THE BEAUTIES OF THE LATE Right Hon. EDMUND BURKE, SELECTED FROM THE WRITINGS, &c. OF THAT EXTRAORDINARY MAN, ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED. Including the following celebrated Political Characters, drawn by himself; Late Mr. Grenville Warren Hastings, Esq; Late Lord Keppel Sir Hercules Langrihe Louis XVI. Louis XVIII. Lord North Right Honourable William Pitt Marquis of Rockingham Charles Townsend Efq; John Wilkes, Esq; &c. &c. TO WHICH IS PREFIXED, A SKETCH OF THE LIFE, WITH SOME ORIGINAL ANECDOTES OF Mr. BURKE. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. London: PRINTED BY J. W. MYERS, No. 2, PATERNOSTER-ROW; AND MAY BE HAD OF ALL THE BOOKSELLIRS. English 18983 THE 7.17-29. EHW LAW-As a Science of methodized and artificial Equity, abolished in France. A Government of the nature of that set up at our very door (France) has never been hitherto seen or even imagined in Europe. What our relation to it will be cannot be judged by other relations. It is a serious thing to have a connection with a people who live only under positive, arbitrary, and changeable institutions; and those not perfected nor supplied, nor explained by any common acknowledged rule of moral science. I remember that in one of my last conversations with the late Lord Camden, we were struck much in the same manner with the abolition in France of the law, as a science of methodized and artificial equity. France, since her revolution, is under the sway of a sect, whose leaders have deliberately, at one stroke, demolished the whole body of that jurisprudence which France had pretty nearly in common with other civilized countries. In that jurisprudence were contained the elements and principles of the law of nations, the great ligament of mankind. With the law they have of course destroyed all seminaries in which jurisprudence was taught, as well as all the corporations established for its conservation. I have not heard of any country, whether in Europe or Afia, or even in Africa, on this side of Mount Atlas, which is wholly without some such colleges and such corporations, except France. No man, in a public or private concern, can divine by what rule or principle her judgınents are to be directed; nor is there to be found a Professor in any University, or a Practitioner in any Court, who will hazard an opinion of what is or is not law in France, in any case whatever. They have not only annulled all their old treaties, but they have renounced the law of nations, from whence treaties have their force. |