the part of her reign, in which the effect of their writings began to be felt, is included in the same period with the reign of James the First, and part of that of Charles the First, under whom the improvement she had introduced was still making regular progression. The third is a remarkable instance of that sort of incoherent reasoning, to which Mr. Rose has frequently recourse. He says, it does not appear why our tranquillity having been uninterrupted should have influenced Mr. Fox's decision in this respect, because our being at peace or war could have no effect on our constitution.' Can this have been seriously thought, and deliberately written by Mr. Rose, who has taken a most active part in the politics of this country for the last thirty years? Without entering into the discussion of disputable and temporary questions, can it be denied that the burdens necessarily laid upon the people to maintain wars, and the tyrannical pressure of the feudal system in periods of public hostilities, did not add to the influence of the crown, and operate to the depression of the other branches of the legislature? And has our constitution, in modern times, undergone no changes, owing to those burdens? Has the funding system introduced no alterations? Desperate indeed must be the cases, in which the House of Commons could now be justified in disregarding the claims of the public creditors, and withholding the supplies; or the crown advised to give its negative to a bill which should have passed both houses of parliament. But, farther: does Mr. Rose doubt that a series of years, passed in uninterrupted tranquillity, must be favourable, in any reign, to the pursuits of literature? And, if so, might not this circumstance powerfully influence the mind of Mr. Fox in fixing the limit of the period in question? And may we not suspect that Mr. Rose here is arguing more for victory than conviction, and looking more to the fame of defeating his adversary, than the jus`tice of the cause, for which he combats?-The fourth objection is, that as little should the observation of Mr. Fox respecting the additional value that came to be set on a seat in the House of Commons have been a guide to him.' Mr. Fox had not in contemplation, as Mr. Rose seems to have had the pecuniary price paid for a seat in the House of Commons; he meant that, in the general estimation of mankind, its members were become more honourable and respected, and a seat more the object of ambition than it had been before. He did not allude, as to a market price, for a commodity, which cannot legally be sold at all. But what is the amount of Mr. Rose's argument? That in the year 1571, a seat having been purchased for five pounds, Mr. Fox's observation, that, at a subsequent period, an additional value was set upon one, is not well founded. This is certainly not very conclusive reasoning; for a seat might be sought after in 1571, and yet be more an object of anxiety in 1588, or 1640. But here we have a striking instance of carelessness in this most accurate writer, for the sum given for the seat, in the case alluded to, was not five pounds, but four pounds, and the story is told not in the fifth volume of the Journals, which he refers to, but 'the first."

Mr. Rose objected to the observation of Mr. Fox, that "the execution of the king was a far less violent measure than that of Lord Strafford," and Mr. Serjeant Heywood also meets him on this point. We have before stated our opinion on the passage, and to that we adhere; for it is to be recollected that Mr. Fox leaves it to conjecture, to discover his grounds for the observation. He himself enters into no explanation of it. But if we were to presume to supply a reason for him, we might say, perhaps, that with reference to the existing state of things when these acts were respectively perpetrated, the execution of Lord Strafford is to be considered as a flagrant breach of criminal justice, while the forms of the constitution were standing, and the laws of the land in force; whereas the murder of Charles was committed after the constitution had been previously overthrown, and a military despotism substituted in its place; so that not absolutely, but relatively speaking, he might mean that the execution of Charles was less violent than that of Strafford.

In respect to the solemnity and publicity of the trial of Charles the First, we have already disagreed in our view of it from both Mr. Fox and Mr. Hume. We have considered it as a spectacle rather degrading than splendid, under all the circumstances. We are disposed, however, to agree with Mr. Fox and his vindicator, that the publicity of that transaction was a circumstance rather subtracting from its iniquity. But as we do not discover that Mr. Fox has grounded upon it any positive praise of Cromwell, it does not appear to us that there was any justification for the following observation of Mr. Rose. "If such high praise was, in the judgment of Mr. Fox, due to Cromwell for the publicity of the proceedings against the king, how would he have found language sufficiently commendatory to express his admiration of the magnanimity of those who brought Lewis the Sixteenth to an open trial?"

The above inference of Mr. Rose attracts a very strong comment from the author of the Vindication, who complains of it as a very unfounded and unjust insinuation against the memory of his friend. He asks what high praise was there in saying that it was less base to execute openly, than to assassinate privately; and observes, that " what Mr. Fox had said of Charles the First, he might, alluding to its publicity, perhaps have said of that of Lewis the Sixteenth; namely, that it was less atrocious than if he had been murdered in private; but Mr. Fox could have been at no loss to find language sufficiently strong to convey the degree of praise, which, on such a view of the subject, belonged to the judges who condemned him." Mr. Serjeant Heywood thus con

tinues the defence, and a very effectual defence we consider it, of his late distinguished friend.

"Mr. Rose seems to think, that because Mr. Fox said something in extenuation of the execution of Charles the First, if it amounts even to extenuation, he must have said much in actual praise of that of Lewis the Sixteenth. But many reasons may be given why he should have condemned, as in fact he did condemn that act, without offering any thing in extenuation of it; it could be less excused by the plea of necessity, either from the character of the individual, or the circumstances of the times; it was less provoked by previous animosity and warfare; and even less remarkable for that appearance of splendour or magnanimity, which publicity can confer even on an atrocious act, among other reasons, because it was not the first instance of such an exhibition, and was obviously an imitation of that of Charles the First.

"But we will not detain the reader by the further discussion of fallacious suppositions and hypothetical arguments, when the statement of a few plain facts will put an end to all speculation. For Mr. Fox has expressed and enforced his sentiments in the House of Commons, repeatedly, and upon the most public occasions. His declarations may, possibly, have escaped the memory of Mr. Rose, though at the time they were made he must have been present to hear them, and they were circulated, and made the topic of conversation and party dispute in every corner of the kingdom afterwards. At that period Mr. Rose was not only a member of the House of Commons, but in an official situation, which required his regular attendance upon its sittings. Mr. Fox had conceived, that his speeches relative to France had been grossly misrepresented, and in consequence of his complaints, a more than ordinary attention was paid, both within the House and without, to his words and expressions, whenever any event, connected with the revolution in that country, was under discussion. An anxious wish to vindicate himself from these aspersions induced him to take more than one opportunity of declaring, in the House, his opinion upon the event to which Mr. Rose alludes.

"A register of parliamentary debates may not be always accurate in minute circumstances, or stating the precise expressions of a speaker, but it is not likely that the general substance of a speech should be mistaken, especially if the recollection of living witnesses confirms the written account. The Parliamentary Register states, that upon Thursday, 20th December, 1792, on the bringing up of the report of the Committee of Supply, granting 25,000 seamen, Mr. Fox said the proceedings with respect to the royal family of France, are so far from being magnanimity, justice or mercy, that they are directly the reverse, that they are injustice, cruelty, and pusillanimity,' and afterwards declared his wish for an address to his Majesty, to which he would add an expression, of our abhorrence of the proceedings against the royal family of France, in which, L

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have no doubt, we shall be supported by the whole country. If there can be any means suggested that will be better adapted to produce the unanimous concurrence of this House, and of all the country, with respect to the measure now under consideration in Paris, I should be obliged to any person for his better suggestion upon the subject.' Then, after stating that such address, especially if the Lords joined in it, must have a decisive influence in France, he added, 'I have said thus much, in order to contradict one of the most cruel misrepresentations of what I have before said in our late debates; and that my language may not be interpreted from the manner in which other gentlemen have chosen to answer it. I have spoken the genuine sentiments of my heart, and I anxiously wish the House to come to some resolution upon the subject.' And on the following day, when a copy of instructions sent to Earl Gower, signifying that he should leave Paris, was laid before the House of Commons, Mr. Fox said, He had heard it said, that the proceedings against the King of France are unnecessary. He would go a great deal farther, and say he believed them to be highly unjust; and not only repugnant to all the common feelings of mankind, but also contrary to all the fundamental principles of law,' &c.

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The execution of the king of France took place on the 21st day of January, 1793; and on Monday, 28th January, 1793, a message was presented to the House of Commons, laying before it the correspondence with Mr. Chauvelin, and the order to him, in consequence of the atrocious act recently perpetrated at Paris;' and also communicating the necessity to make a further augmentation of his Majesty's forces by sea and land. Upon this occasion, Mr. Fox said, With regard to that part of the communication from his Ma jesty which related to the late detestable scene exhibited in a neighbouring country, he could not suppose there were two opinions in that House; he knew they were all ready to declare their abhorrence of that abominable proceeding.'

"Two days afterwards, 1st February, 1793, in the debate on the message, Mr. Fox pronounced the condemnation and execution of the king to be 'an act as disgraceful as any that history recorded: and whatever opinions he might at any time have expressed in private conversation, he had expressed none certainly in that House on the justice of bringing kings to trial; revenge being unjustifiable, and punishment useless, where it could not operate either by way of prevention or example, he did not view with less detestation the injustice and inhumanity that had been committed towards that unhappy monarch. Not only were the rules of criminal justice, rules that, more than any other, ought to be strictly observed, violated with respect to him; not only was he tried and condemned without any existing law, to which he was personally amenable, and even contrary to laws that did actually exist; but the degrading circumstances of his imprisonment, the unnecessary and insulting asperity, with which he had been treated, the total want of republican magnanimity in the whole transaction, (for even in that House it could be no

offence to say that there might be such a thing as magnanimity in a republic) added every aggravation to the inhumanity and injustice.""

We shall not enter into the remainder of the discussion of Mr. Rose's complaints of Mr. Fox's general manner of treating the subjects of the king's execution, and Cromwell's usurpation and character. We have already made some observations upon it, and shall be sorry by dwelling upon it any longer to incur the imputation of a childish admiration of kings. Our prejudices are certainly strong in favour of mixed and limited monarchy; and though we flatter ourselves we yield neither to Mr. Fox nor Mr. Serjeant Heywood in the disposition to resist a tyrant, we feel for monarchs as we feel for men. As participators of the common lot of human infirmity, they are intitled to the common measure of charitable allowance. If there is a childish admiration of kings, there is also a prejudice against them fit only for the declamation of boys. Who does not despise the cant of Pope when he sings thus to his patron?

66 Awake, my St. John, leave all meaner things
To low ambition, and the pride of kings."

The character given of General Monk in the historical work is certainly not favourable, but we cannot think it an unfair one, and entirely agree with the judicious observations of Mr. Serjeant Heywood on the inference which Mr. Rose has drawn from it, to the disparagement of Mr. Fox's attachment to limited monarchy. The serjeant, in a very manly tone of feeling, calls upon Mr. Rose to point out a single instance in the historical work, from which it can be fairly inferred that he was not sincerely attached to a limited monarchy, and " though none can be found," says he, " we will not rank this among the unjustifiable artifices of a political partizan, to calumniate and injure the character of the principal opponent of his party, but lament that Mr. Rose should, under an influence he might not be sensible of himself, inadvertently insinuate that, which, upon reflection, he must be sorry he ever wrote." Mr. Rose is here also accused of a direct perversion of Mr. Fox's words into a sense which he never intended they should bear. The words of Mr. Fox were these. "It is impossible in reviewing the whole of this transaction not to remark, that a general who had gained his rank, reputation, and station, in the service of a republic, and of what he, as well as others called, however falsely, the cause of liberty, made no scruple to lay the nation prostrate at the feet of a monarch without a single provision in favour of that cause." Here, says Mr. Serjeant Heywood, Mr. Rose has laid hold of the expression, " in favour of the cause of liberty,"