the German Ocean, are covered with the exports of Spain, Holland, and France, and their colonies, and with shipping bound to their ports; but where are the prizes of war? Our cruizers search for them in vain, even on the hostile coasts; even there vessels, impudently called neutral, conduct, for the most part, the coasting trade.'

The author next enters into a very curious detail of the arts used, and the methods taken, to oblige the courts to decide against the captors, where no doubt is entertained of the captures being lawful prizes: but on this point we have not room to enlarge.

It is impossible, the writer contends, that matters should long remain in their present state. Shall we copy the example of our enemies, and abandon the carrying trade to neutrals; or enter into an agreement with our foes not to extend hostility to traffic; or make peace with Bonaparte? The first measure, he judges, we are by no means likely to adopt; to the second, he thinks that our great enemy would not give his consent; and he is of opinion that we cannot ever live in real amity with the ruler of France. If he should make a treaty with us, he will never make peace while our free constitution exists, and while our press remains unshackled.' We have, then, according to the author, no alternative to which we can recur, but the rule of the war of 1756.' He is not an advocate for enforcing this rule in its utmost rigour: but he thinks that it safely may and that it ought to be in a degree qualified. He is disposed to allow the Americans to import their native provisions and lumber in their own vessels, into the hostile colonies, and to receive in return those inferior articles of colonial produce, rum, taffia, and molasses; and he adds that we might permit all neutral nations to hold an intercourse of the same species, and subject to similar restrictions with the colonies of Spain and Holland.' Our space will not allow us to state the satisfactory considerations on which he grounds this qualification. He shews it to be highly improbable that our exercise of our maritime rights, as a bellige rent, would occasion neutral nations to join in the war against us: but were this the sad result, he maintains that it would be infinitely preferable to that of sitting down quietly under the impositions that are practised on us.

We can now only conclude by recommending this very able pamphlet to our readers, as deserving serious attention from all persons who wish to be acquainted with the real situation of their country, and who have its welfare at heart.

MONTHLY

MONTHLY CATALOGU E, For DECEMBER, 1805.

HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, &c.

Art. 13. The History of the Honourable Artillery Company, of the City of London, from its earliest Annals to the Peace of 1802. By Anthony Highmore, Solicitor. Member of the South East Di vision of the Company. 8vo. 12s. 6d. Boards. White. THIS author is desirous to trace a connection between the Artillery Company as now constituted, and those armed associations which belonged to times when the military and civil occupations were more blended than they are at present. The spirit which excited them, and the purposes for which the one and the other were formed, were (we doubt not) very much the same: but, as to any farther relation between them, we own that we are not able to discover it. In the Saxon times, the citizens were probably obliged in virtue of their tenure to exercise arms, and this was unquestionably the case under the Conqueror. In the reign of King Stephen, the city force was so considerable as to amount to 20,oco horse, and 60,000 foot; and it appears that arms were very much in vogue among the citizens in the time of Henry III.

Of the subsequent progress of this spirit, until the period of the incorporation of the present Company, Mr. Highmore gives this sum

mary account.

The use of Archery having been much discontinued, King Edward III. in the year 1365, sent a letter to the sheriffs of London, recommending to them to revive the practice, and commanding that "in places as well within the liberties as without, they should cause proclamation to be made, that every one of the said city, strong in body, at leisure times or holidays, use in their recreation bows and arrows, or pelets or bolts, and learn and exercise the art of shooting,"

&c.

The practice of Archery was thus recovered from its decline, and continued for many years to form a part, not only of the elegant pastime of the gentleman, but also of the national defence; for at the close of the reign of Henry VII., anno 1497, it had acquired so high an estimation, in the metropolis, that all the gardens which had continued (says Hollingshed, Vol. III. 785.) "time out of mind without Moorgate, were destroyed, and of them was made a plaine field for archers to shoot in." Stowe and Chamberlain corroborate this circumstance, and speak of them as the gardens and orchards about Chiswell Street and Finsbury.

• This measure arose from the alarm which had spread throughout the countrys and particularly in the metropolis, from a revolt which had recently broke out in Cornwall, and threatened London with an immediate and serious attack: the danger suggested the propriety of establishing a moré regular body of defence for the city; and of appropriating some beautiful gardens in the manor of Finsbury, to the north of Chiswell Street, for a walled inclosure for the city archers and trained bands, which was then denominated the Artillery ground.

• The

The name of the manor of Finsbury has had various derivations, but what may seem most probable to have been correct, cOTresponds with the account which the writers on that part of the metropolis are agreed in; that the land there being fenny and swampy, had a running water passing through it to the city, and that therefore Fin is a corruption of Fensbury, agreeing with Moor or Mere land, which was granted by William the Conqueror to the church of St. Martin's Le Grand.

• Henry VIII. who had from early life practised the use of all the manly and athletic exercises, particularly that of the Bow, found, upon his accession in 1509, the citizens of London well disposed towards the encouragement and discipline of one of his favourite pursuits; and as its use was of far more importance to his government than to his amusement, he gave them every sanction which could be derived from his presence and practice.

6

They extended their exercises over the fields near Islington, Hoxton, and Shoreditch, and were accustomed to fix buts and targets there to shoot at: but as the inhabitants of those villages increased in number, they inclosed their grounds, which had been common field, and thereby prevented the practice of archery; this produced a serious contest, amounting, according to Grafton's Chronicle, to an insurrection, in 5 Henry VIII. anno 1514, in which the citizens practising archery, tenacious of what they had long enjoyed as a right, assembled and destroyed all the fences.

It was natural to suppose that Henry would not overlook a passion among his citizens of London, which he might be enabled to convert to very useful purposes; he therefore, in the 28th year of his reign, anno 1537, when he had seen them matured in the practice, and well disciplined in the service, granted them a patent of incorporation.'

The charter invests the Artillery Company with the usual corporate rights; gives them the power of chusing their own officers and members; exempts them from the operation of certain sumptuary laws then in being, from serving on juries, and from legal process in the case of unavoidable accidents occasioned by their exercises: the Company is endowed with every reasonable privilege; and the whole is drawn up in a style which shews the predilection of the monarch for the institution. The Company has ever since been protected and countenanced by the sovereigns of this realm; and the author is of opinion that this patronage has had the best effect on the spirit and disposition of the metropolis.

This corps appears, on most occasions, either to have given the tone to or to have shared in the prevailing temper of the city of London; it sided with Parliament in the opposition which was so honourable in its commencement, but so unfortunate in the result, made by that body to the inroads committed by Charles 1. on the rights and liberties of his subjects; it readily shook off its allegiance to its Captain-General James II.; was uniformly loyal to King Wil and has ever distinguished itself by its attachment to the Protestant succession. It temporized under Charles and James; it seems to have been but for a short period on the popular side in the pre

liam ;

sent

sent reign; and its principal members at this moment have more the reputation of dutiful courtiers than of sturdy citizens.

Exclusive of the facts borrowed from the history of the country, and interwoven with this narrative, the present volume would have been comprized within very moderate limits: for we learn that, during the dissensions between Charles I. and his Parliament, the records of the Company were destroyed; and that the first court-book now existing is not of an earlier date than 1655.

Art. 14. The Historie and Life of King James the Sext. Written. towards the latter Part of the Sixteenth Century. 8vo. IOS. Boards. Longman and Co.

We are informed, in the preface to this volume, that in the Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland by David Crawfurd, which were published in 1706, references occur to a MS., in support of certain positions, which includes nothing that in the least countenances them. The contents of that MS. constitute the present volume. The editor states that

The discovery of it affords a complete detection of the earliest, if not the most impudent literary forgery ever practised in Scotland. Every circumstance in the MC, unfavourable either to Mary or to Bothwell, or favourable to their adversaries, is carefully suppressed: every vague allegation in Camden, Spottiswood, Melvill, and others, or in the State Papers which Crawfurd had transcribed from the Cotton MS. is inserted in the Memoirs; and these writers are quoted on the margin as collateral authorities, confirming the evidence of some unknown contemporary. Fictions, invented by Crawfurd himself, are profusely intermixed; and even the ill-digested form of the genuine narrative is a pretext for the transposition and alteration of facts. The historiographer for Scotland, having thus, on the narrow basis of the original MS., constructed spurious memoirs of his own," declares solemnly that he has not wrested any of the words, to add to one man's credit, or to impair the honesty of another; that he has neither heightened nor diminished any particular character or action but that he has kept as close as possible to the meaning and sense of his author" and even his title-page professes that the work is "faithfully published from an authentic manuscript." The memoirs have been quoted as genuine by Hume and Robertson: and their authority has been re-echoed by disputants as a full confirmation of the most absolute fictions. Nor is it possible to acquit Goodall of connivance at the fraud: he had collated the memoirs with two copies of the original MS., and was conscious of the imposture, which, in the preface to the second edition, he endeavours partly to vindicate, and partly to conceal.'—

The authorities fabricated by Hector Boethius, Chalmers of Or mond, and Dempster, are sufficiently known but Crawfurd, perhaps, was the first Scotchman who published his own compositions as the genuine productions of a former age. The present example, however, ought to convince those who persist in the practice of literary forgery, that the most successful fabrication can give them no assurance whatsoever of impunity, and that no length of time can se cure them from detection."

The

The work itself inspires an interest which a contemporaneous record hardly ever fails to create; it carries us back to the very period, we enter into its feelings, and become acquainted with its prejudices and its habits of thinking; an effect which is not diminished, but heightened, by the antiquated dialect and obsolete orthography of the performance. We shall insert one or two of those passages which the editor regards as conclusive against the favourers of the abandoned and unfortunate Queen.

After having described the baptism of James, afterward King of England, the author thus proceeds:

Nather did King Henrie cum thair, albeit he was in Striviling all that qubyll, nather was he permittit or requyrit to cum oppinly and thairfore he addrest himselfe to Glasgow, quhair he became extreme seik, and his haill bodye brak out in euill fauourit pustulis, be the force of young age that pottentlye expellit the poyson quhilk was given him to haist the end of his dayes. Sa that the Queene, whither it was for pittie or hypocrisie (I will not dispute) tuik iorney toward him to Glasgow, & remaint by him by the space of ten dayes, & causit him to be transportit to Edinburgh, quhair he was placit in a desert ludging near the wall & faulxburg of the town, callit the kirk of feild, prepairit for a wicked intent, as the malicious actors performit it with their pestilent handis, perceiving that the poysoun quhilk they hade given him did tak na effect, devysit this uther purpose. To lay trains of gwn powder, about and within the wallis of the hous in great quantity. Bot first they come in be slight of false keyis quietle to the King's chalmer, quhair he was reposing in bed, & his servand sleeping nar by. First they stranglit the King, & nixt his servand. They kaist thair dead bodies out in a desert zaird by a back dore, qubilk they had prepared before, fitt for the purpose, and then kendlit thair traine of gwn powder quhilk inflamit the timber of the haill hous in sic sort, and troublit sa the wallis thairof, that gret stanes, of the lenth of ten fute, and of breid five fute, were fund distant from that hous be the space of a quarter of a myil. This was devysit to deceaue the people, to make them belieue that the hous & bodies was expellit & demolisht be the chance of suddaine fire, & na uther wayes: Bot Bothwell and his men were sein neare hand by, to the end the wicket purpose should not faill to tak effect, as by progres of this historie shall the better be knowin.'-

Then Bothwell, thinking thair was na contrauersie againes him in Scotland, conveint the number of aucht hundreche horsemen, & as the Queene was cumand from the castell of Striviling, to have returnit to Edinburgh, he met hir in the hie way, & convoyit hir perforce (as appei: it) to the casuell of Dunbarr, to the end he might enioy hir as his laufull spous; & in the meane tyme causit devorcement to be led & separation proceed betuixt him & his awin marriet lawful wyfe, the Ladie Jeane Gordown, than sister to George Earl of Huntlye. The freindlie liute was so heighlie contractit betuix this great princes toward hir enorme subiect, that thair was no end thair. of; for it was constantly estimit be all man, that ather of them loued uther carnally. Sa that shoe sufferit hirselff patiently to be led quhair the lover list, and all the way nather maid obstacle, impedi

ment,