than by the servile following of his bent, did not give way only as the first did, but shaped his way to those extremities for which himself was touched with remorse at his death."[4] The means of exaction chiefly consisted in the fines incurred by slumbering laws, in commuting for money other penalties which fell on unknown offenders, and in the sale of pardons and amnesties.  Every revolt was a fruitful source of profit.  When the great confiscations had ceased, much remained to be gleaned by true or false imputations of participation in treason.  To be a dweller in a disaffected district, was, for the purposes of the king’s treasure, to be a rebel.  No man could be sure that he had not incurred mulcts, or other grievous penalties, by some of those numerous laws which had so fallen into disuse by their frivolous and vexatious nature as to strike before they warned.  It was often more prudent to compound by money, even in false accusations, than to brave the rapacity and resentment of the king and his tools.  Of his chief instruments, “Dudley was a man of good family, eloquent, and one that could put hateful business into good language; Empson, the son of a sieve-maker, of Towcester, triumphed in his deeds, putting off all other respects.  They were privy counsellors and lawyers, who turned law and justice into wormwood and rapine."[5] They threw into prison every man whom they could indict, and confined him, without any intention to prosecute, till he ransomed himself.  They prosecuted the mayors and other magistrates of the city of London, for pretended or trivial neglects of duty, long after the time of the alleged offences; subservient judges imposed enormous fines, and the king imprisoned during his own life some of the contumacious offenders.  Alderman Hawes is said to have died heartbroken by the terror and anguish of these proceedings. [6] They imprisoned and fined juries who hesitated to lend their aid when it was deemed convenient to seek it.  To these, Lord Bacon tells us, were added “other courses fitter to be buried than repeated."[7] Emboldened by long success, they at last disdained to observe “the half face of justice,"[8] but summoning the wealthy and timid before them in private houses, “shuffled up” a summary examination without a jury, and levied such exactions as were measured only by the fears and fortunes of their victims.—­Mackintosh’s England, Vol. 2.

    [4] Bacon, iii. 409.

    [5] Ibid. iii. 380.

    [6] See examples in Bacon, iii.

    [7] Bacon, iii. 382.

    [8] E:  Ibid. 381.

* * * * *

SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY.

THE COURSE OF THE NIGER.

The discovery of the termination of the course of the Niger, will be of the greatest importance to geography, to our political power, and to civilization.