ADFASIC TAL Ten bear a part also with all Sherman o es mot abundant grace King Henry hermicet us his father's charter, and Eliza- BUS surs. hat componded with Ralph Selvin Tus Bordury was done. In the fourth year after the estration. The men, aldermen, and burgesses petitioned for a ratification of their existing privileges, and for an enGagement of them, which Charles II. granted, "the borough being an ancient and populous borough, and he being desirous That fur the time to come, for ever, one certain and invariable method might be had of, for, and in the preservation of our peace, and in the rule and governance of the same borough, and of our people in the same inhabiting, and of others restrting thither, and that that borough in succeeding times arit be and remain a borough of harmony and pea the dear and terror of the wicked, and for the sp reward of the good." Wherefore, he the king grace, certain knowledge, and mere motion constituted, declared, and confirmed, and did will grant, constitute, declare, and should be one body corporate and politic in reality, deed, and name, by the name of mayor, aldermen, and burgesses of the borough of Doncaster in the county of York, and by that name be capacitated and enabled to plead and to be impleaded, answer and be answered, defend and be defended; and to have, purchase, receive, possess, give, grant, and demise. This body corporate and politic, which was to have perpetual succession, was by the charter appointed to consist of one mayor, twelve aldermen, and twenty-four capital burgesses; the aldermen to be "of the better and more excellent inhabitants of the borough," and the capital burgesses of the better, more reputable, and discreet, and these latter were to be "for ever in perpetual future times, the common council of the borough." The three estates of the borough, as they may be called, in court or convocation gathered together and assembled, were "invested with full authority, power, and ability of granting, constituting, ordaining, making, and rendering firm, from time to time, such kind of laws, institutes, bylaws, ordinances, and constitutions, which to them, or the greater part of them, shall seem to be, according to their sound understandings, good, salutary, profitable, honest, or honourable, and necessary for the good rule and governance of the mayor, aldermen, and burgesses, and of all and singular, and other the inhabitants of the borough aforesaid; and of all the officers, ministers, artificers, and resiants whatsoever within the borough aforesaid, for the time being; and for the declaring in what manner and form the aforesaid mayor, aldermen, and burgesses, and all and singular other the ministers, officers, artificers, inhabitants, and resiants of the borough aforesaid, and their factors or agents, servants and apprentices, in their offices, callings, mysteries, artifices, and businesses, within the borough aforesaid, and the liberties of the same for the time being, shall have, behave, and use themselves, and otherwise for the more ultimate public good, common utility, and good regimen of the borough aforesaid." And for the victualling of the borough, and for the better preservation, governance, disposing, letting, and demising of the lands, tenements, possess ravenner consented to serve, or fined at the discretion of the corporation, and held fast in their jail till the fine was paid. This charter also empowered the corporation to keep a fair on the Saturday before Easter, and thenceforth on every alternate Saturday until the feast of St. Andrew, for cattle, and to hold at such times a court of pie-powder. James II. confirmed the corporation in all their rights and privileges, and by the charter of Charles II., thus confirmed, Doncaster is governed at this day. It was during the mayoralty of Thomas Pheasant that Daniel Dove took up his abode in Doncaster. CHAPTER XL. P. I. REMARKS ON THE ART OF VERBOSITY-A RULE OF COCCEIUS, AND If they which employ their labour and travail about the public adminis tration of justice follow it only as a trade, with unquenchable and unconscionable thirst of gain, being not in heart persuaded that justice is God's own work, and themselves his agents in this business-the sentence of right God's own verdict, and themselves his priests to deliver it-formalities of justice do but serve to smother right, and that which was necessarily ordained for the common good, is through shameful abuse made the cause of common misery.-HOOKER. READER, thou mayst perhaps have thought me at times disposed to be circumambagious in my manner of narration. But now, having cast thine eyes over the Doncaster charters, even in the abridged form in which I have considerately presented them, thou knowest what a roundabout style is when amplified with all possible varieties of professional tautology. You may hear it exemplified to a certain degree in most sermons of the current standard, whether composed by those who inflict them upon their congregation, or purchased ready made and warranted orthodox as well as original. In a still greater degree you may hear it in the extempore prayers of any meetinghouse, and in those with which the so-called evangelical clergymen of the establishment think proper sometimes to prologize and epilogize their grievous discourses. But in tautology the lawyers beat the divines hollow. Cocceius laid it down as a fundamental rule of interpretation in theology that the words and phrases of Scripture are to be understood in every sense of which they are susceptible; that is, that they actually signify everything that they can possibly signify. The lawyers carry this rule further in their profession than the Leyden professor did in ́ his: they deduce from words not only everything that they can possibly signify, but sometimes a great deal more; and sometimes they make them bear a signification precisely opposite to what they were intended to express. That crafty politician who said the use of language is to conceal our thoughts did not go further in his theory than the members of the legal profession in their practice; as every deed which comes from their hands may testify, and every court of law bears record. You employ them to express your meaning in a deed of conveyance, a marriage settlement, or a will; and they so smother it with words, so envelop it with technicalities, so bury it beneath redundancies of speech, that any meaning which is sought for may be picked out, to the confusion of that which you intended. Something at length comes to be contested: you go to a court of law to demand your right; or you are summoned into one to defend it. You ask for justice, and you receive a nice distinction-a forced construction—a verbal criticism. By such means you are defeated and plundered in a civil cause; and in a criminal one a slip of the pen in the endictment brings off the criminal scot free. As if slips of the pen in such cases were always accidental! But because judges are incorruptible, (as, blessed be God! they still are in this most corrupt nation,) and because barristers are not to be suspected of ever intentionally betraying the cause which they are fee'd to defend, it is taken for granted that the same incorruptibility, and the same principled integrity, or gentlemanly sense of honour which sometimes is its substitute, are to be found among all those persons who pass their miserable lives in quilldriving, day after day, from morning till night, at a scrivener's desk, or in an attorney's office! Play not for gain, but sport: who plays for more HERBERT. WELL, gentle reader, we have made our way through the charters, and seen that the borough of Doncaster is, as it may be called, an imperium in imperio, or regnum; (or rather, if there were such word, regnulum in regno—such a word there ought to be, and very probably was, and most certainly VOL. 1.-16 consented to serve, or fined at the discretion of the corporation, and held fast in their jail till the fine was paid. This charter also empowered the corporation to keep a fair on the Saturday before Easter, and thenceforth on every alternate Saturday until the feast of St. Andrew, for cattle, and to hold at such times a court of pie-powder. James II. confirmed the corporation in all their rights and privileges, and by the charter of Charles II., thus confirmed, Doncaster is governed at this day. It was during the mayoralty of Thomas Pheasant that Daniel Dove took up his abode in Doncaster. CHAPTER XL. P. I. REMARKS ON THE ART OF VERBOSITY—A RULE OF COCCEIUS, AND If they which employ their labour and travail about the public administration of justice follow it only as a trade, with unquenchable and unconscionable thirst of gain, being not in heart persuaded that justice is God's own work, and themselves his agents in this business-the sentence of right God's own verdict, and themselves his priests to deliver it--formalities of justice do but serve to smother right, and that which was necessarily ordained for the common good, is through shameful abuse made the cause of common misery.-HOOKER. READER, thou mayst perhaps have thought me at times disposed to be circumambagious in my manner of narration. But now, having cast thine eyes over the Doncaster charters, even in the abridged form in which I have considerately presented them, thou knowest what a roundabout style is when amplified with all possible varieties of professional tautology. You may hear it exemplified to a certain degree in most sermons of the current standard, whether composed by those who inflict them upon their congregation, or purchased ready made and warranted orthodox as well as original. In a still greater degree you may hear it in the extempore prayers of any meetinghouse, and in those with which the so-called evangelical clergymen of the establishment think proper sometimes to prologize and epilogize their grievous discoufses. But in tautology the lawyers beat the divines hollow. Cocceius laid it down as a fundamental rule of interpretation in theology that the words and phrases of Scripture are to be understood in every sense of which they are susceptible; that is, that they actually signify everything that they can possibly signify. The lawyers carry this rule fur• ther in their profession than the Leyden professor did in |