ing of such grants being revoked as invalid for want of it. Some of the fole-land was held by the thegns, or persons employed in military service, and called thegn-land; some by those engaged in the civil administration, the ealdermen and gerefan, or reves, and this was called reve-land; and some part was set apart for the expenses of the royal household, and said to be held in demesne, or let out to farm. Frequently folc-land was granted out, subject to certain services or payments, for the King's use; and this was the origin of the right of purveyance, afterwards so shamefully abused in the times of the Plantagenets and the Tudors. The land first known by the name of fole-land, afterwards came to be called Terra regia and crown land; but the expression comprehended both what belonged to the King for his own use; what he held as private property by a title unconnected with the crown; and what he was only nominally the owner of, and could not alienate, or in any way affect, without the consent of the national council. In process of time this distinction was obliterated: It became a maxim of the English law, that all lands holden by the King, even those which descended to him from relations unconnected with the crown, were held by him jure coronæ, and made part of the crown property; and he obtained, on the other hand, an absolute control over the crown property, unfettered by the Parliament in all respects, except that of devising it by will. The patrimony of the crown was thus dilapidated with scandalous profusion, until the statute of Anne restrained the power of alienation to grants for three lives, or 31 years; and it was only by a strange anomaly, that, in the reign of George III., the ancient Anglo-Saxon scheme wasrestored; the crown lands being vested in the public, and the King enabled to hold lands by purchase, in his private capacity, and to devise them by will.

Such, then, was the Royal Prerogative in all ages of our history-not absolute by law, though oftentimes stretched by violence and usurpation-not monarchical in the continental sense of the word, but limited and restrained by the rights of the people. Every one,' says Mr Allen, has read with disgust the indecent attempts of churchmen to impress a character of divinity on Kings, to inculcate on their subjects the obligations of passive obedience and non-resistance as religious duties, to found their title on a delegation from heaven, and, with impi*ous flattery, to exalt them above the Almighty, by maintaining, that the "most high, sacred, and transcendent" of relations is the "relation between King and subject." Every one has heard of the distinction made by judges and lawyers, in the 'times of the Tudors and Stuarts, between the ordinary and

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'extraordinary, or absolute, as they were pleased to call it, prerogative of the crown. Every one knows the abuses introduced into our government, under pretence of the sovereign power 'attributed in law books to the King of England. And every ❝ one must admire the resolution and firmness of our ancestors in combating and successfully resisting these pernicious doctrines.' Sir Thomas Wentworth, afterwards Earl of Strafford, friend of the crown though he was, opposed the addition propounded in the House of Lords to the Petition of Right, with these remarkable words, Let us leave to his Majesty to punish 'malefactors, but these laws are not acquainted with sovereign 'power.' Sovereign power,' says the illustrious Coke, the most learned of lawyers, yet one of the great patriarchs of English liberty, sovereign power is no Parliamentary word. Magna Charta and all our statutes are absolute, without any saving of 'sovereign power. Let us take heed what we yield unto. Magna 'Charta is such a fellow that he will have no sovereign.'-' I know (said Pym) how to add sovereign to the King's person, but not ' to his power. We cannot leave to him a sovereign power; for he was never possessed of it.' We subjoin the concluding passage of this admirable treatise, as pregnant with sound wisdom, breathing the genuine spirit of the constitution, and conveying, in language at once just and striking, the practical results of our author's profound researches, and inculcating a truth, at all times of the last importance to the well-being of the community:

In modern times the prerogative of the crown has been so strictly defined by law, and since the Revolution there has been fortunately a succession of Princes so little disposed to contend for an illegal extension of its boundaries, that though the old doctrines of absolute sovereignty and transcendent dominion still disfigure our law books, they are little heard of elsewhere. Occasionally, however, it happens, that in parliamentary discussions, assertions are hazarded of latent prerogatives in the crown, which are supposed to be inherent in the very nature of sovereignty. That such pretensions are unfounded, it is not difficult to make out. Every government that is not established by military force, or founded on the express consent of the people, must derive its authority from positive law or from long-continued usage. But, where law confers any power, it prescribes and directs the mode of administering the authority it bestows; and what has been given by usage, is necessarily regulated by usage in its exercise. A prerogative founded on usage, which cannot be enforced because it has fallen into desuetude, is a contradiction in terms. No one will pretend, that any prerogative of the King of England is founded either on military force or on the express consent of the people. Every prerogative of the crown must therefore be derived from statute or from pre

scription, and in either case there must be a legal and established mode of exercising it. Where no such mode can be pointed out, we may be assured that the prerogative so boldly claimed is derived neither from law nor usage, but founded on a theory of monarchy, imported from abroad, subversive of law and liberty, and alien to the spirit as well as to the practice of our constitution. In England there are no latent powers of government, but those possessed by the supreme and sovereign authority of the state. The King is our sovereign lord; but he does not possess the sovereign authority of the commonwealth, which is vested, not in the King singly, but in the King, Lords, and Commons jointly. When we hear of a prerogative inherent in the crown, which the King has no legal means of exercising, we may be certain that it has no existence but in speculative notions of government. Emergencies may arise, where it is neces◄ sary for the safety of the state to commit additional powers to the persons intrusted with its defence. But when such cases occur, we are to be guided by considerations of reason and expediency in the powers we confer, and not by vain and empty theories of prerogative, which the very act we are called upon to perform proves to be futile and unfounded.

Independently, however, of this practical inference, we hold the light which this book throws upon the early history of our constitution to be of the greatest importance. It shows us that, whatever the slavish propensities of priests or lawyers may have affected to believe, absolute power never was of right, and by law, naturalized in England; that freedom never was an exotic or a stranger, but the birthright and inheritance of Englishmen ; that the presumption where no law or usage appears is always in favour of liberty, and against royal prerogative; that it is in no case for the subject to show his title to be free, but for the monarch to prove his right to oppress. Those who deem all former times to have been less enlightened than our own, are, generally speaking, correct in their assumptions; but it by no means follows that, the farther we go back into history, the less advanced we shall find the independence of the people, and the more absolute the rule of the prince. Men are not by any means less jealous of their rights in early than in advanced stages of society. It often, indeed, happens, that the same refinements which enlarge the intellect and polish the manners of a community, relax its love of independence, and prepare the way for encroachments upon its rights. And the proposition is any thing rather than accurate, which regards the liberty of early times as on a level with their civilisation.

ART. IX.-Œuvres Complètes de THOMAS REID, chef de l'Ecole Ecossaise. Publiées par M. TH. JOUFFROY, avec des Fragments de M. ROYER-COLLARD, et une Introduction de l'Editeur. Tomes II.-VI. 8vo. Paris: 1828-9. (Not completed.)

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WE rejoice in the publication of this work,-and for two

reasons. We hail it as another sign of the convalescence of philosophy, in a great and influential nation; and prize it as a seasonable testimony by intelligent foreigners, to the merits of a philosopher, whose reputation is, for the moment, under an eclipse at home.

We are pleased by the appearance of this translation of the works of Reid-in Paris-and under the auspices of so distinguished an editor as M. Jouffroy, less, certainly, as indicating the triumph of any particular system or school, than as a pledge, among many others, of the zealous, yet liberal and unexclusive, spirit with which the science of mind has of late been cultivated in France. The contrast which the present philosophical enthu siasm of France exhibits to the speculative apathy of Britain, is any thing, indeed, but flattering to ourselves. The new spirit of metaphysical enquiry, which the French imbibed from Ger many and Scotland, arose with them precisely at the time when the popularity of psychological researches began to decline with us; and now, when all interest in these speculations seems here to be extinct, they are there seen flourishing in public favour, with a universality and vigour corresponding to their encouragement.

The only example that can be adduced of any interest in such subjects, recently exhibited in this country, is the favourable reception of Dr Brown's Lectures on the Philosophy of the Mind. This work, however, we regard as a concurrent cause of the very indifference we lament, and as a striking proof of its reality.

As a cause ;-these lectures have certainly done much to justify the general neglect of the study they were intended to promote. Dr Brown's high reputation for metaphysical acuteness, gave a presumptive authority to any doctrine he might promulgate; and the personal relations in which he stood to Mr Stewart, afforded every assurance, that he would not revolt against that philosopher's opinions, rashly, or except on grounds that would fully vindicate his dissent. In these circumstances, what was the impression on the public mind, when all that was deemed best established, all that was claimed as original and most important in the philosophy of Reid and Stewart, was proclaimed by their disciple and successor to be nought but a series of misconceptions, only less wonderful in their commission than in the general acquiescence

in their truth? Confidence was at once withdrawn from a pursuit, in which the most sagacious enquirers were thus at fault; and the few who did not relinquish the study in despair, clung with implicit faith to the revelation of the new apostle.

As a proof-these lectures afford evidence of how greatly talent has, of late, been withdrawn from the field of metaphysical discussion. This work has now been before the world for ten years, In itself it combines many of the qualities calculated to attract public, and even popular, attention; while its admirers have exhausted hyperbole in its praise, and disparaged every philo sophie name to exalt the reputation of its author. Yet, though attention has been thus concentred on these lectures for so long a period, and though the high ability, and higher autho rity, of Dr Brown, deserved, and would have recompensed, the labour; we are not aware that, with one exception,* any adequate attempt has yet been made to subject them, in whole or in part, to an enlightened and impartial criticism. The radical inconsistencies which they involve, in every branch of theirsubject, remain undeveloped; their unacknowledged appropriations are still lauded as original ;+ their endless mistakes, in the history of philosophy, stand yet uncorrected; and their frequent misre presentations of other philosophers continue to mislead. In particular, nothing has more convinced us of the general neglect, in this country, of psychological science, than that Dr. Brown's

*We refer to Sir James Mackintosh's chapter on Dr Brown, in his late admirable Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, prefixed to the new edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

We shall, in the sequel, afford a sample of these inconsistencies,' 'mistakes,' and 'misrepresentations,' of Dr Brown: to complete the cycle, and vindicate our assertion, we here adduce one specimen of the way in which discoveries have been lavished on him, in consequence of his omission (excusable in the circumstances) to advertise the reader when hẻ was not original. Brown's doctrine of Generalization, is identical with that commonly taught by philosophers not Scottish; and, among these, by authors, with whose works his lectures prove him to bave been well acquainted. But if a writer, one of the best informed of those who, in this country, have of late cultivated this branch of philosophy, could, among other expressions equally encomiastic, speak of his return to the vulgar opinion, on such a point, as of a discovery, &c. which will, in all future ages, be regarded as one of the most important steps ever made in metaphysical science; how incompetent must ordinary readers be to place Brown on his proper level,-how desirable would have been a critical examination of his Lectures to distribute to him his own, and to estimate his property at its true value?