in turn, upon Yorkshire? How is the money to be transmitted? What is the easy, and cheap remedy, if neglected to be paid? And if all this could be effected, what is it, after all, but the present system of removal rendered ten times more intricate, confused, and expensive? Perhaps Mr Scarlett means, that the parishes where these men worked, and which may happen to be within the jurisdiction of the Justices, are to be taxed in aid of the parish M, in proportion to the benefit they have received from the labour of men whose distresses they do not relieve. We must have then a detailed account of how much a certain carpenter worked in one parish, how much in another; and enter into a species of evidence absolutely interminable. We hope Mr Scarlett will not be angry with us-we entertain for his abilities and character the highest possible respect; but great lawyers have not leisure for these trifling details. It is very fortunate, that a clause so erroneous in its views should be so inaccurate in its construction. If it were easy to comprehend it, and possible to execute it, it would be necessary to repeal it.

The shortest way, however, of mending all this, will be entirely to omit this part of the Bill. We earnestly, but with very little hopes of success, exhort Mr Scarlett not to endanger the really important part of his project, by the introduction of a measure which has little to do with it, and which any Quarter-session country squire can do as well, or better than himself. The real question introduced by his Bill is, whether or not a limit shall be put to the Poor-Laws; and not only this, but whether their amount shall be gradually diminished. To this better and higher part of the law, we shall now address ourselves.

In this, however, as well as in the former part of his Bill, Mr Scarlett becomes frightened at his own enactments, and repeals himself. Parishes are first to relieve every person actually resident within them. This is no sooner enacted, than a provision is introduced to relieve them from this expense, tenfold more burthensome and expensive than the present system of removal. In the same manner, a maximum is very wisely and bravely enacted; and, in the following clause, is immediately repealed.

Provided also, and be it further Enacted, That if, by reason of any unusual scarcity of provisions, epidemic disease, or any other cause of a temporary or local nature, it shall be deemed expedient by the Overseers of the Poor, or other persons having, by virtue of any local Act of Parliament, the authority of Overseers of the Poor of any parish, township, or place, to make any addition to the sum assessed for the relief of the Poor, beyond the amount limited by this Act, it shall be lawful for the said Övcrseers, or such other persons, to give public notice in the several Churches, and other places

of worship, within the same parish, township, or place, and if there be no Church or Chapel within such place, then in the parish Church or Chapel next adjoining the same, of the place and time of a general meeting to be held by the inhabitants paying to the relief of the Poor within such parish, township, or place, for the purpose of considering the occasion, and the amount of the proposed addition; and if it shall appear to the majority of the persons assembled at such meeting, that such addition shall be necessary, then it shall be lawful to the Overseers or other persons having power to make assessments, to increase the assessment by the additional sum proposed and allowed at such meeting, and for the Justices by whom such rate is to be allowed, upon due proof upon oath to be made before them, of the resolution of such meeting, and that the same was held after sufficient public notice to allow such rate with the proposed addition, specifying the exact amount thereof, with the reasons for allowing the same, upon the face of the rate.'-Bill, p. 3.

It would really seem, from these and other qualifying provisions, as if Mr Scarlett had never reflected upon the consequences of his leading enactments till he had penned them; and that he then set about finding how he could prevent himself from doing what he meant to do. To what purpose enact a maximum, if that maximum may at any time be repealed by the majority of the parishioners? How will the compassion and charity which the Poor-Laws have set to sleep be awakened, when such a remedy is at hand as the repeal of the maximum by a vote of the parish? Will ardent and amiable men form themselves into voluntary associations to meet any sudden exigency of famine and epidemic disease, when this sleepy and sluggish method of overcoming the evil can be had recourse to? As soon as it becomes really impossible to increase the poor fund by lawwhen there is but little, and there can be no more, that little will be administered with the utmost caution; claims will be minutely inspected; idle manhood will not receive the scraps and crumbs which belong to failing old age; distress will make the poor provident and cautions; and all the good expected from the abolition of the Poor-Laws will begin to appear. But these expectations will be entirely frustrated, and every advantage of Mr Scarlett's Bill destroyed, by this fatal facility of eluding and repealing it.

The danger of insurrection is a circumstance worthy of the most serious consideration in discussing the propriety of a maximum. Mr Scarlett's Bill is an infaliible receipt for tumult and agitation, whenever corn is a little dearer than common. Repeal the maximum,' will be the clamour in every village; and wo be to those members of the village vestry who should oppose the measure. Whether it was really a year of scarcity,

and whether it was a proper season for expanding the bounty of the law, would be a question constantly and fiercely agitated between the farmers and the poor. If the maximum is to be quietly submitted to, its repeal must be rendered impossible but to the Legislature. Burn your ships, Mr Scarlett. You are doing a wise and a necessary thing; don't be afraid of yourself. Respect your own nest. Don't let clause A repeal clause B. Be stout. Take care that the Rat Lawyers on the Treasury Bench do not take the oysters out of your Bill, and leave you the shell. Do not yield one particle of the wisdom and philosophy of your measure to the country gentlemen of the earth.'

We object to a maximum which is not rendered a decreasing maximum. If definite sums were fixed for each village, which they could not exceed, that sum would, in a very few years, become a minimum, and an established claim. If 80s. were the sum allotted for a particular hamlet, the poor would very soon come to imagine that they were entitled to that precise sum, and the farmers that they were compelled to give it. Any maximum established should be a decreasing, but a very slowly decreasing maximum,-perhaps it should not decrease at a greater rate than ten shillings per cent. per annum.

It may be doubtful also, whether the first Bill should aim at repealing more than 20 per cent. of the present amount of the Poor-rates. This would be effected in forty years. Long before that time, the good or bad effects of the measure would be fairly estimated: If it is wise that it should proceed, let posterity do the rest. It is by no means necessary to destroy, in one moment, upon paper, a payment which cannot, without violating every principle of justice, and every consideration of safety and humanity, be extinguished in less than two centuries.

It is important for Mr Scarlett to consider, whether he will make the operation of his Bill immediate, or interpose two or three years between its enactment and first operation.

We entirely object to the following clause; the whole of which ought to be expunged.

And be it further enacted, That it shall not be lawful for any Churchwarden, Overseer, or Guardian of the Poor, or any other person having authority to administer Relief to the Poor, to allow or give, or for any Justice of the Peace to order, any relief to any person whatsoever, who shall be married after the passing of this Act, for himself, herself, or any part of his or her family, unless such poor person shall be actually, at the time of asking such relief, by reason of age, sickness, or bodily infirmity, unable to obtain a livelihood, and to support his or her family by work: Provided always, that nothing in this Clause contained shall be construed so as to authorize the granting relief, or making any order for relief, in cases where the same was not lawful before the passing of this Act.,'

Nothing in the whole Bill will occasion so much abuse and misrepresentation as this clause. It is upon this that the Radicals will first fasten. It will, of course, be explained into a prohibition of marriage to the poor; and will, in fact, create a marked distinction between two classes of paupers, and become a rallying point for insurrection. In fact, it is wholly unnecessary. As the funds for the relief of pauperism decrease, under the operation of a diminishing maximum, the first to whom relief is refused will be the young and the strong; in other words, the most absurd and extravagant consequences of the present Poor-Laws will be the first cured.

Such, then, is our conception of the Bill which ought to be brought into Parliament,-a maximum regulated by the greatest amount of poor-rates ever paid, and annually diminishing at the rate of ten shillings per cent. till they are reduced 20 per cent. of their present value; with such a preamble to the Bill as will make it fair and consistent for any future Parliament to continue the reduction. If Mr Scarlett will bring in a short and simple bill to this effect, and not mingle with it any other parochial improvements, and will persevere in such a bill for two or three years, we believe he will carry it; and we are certain he will confer, by such a measure, a lasting benefit upon his countryand upon none more than upon its labouring poor.

We presume there are very few persons who will imagine such a measure to be deficient in vigour. That the Poor-Laws should be stopped in their fatal encroachment upon property, and unhappy multiplication of the human species,-and not only this, but that the evil should be put in a state of diminution, would be an improvement of our condition almost beyond hope. The tendency of fears and objections will all lie the other way; and a bill of this nature will not be accused of inertness, but of rashness, cruelty, and innovation. We cannot now enter into the question of the Poor Laws, of all others that which has undergone the most frequent and earnest discussion. Our whole reasoning is founded upon the assumption, that no system of laws was ever so completely calculated to destroy industry, foresight, and economy in the poor; to extinguish compassion in the rich; and, by destroying the balance between the demand for, and supply of, labour, to spread a degraded population over a ruined land. Not to attempt the cure of this evil, would be criminal indolence: Not to cure it gradually, and compassionately, would be very wicked. To Mr Scarlett belongs the real merit of introducing the Bill. He will forgive us the freedom, perhaps the severity, of some of our remarks. We are sometimes not quite so smooth as we ought to be; but we hold Mr Scarlett in very high honour and estimation. He

is the greatest advocate perhaps of his time; and, without the slightest symptom of tail or whiskers-decorations, it is reported, now as characteristic of the English Bar as wigs and gowns in days of old-he has never carried his soul to the Treasury, and said, What will you give me for this?-he has never sold the warm feelings and honourable motives of his youth and manhood for an annual sum of money and an office-he has never taken a price for public liberty, and public happiness-he has never touched the political Aceldama, and signed the devil's bond for cursing tomorrow what he has blest to-day. Living in the midst of men who have disgraced it, he has cast honour upon his honourable profession; and has sought dignity, not from the Ermine and the Mace, but from a straight path and a spotless life.

ART. VII. History of the Persecutions endured by the Protestants of the South of France, and more especially of the Department of the Gard, during the Years 1814, 1815, 1816, &c. By MARK WILKS. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1821. pp. 613.

THE HE Protestants were delivered over to persecution by Louis XIV. as an atonement for his private frailties. They have been sacrificed, by his descendants, to form a party against the Revolution. He was engaged in measures of cruelty and injustice, in the hope of obtaining forgiveness of his sins. They have been persuaded to connive at murder and pillage, rather than offend the fanaticism they had armed in their cause.

The Calvinists had ceased to be a political party in France, before any thoughts were entertained by the government of converting them to the religion of the State. Their villes de sureté had been taken from them, and their political assemblies suppressed by Cardinal Richelieu; the chambres de l'edit for trying causes between them and Catholics had been abolished; their synods and consistories had been deprived of every sort of temporal jurisdiction; the great families that had professed their creed, when it served the purposes of ambition, had, in most cases, withdrawn from their communion; and the great body still attached to their faith, had neither the zeal nor the turbulence of their ancestors. Devoted to commerce and manufactures, the descendants of the ancient Hugonots were become peaceable, submissive subjects, rich and industrious citizens. No longer a political body in the State, they were merely a sect or party in the Church.

The theologians of both religions, it is true, continued to