the imposition of a fine of £10,000, found sufficient vent for his sympathetic concern in quaint scraps of quotation; “Truly I am heartily sorry for him, but ex se cadit, he is the cause of his own overthrow ; et ruit Roma viribus suis; no man hurts him but himself." The instructions which, by the King's directions, he addressed to the judges when setting out for their circuits, on the momentous question of ship-money (in the years 1635 and 1636) are preserved in the State Trials. What countenance he had given to the project at the council table we are not informed; here, however, he appears cautious not to commit himself by a direct assertion of its legality, as to which he delivers himself in these oracular terms: "This I am sure of, that if any contrary opinion shall yet remain among men, it must proceed from those that are sons of the law (felices essent artes, &c.,) and you the judges of the realm [who had given a unanimous opinion in favour of the legality of the exaction, though some of them qualified it when the question came to be argued,] have been accounted the fathers of the law; then, in good faith, it will ill become the son to dispute against the father." On Lord Coventry's general qualifications and conduct as a judge, his biographer descants in terms of high laudation. "The faculty of his despatch in Court is best presented in this, that at his first accession to the seal, he found two hundred causes in the paper ready for hearing, all which (with such as fell in the way) he determined within the year, so that the clients of the court did not languish in expectation of the issue of their causes. Where it falls into observation, that this high place is rarely well served but by men of law, and persons of deepest judgment in the statute and common laws of the land, whereby they may distinguish of cases whether they be proper in that court to be relieved in equity, without intrenching on the jurisdiction of the kingdom, which is the old inheritance of the subject:"-a truth of which the present age, albeit not blessed, like that of James I., with the administration of justice from right reverend hands, however gifted with natural solertiousness,' has, it may be, little -less experience. The writer proceeds to specify and reply to "certain imputations which had been thrown upon the Lord Keeper's impartiality in his judicial duties. "The chief charge against him was that of Bonham Norton, wherein the best

parish registers are both incomplete and insecure-that they prove little; that they prove that little badly; that they sometimes tend to disprove that which is the fact; and that they produce uncertainty of title, which leads to expensive litigation. To the unprofessional reader, perusing the above extract, it must be a matter of astonishment how documents of such importance can have been suffered to remain in such a deplorable state.

If, indeed, a subject ever came before parliament, in which the necessity of some amendment was demonstrated, then is this of the registration of births, marriages and deaths, such a one-for to that extent all the witnesses examined by the committee are agreed. Their minutes display the evidence of one barrister, five solicitors, six clergymen, four gentlemen of antiquarian and scientific attainments, one deputy registrar of a diocese, four parish clerks, a Jew, a Quaker, a Director of the Brussel's Observatory, a member of the Herald's College, and an Actuary of the National Debt Office; and all concur in declaring that the present system is defective, and requires considerable amendment.

In what mode shall this amendment be effected? this is the only part of the question upon which there may arise varieties of opinion; and this leads us to a more minute and distinct consideration of the deficiencies in the present system, and of the remedies propounded for such deficiences in Mr. Brougham's Bill, to establish a " General Register of Births, Deaths and Marriages in England."

The parochial registration at present existing in this country is the result of as bungling an Act as was ever born of a legislative assembly; but before describing it, we will briefly trace its pedigree.

Regulations to enforce the keeping of parish registries became necessary on the dissolution of the monasteries, the monks having previously registered the ecclesiastical ceremonies of baptism, marriage and burial. These regulations, however, emanated only from the ecclesiastical authorities, and no act of parliament passed on the subject until a much later period. Lord Cromwell, Lord Privy Seal and Vicegerent to Henry VIII., first issued an injunction in 1538, directing every parson, vicar and curate, under a penalty, to

keep a register for every church, and on each Sunday to enter therein, in the presence of the wardens, all the weddings, christenings, and burials of the preceding week. Similar injunctions followed from Edward VI. and Elizabeth. In her reign also attempts were made to obtain acts of parliament, for the establishment, in the first instance, of a diocesan, and in the second, of a general register office; but though the latter measure was recommended to the queen and propounded to the clergy by the Lord Treasurer Burghley, the clergy succeeded in stopping both. They, however, in 1597, did themselves, with the approval of the queen, direct a copy of each parochial register to be sent yearly to the registrar of the diocese, and this was the origin of the existing custom of transmitting the registers annually to the bishop. It was during the Protectorate that parliament first interfered with the subject; in 1652 the celebrated Law Reform Committee was appointed, consisting of the most eminent lawyers and statesmen of that period; they prepared bills for effecting several important legal reforms, all of which were ultimately rejected, except that for establishing a civil register of births marriages and burials, which passed in 1653. By this act marriage was treated as a civil contract, of which the parties were to give three weeks' notice to the registrar, who was to publish it " in the public meeting place, commonly called the church or chapel," or in the market place; they were then to come before a justice of the peace, in the presence of whom the man promised to love and be faithful, and the woman promised to love and be faithful and to obey; the justice declared them to be thenceforth 'man and wife, and they were so from that time "according to the laws of England." It also enacted as to registration, that a book should be provided in every parish, and a person chosen by the ratepayers to keep it," who should therein fairly enter in writing all such "publications, marriages, births of children, and burials of all "sorts of persons, and the names of every of them, and the "days of the month and year of publications, marriages, "births and burials, and the parents, guardians, or overseers' "names;" it also stated the fees to be taken for the several entries and certificates; but how this person was to become cognizant of all the special matters he was directed so fairly

to enter, whether he was bound to search for himself, or whether others were expected to communicate unto him, or what penalty might ensue from neglecting the matter altogether, the act does not condescend to mention. We have stated the purport of this act of the Protectorate at some length, because it is the only attempt which has been made in this country to establish legal evidence of birth by registry, though it was inconsistent in not extending also to the proof of deaths instead of burials, and must have been weak and powerless, from the omission we have noticed.

As to its practical operation, the Rev. J. E. Tyler, who had been incumbent of Morton-Pinkney, in Northamptonshire, and for some time rural dean, speaking only of what he had himself found, thinks that there was a great diversity of practice in keeping the registers during the protectorate, and that very great inaccuracies and great neglect followed from the time of the suspension of the parochial episcopal clergy to the period of the restoration. But Mr. Burn states, as the result of his more general investigations, that the plan worked well; at least that the registers during the period of Cromwell's government were unusually well kept.

Several Acts &

At the restoration, the clergy resumed the official registration of baptisms, marriages, and burials. of Parliament more or less affecting the details of the have since been passed; but two alterations introduced at different periods are deserving of particular notice, as they show how far the authority of precedent may now be quoted in dealing with some tender parts of the subject. By an Act of William III., granting his majesty "certain duties on Marriages, Births, and Burials," the established clergy were compelled, under a heavy penalty, to act as civil officers, and gratuitously to take exact account and keep a register of all persons married, buried, and christened or born within their respective parishes. How the clergyman was to arrive at a knowledge of all the births in his parish is not revealed, but the above duties he was bound to perform "without fee or reward" for the benefit of the revenue, or he forfeited £100. And secondly, as the object of legislation on the subject then was to tax the registry, dissenting ministers were by the 25 Geo. III. c. 75, graciously included within the operation of the

previous Acts, and their registration of births or baptisms and burials were thus recognized by law. This was afterwards repealed, and in 1812 passed the curious Act of 53 Geo. III. c. 146, by which parish registers are at present regulated. It has commonly been styled Sir George Rose's Act, but with cruel injustice to that gentleman's reputation, for though he introduced it, yet, as the House reprinted and reconsidered it six times, and amended it into a patchwork of blunders, we may fairly presume that it might at first have been a tolerably sensible and consistent measure. The result was attributable to that mode of tinkering and botching the parts in committee and in either House, without keeping in mind the wholeness of a plan, which sometimes makes the Act passed as unlike the bill introduced as the living ass is unlike the Bologna sausage.

It is entitled, " An Act for better regulating and preserving Registries of Births, Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials in England," whereas it makes no provision whatever for the entry of births. The defective forms of registration prescribed by this Act, the confusion which they introduce, and the frauds which they encourage, from not sufficiently identifying the parties referred to, have been already noticed in the selections from the evidence before the committee.

The churchwardens are directed yearly to transmit copies of the registers to the registrar of the diocese. Now it is a well understood principle of law, that if you forbid or order any thing and leave the parties to obey the injunction without fear of evil consequence from neglecting it, neglected it generally will be: as the Act does not enforce its order by a penalty for neglect, churchwardens frequently save themselves the trouble or never think about it. Mr. John Shephard, registrar to the Bishop of London, says, that out of 600 parishes in that diocese, which ought to send copies, on an average there are 150, and those some of the largest and most populous parishes in the diocese, which do not. Then the registrar is ordered carefully to deposit the registers which he receives, to secure them from fire, and to prepare indexes for search. But as there is neither penalty for the omission nor reward for the performance of these onerous duties, and as the registrars belong to that class of sensible people who do no