business. It is also ordered, that not more than twenty-three shall be sworn, in order that twelve may be a majority, for their decisions are regulated by a plurality of votes. It is their duty to hear the accusations against the prisoners, for the purpose of determining whether there are sufficient grounds for putting them upon their trials, and to regulate other matters arising in the county. They are previously instructed in the articles of their inquiry by an address from the Judge: who presides upon the bench. They then withdraw to receive indictments preferred in the name of the King, but at the suit of any private prosecutor, hearing evidence only in support of the charge, which, if they think it sufficiently attested to call upon the party to answer, they return into Court, and present the indictment to the proper officer, with the words true bill endorsed upon it; and the accused must then undergo his trial. On the contrary, if the accusation is not sustained by credible testimony, the bill is ignored, or not found, and the party is set at liberty. Having passed this ordeal, we proceed with the culprit before the Court, where his fate is to be determined by a jury of his peers; and a brief statement of the manner in which this body is formed will close the present article. Trial by Jury, called also trial by the country, is so ancient, that some writers affirm it was used by the Britons themselves, the first inhabitants of our island. Be that as it may, it has always been insisted on as the principal bulwark of our liberties; and has undergone some changes, rather from the insensible operation of time and public convenience, than by express Act of Parliament. It is true that the system has been occasionally modified by the Legislature to suit the improved condition of society, but its spirit and principles remain the same. It is provided that the Sheriff shall keep a register, containing the names of all persons in the county who are qualified to serve as jurymen. Formerly it was necessary that a man should be a. freeholder to a small amount; but now the qualification is enlarged, in some instances to comprehend the holders of property of other descrip➡ tions; by which the maxim that a man shall be tried by his peers, or equals, selected, in part at least, from his own vicinage, is better preserved. Petty Juries then are generally taken from the middle classes of life, where, as holders of property themselves, they are likely to discharge their functions with sufficient regard to the public welfare, while their station in society enables them to appreciate the motives and conduct of the accused with truth and accuracy. Another admirable provision is, that both parties shall have the power of objecting to such persons being admitted to the jury-box, who are suspected of having a bias upon the case to be submitted to their decision. By this means the prisoner can exclude those whom he conceives may entertain a prejudice against him, and ensure an impartial tribunal. When the number is complete, the whole twelve are separately sworn before the Court, to well and truly try the issue between our Sovereign Lord the King, and the prisoner at the bar, and a true verdict give according to the evidence," which verdict must be agreed to unanimously, or it cannot be received. In some instances the Jury make up their minds without leaving the box; but, where any difference of opinion arises, they may retire to a room provided for the purpose, to examine their doubts, and, by a review of the evidence, satisfy their judgment and consciences that their decision is just and lawful: nor can they obtain refreshments, or personal accommodations of any description, till they have discharged this last part of their duty, in order that nothing may interfere to divide or unnecessarily protract their deliberations. J. S. ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE OF JONAS HANWAY. Tun history of our country, and that of the last century in particular, presents us several most eminent examples of men who have devoted their fortunes and their talents to the business of improving the condition of their fellow-creatures. It is the duty of the statesman to promote, as far as laws can operate, the advance of national happiness and prosperity; but a magnificent system of policy may sometimes be diverted from its proper ends, or its effects may not be realized during a period when they may be distinctly traced to the comprehensive plan from which they proceeded. Fortunately in Great Britain the watchful care of individuals supplies the place of direct legislation for particular objects of social improvement. There have always been men amongst us (and such still remain the greatest of our national blessings), who have devoted all the energies of a wise benevolence to mitigate the most offensive evils of vice and poverty. Such evils will always arise in a state of society so highly civilized as our own; where there is a perpetual strife of personal interests, raising some into importance, and depressing others into want;-and where the vices of our nature are constantly creating a succession of wretched beings, to whom the charities of our faith call us to offer the hand of pity and of succour. The numerous institutions of our nation for the relief of misery and the reformation of delinquency, show how extensively the benevolence of individuals has provided for the mitigation of those calamities which cannot wholly be removed. The records of these institutions at the same time point out how much good may be effected by the labours of one energetic mind, proposing to itself the task of directing the scattered benevolence of the pious and the humane to some great object of permanent utility. Such a mind was that of Jonas Hanway. While the enthusiastic philanthropy of a Howard carried him into every dreary abode of crime and disease, whilst he despised the fatigue of traversing the most distant regions, and braved the dangers of the most injurious climates, absorbed in the glorious duty to which he was devoted;--there was a fellow labourer in the same good work, less enterprising but not less persevering,-less heroic in his self-devotion, but not less generous in his consistent exertion. The magnanimity of the one will be more admired than imitated;-the patient labour in well-doing of the other may be emulated in some degree by all. Jonas Hanway was born at Portsmouth in 1712. He was educated as a merchant; and dedicated himself to that honourable profession with great zeal. His mercantile objects led him to traverse Persia, a country at that time little known. Ön his return to England in 1750, he applied himself to write his travels, which he published in 1753. Having acquired a small independent fortune, he settled in London as a private gentleman;-and for the remainder of his life was occupied in those benevolent objects which he so successfully and honourably accomplished. The establishment of the Marine Society was the first. great work in which Mr. Hanway engaged. It was the object of this Society to take unemployed landsmen and vagrant boys, from their habits of idleness and reprobation, and fit them out, properly clothed, to serve in the Royal Navy. This Institution was established by a most liberal public subscription ;-but Mr. Hanway had the great merit of proposing, methodizing, and recommending the plan; and his assiduity in carrying the design into execution was unwearied. The formation of one of the most interesting Charities in London, the Magdalen Hospital, next engaged his attention. The public benevolence had previously been called to this subject by the forcible pen of the great moralist, Dr. Johnson. The following remarks by this most improving writer will still be read with advantage : "It cannot be doubted but that numbers follow this dreadful course of life with shame, horror, and regret; but where can they hope for refuge? The world is not their friend, nor the world's law. Their sighs, and tears, and groans, are criminal in the eye of their tyrants, the bully and the bawd, who fatten on their misery, and threaten them with want or a gaol, if they show the least design of escaping from their bondage. "How frequently have the gay and thoughtless, in their evening frolics, seen a band of these miserable females, covered with rags, shivering with cold, and pining with hunger; and, without either pitying their calamities, or reflecting upon the cruelty of those who perhaps first seduced them by caresses of fondness, or magnificence of promises, go on to reduce others to the same wretchedness by the same means! “To stop the increase of this deplorable multitude is undoubtedly the first and most pressing consideration. To prevent evil is the great end of government; the end for which vigilance and severity are properly employed. But surely those whom passion or interest have already depraved, have some claim to compassion from beings equally frail and fallible with themselves; nor will they long groan in their present afflictions, if none were to refuse them relief but those that owe their exemption from the same distress only to their wisdom and their virtue." To afford the means of reformation to these unhappy beings-to restore the penitent victim of passion to the decencies of society-to proclaim that the world would not wholly reject those misguided sufferers, when they were disposed to turn away from their misery and their degradation ;-these were the objects which called Mr. Hanway to the establishment of a house for the reception of repentant prostitutes. The proposal was too obviously humane not to meet with the most adequate encouragement. When we look at the present accumulation of similar vice throughout the country, and in the Metropolis in particular, we cannot but deplore how inefficient must be any such plan for opposing the progress of crime. But if the political economist may be allowed to reason thus from the aggregate appearances of society, the Christian will look upon such institutions with a kindlier reverence; and if he hear of a single instance of one lost child restored to the embrace of a weeping parent-if he see one blighted flower that lay like a weed upon the earth, planted again in a genial and refreshing soil, and again blossoming in joy and gratitude-he will bless the benevolence which has afforded the erring the opportunity of escape from their self-inflicted miseries ;—and he will refer the origin of such an Institution to the Almighty goodness, which "desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he may turn from his wickedness, and live." Mr. Hanway was amongst the first who saw how greatly religious knowledge might be advanced by the establishment of Sunday Schools. He advised and aided in the completion of these truly useful institutions, wherever he possessed any influence ;-from that conviction, which almost every pious and every liberal man has since felt, that there can be no perils in knowledge half so dangerous as the brutalities of ignorance; and that the only way to apply the rudiments of learning to their safe and proper end, is to make the sole object of such learning the knowledge of Christian duties and obligations. A most persecuted and degraded portion of our fellow-creatureschimney-sweepers-are under the greatest obligations to the active humanity of Mr. Hanway. He was the foremost to point out their helpless condition-to enforce a better treatment from their avaricious masters-and to shield them from individual tyranny by legislative protection. The condition of these children was through his exertions greatly ameliorated;-and succeeding exertions afford the hope, that if the necessity for the use of human beings in such a dangerous and unhealthy employ be not wholly removed, they will be so secured in the blessings of cleanliness and relaxation, that they may not continue to be shut out as it were from society, but take their station amongst other classes of their fellow-labourers. It would be impossible to detail the various tasks in which Mr. Hanway was uniformly engaged, for the advantage of his countrymen. His public spirit and his disinterestedness were so much the theme of general admiration, that a body of the merchants of London solicited from the Minister of the day, that he would confer on Mr. Hanway some office of honour and profit, as a mark of the national esteem, and as some compensation for his unlimited devotion of his own private fortune to the relief of the wretched. He was accordingly made a Commissioner, of the Navy;-a situation which he discharged with exemplary fidelity for twenty years;-and of which the pecuniary advantages afforded him the means of more extensively benefiting his fellow-creatures. Mr. Hanway died in 1786. So universally was he respected, that a sum of many hundred pounds was subscribed to erect a monument to his memory. A conviction of the obligations of Christianity was the moving spring of Mr. Hanway's unwearied exertions in the cause of charity. During his life he caused to be engraved a brass plate, intending it for his tomb-stone, bearing the following inscription, which expresses with equal truth and modesty, the peculiarities of his honourable cha racter : I believe that my Redeemer liveth, JONAS HANWAY, Esq., who, trusting in that good Providence, passed through a variety of fortunes with patience. in foreign lands, ruled by arbitrary power, the persuasive laws contained in the and the consciousness of his own depravity, of the various wants of his inquire no further; The Lord have mercy on his soul and thine! Apprehensive of the too partial regard of his friends; and esteeming plain truth above the proudest trophies of monumental flattery, at the age of fifty-one he caused this plate and inscription to be made. EDITOR K. ULM AND TRAFALGAR. [The following beautiful poem, in which the glorious victory of Nelson at Trafalgar is contrasted with the triumph of Bonaparte at Ulm-events which happened about the same period-is written by a living statesman of the most powerful talent. Such compositions recal us to a proper sense of the importance of those great events which have been wrought in our own generation;-blessings for which the debt of gratitude can never be cancelled, either to Heaven, or to the human instruments of our preservation.] WHILE Austria's yielded armies, vainly brave, Moved, in sad pomp, by Danube's blood-stain'd wave, 'Midst captive chiefs th' insulting Victor stood,SA And shamed with taunts the triumphs of his sword. That hand, which erst, by Nile's affrighted tide, Roused from her trance, her shatter'd force combin’d, |