Evenings with a Reviewer (Volume 2); Or, a Free and Particular Examination of Mr. Macaulay's Article on Lord Bacon, in a Series of Dialogues (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: one titles. But since the titles only are given, it is not much that one can make out beyond the general intention. For our present purpose, it is of some consequence to ascertain even that. True; and we will try to make it out. The first and second class,?the bills upon the propositions propounded to the King,?are chiefly grounded upon complaints made or wishes expressed in the last parliament, and aim at the removal of various inconveniences and vexations arising out of the old feudal tenures. There is one however which deserves special mention, partly as not coming exactly under this description, but chiefly because it was a favourite measure of Bacon's; he had recommended it long before to Queen Elizabeth; touched on it from time to time in his letters to King James; prepared it for this parliament; and shortly after the dissolution, urged it again as a measure worthy to be proceeded in by way of preparation for the next. This was the appointment of " certain commissioners, twelve lawyers and twelve gentlemen of experience in the .country, for the review of the penal laws and the repeal of such as are obsolete or snaring, and the supply, where it shall be needful, of laws more mild and fit for the time; and thereupon to prepare bills for the next parliament." In the third class,?the bills for the general good of the commonwealth,?the objects aimed at are, first, the extirpation of piracy; a matter of great public interest in the then early youth of commerce. 2ndly, The suppression of the destructive practice of duelling, which was then alarmingly fashionable and fatal among the nobility and gentry. Srdly, The restraint of seditious publications concerning the papal authority; dangerous things then, (though I will not say that penal statutes were the best weapons of...