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young have time to grow fo firm as easily to bear the inclemencies of winter.

• Were one to guess what probably would be the time of rutting, fummer would be named, efpecially in a cold climate. And yet to quadrupeds who carry but four or five months, that economy would be pernicious, throwing the time of delivery to an improper season for warmth, as well as for food. Wifely is it ordered, that the delivery should conftantly be at the best seafon for both.

Gregarious quadrupeds that ftore up food for winter, differ from all other quadrupeds with refpect to the time of delivery. Beavers copulate the end of autumn, and bring forth in January, when their granary is full. The fame economy probably obtains among all other quadrupeds of the fame kind.

One rule takes place among all brute animals, without a single exception, That the female never is burdened with two litters at the fame time. The time of geftation is fo unerringly calculated by nature, that the young brood upon hand can provide for themselves before another brood comes on. Even a hare is not an exception, though many litters are produced in a year. The female carries thirty or thirty-one days; but the fuckles her young only twenty days, after which they provide for themfeives, and leave her free to a new litter.

The care of animals to preferve their young from harm is a beautiful inftance of Providence. When a hind hears the hounds, fhe puts herfelf in the way of being hunted, and leads them away from her fawn. The lapwing is no lefs ingenious: if a perfon approach, the flies about, retiring always from her neft. A partridge is extremely artful: fhe hops away, hanging a wing as if broken: lingers till the perfon approach, and hops again. A hen, timid by nature, is bold as a lion in defence of her young: the darts upon every creature that threatens danger. The roe-buck defends its young with refolution and courage. So doth a ram; and fo do many other quadrupeds.

It is obferved by an ingenious writer, that nature sports in the colour of domeftic animals, in order that men may the more readily distinguish their own. It is not easy to fay, why colour is more varied in fuch animals, than in thofe which remain in the ftate of nature: I can only fay, that the caufe affigned is not fatisfactory. One is feldom at a lofs to diftinguish one animal from another; and Providence never interpofes to vary the ordinary courfe of nature, for an end fo little neceffary as to make the diftinction still more obvious. Such interpofition would beside have a bad effect, by encouraging inattention and indolence.

The foregoing particulars are offered to the public as hints merely may it not be hoped, that they will excite curiosity in those who relish natural hiftory? The field is rich, tho' little cultivated; and I know no other branch of natural history that opens finer views into the conduct of Providence.'

The English reader will obferve a few Scotticifms, &c. fome of the most obvious of which we have only diftinguished by italics: farther notice of fuch minute blemishes being unneceffary.

Pennant.

[To be continued.]

ART.

ART. IV. Eunomus: or Dialogues concerning the Law and Conftitus tion of England, concluded. See laft Month's Review.

HE converfations of which we have already given an ac count, are reprefented as having been carried on by only two perfons, Policrites and Eunomus. But in the dialogue now before us, which comprehends the third volume, an additional Speaker is introduced, Philander, an accomplished gentleman, who had lately returned from abroad, after three years abfence, and had travelled to good purpofe; having enlarged his knowledge, and cultivated his mind, without injuring his affection and efteem for his native country. This new character adds variety and spirit to the dialogue, which is ftill farther recommended by the peculiar importance of the fubject on which it

treats.

After the converfation between Eunomhus, Philander, and Policrites had turned upon a number of topics, which naturally presented themselves on the occafion of a friend's having arrived in England who had refided fo long in foreign parts, they were infenfibly led, from fome obfervations advanced on one fide, and questioned on the other, to a more ferious contemplation of government in general, and that of their own conftitution in particular. The confideration of government in general is affigned to Philander, whofe obfervations are judicious and liberal. He afferts, with Mr. Locke, that compact is the juft original of civil fociety; and he answers the objections which have been made to this opinion. He confiders governments only in two lights, either as monarchical or popular; but he obferves that the combinations of thefe with all their fhades and differences are infinite. With regard to the fuppofed origin of different forms of government, he thinks that not only an ⚫ elective monarchy would obtain in the world before an hereditary monarchy; but that monarchy itself feems not to be the firft form of government that fociety (taking its rife from compact) would naturally fall into.

However amiable, fays he, a form of government it may be, when qualified as with us; monarchy, in the abstract, is certainly the most remote from the idea of natural equality. For, in the abftract, what can be more oppofite than that any fet of people, from being all equal in power and authority among themfelves, thould all unite under the power and authority of a fingle perfon? A democracy, as it has leaft of the idea of government in it, feems however to be the first obvious mode of affemblage from a ftate of nature: it is a fociety indeed that leaft infringes on natural liberty, but at the fame time, leaft corrects the abufes of it, which is the end and aim of all focieties. A kind of limited Republic feems to be the first and most obvious ftep to a regular fubordination, and fociety, properly fo called: for without fubordination, no durable form can Rev. June, 1774.

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fubfift.

fubfift. The very name of government implies it. Besides that the degree of liberty feems to make a Republic an obvious form of government from a ftate of nature, when liberty is to be given up: To is it a likely form to be laid hold of, from the impatience of mankind, where liberty has been abufed under a monarchy; and that monarchy comes to be difmembered by part of the fubjects fhaking off their antient fubjection, and forming new affemblages of their own. The states of Holland afford a late inftance of what I am fpeaking. The feveral free ftates of Italy now exifting, originally the fragments of that vaft empire that fell to pieces by its own weight, is a more distant but a more ftriking example of the fame thing.'

As to the great question about the best form of government, our Author is of opinion that lefs need to be faid of it, because it is the duty of subjects, under any government, to take things as they find them; a pofition which might, in some respects, be justly difputed. A perfect government he looks upon to be as mere an idea as perfect virtue, or perpetual motion. The true general idea of the thing itself is, that it must be," fuch an one as will diminish least of natural liberty, and at the fame time, beft answer the end of fociety;" and he trufts that our own will stand this teft. But though he will not pretend to decide which is the beft form of government of those that now exift, fuppofing no one to be entirely perfect; yet he can by no means agree with Mr. Pope when he says, "That which is beft administered is beft." This notion our Dialogift clearly refutes; after which he traces the natural progrefs of government, and points out the difficulties that ftrangers have in acquiring a knowledge of the laws of foreign countries,

Philander having difcharged the talk affigned him, our Author proceeds to his principal fubject, which is the English conftitution. His fentiments, upon this head are put into the mouth of Eunomus, who, through all the three dialogues, is reprefented as the chief fpeaker. In the progrefs of the dif courfe, the nature of the English Conftitution is defcribed, its antiquity is afferted, and fome miftakes concerning it are redified. It is fhewn in particular, and in a very fatisfactory manner, that the King is one of three eftates of the realm, and that the Spiritual Lords do not conftitute a diflinet State. The Author, in embracing this opinion, hath no intention to detract from the privileges of the Spiritual Lords, as will amply appear from what he hath alledged in vindication of their being dif tinctly mentioned in the legislative declaration of every Act of Parliament.

This infertion, he fays, ferves as a conftant recognition of their legiflative capacity, either 1. to prevent people in all ages arguing againft their legiflative right, from fome peculiar circumstances attending them; as their not being tried by Parliament as temporal

Lords,

Lords, in the forms of proceeding at Common Law; or their not giving their votes on the trial of a Peer, tho', it is well known, they attend during the evidence, decline voting in capital cafes from principles of the Canon Law, but when they retire, always protest their right of voting. 2. More particularly in these later times, to exprefs a just abhorrence of the former age, when their rights were fo wickedly attacked, and their removal from the House of Lords was the first step to the diffolution of the government. This facred order, a very early establishment of christianity, I confider as one of the guardians of the English church in the moft eminent manner : and in that capacity, I hope, they will continue to fit in that Houfe to the end of time. For the antient ecclefiaftical and civil establishments are fo interwoven in our conftitution and formed for each other, that any one who is not indifferent to the latter, cannot but with perpetuity to the former!"

Without inquiring whether the zeal of the Writer has not here carried him fomewhat too far, we proceed to the next object of his confideration, the Reprefentation of the People in Parliament; the prefent ftate of which he defends with all the bigotry of the profeffed Lawyer. After ftating, clearly and ftrongly, the objections commonly urged upon this head, he exerts his utmost abilities in endeavouring to remove them. Part of what he hath advanced upon the fubject we fhall lay before our Readers.

• What are we to fay in anfwer to all this? Thefe two things I conceive. 1. That admitting this inequality to be the grievance complained of, it cannot now be redreffed. 2. That it may reafonably be doubted, however, whether, every thing confidered, it is in fact fuch a grievance or not.

If it is a grievance, it is fuch an one as cannot be redressed. And I found this affertion on two grounds; that the very attempt to do it would totally unhinge the Conftitution; and if it was once done, according to the moft imagined plan of perfection, the effects of it could never be lafting.

• Political Projectors will tell us perhaps, this new modelling of the Legislative Body would be only, "Ripigliari Il Stato," in the Florentine phrafe; "bringing things back to their original establishments an expedient approved of by all politicians. I should rather look upon the expedient, in this café, not as an attempt to refettle, but to new-found the constitution: which if it could fucceed at laft, muft in the preparation towards it produce univerfal confufion; by difpoffeffing every part of the kingdom of rights they have fo long been poffeffed of; and in their nature the mok important of all others, because they are the foundation of their fecurity and protection. To disfranchife the boroughs themselves, anfwers no end; a prefcriptive right of fending Members would continue. To difannul that prefeription would be little lefs than fuicide in a Parlia ment. it could never be thought of in practice but in the mott troublesome tumultuous times; or at leaft cannot fall of producing them. It was not perhaps the work project of Cromwell's time; but it was certainly a project fit for no time, but fuch as his, when the confti

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conftitution was already overturned; and it was only left to confider how they could build a new one on the ruins of the old.

But fuppofing this reformation once made, could it be lasting? Would not this inequality in the reprefentation imperceptibly res. commence almoft as foon as reformed? Much of it is owing to the furprising alteration that time and accidental caufes have produced in the commerce, wealth, and importance of places themselves. Some, for instance, were once epifcopal fees, and places of great opulence; tho' now within the reach of the objection, almost as much as any Borough whatever. Another caufe of the inequality complained of, arifes out of this already affigned. Many Boroughs Have been so fenfible of their decline, and their comparative unimportance to the community, that they have themselves petitioned against, and abolished their own right of Reprefentation. For a Member's wages, it must be owned, was, heretofore, no inconfiderable tax on a fmall Borough. And may not thefe or other unforefeen caufes, at the diftance of a century or two, operate as strongly after a reprefentation was new modelled, as they did before, when they gave rise to it?

If then this inequality of reprefentation cannot be altered without the utmost hazard, and when altered, cannot be fecured from returning what reafons can there be for making the alteration? Much lefs, fure, is to be faid for the alteration,, if the thing itself is fuch a grievance, as is neither publickly feen nor felt.

In fact, the grievance from this quarter is chiefly fpeculative; the objections I have flated on this head, do not flow altogether from this fource: they have other caufes capable of producing them as well as this. And the objections are fo far from atually existing at the fame time, (as they are ftated) that one may serve to take off the force and preffure of the other.

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In the first place, I am not fatisfied that fmall Boroughs are the enly spot where corruption thrives: it is a weed that naturally thrives beft in a rich foil; it grows up with liberty. It cannot be perfectly rooted out. without injuring the better product of the foil tfelf: but there are ways of keeping it under.'

Our Author goes on to fhew, with confiderable force of reafoning, that feveral advantages may arife from Boroughs being reprefented by ftrangers; and having examined, at large, a cenfure which, he fays, has been too haftily paffed on the conftitution, he concludes, that the inequality of reprefentation is not in reality the dreadful grievance complained of. "But we can by no means agree with him in his general conclufion; and we think that the determination of the queftion, on the fide of a more equal reprefentation, may be fafely left to the com mon-fenfe of every impartial perfon. Changes in government muft, no doubt, be attended with difficulty; but are they, therefore, never to be attempted? As to what is alledged, with regard to the cafe before us, "that a reformation would not be bafting," are no amendments to be made at prefent, because the fame evils might in time return again? It would probably be

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