Rev. Dr Smit tion of the 48th Geo. III. c. 138. Duke of Portland, &c., 22d June 1814. 26. Victual stipend, converted into money according the county fiars, is payable by the Linlithgow meas without any regard to the measure of any partic county where the parish is. Minister of Rothsay, tioner, 24th May 1820. Vide Cases in Practical Account of Teind Cour.. 407. NOTES ON PARDOVAN'S COLLECTIONS, &c. PREVIOUSLY to the publication of Dr Hill's Institutes, Valter Steuart of Pardovan's "Collections and Obserations concerning the Worship, Discipline, and Goernment of the Church of Scotland," was the only ystematical treatise which afforded anything like a conentrated view of our reformed national establishment, educed from the civil and ecclesiastical statute laws by which it was constituted and governed, and embodying a Hetail of the usages of the Presbyterian Church from its First foundation, till the time of its appearance in the year 1709. During the century and upwards which has elapsed since its publication, it has accordingly been deemed a standard authority and guide in the church, as much so as the Commentaries of any Institutional writer on the municipal law; nor, although it is not much referred to as authoritative in the loose discussions of our church judicatories, has it been superseded in utility by any other work as a fountain whence our church leaders and orators derive the principal part of their information. It is a work of great and unquestionable merit, and serves as a faithful index to the whole body of our ecclesiastical law and practice; and although many of the usages belong to the primitive state of the church, and the style be now somewhat antiquated, these circumstances do not materially detract from its value. Viewing this work, therefore, in this favourable light, it seemed a matter to be regretted, that the only correct edition of it had, for many years past, become extremely rare; and the only impressions of it attainable by members of the church, namely, that of Dickson Elliot in 1783, and another published at Montrose di later date, in a very mean and inaccurate state, we neither to be easily procured nor relied upon. In the circumstances, a new and neat and accurate edition of: was deemed advisable; and the only addition which: seemed to require was a series of Notes, indicating changes which had been superinduced upon the laws stated by Pardovan, by annexing the evidence of s changes effected in later acts of the General Assemb and otherwise. It was originally our intention to have done this in fo notes, on the several chapters and sections into which t work is divided; but on further reflection, it was com dered better, in every point of view, to give separate and in alphabetical order, a consecutive and abridge view of the whole Acts of Assembly relative to the ma ters treated of by Pardovan, both before and since th time that his work was first published. Such a cont nuous digest, under the several heads into which th subject is divisible, seemed calculated to corroborate authority of his statements, and to indicate most cont niently for the inquirer the progressive changes whic had been introduced subsequently to the time he wrote thus combining the traditionary evidence, as it may b called, of our early commentator, with the authentic an recorded acts and decrees of the supreme ecclesiastic legislature and judicatory of our church. And in order complete the compendium, a similar digest of the munic pal laws operative upon the church, as contained in ac of parliament and decisions of the supreme court, a peared to be a useful and necessary appendage. Th has now been accomplished in the preceding pages; an they will be found to contain, in the form most pract cally useful, the great body of what we contemplated the Notes upon Pardovan. There are still, however, a few topics of prominen importance but lightly touched on by the author, which on that account, as well as in consequence of materia anges in later times, require a fuller illustration than an be given in a brief abridgment of the statutes and ecisions relating to them, although these have been retty extensively given. The chief of these are with egard to the laws for the relief of the Poor, and to the chool Establishment of Scotland, the administration of oth which is in a great measure devolved on the presbyeries and parochial clergy of the church. These maters, indeed, next to the primary object of religion itself, nd the maintenance of the institutions by which its miistration is purified and upheld, are amongst the highest unctions with which the church is invested; and it is to he honour of the Church of Scotland, that from the first lawning of the Reformation, the interests of education and of the poor have formed leading objects of its pacernal and beneficial care; and that its exertions in these departments have been crowned with a degree of success unexampled, perhaps, in any other region of the world. To these two subjects, therefore, we propose chiefly to limit our attention in the following brief notes; and it is our object in so doing to condense within the narrowest bounds as much information as possible of a practical nature, in order to aid those who may not have access to ampler and better sources of intelligence, in following out usefully the beneficent spirit of the law, in the hallowed work which is consigned to their hands. It was our intention further to have completed a collection of decisions by the General Assembly on important questions which have been agitated, as tending to afford what might be considered the decided church law. But although we have made considerable progress in this, we have been dissuaded by those whose judgment we respect from completing or publishing it. There is a disadvantage resulting from the popular and mixed judicial and legislative character of the General Assembly, which distinguishes it materially from courts of law. While the latter look upon previous decisions, and upon a series of these in accordance, as of authority nearly if not quite equal to a legislative enactment, the General Assembly can scarcely in any instance be found to listen sa with any degree of complacency to precedents; ne this to be much wondered at, when it is considered party ties, and popular feelings, and local cabals, gi often influence the decisions of that venerable body, s to deprive them in most cases of that character of berate and impartial judgment which can alone confer precedents the stamp and force of authority. Neithe it possible in practice to induce a great portion of members to discriminate their legislative from their cial functions. In judging on particular causes, they m perpetually led astray, if not by partialities and pap leanings, at least by the reflection that they unite the judicial a complex legislative and superintend 0 power; and it is extremely difficult in most cases to t suade a great portion of the members, when judging causes, to divest themselves of the nobile officium a which most tribunals in the last resort are prone to clou a themselves. Hence an unwilling ear is generally lens every argument, founded on precedent, in the General t sembly; and hence, too, we so often see the elementa laws of evidence, and the most sacred forms of procedu and all the analogies of former decisions, trampled uni foot, and broken through and contemned, and causes cided upon an assumption that, in the supremacy of complex authority, the General Assembly may decide cause, as if they were legislating on the principles volved in its merits. The inveterate prevalence of su a spirit, much as it is to be regretted, is, we fear, ins parable from its popular and fluctuating character; a it renders any collection of decisions, therefore, in a gre measure, useless lumber. We have, therefore, thoug with reluctance, abandoned this branch of our underta ing, as neither calculated to do good, nor to be acceptab to many of our readers. In addition to these considerations we may state, th in the present condition of the records of Assembly, it next to impossible to procure access to the several pro cesses on which decisions of importance have been given It would require the labour of years to search out the original papers in those causes, and without them it would |