scope for ridicule. Is it possible to relate, without an indignant smile, that on the father's decease the property of a nation, like that of a drove of oxen, descends to his infant son, as yet unknown to mankind and to himself; and that the bravest warriors and the wisest statesmen, relinquishing their natural right to empire, approach the royal cradle with bended knees and protestations of inviolable fidelity! Satire and declamation may paint these obvious topics in their most dazzling colours; but our more serious thoughts will respect a useful prejudice, that establishes a rule of succession, independent of the passions of mankind: and we shall cheerfully acquiesce in any expedient, which deprives the multitude of the dangerous power of giving themselves a master.

The

superior prerogative of birth, when it has obtained the sanction of time and popular opinion, is the plainest and least invidious of all distinctions among mankind: the acknowledged right extinguishes the hopes of faction, and the conscious security disarms the cruelty of the monarch." He that regards monarchical principles in state policy, as Gibbon did, will say that John Barwick was a great and worthy man; on the other hand, he that prefers a democratic form of government, may condemn him as a bigot, or as a traitor to Liberty. There are, however, some noble traits in his character, to which none will refuse their praise; we mean his Christian fortitude, his uncommon

piety, his manly bearing under fanatic persecutions, his honesty, his self-denial, and his steady devotion to the fallen fortunes of the Stuarts. Again, with the exception of General Monk, no man took so active a part in the Restoration; and we except the commander of the forces out of deference to general history, rather than from any well-grounded conviction of our own, that Barwick acted an inferior part in that great drama: for he, who by a bold and decisive stroke of arms or policy finishes a campaign, may gather all the fruits of it; yet the head that planned it is, in truth and justice, oft entitled to as great, if not to a greater share of the prizemoney. Even if Barwick is to be measured by Monk's shadow, he is then a man of no mean stature. He had not, upon the restoration of the Stuarts, the honours and rewards equal to those of the General, or to his deserving, only because he would not have them. Like the northern apostle, he refused a bishoprick; and, upon all occasions, preferred the advancement of others to his own aggrandisement.

John Barwick was born in 1612, at Witherslack. He was the third son of George and Jane Barwick. Her maiden name was Barrow. Ex parte paternâ, he was a descendant of the ancient family of the Barwicks of Fair Rigg, near the little village of Staveley, in the north part of Lancashire.

Dr. Peter Barwick, who wrote the life of his brother, says that his brothers Nicholas and William