speaking of the execution, and therefore do not question the genius of the artist; but tame attitude does not lie within the perfections of the art. The inscription too, does not please me. It it said, that the noted Sarah duchess of Marlborough, offered five hundred pounds in vain, for an adequate eulogy of the British prototype of Buonaparte. It appears to me, that the simple words of common life," the great duke of Marlborough," "the great duke of Bedford," without addition, imply more than volumes of elaborate panegyric. From thence I proceeded to the New Theatre. It is singular, that in London architecture appears to have made such little progress. Sir Christopher Wren has been extolled, as having attained the acme of the science. Whoever has seen Stuart's Athens will not believe it; at least if he judges by effect. The numerous spires with which he has loaded the town, are a barbarous mixture of two incongruous orders, the Grecian and Gothic, in a most capricious and fan tastic taste. The beauty of the spire is its graceful proportion; and when rising above the trees of a village, or seen at a distance in a city, it brings the view to an apex, and is exceedingly pleasing. Its form, however, does not admit of variation, nor even of ornament, sufficiently large to break the fine conical outline. Who would think of elevating obelisks upon straddling stools, as consistent with good taste. St. Paul's itself has nothing to recommend it but the dome and colonnade, to which some persons add the pepper-boxes of the west front. Setting aside the dome, all the other parts of St. Paul's are frittered away by sub-divisions. To break it into two stories, was an unpardonable fault. The chief majesty of ancient temples, consists in the colonnade rising from the base to the cornice, in one uniform design-one grand and consistent whole. St. Paul's is ruined by wanting this grand encircling colonnade, which relieves the dead weight of wall, and brings the whole into one sublime yet simple character. I am one of those who do not like the triple stories of the colosseum and amphitheatres. A simple single colonnade, with an attic, at most, appears to me of far greater effect: I do not mean thus to applaud those scarcely perceptible pilasters which jut out of modern walls, but a grand and bold series of fine three-quarter columns. I mean not to depreciate the talents of Sir Christopher In Wren, but his taste. I have gazed with rapture upon the precious relics of ancient Athens; but I can look without emotion upon the churches of London. Much however is to be allowed to the sad necessity (though the necessity only of bad custom) of adapting Grecian buildings to the Gothic fashions of crosses and spires. There is no treat then in the churches of London. In other buildings, there are no less diffi culties arising from the windows. ancient fabrics, they form no necessary point of consideration. They scarcely appear, and often form no part of the plan of the work. If windows have architraves, they are almost infallibly heavy; and if they have not, they do not harmonize with the other parts. If they are either too large, or too small, they equally offend; and great delicacy is requisite in making the size of them, in order to avoid too large a mass of naked wall. The best view in which they appear is, perhaps, that of descending to a fascia round the building, at the bottom of them; and being surmounted at some distance from the top, by another cornice of the building, as in some moderu Piccadilly houses. Upon the whole, modern house architecture is often tolerably light and elegant, and of very fair design. An evident alteration of taste has, however, recently ensued. Somerset-place, a building of considerable di̟mension, is too light in style, too profuse in ornament: while the New Theatre is exactly the converse. Of late, there have been numerous visits to Magna Grecia, and they have produced splendid publications. The Doric is the most common order found in the remains of antiquity; and the channelled Pæstau column, has at length appeared in London, and with it introduced a taste for the heavy. It is not remembered, that this heaviness is often avoided in the antique by the structures being mostly hypæthral, that is, without a roof. In the ancient architecture, there appears to have been but three simple causes of effect consulted in the plan; first, the colonnade, and then the frieze and cornice. Upon these, for exterior effect, those great masters seem to have mostly relied. The plan of the moderns has never been equally simplified, and therefore failed of adequate effect. It is not usual among the ancients to see an oblong square barn-formed building, with a portico in the centre of the longest side. In England this is perpetual, and seems to be the only external ornament deemed necessary. This the Mansion-house, Carleton-house, India-house, and New Theatre, attest. Insert but a portico, with columns and pediments, and the other parts are passed off, at option, with a mere house-plan, of common taste and decoration. The Pæstan column appears accordingly in the front of the New Theatre, to which there is nothing coincident in any other part of the façade. The front, it is well known, consists of this Pestan portico, between two long plain sides of wall, broken by a few windows, a bas-relief inserted in the wall, and two statues, one at each end. It is reverberate an elegant representation of For the Monthly Magazine. REFLECTIONS. evident, that to harmonize with the por-in a public and private ITH regard to the disadvantages, tico, in the classical style, there should have been a cornice, frieze, &c. &c. as usual in the plans. Perhaps the statues should have been colossal. Assuredly, the portico is too small, and the face of the building too low. The Doric of Jove requires adequate grandeur. At all events, the plan of this façade is arbitrary and capricious. The introduction of the bas-reliefs is undoubtedly elegant, but of a light effect and character, directly opposite to the heavy style of the Doric portico. Pass we to the inside of the house, there are immense lobbies, and paltry stair cases-stair-cases not superior to common houses, even in materials. The audience part of the house is, as usual, light; but why vary the running pattern upon every tier of boxes? The effect would have been improved if they had been uniform. To connect these light and airy gaieties with the scene part, is the latter made unaccountably heavy: and thus is the coeffure of a young girl placed upon the head of a judge or a bishop. Just beyond the orchestra are two huge porphyry pilasters, with pretty modern doors at the side, and a heavy roof in compartments. The drop-scene too, though evidently intended to continue the plan, has other inharmonious breaches of that plan. It seems not to have occurred to the architects of the atres, that a continuation and unity of plan should go round the whole house, with which the drop-scene should harmonize, and by an attention also to coJouring, design, and moulding, upon a plan as uniform as circumstances would admit, might be produced a fine perspcctive whole. There are, however, considerable difficulties in this idea; but would not the drop-scene be well super seded by two side-sliding scenes, of compartments of looking-glass, which would MONTHLY MAG. No. 203. view, of suffering timber-trees to remain upon the land when obviously past their prime, and annually verging to decay, I entirely agree with your respectable and well-intentioned correspondent Mr. Hall. Indeed, the subjcct so fully impressed my mind some years since, whilst looking over the finely-timbered estate of a noble lord, that I soon afterwards laid my sentiments before the public. I have not the passage before me at this instant, but so far as I recollect, in addition to the argument of profit, I urged, that a sufficiency of full-sized yet improving trees existed, and might be perpetually retained, for every purpose of rural grandeur and magnificent view, without so general an accompaniment of those in a state of decay; a few of which only need be retained when of a singular form, or peculiarly venerable appearance. I endeavoured also forcibly to inculcate the patriotic and profitable practice of planting in early life, wishing it to be received as a universal maxim, by all our land proprietors great and small. It appeared to me to be sufficiently disadvantageous and ill-judged, even in the view of taste, to encumber ornamented grounds with rotten timber; but that this is a trifle compared with the indolent absurdity of suffering such to be scattered over farms totally out of view of the park or mansion-house, and where there can be no plea of ornament. I however, did not think myself autho. rized by reason, or right, or policy, to proceed even the breadth of a hair beyond advice and recommendation; fully convinced that it was an affair quite without the bounds and province of legal" compulsion; that it approached too near, if it were not actually an integral part, of that fundamental right, which ought R never never to be permanently surrendered by the constituents of a commonwealth, and with which no just and wise government will ever lightly or customarily interfere; and in this last sense I am induced by strong conviction to disagree with Mr. Hall. As to the nature and extent of the grievance, we fully concur; on the remedy he proposes, we are wide apart: it would, in my opinion, draw with it consequences far worse than the disease. This gentleman proposes a law to compel a proprietor to cut down his own unproductive timber, and to plant two for every tree which shall be felled; and this, apparently, on the judgment of a public officer appointed in each county for such service. Such advice leads to a most important question of general policy, on which, in my apprehension, a majority of those patriots, whether of France or Britain, making the highest pretensions to liberty, have, and do still, entertain very erroneous ideas. Here, even the far-famed Tho. mas Paine stumbled, adopting the genuine principles of his antagonists. Far be it from me to institute any improper enquiry into the principles or opinions of Mr. Hall, or to class him with any political party, but every writer must necessarily be answerable for the doctrines he promulgates, to the extent of their fair and obvious construction; and no real lover of truth will be offended at the investigation, or even contravention, of his positions, since such is the only mode in which truth itself can be elicited and preserved. Mr. Hall observes (No. 199, p. 410) "in every civilized country it is the bu siness both of church and state, to prevent, by every means in their power, the great body of the people from indulging their propensities beyond what is proper.' In the next page he holds, that because government has the power of imposing taxes, such may be imposed with the view of moral restraint. He farther assumes, that "it is a maxin in laws as well as in religion and common sense, that a man is only the steward of the good things he possesses; and that if he raises more corn, cattle, or stock of any kind, on his estate, than serves for his own and family's support, though he has a right to sell, he has no right wantonly to destroy it. The same holds with regard to the trees on his estate." First: with respect to the business of church and state to use their power in controuling the propensities of the peo ple,' I believe such control to be an error of the greatest magnitude in theory, and that it has been attended with the most tremendous consequences in practice, from the earliest records of history, and that the superior felicity of modern times has resulted materially from the energies of the gradually increasing freewill of the people, and decreasing despo tism of the civil government. The chief business of the government of a country, naturally a delegation of the people, is, or rather ought to be, to repress and punish aggression, more especially of the rich upon the poor; to administer jus tice; to impose and levy taxes; in fine, to do any act for the general benefit, which can safely be delegated without material infringement of individual liberty. All beyond this is tyranny; in an equal degree inimical to justice and good morals as to freedom of action, which is essential to both. A government indeed may effect much by example and instruction; but moral restraint ought to be totally beyond its province, were it only because all governments must inevitably consist of men endowed with the common passions, and liable to the common infirmities, of the bulk of mankind. The free-agency alone of man must create and unfold his virtuesgovernment can only punish his aggressions and crimes. Mr. Hall says very truly, that the Church has ever prevented the people from indulging their propensities beyond what is proper. Indeed, superstition in all countries has ever, on penalty of life, limb, and liberty, most fatally stifled that natural desire of free enquiry in the human mind, which, left to its own spontaneous action, would soon have developed and risen above those gross and barbarous frauds, by which the majority of mankind, in every age, has been duped and enslaved. We owe to the bloodguilty craft of religious superstition, far more than to all other causes of human weakness and vice added together, that man has thought it an indispensable duty to hate his fellow, and to heap upon him all sorts of inflictions, even to tortures and death-that one nation has thought it meritorious to carry fire and sword and devastation into another, and even to extirpate its inhabitants from the face of the earth! and for what? because this individual, or this nation does not believe as we do-Justice anả mercy! believe as we do! as if belie → independent of conviction, were in man's power. As if belief, simply con sidered, were not the most indifferent and insignificant of all possible things as if truth and justice were not all in all. There is no power in nature, excepting that of religious superstition, adequate to the incitement of those enormous deeds of blood and cruelty, and devastation, under which the earth has groaned; and not to the abuse, as it is hypocritically pleaded, but to the mere use and adoption of that system, is the dread misfortune of the human race to be justly attributed. Superstition pleads her miracles, and with much truth. It ean surely be nothing short of miraculous, that in all times hitherto have been found, men of the brightest intellect and largest share of general learning, ready to defend the greatest frauds and most palpable falsehoods-liberal men beside, who, referring you to the insipid and useless legends of purblind antiquity, will caution you with much gravity to reject one piece of distraction, and at the next step enjoin you to the adoption of another. The aid of superstition, as its very name implies, has ever been totally superfluous and needless in the world; its customary place alone in the moral code, has assigned to it an importance, to which it never possessed the smallest real claim. A very considerable portion, perhaps even a majority, of the most cultivated part of mankind, suppose that the people can really have no rights but such as are conferred upon, and conceded to them, by the government, of whatever form, under which their lot has fallen. Of this opinion, professedly, was the late so highly celebrated Mr. Windham, if we may rely upon the authenticity of his speeches. It would be ridiculous to meet a sophistry so obvious and so vain, with laboured arguments. It is quite enough to reflect for a moment on the state in which mankind are left by such a position; nor can any theorem be more certain, than that if mankind do not possess natural rights, they can possess no rights at all. There is another party at which I glanced in the beginning, which, with the words liberty and right everlastingly in their mouths, yet never scruple to make use of the legal or despotic arm, in favour of their ticular views. The defect arises from confused and unsettled ideas of the nature of right. par The constituent body cannot safely part with even a shadow of power, be yond that which is necessary for conducting the machine of government, and should be especially cautious on the danger of certain analogies. Because the civil government is supposed to possess the right of imposing taxes, it seems to be thence concluded, that it must necessarily also have a right to regulate and controul the whole property of the people: in such case, as under the Turkish government, the people can possess nothing independent of the state. This may at first sight appear overstrained, when applied to other states; but will be seen in a different light, when it is considered how great a part of the public property may be ingulphed by ingenious systems of multiplied taxation, by monopolies, and by other well-known modes, in which a great number of the people may be actually deprived of their all. Indeed, it would be altogether incre dible, considering its total incompatibility with liberty, and the discouragements and bars it opposes to general improve ment, that any enlightened people should intrust their government with the powers of indirect or multiplied taxation, but that mankind have in this case been duped by the same species of arguments which have been used in proof of the necessity and benefit of religious superstition. In forming a general judgment of this subject, namely the rights of the people, and the duties of government, for governments can possess no rights but merely those of delegation, several important points claim a primary attention. In the first place, extreme cases must be noted only in the light of exceptions. No one would dispute the authority of the magistrate in destroying a house to prevent the spreading of fire, yet no general inference of authority can be drawn from such a case. Authority by inference or precedent, is a most peri lous thing, and that of which every community ought to be most jealous. Power has the natural faculty of self-propagation, and increase; and the compromise or surrender of one right, is but entering upon a bargain for the loss of all. Did it at all consist with human freedom, from the complexity of the general affairs of mankind, their conduct could never be regulated by the civil government, nor the moral duties so enforced, This argument however was misplaced by Mr. Windham, in the debate on lord Erskine's bill for the legal protection of beasts, the unjust and cruel treatment of of which, is a positive act of aggression; for wherever feeling exists, be it in the freeman, the slave, or the brute beast, there will also be found a co-existent right to legal protection. Lastly, the immediate good, real or imaginary, of a breach of right, may, or rather must be, followed by a train of evils, and the officious intermedling of the law has ever had the most unfortunate effect upon human affairs. To apply these principles practically to Mr. Hall's plan of investing. Par-, liament with the power of compelling a man to cut down his own trees, an expedient which might indeed be attended with some benefit were not its cost too great, let us proceed to the natural sequel, taking for examples, those demands which have been actually made, and that even by those who suppose themselves the advocates of liberty:-a compulsory division of farms, that no man shall have the power to let or hold beyond a certain number of acres;-regulation of the sale of all necessaries of life, so that one man shall not forestall, or take the advantage of another;-a fixed or maximum price; legal limitation of the wages of labour, and of the property of the rich, restricting income to a certain amount the favourite plan of Paine, and of many of his disciples;-legal restraints on thinking and believing! A considerable portion of these natural illegalities has already appeared in the shape of laws, however absurd and inefficient; the remainder is enthusiastically and periodically called for by wellmeaning individuals, whose attachment to the end, blinds them to the irregularity and fatal consequence of the means, and equally to the most glaring proofs of past experience. Amongst these advocates of liberty, there is not at this moment a more favourite dogma than that the farmer, the butcher, and the baker, not to forget the publican, and the exhibitor of public spectacles, ought, in all well regulated society, to be restrained by peculiar laws, which it is not necessary to extend to other occupations. And why? Because the former of these grow or deal in the necessaries of life, between which and all other commodities there is supposed to subsist a difference, absosolutely requiring a different species of legislation; which is precisely to generalize upon the extreme case: it is to authorize the magistrate to pull a man's house down providently, and before the fire has really happened. In the cases of fire, famine, and invasion; no doubt expedience is right; but whilst corn can be purchased with money, there exists no essential difference between corn and. other commodities, nor the smallest necessity for any difference in respect of legal restraint: nor ought a man to be blamed for hoarding corn, but in common with him who hoards money. The farmer has the same right to extend his concerns, his influence, and, in all probability, power of effectually serving his country, as the man of any other occupation; and granting he enhance price with one hand, he reduces it with the other, by the superior produce which results from great means and superior skill. Nor have the following two things ever been proved-First, that fundamental right ever ought to be invaded, but flagrante necessitate; secondly, that legal regulation and restraint, in defiance of right, have been generally successful. The truth is, price will ever be ultimately regulated by actual plenty or scarcity, and not by laws, however numerous; and in the ordinary course of affairs, we are bound by the obligations of justice and right, to await the natural result. The law of the maximum was experirimented upon by the antimonopolists, antiforestallers, and antiregraters, of revolutionary France: with what success need not be repeated. The experiment has since been revived in New South Wales, with the success of nearly breaking all the farmers, and starving the colony. The legislator however, or rather executor of the law, was very properly, and it may be hoped timeously, stopped in his career of regulation. We now and then punish a forestaller here, in terrorem: the term, I presume, implies an early man. Would it not be an improve ment upon the act against such, to tack a ryder to it, ordaining, that no man of that class should leave his bed on a market morning before a certain hour. As to legal restraints on thinking and believing, we are compelled to believe, by act of parliament; and forbidden, on pain of death, to deal with the devil; besides, I believe, being subject to the penalty of twenty pounds for every time we omit going to church on the sabhatl day. Why, what are our informers about, to neglect a proffered fortune of easier attainment than even by the lottery? In regard to belief indeed, we have one set of men in our times, who are the loudest against compulsive creeds, with surely the least reason on their side; for |