extirpated all its slaveries; except perhaps in copyhold tenure; and there also they are now in great measure enervated by gradual custom, and the interposition of our courts of justice. Magna Charta only, in general terms, declared, that no man shall be imprisoned contrary to law: the habeas corpus act points him out effectual means, as well to release himself, though committed even by the king in council, as to punish all those who shall thus unconstitutionally misuse him.

"To these I may add the abolition of the prerogatives of purveyance and pre-emption; the statute for holding triennial parliaments; the test and corporation acts, which secure both our civil and religious liberties; the abolition of the writ de hæretico comburendo; the statute of frauds and perjuries, a great and necessary security to private property; the statute for distribution of intestates' estates, and that of amendments and jeofails, which cut off those superfluous niceties which so long had disgraced our courts; together with many other wholesome Acts that were passed in this reign, for the benefit of navigation and the improvement of foreign commerce: and the whole, when we likewise consider the freedom from taxes and armies which the subject then enjoyed, will be sufficient to demonstrate this truth, 'that the constitution of England had arrived to its full vigour, and the true balance between liberty and prerogative was happily established by law, in the reign of king Charles the Second.'

"It is far from my intention to palliate or defend many very iniquitous proceedings, contrary to all law, in that reign. What seems incontestable is this; that by the law, as it then stood, (notwithstanding some invidious, nay dangerous, branches of the prerogative have since been lopped off, and the rest more clearly defined,) the people had as large a portion of real liberty, as is consistent with a state of society; and sufficient power, residing in their own hands, to assert and preserve that liberty, if invaded by the royal prerogative; for which I need but appeal to the catastrophe of the next reign."

Sir William Blackstone subjoins, in a note, "The point of time at which I would chuse to fix this theoretical perfection of our public law is in the year 1679; after the habeas corpus Act was passed, and that for licensing the press had expired; though the years which immediately followed it were times of great practical oppression."

Mr Fox, in the Introduction to his History of the reign of James the Second, adopts Blackstone's remarks, building on them a superstructure of political reflections.

"The reign of Charles the Second forms one of the most singular, as well as of the most important periods of history. It is the era of good laws and bad government. The abolition of the Court of Wards, the repeal of the Writ De Hæretico Comburendo, the Triennial Parliament Bill, the establishment of the rights of the House of Commons in regard to impeachment, the expiration of the License Act, and above all, the glorious statute of Habeas Corpus, have therefore induced a modern writer of great eminence to fix the year 1679 as the period at which our constitution had arrived at its greatest theoretical perfection; but he owns, in a short note upon the passage alluded to, that the times immediately following were times of great practical oppression. What a field for meditation does this short observation, from such a man, furnish! What reflections does it not suggest to a thinking mind, upon the inefficacy of human laws, and the imperfection of human constitutions! We are called from the contemplation of the progress of our constitution, and our attention fixed with the most minute accuracy to a particular point, when it is said to have risen to its utmost perfection. Here we are then at the best moment of the best constitution that ever human wisdom framed. What follows? A time of oppression and misery, not arising from external or accidental causes, such as war, pestilence, or famine, nor even from any such alteration of the laws as might be supposed to impair this boasted perfection, but from a corrupt and wicked administration,

which all the so-much-admired checks of the constitution were not able to prevent. How vain then, how idle, how presumptuous, is the opinion, that laws can do everything! and how weak and pernicious the maxim founded upon it, that measures, not men, are to be attended to!"

To the like effect, Lord John Russell, in his History of the English Goverment, writes, that in the period of the reign of Charles II., are to be found "the worst of governments, the best of laws." To these eulogies on the Constitution may be added one of Dryden, in his Threnodia Augustalis, on that national felicity which is the natural result of a true balance between liberty and prerogative, and a freedom from taxes and armies.

Our British heaven was all serene,

No threatening cloud was nigh,

Not the least wrinkle to deform the sky,
We liv'd as unconcern'd and happily

As the first age in nature's golden scene;
Supine amidst our flowing store,

We slept securely, and we dreamt of more ;
When suddenly the thunder-clap was heard,
It took us unprepar'd, and out of guard.
Already lost before we fear'd.

The amazing news of Charles at once were spread,
At once the general voice declar'd,

"Our gracious Prince was dead."

It is proposed to inquire into the state of the English Constitution in the reign of Charles the Second. If, in the result, it may appear that the Constitution has been subsequently improved rather than deteriorated, it will, nevertheless, be consistent with the history of the country, if bad government should be found to have been productive of good laws; and thus that King Charles II. may stand in unenviable rivalry with King

Charles the First and King John. Of the English Constitution it may be said that its most notable bulwarks have resulted from its most flagrant violations.

Duris ut Ilex tonsa bipennibus,

Per damna, per cædes, ab ipso

Ducit opes, animumque ferro.

It may avoid ambiguity as to the purport of the present inquiry to state, that it will embrace the public law in force in the reign of Charles II., and not exclusively the statutes passed at that era. Thus, to the credit side of constitutional perfection in the reign of Charles II. may be carried any revivals, in that reign, under the designation of statutes, of any ordinances of Barebones; just as the Commonwealth man-of-war, the Naseby, took, at the Restoration, the name of the Royal Charles. And, in like manner, there may be carried to the opposite side of the account a law for hanging and eviscerating alive Roman Catholic Priests, made, indeed, by Elizabeth, but kept, and, in numerous instances, enforced under Charles II., as Dryden expresses himself concerning that same law:

O let their crime in long oblivion sleep!

'Twas theirs, indeed, to make, 'tis your's to keep.
Unjust, or just, is all the question now;
'Tis plain, that, not repealing, you allow.

Further, it is not intended, in the present inquiry, to follow Sir William Blackstone in a review of laws not contributing to the vigour of the Constitution, with whatever other vigour they may be endowed. The statutes of Frauds, Distributions, Jeofails, and the laws for the improvement of navigation and foreign commerce, which he adduces, may appear irrelevant to the perfection of the Constitution, to which point they are applied by him. Many of them are, moreover, diametrically opposed to received principles of political economy, a science which had not its birth in the reign of Charles II. And as regards the generality of

them, it may be confidently maintained that the Legislatures which have repealed or extensively modified them, have not, during the space of two hundred years, been pursuing altogether a downward course, nor been employed in gilding refined gold, painting lilies and perfuming violets. Whether we turn our attention to civil or criminal laws, those of foreign or domestic commerce, of landed or personal property, we shall, probably, agree with one of the brightest ornaments of the reign of Charles II., Sir Matthew Hale, that, however wise may have been our legislators two hundred years ago, "Time is the wisest thing under heaven."

With regard to Blackstone's opinion of the temporary felicity of the country arising from an exemption in the reign of Charles II. from taxes and armies, it may appear as irrelevant to a question concerning the vigour of the Constitution, as if its imbecility were to be inferred from the great Plague of 1665, or the Fire of London. Nevertheless, a brief examination of Blackstone's remarks upon these topics may serve to remove prejudice from the threshold of this investigation, by making it plain, that, where optimism is at issue, the reflections of the great Commentator who first drew down English Law from the clouds, are to be perused with grains of allowance.

Were Blackstone's statements concerning taxes and armies in the reign of Charles II. nearer the truth than they may be found, there would have to be considered, in the opposite scale, that, by the ancient Constitution, the demands of the public service were supplied not merely by taxes, but, in a great measure, from the royal domains, and confiscations, with multifarious items of casual revenue. These sources are now almost dried up, and their places supplied by taxes. Neither did it redound to the honour or happiness of a nation, that its king may have sometimes postponed the taxing of his subjects, because it would have necessitated the holding of a Parliament, to which course he preferred being the pensioner of a foreign monarch, shutting