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ber of useful regulations; many I have already specified [in the course of these Memoirs]: and I fhall fum up all, by faying, that there were no conditions, employments, or profeffions, to which his reflections did not extend; and that with fuch clearness and penetration, that the changes he projected could not be overthrown by the death of their author. It was his defire, he faid, that glory might influence his last years, and make them, at once, useful to the world, and acceptable to God: his was a mind, in which the ideas of what is great, uncommon, and beautiful, seem⚫ed to rife of themselves; hence it was, that he looked upon adversity as a mere tranfitory evil, and profperity as his natural ftate. He had drained fens, in order to a greater ← work than any he had yet undertaken; which was, to make, by canals, a communication from fea to fea, and from river to river: he wanted only time to complete his ⚫ noble project.

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I fhould deftroy all I have now faid of this great Prince, <if, after having praised him for an infinite number of qualities well worthy to be praifed, I did not acknowlege that they were ballanced by faults, and thofe, indeed, very great. I have not [in thefe Memoirs] concealed, or even palliated, his paffion for women; his attachment to gaming; his gentleness [which] often carried him to weakness; nor his propenfity to every kind of pleasure: I have neither difguifed the faults they made him commit, the foolish expences they led him into, nor the time they made him. wafte: but I have likewise observed, to do juftice on both fides, that his enemies have greatly exaggerated all these 6 errors. If he was, as they say, a flave to women, yet they never regulated his choice of Minifters, decided the deftinies of his fervants, or influenced the deliberations of his 'council. As much may be faid in extenuation of all his other faults. And to fum up all, in a word, what he has done is fufficient to fhew, that the good and bad in his cha-⚫racter had no proportion to each other; and that fince honour and fame have always had power enough to tear him from pleasure, we ought to acknowlege them to be his great and real paffions,"

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Inftitutes of Natural Law, being the fubftance of a course of lectures on Grotius de Jure Belli & Pacis, read in St. John's College, Cambridge. By T. Rutherforth, D. D. F. R. S. Archdeacon of Effex, and Chaplain to her Royal Highness the Princess Dowager of Wales. Volume the Second. 8vo. 75. Innys, &c.

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OR an account of the First Volume of this work, we refer our Readers to our Review, Vol XI. p. 293.

In the first volume were explained, the rights and obligations of mankind, confidered as individuals: but in this fecond vo lume, Dr. Rutherforth proceeds to take another view of thofe rights and obligations, by confidering man, not as an independent, folitary individual, but as a focial Being, united to fome community. And, indeed, human nature is fo little fitted to find ease and security, much less pleasure and happinefs, in folitude, that it is no less urged by its wants, and need of mutual fuccour, than prompted and impelled by benevolent affections, tender propenfities, and the love of beauty and order, to form itself into focieties, and contribute all it can to the advancement of a general good.

The Doctor, in his firft chapter, which treats of focieties in general, obferving, that a fociety may fometimes be founded in property, even when the members of it have unequal fhares in the joint ftock; cites the opinion of Grotius, that each perfon's vote, in regard to the management of affairs, fhould, in that cafe, be estimated, not upon the footing of equality, but exactly in proportion to the fhare that each has in the capital. But he remarks, that altho' this feems to be equitable, yet reafon is on the other fide, fince there is no more likelihood that a man fhould judge rightly about the management of fuch ftock, because he has ten fhares in it, than there would be, had he only one.

Were we to affume the decision of this contested point betwixt Grotius and our Doctor, we fhould incline to declare in favour of the former. For altho' we admit, with the Doctor, that wealth cannot, merely as a poffeffion, improve a man's understanding, or endow him with a fuperiority of judgment; and therefore ought not, confidered precisely in this view, to raise the authority of any one man above that of another, or make his vote of more importance than another's: yet allowing the man who has a fuperior share of property to be of equal capacity as to intellectual abilities, and of equal worth as to moral, with the man of lefs property in the fame

joint ftock; (for poverty no more exalts a man's understanding or virtue, than riches do) is it not reafonable to prefume, in this cafe, that the man who will be the greatest gainer by the fociety's fuccefs, and the greateft lofer by its misfortunes, will also be the man most attached to its welfare; and from intereft, fuperior intereft, exert his faculties with fuperior ardour, conftancy, and vigour, 'in its fervice? And has not the man, who may reasonably be fuppofed to act in this manner, a natural claim upon the fociety to a higher deof refpect? And would not the fociety be very imprudent, not to diftinguish such a man's vote, by giving it fome pre-eminence, and making it of fuperior import to that of others?

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This cafe of a fociety's being founded in property, is not only what happens fometimes among particular bodies of men in civil focieties, but is, to a very extensive degree, the case even of civil fociety itself, in all its forms; nay, these very forms feem principally to arise from the manner in which property is diftributed. When the property of a country, or the larger part of it, is in the hands of a King, it makes him an abfolute mafter; when in the hands of nobles, it forms an Ariftocracy; and when in the hands of a people, becomes the firmest basis of liberty, and popular happiness. We wish the Doctor had touched upon this: it would not have been impertinent to his fubject. But our Readers, fuch of them as defire farther information, may confult the celebrated Harrington's Oceana; where they will find the effects of property, and the rights arifing from it, accurately defcribed, and enumerated: of landed property particularly, which was the fort of property that, in Harrington's time, bore the greatest fway. We wish we could recommend our Readers to any fyftem, or differtation, upon the monied intereft, which is now much better understood than it was in Harrington's time, of equal value to that writer's, upon the landed intereft.

The Doctor having in his fecond chapter treated of the nature and origin of civil fociety, enters upon the confideration of civil power in his third; where he obferves, that as men were originally led to unite themselves, in civil societies, by a defire of afcertaining their several rights, and duties, in a joint way, and under the direction of a common understanding, as alfo with a view of fecuring themselves under the protection of a joint or common force; they muft of course, upon their civil union, erect and establish such powers as are neceffary for these purposes, viz. a power to fettle, or ascertain, by its joint or common understanding, the several rights and duties

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ties of the members of the fociety, and a power to act with a joint or common force, for the fociety's defence or fecurity. The former of thefe is called the Legiflative, the latter the Executive power. The former implies in it the power of making, altering, or repealing laws, of enacting penalties, and of taxing the fubject. The latter may be diftinguished into internal, external, and mixed. It may be called internal, when exercised upon members of the fociety; external, when exercised upon perfons neither belonging to the fociety, nor refiding in it; and mixed, when the fame fupreme magiftrate, or executive power, that appoints fubordinates in the external administration of that power, appoints them alfo in the internal; that is, appoints fubordinates in the civil, as well as in the military, function.

With refpect to these great and leading powers in fociety, the Legislative and Executive, our Doctor having described and diftinguished them by their peculiar and feparate employment, and tendency to procure and establish the security and well-being of fociety, confiders, in the next place, how they are connected together, and which of them may be juftly looked upon as the fuperior. The Doctor is of opinion, that the executive power is derived from, and ought always to be held, as, in a very great measure, dependent upon, and originally fubordinate to, the legislative. To prove this, as the executive power had been described as fpreading into three branches, internal, external, and mixed; and as the nature of the latter must be determined by that of the two former, which are its component parts, he, in the first place, takes a view of internal executive power, as connected with the legislative, and obferves, that if the judicial or civil branch, that is the internal of executive power, were not under the check and controul of the legislative, it would be more dangerous than useful; because it must be, in that case, either a brute force, uninformed and unguided by any intelligent principle; or else a difcretionary power. In the former cafe, the wrong or right application of it would be merely accidental; and in the latter, it would probably be oftner made use of as an instrument of private interest and undue favour, of avarice or oppreffion, of revenge or cruelty, than as the means of doing juftice to the public, and its feveral members. And fecondly, he remarks, concerning external executive power, that as a right to direct fuch affairs as relate to external jurisdiction, is naturally implied in the notion of legislative power, it follows, that in those particular focieties, where those entrusted with the external executive power act at their own difcretion,

cretion, and without controul, this fort of power must be confidered as connected, at least thus far, with the legislative, that tho' the fundamental laws of the conftitution may make it unconftitutional for the legislative body to reaffume this power in after times; yet there was originally no natural reafon, no reason drawn from the nature of civil fociety, against preventing fuch difcretionary power from being eftablished. And as to prerogative, tho' it belong to the legislative power, confidered as the common understanding, or joint fenfe of the body politic, to determine and direct what ought to be done; and to the executive, confidered as the common or joint ftrength of the whole, to carry what is refolved upon into execution; yet in those particular civil focieties, where the legislative and executive powers are lodged in different hands, it is ufual, especially when the legislative body is very extenfive, to allow those who have the executive power to act difcretionally in fome cafes: that is, in fome inftances, to have prerogative. And the only intelligible fubject of difpute about prerogative, is between the executive and legislative body, concerning the inftances where it takes place, and how far it does, or ought

to extend.

In the fourth chapter, where the different forms of civil governnent are taken notice of, the Doctor, fpeaking of the legislative and executive powers, fays, if we confider their nature, there will be no great difficulty in judging which of them is fupreme. The legislative is the joint understanding of the fociety, directing what is proper to be done, and is therefore naturally fuperior to the executive, which is the joint ftrength of the fociety, exerting itself in performing what it has been directed to do. As to defpotifm, the Doctor thus explains the matter. When the legislative and executive powers, instead of being placed in different persons or bodies of men, are vefted in the fame, the conftitution becomes then defpotic; for when these powers are vested in one man, it is an abfolute monarchy; when in a felect body of nobility, it is a defpotic Ariftocracy; when in the reprefentatives of a people, or in any part of them, not a majority of the whole it may properly enough be called a defpotic Democracy; and laftly, when in a body compounded of any two, or of all these parts, the conftitution, tho' mixed, will ftill be defpotic.

We cannot stop here, but muft accompany our judicious Doctor in the following noble reflection, worthy of a British Profeffor, and fit to be communicated to British readers. In all thefe cafes, fays he, the fame body which prescribes what is to be done, having the public force in its hands to compel the exe

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