MAN IN A STATE OF SIMPLICITY. Man, in a state of moral innocence, or simplicity, uncorrupted by the influence of bad education, bad examples, and bad government, possesses a taste for all that is good and beautiful. He is capable of a degree of moral and intellectual improvement, which advances his nature to a participation with the Divine. The world, in all its magnificence, appears to him one vast theatre, richly adorned and illuminated, into which he is freely admitted, to enjoy the glorious spectacle. Acknowledging no natural superior but the great Architect of the whole fabric, he partakes the delight with conscious dignity, and glows with gratitude. Pleased with himself and all around him, his heart dilates with benevolence, as well as piety; and he finds his joys augmented by communication. His countenance cheerful, his mien erect, he rejoices in existence. Life is a continual feast to him, highly seasoned by virtue, by liberty, by mutual affection. God formed him to be happy, and he becomes so, thus fortunately unmolested by false policy and oppression. Religion, reason, nature, are his guides through the whole of his existence, and the whole is happy. Virtuous independence, the sun which irradiates the morning of his day, and warms its noon, tinges the serene evening with every beautiful variety of colour, and on the pillow of religious hope he sinks to repose in the bosom of Providence. THE JURYMAN'S LEGAL HAND-BOOK, AND COMMON LAW MANUAL. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. THE famous immunity of Trial by Jury is, undoubtedly, of remote antiquity in this kingdom. Historians, and other able writers, have attempted to trace its original up to the first inhabitants of our country, namely, the Britons themselves. Several learned commentators, however, hold it to be most probable that this mode of trial was first adopted in England by the Saxons; to whom also the introduction of it must be attributed. That juries of some description or other were in use long before the invasion of Britain by the Normans, is apparent; mention being made of such an institution so early as in the laws of Ethelred, fourth king in the Saxon line of succession from Alfred the Great. There can be no hesitation in believing that a tribunal of a similar kind had been completely established throughout most, if not all, the northern nations. In fact, the earliest records of their constitutions cannot fail to afford us some distinct traces of the remote existence of our own. And, when we consider its obvious use, and the lasting importance of such an institution, in a land of moral freedom, and of religious toleration, we cannot too highly appreciate the former, or too zealously revere the latter, without reference to its antiquity. Certain it is, that TRIAL by JURY was always so highly prized by the "good men and true" of England, that no revolutionary* procedure, however calamitous; no change of government, however disastrous to the peace-loving people, could ever prevail on the body politic to abolish this most valued immunity, which has been preserved through all ages as a "precious inheritance," down to the present day. When the Norman duke, with his followers, at length crowned their bold invasion of England by what they pretended to call a "conquest," and William took forcible possession of its crown, and assumed to himself royal prerogatives, even then he wisely refrained from making any attempt to destroy this essential privilege; * DUTY OF GOVERNMENTS.-A heavy responsibility attaches to those of the higher ranks, who, during periods of agitation, support the demands of the populace for a sudden increase of power, instead of directing their desires to what may really benefit them-the redress of experienced evils. On their heads rest all the disasters and bloodshed which necessarily follow in their train. It is difficult to say which are most worthy of reprobation-the haughty aristocrats, who resist every attempt at practical improvement when it can be done with safety, or the factious demigogues, who urge on additions to popular power when it threatens society with convulsions. The true patriot is the reverse of both: he will in every situation attach himself to the party which resists the evils that threaten his country; in periods when liberty is endangered, he will side with the popular; in moments of agitation, support the monarchial party.-Alison's History of Europe during the French Revolution. for we learn that in the fourth year of his reign, he not only professed to approve, but openly confirmed Edward the Confessor's laws, together with the ancient customs of the kingdom; whereof the Trial by Jury is a constituent branch. Moreover, it must be confessed that civil liberty first begun its onward march toward civilization, social comfort, and refinement, under the sway of the Norman Duke. But the true value of that civil liberty, or domestic freedom, (freedom of thought, freedom of action,) remains to be carefully described. Liberty, in the abstract, may be classed amongst the greatest blessings of mankind; but, in order that it may be a mighty, moral, and well regulated liberty, it must necessarily be combined with sound government and pure religion; † without these Polydore Virgil tells us that the office of Justice of the Peace was first instituted by William of Normandy, alias the Conqueror! + If Bonaparte had given the religion of the Scriptures to France after she had renounced her own anti-Christian apostacy, he would have immortalized himself; but he knew nothing of it himself, and therefore had it not to give. "The truth" (as the revelation of Heaven is emphatically called) had never made him free, and he had no idea of its power to impart spiritual, mental, or corporeal liberty to others. His own unbelief did nothing to mitigate, but rather aggravated, the evils of that modification of infidelity which he found in the national creed. "The child and champion of Jacobinism," as Mr. Pitt called him, he was at once the idol and scourge of a people whom, in rescuing from a sanguinary revolution, he enslaved by a not less sanguinary despotism. His character presents scarcely any redeeming qualities; for although he was not without such a portion of extravasated talent as enabled him to retain a blood-bought throne for a season, by the effusion of more blood, his memory will be eventually loathed even among the idolaters who have recently deified their own vanity by awarding him a public funeral. Without any regal blood in his veins, and without the educations of a prince to fit him for the throne he had usurped, his unprecedented triumphs were only the result of the Divine counsels for the punishment of the corrupted it is liberty of the madman, who has escaped from the protecting restraint, and wholesome darkness of his cell- -a liberty which is no benefit while it lasts, and is not likely to continue long. When the great charter (magna charta) was afterwards made, and put under the great seal of England, A.D. 1225, and the ninth of Henry III., "TRIAL by JURY" is therein considered as the first and foremost of our constitutional immunities-the great bulwark of our national liberties; but, especially by the articles contained in the twenty-ninth chapter, which provides thus: No free citizen (freeman) shall be hurt in either his person or property, except by the lawful (legal) judgment of his equals,* or by the law of the land.† And it was then, and ever afterwards, es religion of his own and of surrounding countries; and when he had accomplished the purposes of Providence, he was thrown aside, like an useless broom, and perished ignominiously on a foreign soil, the lawful prisoner of that very nation which he had never ceased to ridicule and despise, and which he had long been pledged to exterminate from the face of the earth. * EQUALS; OR PEERS.-Reeves, in his history of English law, leads us to conclude that a quibble has been raised by one or more modern writers respecting these synonimous terms, equals, or peers, "parium suorum ;" and they stoutly insist on the word parium signifying peers in the sense of PEERS of PARLIAMENT, that is, earls and barons, and would have us conclude that the Latin quotation cited has no relation to the greatest of all our municipal privileges, trial by jury; but this is mere trifling. Both my Lord Coke and Sir W. Blackstone rendered them differently, and held the same to refer in the most direct manner to the trial by jury. The opinions of these illustrious commentators seem abundantly confirmed by a clause in 25 Edward III., stat. 5, cap. 4, which undeniably refers to the identical words in the great charter (magna charta)—words indeed which scarcely require explanation, or seem to demand refutation. + Nisi per legale judicium parium suorum vel per legem terræ, |