We could have wished that our author had not been fo hafty in his paffage through Mefopotamia and Natolia. This is undoubtedly the oldeft continent with which we are acquainted; and it is with regret we obferve, that it is a fpot of which we probably know the leaft. A good map is added to the work, but it differs in fome refpects from that of Mr. Irwin, and the longitudes and latitudes differ occafionally from thofe of Niebuhr. At the end are very judicious directions to travellers who may follow the fame route; and this work will undoubtedly be very useful to thofe who would reach India by paffing through Arabia and Mefopotamia, without following the circuitous course of the Cape. As our connexions with India now increafe, we are furprifed that this point is fo much. neglected. Perhaps it is impracticable to reconcile fo many capricious chiefs, and their jarring interefts; perhaps the expence, in a period of peace, is more than equivalent to the time faved. Whatever may be the cause, there appears to be an unaccountable fupinenefs in this refpect among the ruling powers of India. They should recollect that war, though diftant, may again occur; and another facrifice, like that at Cuddalore, be occafioned by want of an eafy and quick paffage. Hampshire extracted from Domefday-Book. To which is added a Gloffary, explanatory of the obfcure and obfolete Words. By Richard Warner, jun. 4to. l. 15. in Boards. Robinfons. SINCE we are not permitted to receive the whole of this cu rious record, it is of fome importance that we fee it in detail; and while the general publication is not undertaken, its different parts make a neceffary appendage to every county hiftory. Mr. Warner, in the volume before us, has published the account given in it of Hampshire very correctly, and has added to it fome remarks on the early state of England, which, if not always new, are curious, and generally interesting. Of the work in general, we have little to add to what we remarked in our review of that part of Domefday which contains Wiltshire, published laft year by Mr. Wyndham. Of the preface and introduction fome farther examination may be neceffary. Domesday-book confifts of two volumes, a folio of 382 double pages of vellum, with two columns in each page, and á quarto of 450 double pages of vellum, containing one column only in each. The last contains Effex, Norfolk, and Suffolk: the first contains a defcription of the other counties, except Northum Northumberland, Cumberland, Weftmoreland, and the Bishoprick of Durham. A fmall part of Cumberland and the fouth part of Westmoreland are included indeed in Yorkshire; but the reft of thefe counties feem not to have been furveyed, because they contained no inhabitants. In the wars with the Danes and Scots, they were probably laid waste. The object of this vaft work is unknown. The great mind of William was, we think, fuperior to that vanity which delights in counting its poffeffions; and we muft either confider his motive to be a wifh of afcertaining the demefnes which really belonged to the king, and which, during the inglorious reign of Etheldred, or the confufed dynasty of the Danes, had been alienated; or to afcertain the real number of vaffals, and the homage which was due. The former we think no improbable opinion; and the latter, which is that of judge Wright, in his introduction to the Law of Tenure, is fupported by the general homage which followed. The furvey was began in the fourteenth year of the Conqueror's reign, and concluded in the twentieth. William feems to have deferred it only till he found his poffeffion of the kingdom undisputed. Mr. Warner, in the introduction, confiders the state of England from the time of Alfred: the period preceding his age, he thinks, is too obfcure for investigation; yet we find it at laft indifpenfible. The political regulations into tythings, hundreds, and trythings, of which we still retain the vestige in Yorkshire, under the name of ridings, are well known. The tything confifted of ten families; the hundreds of ten tythings; and the last divifion was wholly independent of the number of families, and confifted of a third of a county; a circumftance unknown to the Yorkshire 'fquire, who confidered the divifion of the county as incomplete, because there was not a fourth riding. The political fyftem of Alfred was in many refpects admirable, and it deferves a more attentive confideration, because it was probably the remains of the ancient fyftem. Whatever may have been the pretenfions of William, or the truth of his story refpecting Edward's will, his conduct was truly that of a conqueror. He brought a needy train of vaffals, whom he rewarded with profufion: the Norman poffeffors of the different manors, mentioned in Domesday, are so numerous, that many have thought William meant only to preferve the list of his Norman vaffals. The laws, the cuftoms, and the language of Normandy were alfo introduced, while the ancient Saxon cuftoms continued only in the common law. These the Saxons, as our author properly remarks, brought from the woods of Germany; and for this reafon we just now observed, that fome enquiry into the ftate of England during the Saxon dynasties was was indifpenfible. Perhaps Mr. Warner may pursue it in an other work; for we know no fubject more interesting to a moderni Englishman, none that has been confidered with lefs precifion, though various fources of information ftill remain. In an enquiry of this kind, it would be neceffary to confider the cuf toms of the Saxons in their native woods, as connected with their Gothic or Scythian ancestors; to trace the progrefs and developement of these during their government of England, and to examine their influence on our modern traditionary system of law. The political state of England from the time of Alfred, and the changes introduced by the Norman conqueror, we have faid are the chief fubjects of Mr. Warner's introduction, which difplays much acuteness and no inconfiderable share of information. During the reign of Ethelred the Danegelt was established; and, on this fubject, we fhall tranfcribe a neceffary and very ufeful diftinction. This then may be confidered as the era, when these fubfi diary payments commenced, which continued to be remitted to the North till 1040, a feries of about twenty-eight years; the fums hitherto exacted by the Danes, avere tributary payments, made by the English to fave their kingdom from the horrors of war; whereas thofe fines fubfequent to this period, were, as I faid before, fubfidiary or flipendiary payments, annually raised by the general tax called Danegeld, and given to the Danes, in confequence of exprefs contracts or treaties, entered into between the Danes and the English, by which the former agreed to furnish the latter with a certain force military and naval, in confideration of a flated fubfidy, proportionable to the number of men and thips, which were thus lent to this country. This diftinction between the two kinds of payment, fhould be clearly understood, and kept continually before us, in perufing the tranfactions of this age, as many of our hiftorians, for want of thus difcriminating between them, have been led into confused and contradictory accounts; feveral afferting that the firft payments, were fubfidiary and annual, and that Danegeld had its commencement in 991, whereas in fact it did not take place till 1012, when the English hired forces of the Danes, on the terms above mentioned.' In the following paffage, we apprehend, the author refers to the ftatute law; yet perhaps this opinion fhould be received with fome limitations: it is not probable that the conqueror would totally difregard the customs or the prejudices of his new fubjects. In the curfory view we have thus taken, of the Saxon form of government previous to the Norman conquest, the attacks it then fuftained, and alterations it underwent, we shall have feen fufficient fufficient reafon to convince us, that many particulars in our prefent laws and conftitution received their origin at that æras thefe, feveral of our able legal writers have attempted to trace, from pure and unadulterated Saxon fources; but a little trouble in comparing the one with the other, and a finall degree of confideration, prove them to have been mistaken in their fuppofition, and make it evident to us, that although the Saxons might have formed the basis of the edifice, yet the greateft part of the fuperftructure was the work of Norman artiits. The Latin of Domesday is translated, in gencra', with accuracy; and our author compares the ancient manors with the prefent state of the county: many of these are no longer to be difcovered. The work concludes with a very useful Gloffary. His explanation of a hide of land is curious: with it we fhall conclude our article: HIDA. What the contents of a hide were, feems to be a matter of great doubt and uncertainty; for almost all our antiquarians and gloffarits vary in their opinions refpecting it. Arthur Agard himself, who was a man indefatigable in his antiquarian researches, and every way qualified for the task, confelles, that with refpect to the Saxon measurements of land, his labours had met with but little fuccefs. For, fays he, it fo fareth with me, that in perufing as well thofe abbreviations [ have noted out of Domefday, and other records fince that time, and alfo thofe notes I have quoted out of ancient legifters, and books, which have fallen into my hands within these thirty years; I have found the divertity of meafurement fo variable and different in every county, fire, and place in the realm, as I was in a manner doubtful whether it were better for me to write or not. His conjecture, with refpect to the etymology of the word, is not incurious, as follows; "I do think that our nation drawing firft our original from the Trojans, that is from the Trotians, as fome write, could not but bring from thence the fame order which was obferved in thofe countries, of measuring their lands; as appears by Dido (in Virgi!) who was the founder of Carthage, and coming thither by fea, bought of the prince of that country, fo much ground as fhe could compals with a hyde, to build a city for herself and her fubjects; which being granted, fie caufed the fame to be cut into fmall threads, and fo compaffed a mighty deal of land more than was expected. So our forefathers, as it should feem, did collop out the countries they dwelt in, in like fort. And the etymology of the word hyde I think was drawn from Dido's act before fpoken of; for you fhall not find that word in any other language than ours, neither French, Latin, Italian, &c." It is probable, however, a hyde confifted of 120 acres; for the Black Book in the Chapter Houfe, at Weftminster, fays exprefsly, Hyda a primitiva inftitutione ex centum acris conftat. Lib. Nig. in cap. penult. lib. i. And 100 Norman acres (the measurement here spoken of) were equal to 120 English ones.' An Efay on Senfibility. A Poem. In Six Parts. 8vo. 45. fewed. Nicol. HAPPINESS and mifery are often fo clofely interwoven in human concerns, that it is not always easy to analyse or feparate them. That fenfation of the mind which we term fenfibility participates, in a very peculiar manner, of thefe contrary qualities, and forms an interefting and copious fubject for the philofopher or poet. Many favourable fpecimens of either character are given by our author: and though we muft allow his mode of reafoning to be not always fufficiently accurate, and fome paffages to be heavy and profaic, yet thefe objections are not of fufficient weight to detract from the general merit of a poem confifting of between three and four thoufand lines. It is divided into fix books. The first confiders the pleafures of fenfibility; fhews that happiness cannot be acquired by the brutal and felfifh mind, but that the man poffeffed of delicate feelings is alone fufceptible of it in the highest degree. As a contraft to this pofition, the three fucceeding books are taken up in confidering the pains attending a too exquifite fenfibility. The firft of thefe defcribes the general calamities of life in the next are delineated private characters and their purfuits; in which the feeling mind muft naturally be interefted; and be ftrongly affected at the misfortunes, follies, or vices of others. The miferies that arife from the more intimate and tender connections of life are examined in that which follows; where the author's own fenfibility appears to advantage in the tribute paid to his brother's memory, which concludes the book. In the fifth part apathy is confidered; and this perfonification of it will please the reader. Upon that clime where froft's eternal chain, Scaree |