When any of these ordonnances were published, the chancellor generally procured some judicial writer of acknowledged ability, to publish a succinct and perspicuous commentary upon it, in order to explain to the public, and particularly to legal practitioners, its practical effects. All the ordonnances which we have mentioned, were received in France with universal applause, and attended with the most beneficial results. The first,

-or the Ordonnance sur la Marine, has been the most known out of that kingdom. The wisdom of its provisions, and the precision with which they are expressed, were frequently mentioned by the late Mr. sergeant Hill, in terms of the highest praise.

We have noticed the chancellor's attachment to polite literature. This was his ornament in prosperity, his refuge in adverse fortune, the soother of his mind in the vexations and wearisomeness of professional and official duty, and the restoration of its energies after fatigue, to new freshness and elasticity. It is mentioned by all his biographers, that, from his earliest youth to the close of his life, he never let a day pass without reading a portion of the scriptures: a large part of his voluminous writings is dedicated to sacred subjects. One of the greatest objects of his life was to give his children a good education, by impressing indelibly on their minds, the true principles of religion, virtue, and honour.

In his eightieth year, finding himself unequal to the discharge of his office, he tendered his resignation of it to the king: the monarch unwillingly accepted it,-continued to him all its honours, and settled on him for his life, a yearly pension of one hundred thousand livres,about 4,8001. of English money, but nearly double the amount of that sum, if we consider the relative value of

money, and relative prices of vendible commodities in the two kingdoms, at that time and the present.

He died in 1751 :-By his own desire he was buried in the church-yard of his parish, under a simple cross. Lewis the fifteenth caused a magnificent monument, in the form of an obelisk, to be erected to his memory, near to the place in which he was buried. It was destroyed at the beginning of the French revolution; it has since been restored at the public expense: and in 1810, statues of both the illustrious characters, to which this article is assigned,-l'Hôpital and d'Aguesseau,-were placed in parallel positions before the peristyle of the legislative palace. The works of d'Aguesseau have been published in thirteen volumes, quarto. The first volume, which contains his instructions to his son for the study of the law, and the last, which contains his life of his father, and some curious memoirs respecting the religious feuds by which France was distracted, towards the end of the reign of Lewis the fourteenth, will be found by an English reader to be the most interesting. His " Dis"sertation on Mistakes of Law," and "Selections from his "Legal Arguments," have been translated and published by Mr. Evans ;* and may be read by English lawyers with pleasure, and not without profit, if their professional studies lead them to any of the subjects which the chancellor discusses.

The only fault imputed to d'Aguesseau was dilatoriness of decision: we should hear his own apology. The general feeling of the public on this head, was once respectfully communicated to him by his son: My child," said the chancellor, "when you shall have read what I

In the second volume of his translation of Pothier's celebrated Treatise on the law of Obligations and Contracts."

"have read, seen what I have seen, and heard what I "have heard, you will feel, that if, on any subject you "know much, there may be also much that you do not "know; and that something even of what you know,

66

may not, at the moment, be in your recollection :"You will then too, be sensible of the mischievous and "often ruinous consequences, of even a small error in a "decision; and conscience, I trust, will then make you "as doubtful, as timid, and consequently as dilatory, as "I am accused of being."

XXVIII. 3.

The Mississippi Scheme of Law.

We have noticed the opposition of d'Aguesseau to Law's Mississippi project: A summary mention in this place of its rise and fall may not be unacceptable to our readers.

In May 1716, a bank was established in favour of the celebrated John Law, of Lauriston, in North Britain: it consisted of twelve hundred shares of 5,000 livres. In January 1718, the regent reimbursed the proprietors, and took the bank into the hands of the crown: it then received the name of the Royal Bank: it was placed under the direction of Law. It prospered, and produced a general taste, in France, particularly in the capital, for paper money. Speculating upon this, Law formed a scheme for establishing a great commercial company : all the privileges, possessions, and effects of the foreign trading companies were to be transferred to it; the revenue of the crown was to be vested in it; the royal bank was to be attached to it; the whole province of Louisiana was to be granted to it; the name of "The

· Company of the West," was to be given it; and Law was to govern it. The regent acquiesced in the plan, established the company, and conferred on it all that Law solicited. From the river Mississippi, on which the province of Louisiana lies, the project obtained the appellation of "The Mississippi scheme." By subsequent patents, the regent granted to the company the right of exclusive trade to China, and every part of the East Indies this gave it the name of "The Company of the "Indies."

It was held out to the public that these enormous possessions and power would enable the company to achieve speculations in commerce, which would rapidly bring the whole wealth of the world into its hands, and entitle the shareholders to dividends, far exceeding the greatest gains of the most successful adventurer in those or former times. The company actually announced a dividend of two hundred per cent. The delusion became general, and rose to such a height, that, in September 1721, the price of shares was more than sixty times that for which they had originally sold, and the bank lent money, on the slightest security, at two per cent. The delusion continued till the 21st of the following May.-During this period, the public creditors were paid with bank notes, and the former securities given them by the king were withdrawn and annulled.-But, on that memorable day, an arrêt royal revealed the true nature of the bubble : the paper fabric was instantaneously blown away, and on the following day, the 22d of May,—a man might have starved, with paper for one hundred millions in his pocket.

The general result was, that an immense number of individuals were ruined, and the greatest part of them

reduced to the most abject poverty; but the state was a gainer. The interest of the national debt, when the scheme was first adopted, amounted to eighty millions of French livres ;-it was reduced by the paper operations to fifty-seven millions: the twenty-three millions, which made the difference, was the gain of the state.

Sir James Stuart, in his Inquiry into the Wealth of "Nations," offers some ingenious arguments to prove that there are not sufficient grounds to impute deliberate villany either to the regent or to Law; that the scheme, as it was planned by the latter, was not substantially defective, and that its failure was owing to the unwise councils, by which the plans of Law were overruled.

Near to the time of which we have been speaking, England, unfortunately, had its bubbles; but not to the same extent as that by which France had suffered. A curious account of these, and of the fall of the South Sea stock and subscriptions, is given by Mr. Anderson in the third volume of his "History of Trade and Commerce." It is to be hoped that posterity will not receive a similar chapter on the Foreign Loans now or recently in the market.

XXIX.

LETTER ON ANCIENT AND MODERN MUSIC.

DURING his foreign education, the Reminiscent acquired some notion of the theory of music, and received some instruction in the practice of the harpsichord. At the house of lord Sandwich, his early introduction to which he has mentioned, music was the order of the day. From these circumstances, and in consequence of his having, as he believes, a natural taste for it, the few