order to choose an elector for the county. Let also the churchwardens of each parish prepare a list of eight or ten of the most eminent persons for wealth, gravity, and wisdom in their parish. This list to be brought the next day to the place of election to this purpose, that every housekeeper do, by a dot with a pen adjoined to the person's name whom he inclines to elect, declare his choice, and that by the plurality of dots the elector be returned by the churchwardens to the Sheriff. This done in each parish, let the Sheriff prepare a list, in the same manner, of the names of all the gentry in the county who are each worth in lands and moveables at least 10,000l., all debts paid, and not under forty years of age; which being in readiness, let all the representatives of parishes, chosen as aforesaid, repair to the countytown the very next day after the parish-election is over, and there proceed to elect out of the Sheriff's list seven, nine, or eleven members to serve in parliament, or so many as upon a just dividend shall be thought expedient to complete the number of members which are to act in this Great Council. Before the electors proceed to choose for the county, it might probably be convenient to administer an oath to this purpose, that their vote is no way pre-engaged, and that they will choose without favour or affection such members, as in their conscience they do believe most fit to serve in parliament. And that to the members elected, upon their admission to the House, this oath together with the others in use be administered, viz. That they are worth 10,000l. all their debts paid, and that directly or indirectly they did not expend any money or gratuity whatsoever in order to their election, and that they neither have nor will receive any gratuity whatsoever upon the ac

count of their vote in parliament, but that they will in all matters that shall come before them act uprightly according to their conscience and understanding, without any private design, favour, or affection to any.' That, to prevent the inconveniences of fear and favour in electing, the method be such, that none may know on whom the electors' votes were conferred; and it may be thus performed: Suppose a room with two opposite doors, and a table in the middle, on which the list shall be spread. All the electors being at one door, let them go in one by one, each writing down his dots, and going out of the room at the other door before another comes in; or, if this may prove tedious, it is only placing more tables in the room with every one a list on it, and so many may then be admitted at once as there are lists, which will make greater despatch, and yet no discovery, in that every list is upon a separate table. To prevent also all fraud and indirect practice, it will be convenient that the officers concerned in the elec tions, both in parishes and in the county, be upon their oaths. It is, also, fit that a limited allowance be made for the expense of the day, which is to be in parishes, at the parish-charge; and, in the countytown, at the charge of the county.

• If any controversy arise about elections, either in the parishes or counties (which, in this method, can scarcely be supposed) it may be decided by the votes of the remaining persons upon the list, who pretend to no election. If several persons happen to have an equal number of votes, it shall be determined by lot. If any person from any part of England shall send his name to any particular county, to be inserted in their list as a person qualified to serve in parliament, it may be done; but none to stand candidate in more

than one list at a time, lest he should be chosen in both counties, and occasion the trouble of a new election. That the same list of candidates shall continue till the dissolution of the parliament, if it sits not above three years; and, upon the intermedial death or removal of any of the members for the county, then he who had the next majority of votes upon the list to succeed in his place, without farther trouble or charge of election.

By this method the parliament will be a perfect representative of the whole body of the people, and also of every numerical person in the kingdom. Here can be no partial (and, consequently, prejudicial) acts made by separate interests and factions; none will sit in this Great Council but men of gravity, wisdom, integrity, and substance; no pensionary members, no unfair elections, no foul returns, no petitioners kept in attendance till a dissolution, no Quo Warrantos to destroy the natural fundamental rights of the people; no room for corruption, bribery, and debauchery either in the electors or the members elected; no patrimonies wasted in the extravagances of an election, no bankrupts shrowding themselves under the shelter of a parliamentary privilege; no unruly rabbles, tumults, factions, and disorders in election among the commonalty; no heats and animosities among the gentry, often caused by their violent competitions: but all will be managed with that evenness, justice, and temper, that nothing can more effectually conduce to the securing of our liberties and properties, the grandeur of our government, and the honour of our nation than such an establish ment.'

The Character of the Honourable W. Hastings,* of Woodlands in Hampshire, second Son of Francis, Earl of Huntingdon.

In the year 1638 lived Mr. Hastings; by his quality, son, brother, and uncle to the Earls of Huntingdon. He was, peradventure, an original in our age; or rather the copy of our ancient nobility, in hunting not in warlike times.

'He was low, very strong, and very active; of a reddish flaxen hair. His clothes always green cloth, and never all worth (when new) five pounds.

• His house was perfectly of the old fashion, in the midst of a large park well stocked with deer, and near the house, rabbits to serve his kitchen; many fish-ponds; great store of wood and timber: a bowling green in it, long but narrow, full of high ridges, it being never levelled since it was ploughed. They used round sand-bowls; and it had a banquetinghouse like a stand, built in a tree.

'He kept all manner of sport hounds, that ran buck, fox, hare, otter, and badger; and hawks, long and short-winged. He had all sorts of nets for fish. He had a walk in the New Forest, and the manor of Christ Church. This last supplied him with red deer, sea and river-fish. And indeed all his neighbours' grounds and royalties were free to him, who bestowed all his time on these sports, but what he borrowed to caress his neighbours' wives and daughters; there being not a woman in all his walks, of

* Connoisseur,' No. 81. "The picture of the extraordinary gentleman, here described, is now at the seat of Lord Shaftesbury at Winborne St. Giles near Cranborn in Dorsetshire; and this lively character of him was really and truly drawn by Antony Ashley Cooper, first Earl of Shaftesbury, and is inscribed on the picture."

the degree of a yeoman's wife or under, and under the age of forty, but it was extremely her fault if he was not intimately acquainted with her. This made him very popular: always speaking kind to the husband, brother, or father; who was, to boot, very welcome to his house whenever he came. There he found beef, pudding, and small-beer in great plenty; a house not so neatly kept as to shame him or his dirty shoes; the great hall strewed with marrowbones, full of hawk's perches, hounds, spaniels, and terriers; the upper side of the hall hung with foxskins of this and the last year's killing; here and there a pole-cat intermixed; game-keepers' and hunters* poles in great abundance.

The parlour was a large room as properly furnished. On the great hearth, paved with brick, lay some terriers, and the choicest hounds and spaniels. Seldom but two of the great chairs had litters of young cats in them, which were not to be disturbed, he having always three or four attending him at dinner; and a little white stick of fourteen inches lying by his trencher, that he might defend such meat as he had no mind to part with to them. The windows (which were very large) served for places to lay his arrows, cross-bows, stone-bows, and other such like accoutrements. The corners of the room full of the best chosen hunting and hawking poles. An oyster-table at the lower end, which was of constant use twice a day all the year round: for he never failed to eat oysters before dinner and supper through all seasons; the neighbouring town of Pool supplied him with them.

The upper part of the room had two small tables and a desk, on one side of which was a churchBible, and on the other the Book of Martyrs. On the tables were hawks' hoods, bells, and such like;