which has so many votaries. Its progress to the heart is imperceptible, and ere the approach is known, it has taken possession. The various meanders which it takes to secure its object, or to gain a return, are endless. Those obstacles which would on other occasions be considered insurmountable, are easily overcome; difficulties are not considered. Fortune prevents not its effusions, though it very often hinders the unity of its objects.

Man.

What a piece of work is man! said the immortal Shakspeare. How wonderful is his make! Who but a God could create such a piece of mechanism! Look at his active and

perceptive mind; he is self-conscious, and alone endowed with the noble facul ties of understanding, will, memory, and reason, to distinguish right from wrong. Man only is blest with reason. The brute creation have instinct, and at certain ages arrive at the highest point of perfection it is possible for them to attain. While man, with the aid of reason and the other faculties, can climb the steep hill of science, and never reach the summit.

Novels.

They are generally narratives of certain events, so placed in order, as to create a curiosity to know the result of each. They are, for the most part, more pleasing than instructive; and where instruction is gleaned from them, it is involved in so many circumstances, and accompanied with so much extraneous and objectionable matter, as to lose its effect. It is asserted of a northern Baronet's novels, that history is so much interspersed in them, as to make them histories in themselves; admitting that to be the case (which I cannot affirm or deny, never having read any of his or any body else's), a novel can seldom give the history of more than one or two persons, and then there is twice as much mentioned of his private life as of his public, and, very generally, more accounts of the means by which an obscure peasant boy is discovered to be the son and heir of a noble family, or stratagems by which a mistress is gained than either. It is, at all events, much better to read one volume of the history of a country, and so become acquainted with a number of events that have happened during a number of years, and histories of the characters of all public men; accounts of manners, politics, and exploits, which would inspire us with ardour, all of which having been selected for instruction, would be more amusing, and at the same time more beneficial, than to read over four, five, or six volumes of matter, to come at the history of one, or, at most, three persons; for though more persons would be mentioned, the particular

occurrences of but two or three would be stated.

Opinion.

Few persons give their opinion on things as they ought; some think one thing and say another; others give their opinion without sufficiently investigating the subject: consequently we have that judgment at one time, which is contradicted at another. Let your opinions, therefore, be always the result of a calm and mature deliberation, free from prejudice, not regarding either whom you may offend or please, by giving them in an ingenuous manner. Some people refer those subjects for the opinions of others, of which it cannot be expected a free and unprejudiced opinion can be given. In such cases it would be much better and more just to be silent.

Printing.

It is an art which cannot possibly be spoken too highly of; it is the principal preserver of learning: were it not for printing, much would be known only by tradition, and a thousandth part of what is now known, would not be known at all, were it not for this valuable discovery; knowledge and learning would be confined to few, and that to the rich, who, for the most part, are not interested in it. The mechanic or tradesman would not, from the great price which manuscript publications would be sold at, be able to procure but very few books; consequently his knowledge must be acquired by what he hears and what results from his own observations.

SKETCHES OF LONDON. NO. V.

Goodman's Fields.

Mansel, Prescott, Leman and Ayliffe streets, with a few smaller streets and courts in the vicinity, comprise what is called Goodman's Fields. Citizen Stowe writes, that he remembers it a farm, belonging to the Minoresses of St. Clare, who gave name to the neighbouring street called the Minories. "At which farme," says Stowe, "I myself, in

my youth, have fetched many a halfpennie-worth of milke, and never had less than three ale pints for a halfpennie in the summer, nor less than one ale quart for a halfpennie in the winter, always hote from the kine, as the same was milked and strained." One Trolop, and afterwards Goodman, were the farmers there; the latter having purchased the farm and fields, so increased his property, that he had thirty or forty cows for milking.

Farmer Goodman's son afterwards letting out the ground for grazing horses, and for gardens, the name of Goodman's Farm was entirely lost in that of Goodman's Fields, which it retains, notwithstanding all the changes it has undergone.

The backs of the houses of the four streets above named form a large square, called the tenter-ground, having formerly been used by a dyer; it was afterwards converted into a handsome garden, in which state it continued until the idle threat of invasion set the whole country marching and countermarching. Harnessed and armed, big with valorous loyalty, the garden of the tenter-ground became the field of Mars, and the spring and summer flowers yielded to the flowers of chivalry. But of all the gallant days for Goodman's Fields, the 21st of June, in the year 1799, must be remembered; Prescott and Leman streets were filled with volunteers of the east, waiting to be reviewed by his late majesty. On that day, not less than fifty thousand men, well clothed, armed, and accoutred, at their own expense, to defend their native soil, had been reviewed in various parts of London by their sovereign; but, alas, for the volunteers assembled in Goodman's Fields; some mistake happened in the marshalling, which led to the most ludicrous result: the king was looking after the soldiers, and the soldiers were seeking the king; it was a race between loyalty and majesty. "The king is in Ayliffe-street," cried a scout to the soldiers: the soldiers left Prescott-street for Ayliffe-street. "The soldiers are in Prescott-street," cried a scout to the king: away went the