1916.] Inscription at Chicksands Priory. We have received several communications on this subject, from which the preceding is selected as most satisfactory. From one of these signed HENRY OSMOND, We subjoin the opinion of the writer respecting the mark which God is related to have set upon Cain to prevent his being killed: "This mark," says our correspondent, "I believe was blackness-God turned him from a white to a black man: consequently those who knew Cain when he was white, did not know him after this transformation, What could be more likely to disguise him without bodily injury than this?" To the Memory MR. EDITOR, 201 public worship" for the members of the The plan is to provide "places of established church sufficient for the increasing population in great towns, by either " enlarging the parish church, or by building new subsidiary churches or chapels," the expense thereof to be defrayed, either by a parliamentary grant for the express purpose, or by the fund called Queen Anne's Bounty. Now it appears to me, especially after perusing YATES's Church in Danger, and The Claims of the Established Church, that the primary object of the Legislature should be not merely to provide places of worship, but to subdivide some of the larger parishes; and this would not be attended with such difficulties as might at first be imagined. The great parishes of St. Mary-le-bone, St. George's, and others, in London, many in the county and diocese of York,' and elsewhere, abound with proprietary chapels, or chapels of ease, and the patronage of many of them belongs to the same person as that of the mother of the Officers, Non-commissioned Officers, church; or, if the nomination rests with and Private Soldiers, of the Fortieth Regiment, who fell in the War commencing 1793, The several Battles of For Peace restored to Europe, by the ambition of one Man; who might have cast upon them a lasting yoke, but for their Spirit and Firmness, aided by the Counsels and Valour of their Country, which claims so proud a share in the glory of their deliverance: For these blessings, so long and so arduously contended for, let gratitude be felt for those, whether of this or of foreign lands, who nobly contributed to procure them; But, above all, to the Power invisible, supreme. NLW MONTHLY MAG.-No. 27. the incumbent, still an arrangement for the division of any such parish into two or more parishes, from and after the next avoidance of such living, might certainly be effected between the patron or patrons, the incumbent and the bishop of the diocese, with the approval of the archbishop of the province and the lord chancellor, all of whom should severally become commissioners for that purpose, either by a general act, or by instrument issued from Chancery, where it should be afterwards enrolled. The end obtained by such division would be, the better providing for the parochial duties of the present extensive Falconer, in his "Outlines," (page 574, or populous parishes; but which Mr. at the bottom,) avoids making any part of his "plan," no doubt through fear of depriving the minister of such parish of his dues; but he might enjoy the same during his time, making an allow rochial duty performed at all the new ance of a moiety of the fees for the pa churches; and from the trouble of which he would be released, his successor VOL. V. 2 D 202 On the Propriety of Dividing Large Parishes. could make no objection thereto, never having enjoyed such emolument, A question arises how such churches are to be endowed? I answer, if the income of the present benefice will not admit of being divided similarly to the living of Simonburne, belonging to Greenwich Hospital, and the chapels be not already in possession of sufficient endowment, let an application be made to Government for a sum to supply such deficiency; or to Queen Anne's Bounty fund, to grant, as it does to small livings at present, 300l. to every 2001. donation made for such augmentation; or let any parish or handlet be empowered to settle a rent charge, payable quarterly, for such augmentation, or for the entire endowment of any chapel-of-ease, provided that such fixed payment, together with any other already existing, shall in no case exceed a moity of the income thereof; or else enable the inhabitants of any town or parish to raise money legally for the support of their minister, by a poundage not exceeding 2s. 6d. on the assessment, after the manner of the livings in the city of London. This would indeed be an eligible way of increating the value of the small livings generally; for it should be observed that most of them are in towns, where no tithe is demandable, and Easter offerings or personal tithes not often paid. Then, -to return more particularly to our subject, after the present chapels shall have been made, arochial, it will be time enough for a call upon the state to so large an amount as Mr. F. proposes. Perhaps it would be well to grant greater facilities to the building, &c. of chapels-of ease; and if enacted that the incumbent of the parish for the time being should always be one of the trustees, or a party thereto-and if he was ever in the first place applied to on the subject, together with the bishop of the diocese, instead of their being as in general the fast-I doubt whether there would be often found those difficulties now so frequently complained of; and in opulent parishes a sufficiency of wealthy persons, religiously disposed, will always be found ready to forward such A scheme. With regard to the enlarging of the present churches, I think great rudence is requisite on that head; for it is too frequently the case, that modern-built churches are constructed on such an extensive scale, as to be neither pleasant to the auditors nor to the preacher, and the clergy already complain of perform [April 1, ing the duty in many old churches in large towns; in fact, the incumbent is soon rendered, by over-exertion, unable to go through the service audibly, and no curate can be prevailed on to stay in such places longer than two or three years at most. I should conceive Mr. F. to have had but little practical acquaintance with the clerical profession, for he would otherwise have devised some arrangement for dividing the parochial duties, and not have proposed the enlarging of churches, they being for the most part capacious enough for convenient use, although not perhaps to contain the population of the parish. By the endowment indeed of subsidiary churches or chapels with a cemetery annexed, and authority granted to marry, baptize, and bury at them, the labours of the incumbent will be relieved, and the parishioners very much accommodated. The last session of Parliament enacted, cap. 138 and 190, that new churches should be built and parishes founded both in Exmoor and Brecknock Forests; that circumstance may afford assistance on a future occasion. Before I conclude, having mentioned Mr. YATES's excellent work on this subject, of vital importance to true Christianity, entitled "The Church in Danger," let me represent to him and the public a further and an easy mode of preserving the established church from "danger," viz. to enact, that all consolidated livings having a population in each parish of and above persons, with a clear income to each of 2001. per anu. be dissolved from and after the next avoidance of such living, provided that the churches of each parish are remaining entire. I do not say parsonages, because one of the glebe-houses of consolidated livings, and frequently a prebendal house, has been sold to redeem landtax, a recurrence of which ought to be prevented by the legislature, such alienations tending much to impede the sepa ration of such livings for the time to come, and affording a plea for non-residence. It is of great disservice, to my knowledge, both to the welfare of the united kingdom and to the church itself, to permit livings to be consolidated, as they frequently are, in Ireland especially, to the decay of true christian piety and godliness. HIN. MR. EDITOR, I PERCEIVE in your last Magazine (No. 25) a scale of poetic excellence which possesses much merit as a whole, 1816.] Dr. Roots on the Punishment of Flogging. but appears to me erroneous in some particular instances, and likely to mislead those who may regulate their opinions by its results. I do not understand why Shakspeare is deprived of all share of critical ordonnance; surely he is entitled to some rank in this division, although not a very high one; but to put a blank opposite to his name, I think, is much beyond the truth. Again, Terence is not allowed one degree in versification, only ten in dramatic expression, and likewise but ten in the final estimate, all of which, I would submit, is considerably beneath his desert. I am surprised to find the dramatic expression of Virgil rated at ten; is it indeed eight degrees below Homer in this respect? I should wish the following questions solved by some of your learned and critical correspondents:--Ought the taste of Homer to be placed at 16, while that of Virgil is set down 18? and is not Virgil entitled to 17 in the final estimate, when he stands so high in the other classes? Should Horace have only 13 degrees in the final estimate, while Cer vantes, Moliere, and Spenser, are allowed 14, and Virgil 16? AS I conceive the English nation to be in a continual state of advancement towards perfection, not only in its arts and sciences, but in every department that calls forth and requires the intellect of man, I am tempted to make the following remarks on our jurisprudence through the medium of your mild and entertaining miscellany, not doubting but that posterity will at an early period witness the entire abolition of what I now deplore. I belong to a profession whose whole thoughts and time are occupied in assisting nature to heal and make good those deficiencies in the human frame that accident, or the unavoidable circumstances of our life but too frequently in duce, and was very much confounded the other day on looking out of a window in the market-place of a certain town where I was in the act of dressing a wound, to see a wretched man tied to a cart's tail and flogged by a cat-of-nine-tails round the market till his back was in a most deplorable condition, and evidently requiring surgical assistance. This led me to inquire why the unfortunate sufferer was doomed to undergo such a cruel and san 203 guinary torture, and this very torture inflicted in cold blood, before the eyes of a multitude of gaping spectators, drawn together for the express purpose of witnessing his sufferings! I found that he had been sentenced according to the existing law of the land to this dreadful punishment for breaking the fence of an adjacent farm, and niost assuredly, I confess, he deserved to suffer some penalty for the transgression: but when I reflect that the corporeal frame, so fearfully and wonderfully made, is already too much exposed and liable to the severest injuries, it outstrips my notions of right and justice, wantonly to subject this fine and complicated piece of machinery to castigations so injurious to its organization, and which frequently require the greatest skill and address of a professional man to prevent from degenerating into the most fatal consequences, and ultimately carrying the punishment far beyond the intentions of the severest judges. Perhaps I may be told that I am prejudiced, and not equal to give an opinion on a matter touching the penalty we are speaking of; but I assert that no one is so fitting to give an opinion on this impropriety, or rather defect in our laws, as he whose whole study and life is employed in repairing those injuries which the accidents of life but too frequently occasion. The punishment alluded to is certainly better suited to the cruel discipline of the Inquisition, or the ever-to-be-reprobated traffic in the slave trade. Then let us lose sight of it; let us banish it altogether from the very code of our laws, as we have that odious traffic which must have been its parent; for the very children who witness its infliction, imperceptibly take a lesson of cruelty and hardheartedness, that all the societies in the world instituted for the suppression of vice, or the benevolent exertions of an ERSKINE in the cause of humanity, never will be able to eradicate. Nor is it again a suffering compatible with the wellknown justice of our country in its very infliction, for the severity or mildness of it depends in a great measure on the will and pleasure of the person who inflicte it; and when we recollect in what sort of hands this rod of justice is wielded, 'and how much it is in the executioner's power to increase or diminish its vio lence, how can we retain so pervertible as well as unmeasurable a punishment for one moment in our code? when from this latter circumstance alone, it goes far beyond all other penaltics, which for 204 Steam-Boats-Slave Trade-Shakspeare. the most part are sure and certain in Surbiton, Feb. 18, 1816, MR. EDITOR, [April], newspapers with paragraphs filled with garbled statements, misrepresentations of facts, and abuse of individuals who have taken a forward part in the promotion of that sacred cause. The object I SHOULD feel greatly obliged if any of these pamphlets and paragraphs is one of your numerous readers or corre- sufficiently obvious; it is to perpetuate, spondents could inform me through your without abatement, all the dreadful enorinstructive miscellany, whether the ves- mities of our colonial bondage, and persel intended to navigate the rivers in haps ultimately to renew the African the interior of Africa (and which was to slave trade. It is of the highest imporhave been propelled by steam), is to pro- tance to the cause of justice and humani ceed with the expedition that is fitting ty, that these enormities should be uniout for a voyage of discovery to that in-versally known, and the arts exposed by teresting and unknown part of the globe. which it is now attempted to uphold I was very sorry to find that the propel them.*. SIERRA LEONE. ling apparatus did not answer the intend- P. S. It is perhaps very questionable ed purpose, which must have arisen from whether the slave trade is not actually some iniscalculation either in the con- carried on to nearly as great extent as struction of the vessel, or in the build- ever by British capital! notwithstanding and application of the engine. If ing the acts of the legislature, and the Capt. TUCKEY proceeds without this va- vigilance of the government to the conluable aid for exploring an unknown trary. country through its rivers beyond the space or extent they are known to be navigable, his voyage will lose much of the interest it had excited, in consequence of his abridged and contracted incans. Steam-boats are propelled at the rate of 8 or 9 miles per hour for the purpose of carrying passengers; and by an increased power of propulsion, a first-rate ship may be propelled with the same velocity; the only difficulty is in adjusting and proportioning the power to the resist ance. We unfortunately have no experiments on record of the power of steam to drive machinery exclusive of the friction of the component parts in motion, which friction always varies in proportion to the power and the various construction of the engines. Could any of your correspondents throw any light on this interesting subject, it would be of no small advantage to your mechanic readers. An atmospheric engine for pumping only, without any rotative motion, exhausts considerably more than onethird of its power to overcome the fricAN ENGINEER. tion. Birmingham, Feb. 20, 1816. MR. EDITOR, AS I feel assured that you will readily employ your very useful Magazine in giving publicity to any communication serving to rescue from obscurity the language of our immortal Shakspeare, I make no apology for troubling you to lay before your critical readers the following conjecture concerning a passage in that writer, which has assumed some importance from the quantity of laborious refinement which has been unsuccessfully expended in its exposition. The words are these "But let your reason serve, To make the truth appear where it seems And hide the false, seems true." hid; Measure for Measure, Act 5, Sc. 1. From which, as they now stand, it is I think evident, that no meaning can be extracted by any admissible mode of explication. This untractable sentence Stevens declares he does not comprehend; and that any other commentator should have thought it intelligible, is to me somewhat surprising. Malone, however, has endeavoured to torture it into sense, but his interpretation is exceedingly strained; to plunge into eternal darkness,' the definition which he gives to the word' hide,' is one which it will not bear; the false seems true,' is also rather violently paraphrased by "Angelo, who now seems honest;" a diction too licentious even for Shakspeare, where he 6 cheerfully give publicity to any facts conWe can assure the writer, that we would nected with this subject.EDITOR. 1816.] On a Passage in Shakspeare The Patriarch Joseph. writes most inaccurately. The explanation of Douce is not less exceptionable; indeed it does not essentially differ from that of Malone. The object of Isabella in addressing the Duke, was to expose the villany of Angelo. Is it probable then that Shakspeare, who seems to have written this scene with considerable care, could have intended that his heroine should express herself so absurdly as to request him to hide the false? Against his paraphrase of the concluding words, the same objection lies as that made to Malone's. The substitution ofnot' for and' by Theobald (in which he has been followed by Mason) does not remove the difficulty, for the viciously contracted form of the last line is still adhered to. If we read the passage as follows, "But let your reason serve To make the truth appear where it seems hid: And hid, the false seems true," I flatter myself that its perplexity will ap- sons. 36, Penton-street, Pentonville. Feb. 20, 1816. MR. EDITOR, R. PERMIT me, through the medium of your widely-circulated Magazine, to propose a question which has often and greatly puzzled me; even Dr. CLARKE's 205 Bible (however ingenious in many respects) seems to me to afford no satisfactory solution. How can it be accounted for that Joseph was in Egypt for so great a length of time (I suppose in all probability 20 years or upwards) without giving his father notice of his preservation, and his honours during the latter part of that period? One is at a loss to conceive that his filial affection should not have prompted him, and his power given him opportunities of acquainting Jacob with the circumstances, which would have removed such a weight of anguish from his heart. J. W. J. Elmley, Feb. 24, 1816. MR. EDITOR, IN your Magazine of 1st February, 1816, you have published a curious paper signed PUBLICOLA "On the Hardships of the Game Luws." For the credit of your valuable miscellany, and to encourage truth, I hope you will feel no objection to insert this reply, in order to place what is there considered as HARDSHIPS in the true light. PUBLICOLA commences his attack on the game laws by stating, that "the repeated instances which have fately occurred of persons losing their lives by spring-guns and other murderous instruments, placed in woods through which there are public foot-paths, must fill feeling minds with horror at so cruel an exercise of the game laws."-Surely PUBLI COLA has never read the game laws; for let me ask, in what statute for the protection of game does he find an authority for the placing such spring-guns and murderous weapons, as he calls them? The general law of the realm allows a man to protect his land from trespassers: and although perhaps every feeling man would first try the mild method of keeping them away by giving a personal notice, and then bringing an action at law against invaders, yet it is well known that there are vile charac ters beyond the reach of such mild measures, and even public notice-boards of spring-guns, &c. will not deter them from the idle and dishonest pursuit of poaching: and what can be more alarining than the nightly visits of such vagabonds, who prove desperately bent on defending their unlawful depredations with blud geons and fire-arms, and in strong and formidable parties? Your correspondent PUBLICÓLA then goes on to coinplain of proprietors of manors preserving and monopolizing |