I am not master of them, and so choose rather not to attempt those graces than, by mere imitation, to weaken the subject to the less educated part of my readers, without approving myself to the nicer judgment of the more learned and skilful.

"Idleness of mind," says Burton in his Anatomy of Melancholy, "is the badge of gentry, the bane of body and mind, the nurse of naughtiness, the stepmother of discipline, the chief author of all mischief, one of the seven deadly sins, the cushion upon which the devil reposes, and a great cause of melancholy."

Lord Coke wrote the subjoined distich, which he religiously observed in the distribution of his time:

"Six hours to sleep-to law's grave study six;

Four spent in prayer-the rest to nature fix."

Sir W. Jones, a wiser economist of the fleeting hours of life, amended the sentiment in the following lines:

"Seven hours to law-to soothing slumber seven;
Ten to the world allot,—and all to Heaven."

I have done herein nothing unworthy of myself and legal studies, anxiously employed. In a word, I have endeavoured to be useful, without pretending to be learned. I have compiled this diminutive

expositor with a view to the better understanding, es-pecially by JURYMEN in general, of the laws which regulate the most admirable of all our time-honoured institutions, TRIAL BY JURY.

My introductory matter is of a kind somewhat deserving notice, although chiefly relating to criminal jurisprudence-morality the elementary power of empire the homes of England-maxims of law-the vices of mankind-statistics of crime in England and Scotland, &c. One word only on this last topic. The recent amendment of our penal code, together with an amelioration of the severity of criminal punishment, is, indeed, a subject for national congratulation. That crimes are less frequent, now that mercy is permitted to take the place of severity, is certain; and, since rational substitutes have been found for the punishment of death, we may safely expect a larger diminution in the number of penal offences.

The object of all law is the prevention of crime, the preservation of the Queen's peace, and the faithful conservation of life and property, together with our public institutions, in church and state. Simple, indeed, are the rules of which English law is composed. Beneficent in its

intentions, we invariably find it acting by rule, and not governing by will. In the absence of a sound scriptural education, necessity is known to be one of the chief incitements to vice and depravity. From a condition of indigence, wretchedness, and despair, the transition is easy to criminal offences; the intermediate state being ordinarily uncontrollable intemperance. Sobriety, aided by the strength of reason and divine grace, may keep under and subdue every vice or folly to which man is most inclined. Drunkenness,* on the contrary, gives fury to the passions, and stimulus to those objects which are apt to produce them. When a young fellow complained to an old physician that his wife was not handsome-"put less water in your spirit,” says the philosopher, "and you will quickly make her so." ." Wine heightens indifference into love, love into jealousy, and jealousy into madness. It often turns the good natured man into an idiot, and the choleric into an assassin. It gives bitterness to resentment,

If a man could see and hear himself when he is drunk, as others who are not drunk see and hear him, he would be cured for ever. Seeing others in the state makes no impression, because every man believes that he is different from the rest of his species. Bentley's Miscellany.

it makes vanity insupportable, and displays every little spot of the soul in its utmost deformity. Liquor throws a man out of himself, and infuses qualities into the mind which she is a stranger to in her sober moments. The person you converse with after the third bottle, is not the same man who first sat down to table with you; and to jest upon a man that is drunk is to injure the absent. "Drunkenness," says Addison, "besides its ill effects upon the body, insensibly weakens the understanding, impairs the memory, and makes those faults habitual which are produced by frequent excesses."

In the absence of a work of this kind, it occurred to me that an attempt to supply a compact digest of those laws, which-in a familiar manner, and at a small charge, should furnish both the juror and general reader with a sufficient knowledge of the late Consolidating Act relating to JURIES; together with the several enactments which, in a measure, still influence the unrepealed law-might, possibly, be followed by an expression of approbation. In this compilation I have supplied them with a definition of an oath, and have submitted some remarks touching the lawfulness of oaths, as solemnly administered to, and from time im

memorial as solemnly taken by, all devout persons I have subjoined a few strictures on the nature of the oath taken by our Saviour before the high priestthe oath taken by Harold, &c.

And this, too, at a time when the Lord Bishop of London, both in and out of Parliament, openly repudi.. ates the present mode of administering the "imprecatory" form; or both juramentum purgationis, and juramentum triationis, in our criminal and common law courts; notwithstanding the theory propounded by Mr. Solicitor-General Murray, (in the celebrated case of Omychund and Baker,) who says, "No country can subsist a twelvemonth, when an oath is not thought binding; for the want of it must necessarily dissolve society." Mr. Justice Erskine, on a late occasion, at Gloucester, said, "The proceedings of the courts of law are all dependent on the sanctity of an oath, and an oath borrows all its power from the religion on which it is founded. Lord Hale observes, 'To say religion is a cheat, goes to dissolve the bonds of society; to reproach religion is to offend the law.""*

It is undoubtedly true that oaths are ordinarily ad

* In Adams' case, for selling blasphemous publications.