tion and the unsoundness of his thoughts. As Proudhon says of Louis Blanc, 'il s'étourdit de la sonorité de ses phrases.' If he has a good idea, he is sure to disfigure it. He has great and most meritorious industry; but he uses it as a weapon of offence. He sometimes lays hold of true and valuable conceptions; but he almost always pushes them into falsehood and extravagance. The restoration of the currency to a metallic basis undoubtedly produced some effect both on prices and on enterprise; but it was not the all-absorbing and overshadowing influence which he depicts it. Mortality, no doubt, is greater in towns than in the country (though not specially in manufacturing towns); but to declare that manufacturing districts could not keep up their population was an inexcusable and groundless exaggeration. It may well be that representative institutions have been deplorably mismanaged in inexperienced hands, and that even among ourselves they are attended with certain inconveniences and dangers; but a blessing is not a curse because it is accompanied by drawbacks and purchased with a price. It is in no unfriendly spirit that we recommend Sir A. Alison to pause over the succeeding volumes of his work, and to re-write the first. Let him confine himself, as far as possible, to a succinct narrative of events; let him omit all his moralisings, and nearly all his disquisitions; let him sternly prune the facile luxuriance of his style; and he may produce a work which shall be a really useful present to his generation-not, indeed, a history which will live, but one which will fill a much-felt vacancy on our shelves till, in the fulness of time, its appointed successor shall arrive.

In conclusion, we must guard ourselves against being supposed, by our silence, to sanction many errors alike of fact, judgment, and doctrine which our limits have not allowed us to point out. We have done enough to show those of our readers who are Sir A. Alison's readers likewise, that they must peruse him with a wary and suspicious attention, and be perpetually on their guard against being led astray. We should, however, be sorry to close this severe criticism on a most faulty work, without doing justice to one trait in the historian-we mean his entire freedom from all mean and petty jealousies or rancorous sentiments towards his antagonists. He has a generous and hearty appreciation of all merit which he perceives, and can bestow praise in no stinted measure even on those most opposed to him. To this feature in his character we trust for his forgiveness of ourselves if, in the discharge of our critical function, we have in any degree wounded or offended him.

ART. II.1. First Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the State and Operation of the Law of Marriage, as relating to the Prohibited Degrees of Affinity, and to Marriages solemnized abroad or in the British Colonies. 1848. 2. Speech of the Earl of St. Germans in the House of Lords, June 21. 1852, on Presentation of Petitions in favour of rendering Lawful Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister. 3. Reasons for Legalising Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister. By Lord DENMAN. 7th edition, London: 1852. 4. The True Remedy for the Evils of the Age; a Charge to the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of Lewes. By J. C. HARE, M.A., with Notes. London: 1850.

5. An Argument in relation to the Levitical Marriage Law, particularly as affecting the question of the Marriage of a Widower with his Deceased Wife's Sister. By T. BINNEY. 4th edition.

6. Zvyyéveia. A dispassionate Appeal to the Judgment of the Συγγένεια. Clergy of the Church of England, on a proposed Alteration of the Law of Marriage: with a Synopsis of the chief Arguments and Evidence put forth on each side of the question.

7. Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister. The substance of an article in Fraser's Magazine. By E. B. DENISON, M.A. 1851.

8. A Review of the Law relating to Marriages within the Prohibited Degrees of Affinity. By T. CAMPBELL FOSTER, Esq., Barrister-at-law.

WE welcome the appearance of the pamphlet of Lord Denman as likely to exert a very powerful influence on the progress of the important question to which it relates. We hail it, not because the argument was not complete without it, for it was not possible even for Lord Denman's sagacity to add much to that. He has stated it, indeed, with all his characteristic moderation and precision; but it had been already urged, with overwhelming cogency, in many publications of recent years, a very few of which we have placed at the head of this Article. Neither, again, do we hail this pamphlet as a proof that the question is gaining ground; -for though that is obvious enough, the adhesion of such a man would not prove it; since it has not been the fashion with Lord Denman, any more than with Archbishop Whately (whose opinions on the subject were frankly expressed some years ago), to astrologise for the right nick of

time in which they may most prosperously or safely proclaim their convictions; to calculate, when they utter them, whether the tide of popular opinion is at flood or ebb,-at what hour it will be most prudent to capitulate to Truth and to say that they are converted! On the contrary, both have been remarkable for the honesty, and truth-loving decision, mingled with dignity and temper, with which, at various times in their lives, they have expressed their convictions where other men still doubt, and whether men will hear or whether they will for⚫ bear.'

Why, then, it may be asked, do we attach so much importance to the publication of this pamphlet, since we frankly confess it could add but little to an argument which was complete before, and does not, as the adherence of many less noble and ingenuous natures would, indicate anything as to the progress which the question is making? - Simply, because the deliberate public expression of such convictions on the part of a man, so eminent in station, of a mind so penetrating, and so singularly calm and comprehensive, will have all the effect of a judicial decision on multitudes who have nothing in the world on which to rest their opposition but the weight of antiquated prejudices; against which the proper and almost only remedy is the counterpoise of an equally venerated authority. Unreasoning prejudice has ever that for its natural antagonist and corrective. By insufficient authority, where men will not or cannot patiently investigate for themselves, such prejudices are engendered in the first instance, and by better authority where they still will not reason, those prejudices are in time. destroyed.

There is, in our judgment, a decided preponderance of argument for legalising the marriages in question-argument of all kinds-and the great difficulty in writing on the subject is to discover the strong points of the opposite hypothesis. It consists with our knowledge, that when a proposal was made to the late lamented Editor of this Journal-whose profession was Lawto admit an article in these pages, he remarked, jestingly, that one great difficulty would be to write in a controversy where nearly all the arguments were on one side!'

In truth, if the question had been one of those which, like the Corn Laws, affected the great body of the people, instead of a comparatively insignificant minority; if the nation had been as strongly induced to look into it as into many others, the matter would have been decided long ago. As it is, the actual hardship and wrong have been confined to a few; and the bulk of the people, feeling uninterested in the question, have, till of late

years, opposed the vis inertia of prejudice or indifference to the force of the most cogent logic.

But this is fast giving way before the efforts which have been made to dissipate the illusion. The House of Commons has already twice affirmed its judgment that the statute affecting this class of marriages should be repealed; and though the motion of the Earl of St. Germans, in the House of Peers, was lost. in the Session of 1851, those who calmly peruse the debate will probably arrive at the conclusion, that the majority and minority represented only the votes, and not the arguments. In any future discussion, we confidently predict, with Lord Denman, that the question will be found to have advanced a very considerable stage. We believe that few have really investigated with calmness and impartiality the evidence on the question, who have not either come to Lord Denman's conclusion, or felt that their old judgments or rather prejudices have been shaken to the very foundations. The time is fast approaching, when the Legislature will deal with it, and will place the law on a footing more sound, consistent, and intelligible than at present.

It will be our object in the present Article, briefly to lay before the reader a portion of the abundant evidence which justifies the legal change demanded. But it will first be desirable just to cast a glance on the previous history of recent legislation on the subject. Whether those be right who would prohibit these marriages, or those who would sanction them, anything more ludicrously vacillating in the history of legislation it is impossible to imagine.

Before 1835, marriage with a deceased wife's sister was not void, but voidable. Unless against those who contracted it a suit was instituted in the lifetime of both parties-(which was very rarely the case, for where property was not concerned, none would have pure spite enough, and very few, even where property was concerned, would have selfishness enough, unless the property involved was very large, or the expectants more than usually greedy), the marriage was legally valid, and the offspring legitimate. If such a suit were instituted, the marriage was annulled, and the innocent children all pronounced. bastards.

Now, why were such marriages originally and avowedly condemned at all? Because they were in presumed violation of 'the LAW OF GOD,' exclaims the legislator. That was the original ground of. prohibition, and that still constitutes the main argument of the bulk of those who would yet prohibit them.

VOL. XCVII. NO. CXCVIII.

Y

Then why, in the name of wonder, not make them void at once-void ipso facto?

No,' the law said, though violations of the law of God, and on that ground prohibited by the law of man, they shall be held good notwithstanding, and the children be all legitimate, ' unless somebody takes the trouble to institute a suit during the lifetime of both parties; and if that be done they shall not be ' valid, and the children shall be bastards, because these unions are ' incestuous by the law of God!' Thus the supremacy of the law of God was made dependent on the accident as to whether there was any one spiteful enough or interested enough to procure the intervention of the law of man to give force to the law of God, without which the law of God was to remain a dead letter by the same consistent sanction of the law of man! So that the force of a supposed divine law, on which the human law was avowedly founded, depended upon the contingency of some private individual's being kind enough to give it the necessary lift! Now, assuredly, it can hardly be doubted that if these marriages were forbidden by the law of God, the legislation which made so ridiculous a distinction made 'void the law of God,' though it did not make 'void' the marriages; and made a sufficiently ludicrous thing of the law of man into the bargain.

The whole hesitating character of such legislation-the curious, elaborate folly of these provisions-considering the solemn nature of the presumed foundations on which the opposition to such marriages was ostensibly grounded,― betrayed a want of thorough conviction of the justice of the case in the minds of those who framed the law. There must have been a consciousness that the assertion of the alleged identity of such marriages with such as were really incestuous, did not dare to face the test of a practical conviction; for if so, why treat the two classes of marriages with such ludicrous inconsistency? Imagine such a proposal of alternatives in the case of any real incest-of marriage within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity, as that of brother and sister! Suppose it said that though the marriages were prohibited by the law of God, and that that was the groundwork of the law of man, they should nevertheless stand, and the progeny be regarded as not illegitimate, unless a suit was formally instituted in the lifetime of the parties! To state the case is sufficient to show that nothing but doubts as to the grounds of the law could have led, in the other case, to so absurd an inconsistency. If it be said, True, but if there were such doubts, as assuredly there must have been, what were we, the Legislature, to do?' The answer obviously is, -Re'solve the doubts, to be sure; and if you cannot do it satis