to the post of Minister of Public Instruction the Cavaliere Buonarotti Simoni, the head of the house of the illustrious Michael Angelo, a gentleman of great learning and accomplishments, well acquainted with our language, which will enable him to ascertain and adopt with facility whatever improvements in popular education may be made in England or the United States. On the other hand, however, reactionary principles are also in operation. All existing licences to Protestants to keep schools have, I am told, been withdrawn. It seems ever thus in Tuscany. Action and reaction exist together. At one and the same time two opposite currents are flowing in the river; as to which will ultimately prevail no man has any doubt, but when the struggle is to be decided none can venture to predict.

While consulting these tables of Statistics, I was struck with surprise at the enormous and increasing proportion of illegitimate to legitimate births in Florence. From 1794 to 1803 it was about 1 to 8, but from 1844 to 1851 the rate has been rather greater than 1 to 3!* These facts do not, however, seem to affect the minds of the compilers, as being out of the common course of things, for having struck an average of the whole period from 1794 to the present time, they state it without remark as 1 in 4. It is to be hoped that an error will be discovered, which may do something to release the Florentines from the imputation cast upon them by these official tables. And it is only just to say that the residents, both native and foreign, with whom I have conversed on the subject, express their disbelief in these results, and offer various reasons in support of their opinions. One is, that foundling hospitals are more resorted to than formerly, and that foundlings are all assumed, contrary to known facts, to be illegitimate. Another, that unmarried pregnant women resort to the capital to hide their shame, returning to the country after their confinement. Some light might be thrown upon this latter statement by tables which would enable one to compare the rest of Tuscany with the metropolis, but none such could I find. Of course then, I

can have little means of verifying either these facts, or the extent to which, if true, they would affect the tables; yet I am inclined to think that they are not altogether either unfounded or unimportant. Still after all deductions which can be reasonably assumed, the proportion which must remain will be very large. A priori one should say that the discipline of the Roman Catholic Church was of a kind to repress with a strong hand the immorality implied in the high proportion of illegitimate births. The population of Florence is 110,000. The city contains upwards of 800 of the secular clergy, and its various convents contain 400 monks and 800 nuns. All must give to Florence the benefit of good example (I speak in simple good faith), and the greater number must have the means of watchful supervision over the various families who enjoy the advantage of their ministration as directors of their consciences. And yet with this enormous clergy-power (if I may use such a term without offence where none is meant), see what is the result even as regards that particular offence over which the spiritual vigilance, doubtless exercised, may be reasonably supposed to have the greatest control.

I draw no inference from this painful fact, I rush to no conclusions upon it unfavourable to Catholicism. It would be raising an edifice on too narrow a foundation. Roman Catholic Ireland would probably furnish very different results. I leave it for the consideration of others.

The police code of Tuscany is rather voluminous, and offences against propriety are specified and prohibited. It is much to be wished for the honour of the city of Florence, and to obviate the violent contrast between the beautiful and the disgusting which it but too often exhibits, that police law were better enforced by the well dressed officers who perambulate the streets. I am now writing in a room of a handsome palazzo on the Arno, my windows overlooking the Ponte Carraja. On my left is the sumptuous mansion of the Corsini, rich in the finest works of art. This again stands beside other palaces, among others, that of Alfieri the poet for one. In short, the Lung' Arno on both sides the river presents ranges of palaces to view, and is the most

desirable quarter in which to reside. Yet on the elevated piers of the Ponte Carraja and its neighbour the Ponte Santa Trinitá, there are daily sights presented, as in contempt both of police and of decency, which he who wishes more particularly to comprehend, may consult the imaginary conversations of Mr. Walter Savage Landor, whose bolder pen has relieved me from pursuing the subject. These may be trifling matters to all but the fastidious English, but still, taken into connexion with the others to which I have adverted, the mind is naturally led to feel surprise that even a Roman Catholic who consults his common sense as well as his Father Confessor, does not see that the powers of good government might have better employment than in harassing those who conscientiously adopt any form of religion, and consistently act up to its principles. The population of Tuscany amounted in 1851 to 1,761,000, and it is rapidly increasing. Of these all are Roman Catholics, excepting a less number than 10,000, and of this small minority the unproselytising sect of Jews number more than seven tenths. What pretence then is there for alarm, and what wisdom, if cause for alarm existed, is there in going back to the exploded expedient of persecution? All Christendom has had reason to acknowledge with joy and gratitude the truth of the sublime maxim, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church." And, after all, what a petty affair must persecution now and henceforth be ! A real magnificent Auto da Fé is not to be hoped for. Fiery John of Tuam would shrink from such a spectacle. Inquisitors themselves could not stand it. John Calvin, if he lived in our days, would run from the window from which he watched the sufferings of his enemy Servetus, and burn his hands in his haste to extinguish the flames! Persecution is feeble and worn with age. He still may irritate, but he can no longer suppress. I remain, my dear Sir, ever yours,

MATTHEW DAVENPORT HILL.

ART. III. THE LIEN OF JUDGMENTS ON LAND.

WE apprehend that at the present day no one will be prepared to deny that any scheme of legislation which has a direct tendency to impede the free circulation of property from hand to hand, or to endanger the titles of bonâ fide purchasers or mortgagees, is intrinsically bad, and ought not to be resorted to unless a very strong case indeed be shown of the necessity for such restrictive legislation, and it be proved to be beneficial to the community at large, however prejudicial it may be to a particular class. We suppose also, that, although in a mercantile country like this the system of giving and taking credit must be permitted, and within reasonable limits upheld and supported by the Legislature, it will not be contended that those persons who as creditors elect to rely on the personal responsibility of their debtors are especial objects of legislative protection; or that, in the eye of the Law, their interests are to take precedence over those of other persons who when they purchase pay with ready money, and who when they give credit are sufficiently cautious to obtain specific security for their debts.

We are prepared to contend in the present Article that the existing Law of Debtor and Creditor as it affects the debtor's real estate has a direct and immediate tendency to prevent the free circulation of land; that it operates most seriously to the prejudice of bonâ fide purchasers and mortgagees; that an unreasonable protection is afforded to creditors who do not take specific security from their debtors; and that the interest of such creditors is preferred by the Legislature over that of more cautious creditors, and of bonâ fide purchasers and mortgagees who part with their money in good faith.

--

to

In support of our propositions we intend shortly to trace the history of the Law of Judgments and Executions, point out how and when it was that plaintiffs in personal actions acquired a more beneficial right of extent over their

-

debtors' lands than they ought ever to have possessed, — the discrepancies which exist between the caption of land and goods in execution, and the necessity which it appears to us arises of abolishing altogether the lien, both general and special, of judgments upon real estate, and the advantages which would result from so doing.

At the Common Law an ordinary judgment creditor could not by any process of execution obtain possession of all or any part of his debtor's lands, and à fortiori had no lien either general or particular upon them. His remedies (except in those rare cases in which a capias ad satisfaciendum was allowed) were confined to the writ of levari facias, under which goods and chattels and the present profits of land (as distinguished from land itself) were extendible, and the fieri facias, under which goods and chattels only could be taken. It is true, that under either a levari facias or a fieri facias, a leasehold estate for years, as being legally only a chattel, could be extended and sold; but it is equally true that a bona fide alienation of chattels, whether real or personal, or of land, the present profits of which were extendible in the interval between the recovery of the judgment and the award of the writ of execution, wholly defeated the creditor's claim. (Fleetwood's Case, 8 Rep., 171 a.) In other words, the creditor did not by his judgment per se acquire any lien or charge on all or any part of his creditor's property, whether real or personal. It was by force of the Statute of Westminster II., 13 Edward I. c. 18., that ordinary creditors by judgment were for the first time enabled to extend and obtain the actual possession of, and hold, land. But, even when this boon was conceded to plaintiffs in personal actions, so cautious were the legislators and judges of the day not to interfere unnecessarily between lord and tenant, or to sanction alienations "in invitum," that the creditor's remedies were expressly confined by the Act to one moiety of the debtor's land; and it was held, shortly after the passing of the statute, that it did not include copyholds, and, that if the debtor possessed goods sufficient to satisfy the debt, the sheriff ought not to extend the land at all. (2nd Inst. 395.) We think