Solicitors, and other practitioners, appear to have a sufficient participation in this gainful trade, to prevent them from making any complaint. It will, therefore, depend upon the public spirit of the country gentlemen, and the mercantile and maritime classes, whether Parliament shall be moved to abolish or reform this system.

It is matter of regret, that the former and last Commissioners, from a delicacy, perhaps, to the Writers to the Signet, have neither made any inquiry, nor reported to Parliament any opinion on this very important subject. Hence there is no provision on the subject in the new bill, although falling within the compass of the inquiry of the last Commissioncrs, and the professed object of the new bill.

The Commissioners in 1818, indeed, admit that they had not made the necessary inquiry, and were not prepared to state any opinion as to the expediency of introducing a more direct and simple form of personal execution." But with respect to the decrees of Sheriffs for suins to the amount of £.40, those Commissioners reported that signet hornings and captions were unnecessary, and that the decrees of Sheriffs, like those of Magistrates of Royal Burghs, should be an effectual warrant to poind or imprison," without any previous interposition of the Supreme Court." Their recommendation to this extent has, however, been hitherto disregarded by the Legislature. But the reasons in support of the recommendation, stated by the Commissioners, sufficiently shew the expediency of abolishing, in all cases, signet writs, and substituting a more simple and less expensive mode of bringing actions into court, and putting decrees into execution.

Although there is a quarto volume of the forms of the different writs passing the Signet, we conceive they may be resolved chiefly into two classes: 1, Summonses and arrestments, and inhibitions thereon; and, 2, Arrestments, inhibitions, hornings and poindings, and captions, following upon decrees.

1. Summonses.

In England, a person is generally cited to appear in Court by a short

writ directed to the Sheriff, and after citation and appearance of the defendant in Court, the cause of action is explained by the plaintiff, in a declaration. Anciently, a similar practice existed in Scotland. In virtue of the Act 1457, c. 62, a brieve was obtained from Chancery, ("the Kinges Chappel,") directed to the Sheriff, to call the parties before the Lordes of Session," to answer to a matter to be then laid against them. So late as 1672, the practice of engrossing in the summons a full statement of the facts and the conclusions, was unknown. This practice continued till 1723, when the Writers to the Signet obtained an Act of Sederunt directing the declaration and conclusions to be embodied in the summons, and a copy served on the defender. From the establishment of the College of Justice in 1537 till 1723, therefore, it appears that blank summonses were used. The same practice is still continued in the Admiralty and Teind Courts.

The modern practice of embodying a full statement in the summons seems to have been introduced chiefly to secure a monopoly to the Writers to the Signet. It appears to have no other recommendation. But by a decision of the House of Lords in 1800, the Solicitors were found entitled to a share in the monopoly.

The Scotch practice, however,ought, on general grounds, to be assimilated as near as possible to that of England. The remedy seems easy, and would be attended with very beneficial consequences. All that is necessary is to have either brieves or short summonses. If the last are preferred, let any statements, or averments of facts, be excluded, and the summons confined shortly to the name of the plaintiff and defendant,-the amount of the debt,-the conclusions,-and the warrant of citation. Of this no amendment should ever be permitted. The facts on which the summons is founded should be stated without argument separately, in a declaration, and served on the defender along with citation. The warrant of citation should be in a printed form, as in the Admiralty and Teind Courts, and contain warrant also to arrest and inhibit, and in that state should pass the Signet blank,

but be always libelled before service, or using arrestment or inhibition. The arrestment or inhibition should fall to the ground, unless the summons were lodged with the Clerk of Court, on expiry of the induciæ. A copy of the summons and executions, as an inhibition recorded in the record of inhibitions, like a copy of a petition for sequestration, should be a sufficient inhibition. Mr Forsyth, Advocate, who has perhaps had more practice, and is better skilled in Scots forms than any other counsel now at the Bar, concurs substantially in approving of this plan. "Return (says he, App. p. 148.,) to blank writs, or writs of style, shewing merely the nature of the demand. Let the pleadings in Court begin with a declaration, or claim by the pursuer, stating his case.'

"

2. Hornings, Cuptions, &c. When a decree is obtained, the extract should have appended, in a printed form, warrant to charge, arrest, inhibit, poind, and imprison;and no separate letters of horning and poinding, arrestment, and inhibition and caption, which are quite super fluous and unnecessary, should be permitted. The unnecessary and expensive forms of letters of suspension and advocation, which are abolished in maritime causes, but are carelessly intended by the new bill to be continued, should in all cases be abolished.

The average expense of raising and executing signet-letters, viz. summons, arrestment, inhibitions, suspensions, horning and poinding, and caption, may be stated from £. 10 to £.25 upon each debt, although, perhaps, not exceeding £.5 or £.10 in

ainount.

By the new plan proposed, the blank warrant of citation, arrestment, and inhibition, should cost about seven shillings, and all the other expenses of letters of horning, arrestment, &c. would be saved, cxcept a trifle for recording an inhibition or charge, because the warrants to arrest, poind, &c. would be contained in, and ap pended to the original decree.

If, again, these extracts and the copy for the record were allowed, as in the Jury Court, to be prepared by the agents themselves, one extractor might sign all the extracts of the Court of Session, and thus the whole expense of the absurd establishment of so many extractors might be saved.

The only objection to the economical plan proposed, is the vested interest of the Writers to the Signet. It would not be difficult to show that all the compensation which they could fairly claim would be very trifling. But their claims of com pensation should be no obstacle to such a national benefit. Let the Barons of Exchequer be empowered to examine these claims, and to sustain them in so far as may be just.

How sweet a little spot is here!
Who'd think, 'mid shapeless hills so drear,
To meet with such a scene?
It seems some fairy solitude,
Where elves resort in lightsome mood,

To sport 'mong copses green.
How calm the little lake doth lie,
Reflecting the soft Summer sky,

One sheet of azure hue! And, raising their round heads, are seen The wooded isles of softest green, Amid the waters blue.

Dark woods hemm'd round on every side,
And tow'ring hills extended wide,

Shut out the world unknown;
No human footstep presses here;
The wild fowl and the dappled deer
Make the lone spot their own.

O, from loath'd scenes of selfish strife,
Where dulness chills the springs of life,
How gladly I'd retreat

To this embow'ring solitude,
Where no vain cares or wrongs obtrude
The tranquil mind to fret!

All day, among the willows green,
I'd muse upon the varied scene

In soothing reverie;

The deer would pass me tamely by ;
The wild drake on his webb'd oars lie,
Not timorous of me.

And when at eve far to the woods,
The heron, angler of the floods,

Slow soaring took his flight;
I'd cross the blue lake in my skiff,
To the lone cot beside the cliff,
And dream of bliss all night!

C.

A SPECTATOR, placed on any part of the earth's surface, sees around him a certain limited portion of its surface, and this portion is called the visible horizon of that place. If the spectator advances twenty or thirty miles from his first position, in any direction, either east, west, north, or south, he will have an entirely new visible horizon, which will not contain any one of the objects which were seen in his first position. By advancing still farther, he will have another visible horizon, filled again with fresh objects, and bounded by a different portion of the earth. If the earth were perfectly globular, the boundaries of all these visible horizons would, in every position, be circles; but as the figure of the earth is that of an oblate spheroid, the boundaries of all the visible horizons, except when the spectator is at either of the poles, will be ellipses. Now the perpetual change of objects in the visible horizon cannot possibly arise from the inequalities of the earth's surface, considered as a plane of indefinite extent; for even from the highest mountains in one of the horizons, we cannot see the objects contained in the other. It follows, then, that the surface of the earth is not plane, but convex; and since this change in the visible horizon takes place equally, as to observation, in every part of the earth which has been visited, we are entitled to conclude that the earth is round. When the visible horizon is composed wholly of sea, we have occular proof of the earth's convexity. As a ship comes in sight, the top of the mast first appears, while the hull and the sails, at least the lower parts of them, are invisible.

We

next perceive more of the rigging, and, as she approaches, the whole of the vessel rises, as it were, above the horizon, or above the convexity of the sea; and the surface of the earth is nothing more than the continuation of the surface of the sea, in all directions, and raised a little farther from the earth's centre. The globular form of the earth is still more satisfactorily proved by the variation in the mid-day altitudes of

VOL. XV.

the sun, and the meridian altitudes of all the other heavenly bodies, when seen from different parts of its surface, or in different latitudes; and this variation, when accurately observed at two places, whose distance is known, or which we can measure, enables us to determine, with great accuracy, the diameter of the earth. It is difficult, however, when measuring the meridional distance between two places, to keep always exactly in that meridian; we may deviate a little to the one side or to the other, in consequence of which, our measured distance between the two places will be greater than the true distance. We can place upright poles, or other objects, in the meridian which lies between the two places, in the following manner: Let a transit instrument, at one of the places, be placed in the meridian, by the help of circumpolar stars, or otherwise; direct the telescope towards a distant object, some part of which is in the meridian. Upon this object make a mark, exactly in the direction of the vertical wire in the middle of the telescope; this point will be in the meridian: the same kind of operation may be made at the second station which was made at the first; and, in this manner, the meridian line may be continued as far as we please. When the dis tance between the two places is measured, and the difference between the zenith distances of a star situated on the same meridian, corresponding with the measured distance, is ascertained; this is what astronomers call the measure of a degree of the meridian. The measurement of two degrees, in the direction of the meridian, in two different latitudes, is sufficient to determine the two axes of the generating ellipse, and, consequently, the figure of the earth, supposing it to be elliptical. Several degrees have been measured, in different latitudes, and the result of these measurements is, that the mean diameter of the earth is about 7912 miles ;-that a degree of the meridian is longer at the poles than at the equator; and, therefore, that the earth is an oblate spheroid,

D