sought to awake her out of the trancewould have remarked on her abstracted manner, or rallied her on her silence. Clayton merely mounted his horse and rode quietly by her side, while Harry, passing on before them, was soon out of sight." The whole progress of Nina's character from this time forward is such as to make us fully pardon her former vulgar levities. Her conduct to her slaves, when they are overwhelmed by the visitation of cholera, is truly feminine and noble, and her own last hours awaken our softest emotions. The night walking on with silent and solemn footsteps, and the cadence of soft showers upon the murmuring leaves without, while inside the chamber the appointed bride is dying, form a picture in which there is true harmony, both of thought and colouring. A painter might tell us the tale upon his canvass, even to the sound of the rain-drops upon the leaves; and to inquire if the written picture could be so delineated as to be understood without the aid of narrative, is perhaps as severe, though just, a criterion as could be brought to bear upon it. Yet even here we trace the progress of Mrs Stowe's great dilemma. The pestilence being, for reasons which we have above assigned, substituted for the servile insurrection, and by this means Dred's prophecies being unexpectedly fulfilled, the interest of the story is necessarily invested in the development of Nina's better character, and the pathos of her dying hours. But did any one ever hear of a case of cholera progressing and terminating in the painless and quiet manner described by Mrs Stowe? No doubt, when the state of collapse has arrived, the writhings and agonising cries of the patient are succeeded by the silent work "of death, that captor and deliverer." But in the absence of any assurance in the shape of a footnote, that the writer has witnessed or heard of such a case of cholera, we can only trace in the necessity to substitute, for a servile insurrection, that particular pestilence-an after necessity to transgress the rules of art by representing a death-scene out of all nature considered in connection with the particular cause of death. As a little girl naïvely remarked to ourselves-"People don't die of the cholera in that noiseless manner!" Little room is left to us-and little will be enough to consider the book as the work of a political philosopher. As such we cannot commend it. We complain of its animus and of its teaching. In fact, Mrs Stowe, being an extreme abolitionist, would convince her readers that between the triumph of her own views and the predominance of the slave party there is no choice. Hence the climax of Edward Clayton's career, and hence his father's judgment 66 66 THE POWER OF THE MASTER MUST BE ABSOLUTE TO RENDER THE SUBMISSION OF THE SLAVE PERFECT." What Mrs Stowe desires to impress upon us--but what we are not convinced of is, that nothing can be done towards the mitigation of slavery. Our surprise, however, that upon a question which she has made so peculiarly her own, she has thrown so small a light, was lessened when we read the following passage :Of course," said Clayton, a man's notions on such a subject MUST BE CRUDE; but it occurred to me first to ENDEAVOUR TO EXCITE THE PUBLIC MIND on the injustice of the present slave law, with a view to altering it." Exactly. This was the object effected by Uncle Tom; and now that, with the view of turning it to account, Dred lies before us, we see all the symptoms of the original crudity. Because Clayton is thwarted in his attempt to educate his slavesbecause the effort of an individual to act contrary to the law is baulked by the malevolence of a private enemy; therefore must abolition be decreed, and we are to summon the furies of civil war. But evidently the question must be decided, not by an individual-and certainly not by a Clayton-but by the legislature and executive of America. Clayton, the lawyer and member of Congress, could have done much more to solve it than Clayton the landed proprie tor, who succumbs without resistance to Tom Gordon. The question is happily not an English one, though England is deeply interested in its peaceful solution. Plainly it is desirable that America should remain united, and equally evident to ourselves at least it is that she can only maintain her unity by arresting the progress of slavery. This is the first thing which must be done; and in order to effect it, two more are essential: the strengthening of the arm of the executive, and the allaying of that bitter spirit which Mrs Stowe would keep alive. Guided by the lights of her wisest statesmen-of the ancients and sages of her history -America should revert to the law which forbade the incorporation of new slave States in her system. Serfdom should then supplant slavery. The trade should be abolished, the slaves become inseparable from the land, and so the master's interest made one with theirs. Thus made inseparable from the land, they should form the peculiar care of the State executive. They should be the peculiar care, also, we think, of the Government of America-of the federal executive as much as of the executive of the "State." Why should not a commission be issued from time to time -we mean a commission from the President-for the doing of justice to the slave population? Nay-admitting the impossibility of preventing over-severity of punishment when hastily-though justly perhaps-administered, why should not the instrument of correction be prescribed, and the number of lashes limited for the more formal occasions of chastisement? These are hints-we mean them for no more. The practicability of such suggestions rests, first, upon the general recognition of the evil of slavery; and, second, on the purity of the ermine of America and the sharpness of her civil sword. On the abatement of party-spirit and the nourishment of patriotism depends mainly the first of these questions. Slavery will not be recognised as an evil to the commonwealth by men who have lost all sympathy with a moiety of the commonwealth. Even Mrs Stowe admits that the desire to abolish it is not absent in the South. We recommend her to reason on the question, but so as we can read her reasoning. We advise her by all means also to appeal to American hearts (which she is able to do), but not to fan the flame of American passions. We have judged her as a moral artist," and found her portraits disfigured and her picture incongruous. Would she achieve the highest aim of an artist-to impress upon us the unity of his design, and the purity and simplicity of his taste -let her imitate the skill, as perhaps she could rival the pathos, of the following beautiful poem of her own countryman : "The slaver on the broad lagoon And for the evening gale. Odours of orange-flowers and spice Reached them from time to time, Like airs that breathe from Paradise Upon a world of crime. The planter, under his roof of thatch, In yonder broad lagoon; And the rising of the moon.' Her arms and neck were bare, As holy, meek, and faint, As lights in some cathedral aisle The soil is barren-the farm is old,' Her hands as icy cold. He led her by the hand, THE ENGLISH ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS. WE are tempted to exclaim of the English Ecclesiastical Courts what has been often said of the Church they belong to that some divinity must hedge about their cause, so deadly have been the assaults they have sustained, so apparently desperate the diseases they continue to survive. The difference is, that while the abuses of the Church are overbalanced by the general conviction of her many and priceless advantages, the Courts, universally condemned, continue to drag along a dishonoured existence from the yet greater aversion which is due to the substitutes proposed in their place. It is not in this instance that "we fear the ills we have, rather than rush on others that we know not of." So conservative a sentiment, indeed, seldom checks the progress of modern legislation. But reformers of ecclesiastical jurisprudence have hitherto so managed a cause universally popular, as to make their supporters palpably feel that the remedy is worse than the disease. The patient public, therefore, goes on grumbling and bearing, only becoming more hopeless and passive as another and another still succeeds in the doomed procession of ill-considered or interested reforms. ever It has been the fashion in some quarters to charge the failure of every successive measure on the opposition of the Church and the practitioners in Doctors' Commons. No charge, we believe, was more unjust. What interest the Church can have in preserving abuses from which she is herself the principal sufferer, it passes an ordinary mind to conjecture. The appointments in the patronage of her prelates are too few, or too unimportant, to outweigh the general feeling of the clergy, which is notoriously in favour of a reform. The complaint of almost every clergyman you meet with is, that the church courts are wholly inadequate to their proper ends; that by the cost and uncertainty of their process, they corrupt instead of administering ecclesiastical discipline, vexing the hard-working parish priest at the instigation of some ill-conditioned schismatic, and enabling the criminous clerk" to retain the benefice or dignity which he disgraces, in spite of every effort of the bishop to remove him. Neither do we believe the intelligent and valuable profession connected with Doctors' Commons to be so deeply enamoured of the curious and antiquated mysteries of their craft, or so far behind the rest of the community in the race of legal reform, as not to desire the removal of every proved abuse in the courts where they practise. We have often, however, the duty of remarking that it is one thing to reform and another to destroy. Neither the Church nor the doctors and proctors can patiently allow their whole system and convictions to be sacrificed to a theory or a job; and such, we fear, has been too often the real nature of measures introduced under the captivating character of a reform of the ecclesiastical courts. To understand the genuine bearings of a question which will in all probability engage a leading share of attention in the approaching session of Parliament, we must briefly review the origin and extent of the several branches of jurisprudence that will have to be dealt with. The ecclesiastical jurisdiction has descended to the Church of England, with little alteration, from the period before the Reformation. The peculiar feature of that gigantic movement, as there carried out, was the reform, not the abolition, of existing institutions. With the episcopal succession was preserved all that was possible of its ancient power and authority, and accordingly the ecclesiastical courts were continued on their former footing, save that the Crown was substituted for the Pope as the appeal in the last resort, and all laws and precedents were declared invalid which should * F militate against the royal supremacy, or the laws and usage of the realm. With these two grand limitations, the ecclesiastical tribunals were left in the exercise of their ancient jurisdiction, and continued to administer the received laws and discipline of the Church, which comprehended both the civil and canon law of Rome, and even such papal decrees as had been received in England, and were not invalidated by the general provisoes before named. It was designed, indeed, to effect a complete revision of the ecclesiastical law and jurisdiction. For this purpose commissions were issued by Henry VIII. and Edward VI. to the most learned divines, civilians, and common lawyers of the day. The result of their labours (in which a leading share was taken by Archbishop Cranmer) was the well-known code entitled "Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum." This elaborate compilation would certainly have become the law of the land but for the untimely death of Edward, who was prepared to go all lengths in the cause of the Protestant Reformation. It was regarded with other eyes by Elizabeth and her legislature. The spiritual courts, deprived of their foreign appeal, and to a great extent of their power of persecuting, had lost much of their terror in the eyes of the laity. Comparatively few of that class could now expect to make personal acquaintance with their dim mysterious recesses. The ravenous beast which had glutted itself with Protestant blood, lay smitten by a powerful arm, and might be left to die in its den. On the other hand, the new ecclesiastical code was a vigorous measure of genuine Protestant church discipline, standing sharply out in high elabo * rate relief, and dealing, with no gentle hand, condign justice on offenders, lay as well as clerical. If our readers have the curiosity to consult the last edition by Dr Cardwell, printed at the Oxford Clarendon Press in 1850, and constituting a goodly octavo of 344 pages, they will there find distributed, under fifty titles, a catalogue of religious dogmata, accompanied by penalties upon heresy, blasphemy,* idolatry, defamation, adultery, and other immoralities, enough to make both Houses of Parliament quake in their honourable and right honourable shoes. Moreover, the process of ecclesiastical censures-happily known to few-is there revealed with a terrible distinctness, inviting the reader, amid shiverings which even Sir John Speke's elegant Latinity cannot control, to contemplate the amendment of his soul's health, not only by suspension and excommunication from the sacred mysteries, but by the more mundane expedients of perpetual imprisonment and exile. Further, the withholding of tithes and the alienation of church goods were dealt with by this uncompromising measure in a spirit that could not but prove odious in the extreme to the numerous class of Protestants, who have always considered the appropriation of "surplus church revenues"-to adopt the euphuism of a later day-one of the most valuable prerogatives of civil and religi ous liberty. Lastly, the queen herself was notoriously indignant at all legislation on ecclesiastical affairs that did not emanate from her own most royal authority. For these and other reasons which we forbear to touch upon, it excites but little surprise that a Church Discipline Bill of these portentous dimensions was unable to pass in Blasphemy is designed to be the utterance of any reproach (convitium) upon God or the things pertaining to the Divine Majesty, whether from a fixed contempt, vel fervescente furoris impetu, and is to be punished as heresy by excommunication, and delivery to the secular arm. "Laicus adulterii damnatus uxori suæ dotem restituito; deinde bonorum universorum dimidiam partem eidem uxori concedito. Præterea, vel in perpetuum exilium ito, vel æternæ carceris custodia mancipator."-De Adulteriis, cap. 3, p. 50. So also, by cap. 4, wives offending in the same manner are to forfeit all claim to their own or their husbands' property, and be sent into perpetual exile, or consigned to a dungeon for life! Parliament; and as honest Strype lugubriously remarks, "all that good pains is lost and fallen to the ground. With this failure under Queen Elizabeth, the design of a thorough reform of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction seems to have been laid aside. Public attention was engrossed by the Courts of High Commission and Star Chamber, where the Stuarts began to push the newly-acquired prerogative to an extent that went far to disgust the nation with that great instrument of the Reformation. On the restoration of the monarchy and the church, security was taken by the Legislature against the repetition of these excesses on the part of the Regale. By the repeal of the clause in Queen Elizabeth's statute, which had authorised the extraordinary tribunals complained of, the spiritual jurisdiction was reduced to its ancient and constitutional channels. Other reforms would probably have followed, could the Puritans have been satisfied with any terms of conformity which it was possible for the bishops to concede. But while the canons, Liturgy, and whole discipline of the Church were the subjects of discussion and complaint, there was little time to consider the state of the court in which its laws were enforced. At the Revolution, an ill-considered attempt was made to surprise the Church and the country into a latitudinarian comprehension, upon the failure of which nothing was cared for but protection to the Nonconformists, who now assumed a permanent position without the pale of the Establishment. By the Toleration Acts a large portion of the nation was practically withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts, which were then allowed to prolong a crippled and suspected existence, till they should encounter the scrutiny of some more competent or more ruthless reformers. The next blow was inflicted by the statute 53 Geo. III. cap. 127. The only means which the spiritual judge had hitherto possessed of enforcing citation, process, or sentence, was by proceeding to excommunicate the recusant party, after which he was not only excluded from all spiritual privileges, but involved in temporal punishments of no little severity. An excommunicated person was disabled from giving evidence or maintaining a suit in the courts of law, from making a will, and from administering to the effects of another. In addition to all which, on the sentence being certified to the king in Chancery, a suit de excommunicato capiendo was issued, under which the delinquent was arrested, and consigned to prison till absolved by the ecclesiastical tribunal. This tremendous censure being, as we have said, the only weapon which the spiritual judge could wield against a defendant who should persist in disregarding his affectionate admonitions for his soul's health, it was often brought into play_upon suits for tithes, church-rates, Easter dues, and other temporal accidents of the spiritual function. By the statute referred to, the ecclesiastical courts were restrained from giving sentence of excommunication against the recalcitrant party in suits of this kind, and directed instead to pronounce him contumacious, on the signification of which to the king in Chancery, a suit was authorised de contumace capiendo, similar to the old one de excommunicato, and the delinquent was to be imprisoned as before, till he should have purged his contempt by obeying the court and discharging the costs. The statute provided further that small tithes and church-rates might be recovered before justices, thus again practically withdrawing a considerable amount of litigation from the spiritual courts; and finally, it enacted that in cases where these courts were still authorised to pronounce sentence of excommunication-that is to say, as a spiritual censure for an offence of ecclesiastical cognisance-the sentence should be attended by no civil penalty or incapacity, beyond six months' imprisonment under the suit de excommunicato capiendo. This last enactment, obviously dictated by jealousy of the spiritual tribunal as much as by concern for the liberty of the subject, rendered the ecclesiastical courts absolutely powerless in the |