Thursday, 31st., went to Bathe, Mr. Ashe preached. Dined at the George Inn with the maior and citizens, spent at dinner 6s. in wine. Laid out in victuals, at the George, 11s. 4d.; laid out in tobacco and drinking vessels, 4s. 4d.; in drinking 6s. 2d.; 1 Jan. my father gave me £4 to pay my expenses at Bathe. Mr. Chapman, the maior, came to Kelston and returned thanks for my being chosen to serve in parliament, to my father, in the name of all the citizens. My father gave me good advice, touching my speaking in parliament, as the city should direct me. Came home late at night from Bathe, much troubled hereat, concerning my proceedings, truly, for men's good report and mine own safety." Note, I gave the city messenger 2s. for bearing the maior's letters to me. Laid out in all, £3 6s., for victuals, drink, and horse hire, together with divers gifts." Hone's E. D. B. At this period there was no need for much bribery; there might have began to be a little coaxing, something like the following from the "Patrician's Daughter :" My father was a man of toil, I mean of real toil, such toil as makes the hand Uncouth to sight, coarse, hard to touch; There are none here that would have touch'd that hand, Save at our elections-when all fingers Grow marvellously pliant!" But there was some bribery; for in the time of Elizabeth, there "was one Thomas Longe, (being a simple man, of small capacity to serve in parliament,) acknowledged that he had given the returning officer, and others of the borough, £4, for which he was chosen, and was for that premium elected. But for this offence the borough was amerced, the member was removed, and the officer was fined and imprisoned." (Commons' Journal, 1571.) And in Sir Henry Slingsby's Diary, is the following entry, respecting the election at Knaresborough, Anno. 1640: "There is an evil custom at such elections to bestow wine on all the town, which cost me sixteen pounds at least." When a person is chosen a member of Parliament he is obliged to serve; if he accepts a place of profit, he is then obliged to vacate his seat, but he may sit again if he is re-elected; occasionally, the minister wishes to elect a new man, who, with some peculiarity of talent, is able and willing to support his measures, but without a fresh general election, he may not have an opportunity for obtaining his services in the house of commons. During the last century, a way was discovered, by which a member may vacate at any time, which was by accepting the stewardship of the Chiltern hundreds, and there are two or three of these stewardships, all of which are complete sinecures, and the salary is only one sovereign per year, but still it is a place of profit; John Pitt, Esq., in 1750, was the first M. P., who retired from parliament by means of this newly discovered hole in the constitution. STATE TRIALS. "How history makes one shudder." ANTHONY WOOD. I think proper, to show the manners and customs of this half barbarous age, to give the following state trials, if trials such infamous proceedings may be called. Dr. Leighton, and Mr. Prynne, were both men of eminence, and, although their zeal in the good cause of reforming, their country led them too far; the present generation have much to thank them for. They were both good men, and of indomitable zeal, they not only felt the full force, but, for the benefit of future generations, they generously acted up to the following excellent maxim: "Go and kick an ant's nest about, and you will see the little laborious, courageous creatures instantly set to work to get it together again; and if you do this ten times over, they will do the same. Here is the sort of stuff that men must be made of to oppose with success those who, by whatever means, get possession of great and mischievous powers." Cobbett. And, as an encouragement to perseverance, Lord Byron writes, "If tyranny misses her first spring, she is as cowardly as the tiger, and retires to be hunted." “TRIAL BY JURY."—The learned Selden,* and no one need seek for higher authority, writes, "This was the trial wherein the people of this nation were made happy above all other people, and whereby the freemen as they had the legislative power, so likewise had they the juridical, and thereby, next unto God, an absolute dominion over themselves, and their estates." But, before this learned lawyer wrote this excellent work, there had been from time to time various courts piled one upon the other, which, for all useful purposes, such as protecting the people from the arbitrary power of the crown, were * Hist. Disc. on Government of England, by N. Bacon, ed. 1647. expressly founded to take away every vestige of this form of trial, which is the most noble institution that ever was framed by the judgment of man. These courts were erected under the plea of the royal prerogative. "The misapplication of the word "prerogative," (which simply means a privilege belonging to any one,) to our king's, like the misapplication of the word " Omnipotence," to our parliaments, was among the multitude of abominations of which the Norman lawyers were so prolific in favour of despotism. The word prerogative thus misapplied, is mere legal jargon, nearly allied to the pulpit impiety of divine rights of kings, ever covering something mysterious and mischievous. With reference to those who may still choose to use the word prerogative; be it observed, that where law can provide, there prerogative cannot exist."*' The reader will, I hope, now comprehend the nature of those courts, which, thanks to the changes brought about in those times, are entirely swept away. But they cannot sweep away the terrible punishments therein awarded. "Let holy rage, let persecution cease, DR. LEIGHTON.-About 1630, Archbishop Laud called before him, in the Star Chamber, Alexander Leighton, a Scotch puritan preacher, for writing against the Queen of Charles 1st. and the Bishops, in a book entitled, " An appeal to the Parliament, or Sion's Plea against Prelacy." The tone of the book was disrespectful, fanatic, and in some respects brutal; but we lose sight of its demerits in the atrocious punishment of the author, who vainly pleaded, in this infamous court, that he had offended through zeal, and not through any personal malice. He was degraded from the ministry, publicly whipped in Palace-yard, Westminster, near where this infamous court was situated, placed in the pillory for two hours, had an ear cut off, a nostril slit, and was branded on one of his cheeks, with the letters SS., "Sower of Sedition." After these detestable operations, he was sent back to prison; but at the end of one short week, before his wounds were healed, he was again dragged forth to another public whipping, the pillory,† the knife, and "The English constitution produced and illustrated," by John Cartwright, 1823. † Many readers will not be able to understand what the pillory means, and I trust they will never sce one; at the bottom of page 93, I have introduced the brand; and after he had been deprived of his other ear, slit in the other nostril, and burnt on the other cheek, he was thrust back into his dungeon, there to lie for life. After ten years, Leighton regained his liberty, but it was neither at the mercy of Laud, nor King Charles, but through that parliament, which destroyed alike the bishop and the king. The conduct of these men show they must have been tigers in disguise. How beautifully has Shakspeare depicted that amiable disposition, of which there does not seem to have been a particle in their nature. "The quality of mercy is not strain'd: It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven "The severe punishment of this unfortunate gentleman many people pitied, he being a person well known both for learning and other abilities; only his intemperate zeal (as his countrymen gave out,) prompted him to that mistake." Rushworth. Suppose this zealous gentleman had thus appealed to Laud. "Are we not brothers? so man and man should be, although it was not likely to have had the least effect; yet how superior do we now think one was to the other. MR. WILLIAM PRYNNE was a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, who, with Michael Sparkes, “a common publisher of unlawful and unlicensed books," Wm. Buckmer, and four other defendants, were, in Hilary term, 1634, brought before the court of Star Chamber, upon information filed by the Attorney General Noy. The offence charged was, that Mr. Prynne, about the eighth year of Charles's reign, (being the current year,) had compiled and put in print a libellous volume, entitled "Histrio-Mastix, the Player's Scourge, or Actor's Tragedie;" which was directed against all plays, masques, dances, masquerades, &c. "And although he knew well that his majesty's royal queen, the lords of the council, &c. were in their public festivals, oftentimes present spectators of some masques and dances, and many recrea one as a tail piece. This sort of punishment was very common, and at times, when the culprits' crime was such as to outrage the feelings of the populace, they would pelt them with rotten eggs, and other filth. I believe the last person who suffered this punishment, was Daniel Isaac Eaton, a very old bookseller; he was punished in this manner for selling the infidel works of Thomas Paine, but his venerable age had such an effect upon the populace, that instead of annoying him, they caressed him. tions that were tolerable, and in themselves sinless; and so declared to be by a book printed in the time of his royal majesty's father, (Book of Sports,) yet Mr. Prynne, in his book, had railed not only against stage plays, comedies, dancings, and all other exercises of the people, and against all such as frequent or behold them; but farther, in particular, against hunting, public festivals, Christmas keeping, bond-fires, and May-poles; nay, even against the dressing up of houses with green ivy." He was also accused of directly casting aspersions upon her majesty, the queen, and of stirring up the people to discontent against his majesty, whom he had treated with "terms unfit for so sacred a person." The fact was, Mr. Prynne was a learned fanatic, a spiritual ascetic, who conscientiously believed that plays and masquerades, and other sports, in which the queen and the court indulged to excess, were unlawful to Christians; and he particularly attempted to demonstrate, in his book of a thousand pages, that "by divers arguments, and by the authority of sundry texts of Scripture, of the whole primitive church of 55 synods, and councils, of 71 fathers and Christian writers, before the year of our Lord 1200, of above 150 foreign and domestic Protestant and Catholic authors, since of 40 heathen philosophers, &c.; and of our own English statutes, magistrates, universities, writers, preachers, that popular stage plays are sinful, lewd, ungodly spectacles, and most pernicious corruptions." Against masques and dancing, (the last a dangerous thing to touch when there was a French queen on the throne,) Mr. Prynne was equally severe. "If," said my Lord Cottington, upon the trial," Mr. Prynne should be demanded what he would have, he liketh nothing; no state or sex; music, dancing, &c. unlawful even in kings; no kind of recreation, no, not so much as hawking; all are d-d." But the whole tenor of the book, according to Noy, was not less against the orthodox church of England, than against their sacred majesties. "The music in the church," said the attorney general," the charitable term he gave it is not to be a noise of men, but rather a bleating of brute beasts; choristers bellow the tenor as it were oxen, bark a counter-point as a kennel of dogs, roar out a treble like a sort of bulls, grunt out a bass as it were a number of hogs; his complaint for suppressing repetitions by way of conventicles, also his general censure of the bishops and of all the clergy; they scorn to feed the poor, the silk and satin divines, very charitable terms upon them of the church! Christmas, as it is kept, is a d-l's Christmas, nay, he doth bestow a great number of pages to make men affect the name of Puri |