public, have found it altogether unintelligible. An inconvenience which they labour under in common with many other of his Majefty's licge fubjects, who are, however, bound to obey these fame laws, under God knows what pains and penalties. This I conceive to be the only reafon, why there is no work fo little read, or fo little talked of, as the public Statutes. I was indeed for a long time in this refpect like the rest of the world, and never thought of buying or reading fo expenfive and dull a work; but happening accidentally to meet with two acts of parliament, by one of which I found that I might fuffer a year's imprifonment for paling a bad fhilling, and by the other, that I might be hanged for breaking a weaver's fhuttlet; and hearing too, about the fame time, that a new fyftem was adopted, by which our penal laws were to be rigorously enforced; I determined to fet myself about reading all the ftatutes without delay, for I had no defire to make fo long a voyage as to the New South Wales, and had much rather die at fome diftant period in my bed, than very speedily in the public ftreet. From the time that I formed this refolution, I have always regularly purchafed the ftatutes the moment they were printed, and have made it a conftant rule never to stir out of my chamber after the king has once given his affent to any acts of parliament, till I have got them in my poffeflion, and have made myself mafter of them as far as lies in my power; left I fhould unexpectedly find myself conveyed to the county jail for fome offence which I did not know had yet been created, or left my death fhould be made to ferve as a promulgation to the world of fome new-born law. It is true, that much of my time, which has been thus employed, has been employed to very little purpose ; for it has often happened, that after I have long ftudied fome new ftatute, and have with great effort and incre dible pains difcovered, or perfuaded myfelf that I had difcovered, a meaning in it, the very next feffion of parliament it has been either totally re pealed, or perplexed and rendered quite unintelligible, by fome act to explain and amend it. The habit, however, of thus poring over the statutes, has enabled me to understand them, I may fay, (I think, without vanity, and I am fure without faying a great deal) better than molt men. The fenfe of this fuperiority, and a defire that others may profit by my labours, have prompted me to make you a tender of my fervices, and to offer to fupply you every year with a review of the Sta tutes of the laft preceding feffion. That you may judge how I am qualified for fuch an undertaking, I will immediately give you a fpecimen, and begin without farther ceremony; but as I wish to begin with fome eclat, you will, I hope, allow me to pafs o ver the last year, which afforded but a very fcanty harveft of legislation, it having produced, I think, only 95 sta tutes; and to begin with the fruitful year 1786, which added 160 public acts of parliament to the ftatute-book. Thofe of your readers, who are fo bold, or fo thoughtless, as never to look into the ftatutes, will no doubt be aftonifhed to hear that fuch a num ber of laws (more undoubtedly than Solon or Lycurgus produced during their whole lives) fhould be brought into existence in one fhort feffion of parliament. Their aftonishment however will fomewhat abate, when they hear that of thefe 160 public ftatutes, 70 are fo only in name, they being made to regulate the concerns of private families, or particular parishes. The 15 and 16 Geo. II. c. 28. This law, which I make no doubt none of your readers ever heard of before, was made only fix years ago, 22 Geo. III. c. 40. The ninety however which remain, form ftill a number confiderable enough to ftartle those who are novices in the fcience of English legiflation. I chufe fo to defcribe it, because the legiflature of this country may certainly form a fpecies by itself, and differs from that established in any other state either ancient or modern, as much as the fyftem of Tycho Brahe differs from thofe of all other aftronomers. One, I repeat it, who is ignorant of this, must wonder at the capricious and innovating temper of a people, who, in the courfe of a few months, multiply their duties, reverfe their rules of property, and alter their conftitution by no lefs than 90 laws: but a better acquaintance with the fubject will foon enable him to acount for this multitude of ftatutes. It has been often faid of lawyers, that they poffefs a happy talent of creating employment for themselves, and that one half of their profeffion is occupied in correcting the blunders of the other. Our legiflators feem to have improved upon this character; for it frequently happens, that one act of parliament creates a neceflity of paffing three or four others; and a great part of the time of our lawgivers is confumed in elucidating their own obfcurity, and correcting their own mistakes. Among the ftatutes, for example, which we are now confidering, there are no lefs than eighteen made to explain, amend, or rectify errors of former ftatutes; nor does the inconvenience ftop here, for as comments on obfcure writers frequent ly become themselves a text for other commentators, fo we fometimes find, that these explanatory laws become themselves the fubject of explanation, and that thefe amendments required to be themselves amended. Thus the 35th chapter of the ftatutes now under review, is an act made to explain and amend an act made the preceding feflion, to explain and amend an act made two feffions before that: whether this explained explanation and amended amendment will in fome future feffion be further amended and explained, time only can discover. They who know in what degrce our penal laws nave been of late years multiplied, will perhaps rejoice to find the activity of our legiflators diverted to fuch objects, and will be difpofed to exclaim with Cato, upon a different occafion, Virtute efto Malte Huc juvenes æquum eft defcendere. Unfortunately, however, the legislaturehas, in the midft of thefe retrofpective occupations, found leifure to pass, befides many other penal laws, no less than fix ftatutes punishing certain frauds upon the revenue with death; five of them creating new offences; and the fixth making an inferior de gree of evidence to what was before held requifite, fufficient for a capital conviction. It is impoffible to observe the rapid increase of our penal laws, without being fenfible that the time is not very far diftant when it may be faid of England, as was faid two centuries ago by a very celebrated writer of a neighbouring country, Il n'eft fi homme de bien qu'il mette a l'examen des loix toutes fes actions et penfees, qui ne foit pendable dix fois en fa vie. Our legiflators indeed feem fully fenfible of this, and looking forward with a provident care to the approaching ftatę of this country, have deferved the thanks of their fucceffors, by paffing an act (the 43d of the ftatutes which we are now confidering) for the exprefs purpofe of encouraging the growth of hemp. But I perceive that I have already trefpaffed too long upon your time; I fhall 26 Geo. III. c. 48. § 9.—c. 49. § 24.—c. 51. § 14.—C. 73.—c. 78. § 13— €. 82. § 6. Shall therefore here abruptly conclude, of which I have at prefent only taken and referve for a future occafion an a general and a very curfory view. examination of the particular statutes, To the Publisher: In Anfwer to "A Difertation to prove that Troy was not taken by the Greeks;" published in the Tranfactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. SIR, T has been frequently remarked, It has been intense, the eafy credulity of youth gives place to a fpirit of timorous caution, and incredulous fufpicion. In the progrefs of life, our hopes are fo often fruftrated, our confidence is fo often deceived, we so often find reafon to change our first opinions and views of things, as being fallacious and unjuft; that manhood and old age naturally cease to indulge thofe hopes, that candour, and that sprightly vivacity, from which fo many of the pleafures and pains of youth arose. ciples of manly fortitude, or generous of and felfifh gratifications; and, inftead of humbly endeavouring to investigate ufeful truth, labour only to difplay idle ingenuity, or to gratify foolish curiofity: fociety may, then, be regarded as having proceeded, through infancy, youth, and manhood, to feeble and declining old age. Many concurring symptoms fhew, that, if fociety, in Europe, has not yet attained that period; it is faft haftening towards it. Perhaps none of thefe is more ftriking or remarkable than the prefent ftate of literature, and the character of the reigning tafte. The florid, the pompous, the gaudy, and the affected, in all the arts of elegance and fancy, are what the prefent age regards with admiration and delight. Our hiftorians indulge fo much in conjecture, from a defire of unfolding the latent fprings of human action, and of tracing the caufes and confequences of thofe events which they relate, that their writings deferve fcarce higher credit than the fictions of the novelifts; and it may be difficult to determine, whether a Turpin or a Mig non be moft worthy of implicit confidence. Our leaders in philofophy are metaphyficians, theorifts, or fceptics. They fill the fhelves of their mufeums, and blow up the furnaces in their laboratories; nay, they even mark the operations and fentiments of the human mind,-folely with a view to imprefs into their fervice fuch facts as they can collect; that they may torture them, to the fupport of fyftems Nn 2 The progrefs of fociety has, with great propriety, been compared to the progrefs of life. The rudeness, ignotance, and helpleffness of man in a favage ftate, are the features of infancy. Men are then fimple, fuperftitious, and credulous; guided by appetite and feeling, rather than by reafon. But, when they unite under fome mode of government, when they become acquaint ed with the focial duties, when mutual intercourfe forms their manners, and accident or neceffity leads them to the discovery of useful or elegant arts; they feem, then, to advance through infancy and childhood to the active and vigorous period of youth. Reafon then, begins gradually to unfold itself; appetite is refined, and feeling acquires greater delicacy. The fphere of their knowledge is now enlarged, and their credulity is diminished. But when, advancing farther, men arrive at faftidious and exceffive refinement in their arts and manners; ceafe to be actuated by prin which which are the productions of vanity, or a distempered imagination. Inge nuity is frequently exercifed in at tempts to explode doctrines and opinions which have long been held facred, and facts which have long obtained univerfal belief. We delight to triumph over the erudition or aeuteness of our forefathers. We even fondly perfuade ourselves, that we know thofe tranfactions of which they were witneffes, or in which they were parties, better than they themselves. The liberal and enlightened genius of our modern academics no longer confines itself to quarrel with common fenfe and reafon, about the miracles of Jefus Chrift, and the truths of Chrif. tianity, or to refute the modeft evidence of experience and confcious feeling, in behalf of the exiftence of mind and matter. Flushed with the conquefts which they have, long fince, obtained over thefe, they now proceed to extend their empire over other regions. They now labour eagerly to confound the truth of hiftory; and call forth all their eloquence to celebrate the virtue of an Helen and a Mary Stuart, and to hold up to the contempt and deteftation of mankind, thofe poets, hiftorians, and ftatefmen, who have wantonly or maliciously defamed them. The age of chivalry is again reftored; and we may expect a moft plenteous crop of knights-errant to fpring up; fince it is fo much fafer, for one's perfon at leaft, to wield the pen, rather than the fword, in defence of the ladies; nor are the venerable matrons and modeft virgins of antiquity likely to arife, and require of their champions that inviolable chaftity and abftinence to which the valorous Don Quixote was fo rigidly reftricted. I have been led into this train of thought, by reading, in the lately-publifhed volume of Tranfactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, an effay, in which the ingenious author labours to prove, that Troy was not taken by the Greeks, and infinuates, that He len was not married to Menelaus be fore her elopement with Paris. I am not altogether fat:sfied with his arguments; and I fhall mention fome objections to the circumftances and facts which he makes ufe of, as well as to his inductions from them. His reafonings are, as follows: 1, That tradition being the only means by which Homer could obtain any knowledge of the events of the Trojan war, he could not himself be certain of the truth of his story; and must have been led, in many inftances, to blend truth with falfehood. For the art of writing was not known fo early as the Trojan war, and Homer lived in a much later period. zdly, That the Greeks, in general, were extremely carelets of making accurate inquiries into the antiquities and early hiftory of their country; and were much difpofed to magnify and embell:th the fimplicity of truth by pompous fiction. 3dly, That Homer's Hiftory of the Trojan war appears to have been difbelieved by the most fenfible and inquifitive among the Greeks; being inconfiftent with fome other popular traditions, and being queftioned or contradicted by their moft refpectable hiftorians. 4thly, That the whole train of circumftances and events, related by Homer, is unnatural and inconfittent.The Effayift here urges the improba bility of Paris's falling in love with a Grecian lady whom he had never feen; and the difficulty which he would have in feducing her affections, and in carrying her off from her husband and native country. He laughs at the abfurdity of fuppofing that the whole Trojan nation would have concurred in detaining Helen, if he had been the lawful wife of Menelaus, and feloniously carried off by Paris. He afks, Why Caftor and Pollux, the brothers of Helen, did not accompany Menelaus and the other Grecks in their expedition against Troy? He afferts, that, before the end of the Trojan war, Helen must have been fo far advanced in life, as to be no longer an object of tender affection, or eager defire, nor poffeffed of that enchanting beauty which Homer defcribes, as warming the breast-even of frozen age. He obferves, that it is extremely incredible, that the united forces of Greece, which filled a thoufand fhips, fhould have spent ten years in befieging a city, which Hercules, with a fleet of only fix fhips, had, not many years before, taken, and levelled with the ground. Could not the Greeks have turned the fiege into a blockade, and thus have reduced, by famine, thofe whom they could not conquer in an affault? He next proceeds to affure us, with great confidence and fpirit, that, Gnce the bravest and most renowned of the Grecian heroes, Ajax, Achilles, Patroclus, and Antilochus, perifhed before the walls of Troy; it is, therefore, foolish to think, that the expedition of the Greeks could be crowned with fuccefs. He infinuates, that Achilles, in all probability, fell by the hand of Hector; and exults over the abfurdity of the story of the wooden hoife. He next alledges, that, if the Greeks had returned victorious from the fiege of Troy, Agamemnon, Ulyffes, and the other princes, muft have been received with open arms by their families, and with acclamations by their fubjects; instead of meeting all thofe misfortunes which they are faid to have fuffered and that, if Troy had been reduced to afhes, its warriors flain, and its women and children taken captives; Æneas, Antenor, and Helenus, could not have led, into Italy and Greece, the numerous and powerful colonies which they establifh ed in thofe countries. The author now concludes, from all these affertions and reafonings, that Homer is undeferving of credit; that Troy was not taken by the Greeks, but fuccefsfully defended by the va lour of Hector. Having here endeavoured to ftate the Effayift's reafenings and views. with perfpicuity and precifion, I fhall now proceed to mention my objections in the fame order in which I have stated his arguments. Ift, Though Homer was not cotemporary with the heroes whom he celebrates, yet it does not appear that he had no other means but tradition of acquiring his information. Even our learned author allows, that, if Neftor, and Ulyffes, and their cotempora ries, had not an alphabet, or characters denoting fimple articulate founds; they had, at leaft, marks or fymbols, by means of which they correfponded, when at a distance from each other. He readily agrees, that, though letters may have been the invention of a later period, yet these were in ufe as early as the time of the Trojan war. By the anuala of Homer, he understands not letters, but marks, or figns; ypaper, he obferves, fignifies, with Homer, not to write, but to mark, or trace. I afk no ampler conceffions. Defirous of agreeing with this writer wherever I can, I fhall not, in this particular, reject or difpute his authority. Let the befiegers of Troy have been as ignorant of letters, as they were of batter ing-rams and cannons. But was it impoffible for them to tranfmit to po fterity the memory of their injuries, their refentment, their valour, and their victories, by the fame marks, or fymbols, which they ufed in correfponding with their abfent friends? We have heard of the hieroglyphics of the ancient Egyptians: we know, that the alphabet of the Chinefe is almost as copious as their vocabulary: Purchas has published the hiftorical paintings of the Mexicans; and, we are told, that the more favage American tribes preferve the memory of their tedious marches, and fierce encounters; the number of the fcalps which they tear from the bodies of dying enemies, and |