riosity as we in the present day view a monkey. Religion being placed out of the question, (and her claims far exceed any other,) I am sure if he were to know what a miserable being he will be, if old age shall overtake him, and men look on him as an old fop, and old fool, and he look upon himself as one with no source of enjoyment-I am sure, I say, he would alter his conduct. Just think but for a moment of a man with a mind like this, (or very little better,) and a head silvered over with gray hairs, and what a being you will have thought of! I am sure if the head of my neighbour before mentioned were silvered over, it would be in nature, what a silver porridge-pot might be in artmade of a material too good for the object of its employment.

(To be continued.)

ENGLISH LAW.CHEATING. MR. EDITOR.

first desire after riches in a lover of the world, to the last hours of a miser, -we should at once see how deeply man is sunk in depravity, and how far, very far, he is gone from original righteousness. We should see crimes heaped upon crimes, like some huge mountain, bounding, as it were, the circle in which we move, and threatening to overwhelm us in ruin! but which is withheld from falling upon us, by the mighty love of that great Being, who, for the sake of his Son, is long-suffering, and full of compassion towards a fallen race! We should see the bonds of filial affection broken; the most sacred duties violated; and the grossest enormities committed; the tears of sympathy dried up; and the child of poverty deserted. The love of riches too, we should see, promotes those litigious suits in which the contending parties frequently become the dupes of fraud and deceit; and by which many families are reduced from comfort and ease, to beggary and shame!*

Now, sir, as this excessive love of gain is almost universal, we can scarcely wonder that so many thousands of our fellow-mortals should wander from the paths of rectitude, and by every artful machination, daily defraud those with whom they have any transactions in the common concerns of life. Lord Bacon very justly observes, that "the ways to enrich are many, and most of them foul:" at present, however, Mr. Editor, we will confine our attention to the very common and nefarious habit of cheat

SIR,-The desire of gain is so predominant in the human breast, that men will sacrifice every comfort, and encounter every difficulty, to gratify it: the briny element, and the trackless waste, present no obstacles; and the torrid and the frigid zones are alike to him who is thirsting after riches. So deeply rooted is this bewildering passion in the heart, that if honest exertions do not amply produce the wealth desired, recourse is then frequently had to means the most dishonourable. Hence spring many of those awful derelictions with which the catalogue of human crimes is fill-ing; a practice no sooner alluded to, ed! The evils resulting from an insatiate love of gold, are innumerable: extortion, rapine, and murder are in the train, following as its most certain consequences. Many persons, under colour of the offices in which they are placed, repeatedly exact sums of money from such as come within their In a civilized state like Great Bri reach ;-the robber braves the horrors tain, where the advantages derived of the darkest storm, watching for from a free trade are so highly prized, some benighted passenger, as vultures every infringement upon the rules of watch for prey;-and the stiletto of society becomes aggravated and dethe abandoned bravo has frequently trimental, in proportion as the interbeen stained with the blood of inno-ests of commerce are thereby affected: cence, for the gain of a paltry ducat.

If we could behold all the various transactions which take place from the earliest career of a pilfering school-boy, to the execution of the most consummate villain,-from the

than our strongest abhorrence is excited; and it would be well for us, if a conscientious regard to shun every injustice in our own dealings, were as strict and unremitting as our disapprobation of another's dishonesty is necessary and proper to be expressed.

An eminent sergeant at law, when his con stitution declined, and his spirits were broken, tion to his friends :-"I am thinking how many being seen often in tears, gave this explana poor families I have ruined for the sake of a Nisi Prius victory!"

DEINOLOGY.

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laws both of GOD and their country. Sir William Blackstone, in his elegant Commentaries, defines cheating to be an offence more immediately against public trade; as that cannot be carried on without a punctilious regard to common honesty, and faith between man and man. Hither, therefore, continues the same excellent writer, may be referred that prodigious multitude of statutes, which are made to prevent deceits in particular trades, and which are chiefly of use among the traders themselves. For so cautious has the legislature been, and so thoroughly it abhors all indirect practices, that there is hardly a considerable fraud incident to any branch of trade, but what is restrained and punished by some particular statute.

so that cheating must be considered | sirous of living conformably to the as an injury to the public, a violation of the laws of the land, and an offence, of no small magnitude, against GOD himself. That sacred injunction, "Thou shalt not steal,” applies as well to the dishonest artifices of a common cheat, as to the more open and daring crimes of the lawless. Let not then such as are living in the constant commission of acts of malversation and deceit, be lulled to sleep in the arms of the wicked one, because their transgressions are by themselves accounted but as trivial: let them not, I would say, flatter themselves, that when the closing scene of life approaches, all will be well. No! The pillow of such, in a dying hour, will be a pillow of thorns! Instead of that placid resignation and that holy joy which arise in the mind of a dying Christian, when reflecting on a life well spent,-there will be a conscience onerated by the most painful retrospection, followed by a fearful looking for the fiery wrath of an offended Deity! And let that man who contemns the law of his Maker, by wronging his fellow-creatures of their rights, ever bear in mind, that unless his offences are pardoned ere the flecting soul leaves its frail tabernacle, he will find that he has also wronged that soul of immortal happiness-and that misery will irretrievably be his portion throughout all eternity!

Mr. Hawkins describes cheating to consist in deceitful practices in defrauding, or endeavouring to defraud, another of his known right, by means of some artful device contrary to the plain rules of common honesty.

Mr. East, in his Pleas of the Crown, conceives cheating to be a fraudulent obtaining the property of another by any deceitful practice or token (short of felony) which affects, or may affect, the public.

Where a cheat is effected by means of false weights and measures, (which are known public tokens,) it is clearly indictable at common law; for these In offering this address, Mr. Editor, betoken a general design to defraud: we must not be understood as insi- they are instruments or tokens purnuating that all such as are observed posely calculated for deceit, and by to be anxiously engaged in secular which the public in general may be affairs, are dishonestly pursuing their imposed upon without any imputation ends. We are commanded to be dili- of folly or negligence. This reasoning gent in business, and it is perhaps not applies to all cases where any other more incumbent upon us to be cautious species of false token having the semhow we spend our patrimony, than to blance of public authenticity is used. be solicitous in honestly increasing As in Edward's case, (E. 35. c. 2.) our store. Our various stations in where cloth was sold with the alnealife require it, for whilst some have ger's seal counterfeited thereon. To large families, that must be support- the above-mentioned principle may ed; others have aged and impoverish- also be referred the instances of cheats ed parents, who must not be neglect- by means of playing with false dice, ed. So that we may say, many of &c.; which is further punishable by those who are now favoured with penalties recoverable under the staan augmentation of their pecuniary tutes 16 Car. II. c. 7. and 9 Ann, c. 14. means, receive it as the reward of by forfeiture of treble the value of the their own industry; and who are, no money or other thing won, to be redoubt, as fully aware that a want of covered as the acts direct. There is probity is a want of one of the most also another head of public cheats, inessential qualifications that constitute dictable at the common law, which an upright character; as they are de-are levelled against the public justice

And by statute 30 Geo. II. c. 24. persons knowingly and designedly by false pretence obtaining money, goods, &c. with intent to cheat, are deemed offenders against law and the public peace, and on conviction are to be fined and imprisoned, or put in the pillory, or publicly whipped, or transported OBSERVATIONS ON THE HISTORY, USE, for seven years.

SIR, The following is a subject which has for some time engaged my serious attention. Should it be considered worthy an insertion in your magaChanging corn by a miller, and re-zine, its appearance will gratify, sir, turning bad corn in the stead, is pu- your's, respectfully, nishable by indictment, being an offence against the public (1. Sess. Cas. 217.) And if a minor, pretending to be of age, defrauds many persons, by taking credit for a considerable quan

cle has seen this general truth strik- | ingly and painfully exemplified in the present state of church music.

It must be allowed by all, that music judiciously selected, heightens devotion in no inconsiderable degree: yea, it translates the soul from all earthly incumbrances, and wings it to the celestial regions of angelic felicity; there, for a moment, as if it were disembodied, to catch one evanescent twilight glimpse of heavenly realities. It has not only the power of thus exalting the soul, it subdues the passions; and, not unfrequently, disarms the most ferocious brutality of its malevolence. Luther ranked it next to divinity, as "being capable of calming the turbulent passions, and speaking peace to the afflicted soul."* It nourishes the finer feelings of the human mind; brings it into a frame suited to reflection, and melts it into love.

"

It is by no means an unreasonable conjecture, to suppose that music is coeval with mankind. We find it recorded, that Jubal is called " the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.' If we have instrumental music recorded so early in the annals of sacred history, we may conclude that vocal music was in use much earlier. Indeed it appears perfectly accordant with the views of our first parents in Paradise, when, in a state of perfect happiness, their only duty to their God was praise.

cal music was called in, as a necessary auxiliary, to animate the soul in the grateful service of exalted thanksgiving to the Almighty Father of the universe. We read also, that the Lord ordered Moses to make "two trumpets of silver, of a whole piece,"‡ for the purpose of calling the assembly. And on the seventh month, on the first day of the month, that God commanded the children of Israel to hold an holy convocation: he forbids them from doing any servile work, because it was a day of blowing the trumpets; which was to be observed as a day of offering sacrifices unto the Lord.§ The song of Deborah and Barak is also mentioned in the book of Judges. After this, we read of the daughter of Jephthah going out to meet her father with timbrels and with dances. From this time we read little of music, except on military occasions, till the days of Saul; when we find Samuel addressing him in these words :-" Thou shalt meet a company of prophets coming down from the high place, with a psaltery, and a tabret, and a pipe, and a harp before them."¶

On the removal of the

The royal psalmist, who was possessed of the spirit of prophecy, cultivated music early in life; and his psalms give ample testimony of his poetical abilities. He used to console himself with his harp when his soul was in heaviness, by singing the praises of his God. When he was Music was an inseparable concomi- king, he appointed four thousand of tant in the ceremonies of the Jews. the Levites to praise the Lord with If we peruse the holy Bible, immedi-instruments.** ately after the miraculous interposi- | ark from the house of Obed-edom, tion of Heaven, in conducting Moses and the children of Israel through the Red Sea, we find the whole assembly lifting up their voices, in solemn chorus, to the God of their salvation, in the following hymn of praise:-"I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song, and is become my salvation. He is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my fathers' God, and I will exalt him."+

This sacred song shews us that vo

* Vide Burney and Hawkins's History of Music.

+ Exodus, chap. xv. Numbers, chap. x. Numbers, chap. xxix.

Chenaniah and the singers gave thanks unto the Lord, singing, "Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; and let men say among the nations, The Lord reigneth.-Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for ever and ever. And all the people said Amen, and praised the Lord."+t

On the dedication of the temple, Solomon caused four hundred thousand musical instruments, such harps, psalteries, &c. to accompany the voices.‡‡

as

Music continued to be cultivated among the Hebrews, till the nation Judges, chap. v.

1 Samuel, chap. x. verse 5.
** 1 Chronicles, chap. xxiii.
tt 1 Chronicles, chap. xv. and xvi.
#Josephus, b. viii. chap. 1.