5. In fome places he has confidered the various lections and conjectures of P. Houbignant; and has occafionally pointed out the errors of the Latin and English translations.

In all these points he has fhewn great industry, learning, and judgment; and we do him only bare juftice, when we fay, that this is the best book which can be put into the hands of those who intend to learn Hebrew, or read the Bible in the original language.

IX. An Introduction to Electricity. Illuftrated with Copper-Plates. By James Ferguson, F. R. S. 8vo. 45. Cadell.

THE

HE Peripatetics, who were probably the firft obfervers of electrical phenomena, imagined this force to confist in fome fecret quality, or fympathetic power, fubfifting between the attracting and attracted body, and refulting from the fubftantial form of each.

But the later philofophers generally agree to make it the effect of a corporeal effluvium., emitted from, and returning to, the electrical body; though as to the nature of these effluvia, and the manner of their acting, they are hitherto greatly divided. Some suppose actual steams to iffue out of the electrical body, when agitated by attrition; and that these dif cufs and repel the ambient air, which, after it has been driven off a little way, makes as it were a little vortex, by the refiftance it meets withal in the remoter air, to which these electrical teams did not reach; and that these steams, shrinking quickly back again to the attracting body, do, in their return, attract and bring along with them fuch light and small bodies as they meet in their way.

Gaffendus, and others hold, that on rubbing, or chafing, the electrical body is made to emit rays, or fibres, of an unctuous nature, which coming to be condensed and cooled by the ambient air, do lose their agitation, and so shrink back again into the body from which they fallied; and by that means carry along with them fuch light and small bodies, as happen to be faftened, or flicking to their farther ends.

The Cartefians, not being able to imagine how fo hard and brittle a fubitance as glass, fhould emit effluvia, attributed electricity to the globules of the first element; which breaking out through the pores, or chinks of the body, like little darts or fwords, and not meeting with proper meatus's, or paffages in the air, return whence they came, and carry the little bodies, whofe pores they happen to enter and be entangled in, along with them, as we fee in drops of melted fat hanging by

a stick,

his panegyric than the provifion made by the English law for the poor. The legiflative power deferted, in this inftance, its ufual employment of erecting barriers to guard the fuperfluities of luxury from the encroachment of the unfortunate, the wretched, and the neceffitons.

Whether we confider the matter as men, or as politicians, how much more eligible is it for our poor to be able to demand relief in their neceffity from a general and public fund, fuch as our poor's rate, than to be obliged to follicit and make intereft for admittance into an hofpital, by cringing to the governors, or to fupplicate a parifh priest for a pittance of the offerings at the altar? Thefe, together with the alms diftributed at the gates of convents, are the only refources of the poor in the rest of Europe.

As this is the only country, where a refource fo becoming a free and independent poor, is referved for the indigent, one cannot help the fuppofition, that the legislature of England muft have always been watchful and fedulous in fupplying the neceflities, and at the fame time afferting the freedom and independence of the poor. Yet how erroneous would fuch a conclufion be! The reader, who may not be converfant in the books of ftatutes, will hardly believe, that in the first year' of the reign of Edward VI. an act was paffed by the king, lords, and commons, enabling any person to seize a man who had begged, or been idle for three days, and retain him for his flave for two years; with power, during that time, to put him in chains, to refuse him fuftenance if he refused any the most mean and vile work. By the fame act, which was paffed but a few years before the fettling the general provifion for the poor upon its prefent footing, if the wretched caitiff ef caped from this mifery for a time, and was abfent for fourteen days, he was, with his whole family, condemned to perpetual flavery when retaken; and if he was, a fecond time, guilty of the fame effort to recover his liberty, he was liable to be exe cuted as a felon,

The Collection of Decifions at prefent under our confidera-" tion, is ranged in fuch an order as to fhew, in the first place, by what perfons, at what time, in what manner, and upon what property, the general fund called the poor's rate is to be raifed. After having treated of thefe, and fome other incidental matters, the compiler proceeds to explain the authority of the juftices of peace in the execution of the poor's laws. This part is likewife very full, but we cannot find in it any cafe that shows what refource a poor perfon has, if the parish officers and juftices refufe to relieve him in his diftrefs. The fuppofition of the poffibility of fuch a cafe may be admitted

even

even by perfons the beft apprifed of the integrity and humanity of thofe little defpots of the poor; we ourselves have been affured by the beft authority, that many hundreds perish for want of food in that manner every year in London. We fuppofe, and believe, therefore, if there had been any way to avoid this fhocking catastrophe, that the compiler would have pointed it out. The next grand divifion describes the mannerand means by which perfons gain a right of being maintained out of the poor's rate. An Appendix, containing cafes omitted, concludes the whole. These principal divifions are divided and fubdivided in fuch a manner, that by referring to that general divifion which is the object of enquiry naturally, the reader immediately finds the chapter and cafe which he wants. A collection of law cafes, feems to us like an arfenal, in which two properties are equally effential, that the weapons be good in their respective kinds, and difpofed in exact order, eafy to come at. The cafes in this collection are ranged in fo natural and fimple an order, that the most ignorant parish-officer can scarcely mifs finding what he wants; they have like wife the excellence of being extracted from none but the very best books of Reports. We speak of those cases which have already appeared in print, but a great number of manufcript cafes are. difperfed under their proper heads, fome being copied from a manufcript of the late Mr. Ford, whofe eminence as a barrifter is well known to all the gentlemen of the long-robe, and not a few cafes are added from the compiler's own note book; for the authenticity of which the public must rely upon his veracity; however, they carry upon them the evident marks of being genuine. We conclude this article with two cafes extracted from this compilation, which have never before appeared in print, and those will give a more exact idea of its merits, than any further account of ours can convey.

Cafe of Woodford and Lilburn, 20 G. 2. MSS. J. L. the father-in-law of the pauper, was charged with her maintenance, and the juftices give this reafon, because he had a great fortune with his wife, the pauper's mother. Sir John Strange, in fupport of the laft order argued that the word father, though prima facie to be understood of the natural father, yet it had been carried fo far as to take in the father in-law; for where there is a fubftance with the mother, he takes it cum onore, and muft maintain the child who was fupported with that substance before his marriage. Indeed where there is no substance it might be otherwife. Mr. Henley faid, here is no diftinction between confanguinity and affinity; this is a debt of the wife's. contracting, created by parliament, and in all cafes, the hufband is fubject to the wife's debts, and all her neceffary con

tracts.

tracts. Sir Richard Lloyd, on the other fide, infifted, that the ftatute speaks only of those related in blood, on whom nature laid an obligation. If the ftatute is to be construed to take in father-in-law, &c. then it must be done in all cafes, whether the father-in law receives any fortune or not with his wife. Upon this principle it might as well be infifted, that a purchaser of the wife's estate ought to maintain the children, and a husband is a purchaser of the wife's fubftance. The inftant a wife marries the lofes every thing fhe had, for her effects are inftantly vefted in her husband, and the act could never intend to charge her when he has nothing. For the words are, being of ability, which exprefs the very contrary. There is no difference whether the wife conveys away her fubstance by deed of gift or by act of law upon her marriage. Per Cur. It was determined upon this act in Rex v. Monday, that the words father and mother meant fuch as were fo in blood, but then that these are not chargeable in all inftances, but they must be fuch as are of fufficient ability. But this is a cafe where the mother is not of fufficient ability, being married at the time of the demand, and this demand is not a charge upon the eftate, but upon the perfon in refpect of the eftate; and if they are not of ability at the time when the demand arifes, they are not chargeable by this act. And the present cafe is exactly the fame with the Rex v. Monday, fo that we are of opinion that the father-in-law is not liable in refpect of any eftate he had with his wife.'

Rex v. Brograve, M. fo G. 3. The fpecial order of fef fions (dated the 5th April 1769) recited that Berney Brograve, efq. at fome time in the year 1763 appealed from a poors rate, for the parish of Worftead, and that upon a reference being made to three juftices, they, in order to fettle all difputes, recommended to the parties, to confent to the rate then made according to the method they had formerly taken, but did not particularly recommend or object to the mode of rating itself, which was that all occupiers of land in their several occupations, within the faid parish should be affeffed, at three fourths of the yearly value of such lands, and that all occupiers of houses fhould be affeffed after the rate of one moiety of their respective houses, to which rate all parties being then prefent did agree, and the affeffments in that parish continued to be made in that proportion from that time to the prefent, and that particularly on the fixth of January 1769, a rate was made in that propor tion, from which Mr. Brograve appealed. And now upon hearing the appeal, the appellant objected that he was rated for the profits of the fair in the faid parifh, which upon evidence appeared to be let by him to one Fowler, and also that H. Mid

H. Middleton, who occupied about feven acres of land as tenant to the appellant, was not rated for it. Hereupon the court amended the rate, by ftriking out the particular part wherein it appeared that the appellant was rated for the said fair, and by therein affeffing H. Middleton for the faid feven acres; the faid H. Middleton appearing in court and confenting to the fame, and confirmed the faid rate as to all the reft.The folicitor general infifted that there appeared a glaring inequality upon the face of the order; he faid that it could not be prefumed that the tax was made according to the yearly rent; because the tax was upon the occupier (not landlord) at the yearly value, which must be conftrued to mean the clear yearly value, after all deductions whatsoever had been duly eftimated and confidered, and in that cafe there can be no reafon for any diftinction between lands and houses. Lord Mansfield: If we were obliged to quash this rate, it would be because it appeared upon the face of it glaringly bad and unequal. It is argued that the yearly value means the clear yearly value after all deductions, and that we ought to put that construction upon it, and then the rate would be unequal. But as it may with propriety have another conftruction, we ought to put fuch conftruction upon it as will make it good. Mr. J. Yates, unlefs the rate appears upon, the face of it to be felf-evidently unequal, we cannot interpofe, for it is a clear fettled rule that we cannot decide upon the inequality; and that it is not selfovidently unequal, the argument which it has borne fhews. And as men and judges we cannot but know that there is a great difference between lands and houses, occafioned by the repairs and dangers incident to the latter. It has been faid indeed that occupiers must mean tenants. But I do not think fo, the contrary is the prefumption of law, and I therefore think that the rate ought to be confirmed, and that it has properly diftinguished between one fort of property and another. And the rule was difcharged, upon the motion of Mr. ferjeant Fofter.'

MONTHLY CATALOGUE.

POETRY,

12. The Merchant. A Naval Lyric: Written in Imitation of Pindar's Spirit. On the British Trade and Navigation, By E. Young, LL.D. 4to. 2s. 6d. Swan.

The reader may be affured the following noble Pindaric poem is undoubtedly the genuine production of the late Dr. Young; and we fhall not hesitate a moment to declare it worthy

of