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    the then recent fall of Napoleon . It could scarcely have been expected that the revolution of a few months would restore to the imperial throne that uncommon man , upon whose character the potentates of Europe , with all their affectation of

    superiority , have united to stamp the seal of greatness in the world ' s estimate , by representing his existence as incompatible with their security . The emperor seems , however , to have returned with a corrected , or , at least , a controuled ambition . For no one

    can suspect that the Abbe Gregoire would lend his name and influence to any political project which did not design the freedom and happiness of mankind . Nor would that military genius , the democratic Caruot , defend his country against foreign foes , to

    give her up at length to the will of a despot , instead of the protection of a free government . To establish such a government was the professed object of the late extraordinary assemblage at Paris , designated as the Field of May . This eventj the revival of a

    very ancient custom , as I shall shew in the course of this paper , may remoid us that France , so long the vassal of a Grand Monarque ? was , for ages before , one of the freest countries in Europe , as appears by the following work *

    " Franco-GaIlia , or an Account of the ancient free State of France and most other parts of Europe , before the loss of their liberties . Written originally in Latin by the famous Civilian , Francis Hotoman , in the

    year 1574 , and translated into English by the author of the * Account of Denmark . ' 8 vo . Pp . 144 . London : printed for Tim Goodwin , at the Queen ' s Head , against St . Dunstaii ' s Church , Fleet-Street , 1711 . '

    Francis Hotoman , according to Boyle , was born Aug . 23 , 1524 > at Paris , of a family originally from Silesia . At fifteen he studied the civil law at Orleans , and was qualified in three years for a doctor ' s degree . His father , on his return home , entered

    him at the bar , but he preferred the study of the Roman law and polite learning , and i » snid to have read public lectures in the schools of Paris at the age of twenty-three . He relished the new opinions , and finding he could not profess them at Paris , he removed to Lyons iu 1547 . After-

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    wards , being disinherited by his father for having become a Protest ant , he lived some time with Calvin at ' Geneva , and became professor of philology at Berne , where he married a French lady , who had fled her country on the score of religion . At Strasburg , Valence and Bourges , successively , he was chosen professor of civil law . At the latter place , he narrowly escaped from , the massacre of St . Bartholomew , in 1572 , and

    retired to Geneva . He there read lectures in civil law , and published some books , with that strength against the persecutors , that he had great promises made him if he would write no more in that strain . But he hearkened

    not to those proposals , saying , the truth should never be betrayed or forsaken by him . Some time after , he removed to Basle , where he taught the civil law , and where he died the 12 th Feb . 1590 . Such is the substance of Bayle ' s article .

    ± lie translator of Franco-Gallia says of Hotoman , that " he joined a most exemplary piety and probity to an eminent degree of knowledge and learning ; " and that ** no day passed over his head wherein he employed

    not several hours in the exercise of prayer and reading the scriptures . ' Thuanus describes him as , " without dispute , one of the ablest civilians that France ever produced ; " though , according to Bayle , that historian censures him for maintaining " that

    the kingdom is not successive , as the inheritance of private persons , but that anciently the power and authority of electing and deposing kings , belonged to the states of the kingdom and to all the nation assembled

    in a body . * Such , it will be recollected , was , in the view of Mr . Burke , the horrible political heresy of Dr . Price , who maintained that , on the principle of our Revolution , titf people had a right to cashier a king for misconduct , and to supply w

    place by their election . u ~ In a prefatory dedication to ¦ y ' deric Count Palatine of the Hh ^ m the author says , " I have Pf f ^ the old French and German l » f *\ that treat of our Franco-Gallia , collected out of their works a i ^ state of our common wealth , in condition wherein they agree n rished for above a thousand >' and indeed the great wisdom of <*

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    356 Book-Worm . No . XXII .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1815, page 356, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1761/page/28/