Donation of England and Ireland to the Popes by King John.

In 1213 king John, vulgarly called Lackland, or more properly Lackvirtue, being excommunicated, and seeing his kingdom laid under an interdict, gave it away to pope Innocent III. and his successors. "Not constrained by fear, but with my full consent and the advice of my barons, for the remission of my sins against God and the church, I resign England and Ireland to God, St. Peter, St. Paul, and our lord the pope Innocent, and to his successors in the apostolic chair."

He declared himself feudatory lieutenant of the pope, paid about eight thousand pounds sterling in ready money to the legate Pandulph, promised to pay a thousand more every year, gave the first year in advance to the legate who trampled upon him, and swore on his knees that he submitted to lose all, in the event of not paying at the time appointed.

The jest of this ceremony was, that the legate departed with the money, and forgot to remove the excommunication.

Examination of the Vassalage of Naples and England.

It may be asked which was the most valuable, the donation of Robert Guiscard or that of John Lackland; both had been excommunicated, both had given their states to St. Peter, and became only the farmers of them. If the English barons were indignant at the infamous bargain of their king with the pope, and cancelled it, the Neapolitan barons could have equally cancelled that of baron Robert; and that which they could have done formerly, they certainly can do at present.

Were England and Apulia given to the pope, according to the law of the church or of the fiefs, as to a bishop or to a sovereign? If to a bishop, it is precisely contrary to the law of Jesus, who so often forbids his disciples to take anything, and who declares to them that his kingdom is not of this world.

If as to a sovereign, it was high treason to his imperial majesty: the Normans had already done homage to the emperor. Thus no right, spiritual or temporal, belonged to the popes in this affair. When the principle is erroneus, all the deductions are so of course. Naples no more belonged to the pope than England.

There is still another method of providing against this ancient bargain; it is the right of the people, which is stronger than the right of fiefs. The people's right will not suffer one sovereign to belong to another, and the most ancient law is to be master of our own, at least when we are not the weakest.

Of Donations made by the Popes.

If principalities have been given to the bishops of Rome, they have given away many more. There is not a single throne in Europe to which they have not made a present. As soon as a prince had conquered a country, or even wished to do it, the popes granted it to him in the name of St. Peter. Sometimes they even made the first advances, and it may be said that they have given away every kingdom but that of heaven.

Few people in France know that Julius II. gave the states of king Louis XII. to the emperor Maximilian, who could not put himself in possession of them. They do not sufficiently remember that Sixtus V. Gregory XIV. and Clement VIII. were ready to make a present of France to whomsoever Philip II. would have chosen for the husband of his daughter Clara Eugenia.

As to the emperors, there is not one since Charlemagne that the court of Rome has not pretended to nominate. This is the reason why Swift, in his Tale of a Tub, says, "that lord Peter became suddenly mad, and that Martin and Jack, his brothers, confined him by the advice of their relations." We simply relate this drollery as a pleasant blasphemy of an English priest against the bishop of Rome.

All these donations disappear before that of the East and West Indies, with which Alexander VI. of his divine power and authority invested Spain and Por

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tugal. It was giving almost all the earth. He couldin the same manner have given away the globes of Jupiter and Saturn with their satellites.

Particular Donations.

The donations of citizens are treated quite differently. The codes are unanimously agreed that no one can give away the property of another, as well as that no person can take it. It is an universal law.

In France, jurisprudence was uncertain on this object, as on almost all others, until the year 1731, when the equitable chancellor d'Aguesseau, having conceived the design of making the law uniform, very weakly began the great work, by the edict on donations. It is digested in forty-seven articles; but, in wishing to render all the formalities concerning donations uniform, Flanders was excepted from the general law, and in excepting Flanders, Artois was forgotten, which should have enjoyed the same exception; so that in six years after the general law, a particular one was obliged to be made for Artois.

These new edicts concerning donations and testaments, were principally made to do away with all the commentators, who had considerably embroiled the laws, having already compiled six commentaries upon them.

It may be remarked, that donations, or deeds of gift, extend much farther than to the particular person to whom a present is made. For every present there must be paid to the farmers of the royal domain-the duty of control, the duty of "insinuation," the duty of the hundredth penny, the tax of two sous in the livre, the tax of eight sous in the livre,* &c.

So that

time you every

make a present to a citizen you are much more liberal than you imagine. You have also the pleasure of contributing to the enriching

*Of course all this is now done away; but, as more than once observed, it is useful to reserve some of these strictures, in order to show the vicious nature of the French government, and of the priestly abuses engrafted on it. But after all, these taxes on deeds of gift fall far short in rapacity to our own legacy tax.-T.

of the farmers-general; but, after all, this money does not go out of the kingdom like that which is paid to the court of Rome.

DRINKING HEALTHS.

WHAT was the origin of this custom? Has it existed since drinking commenced?-It appears natural to drink wine for our own health, but not for the health of others.

The propino of the Greeks, adopted by the Romans, does not signify "I drink to your good health," but Í drink first that you may drink afterwards-I invite you to drink.

In their festivals they drank to celebrate a mistress, not that she might have good health. See in Martial, Nævia sex cyathis, septem Justina bibatur.

Six cups for Nævia, for Justina seven.

The English, who pique themselves upon renewing several ancient customs, drink to the honour of the ladies, which they call toasting; and it is a great subject of dispute among them whether a lady is toastworthy or not-whether she is worthy to be toasted.

They drank at Rome for the victories of Augustus, and for the return of his health. Dion Cassius relates that after the battle of Actium the senate decreed that, in their repasts, libations should be made to him in the second service. It was a strange decree. It is more probable that flattery had voluntarily introduced this Be it as it may, we read in Horace:

meanness.

Hinc ad vina redit lætus, et alteris
Te mensis adhibet Deum,

Te multâ prece; te prosequitur nero
Defuso pateris: et laribus tuum
Miscet numen; uti Græcia Castoris
Et magni nemor Herculis.
Longas ô utinam, dux bone ferias
Præstes Hesperiæ: dicimus integro
Sicci mane die, dicimus uvidi,

Quum sol oceano subest.

To thee he chants the sacred song,
To thee the rich libation pours;
Thee placed his household gods among,
With solemn daily prayer adores:

So Castor and great Hercules of old

Were with her gods by graceful Greece enroll'd.
Gracious and good, beneath thy reign
May Rome her happy hours employ,
And grateful hail thy just domain
With pious hymns and festal joy:
Thus, with the rising sun we sober pray,
Thus, in our wine beneath his setting ray.

It is very likely that hence the custom arose, among barbarous nations, of drinking to the health of their guests; an absurd custom, since we may drink four bottles without doing them the least good.

The dictionary of Trevoux tells us that we should not drink to the health of our superiors in their presence. This may be the case in France or Germany, but in England it is a received custom. The distance is not so great from one man to another at London as at Vienna.

It is of importance in England to drink to the health of a prince who pretends to the throne; it is to declare yourself his partisan.

It has cost more than one Scotchman and Hibernian dear for having drank to the health of the Stuarts.

All the whigs, after the death of king William, drank not to his health, but to his memory. A tory named Brown, bishop of Cork in Ireland, a great enemy to William in Ireland, said, " that he would put a cork in all those bottles which were drank to the glory of this monarch." He did not stop at this silly pun: he wrote in 1702 an episcopal address, to show the Irish that it was an atrocious impiety to drink to the health of kings, and above all to their memory; that the latter, in particular, is a profanation of these words of Jesus Christ: "Drink this in remembrance of me."

It is astonishing that this bishop was not the first who conceived such a folly. Before him, the presbyterian Prynn had written a great book against the impious custom of drinking to the health of christians.