1829.] [ 137 ] 



THE LATE PROSECUTIONS AGAINST THE PRESS. 



We take it for granted that men of all partieS;, from the sycophant 

 Whig to the unpurchaseable Tory, are interested in the freedom of the 

 press. Without that freedom there is no longer any security for opinion ; 

 and were we to be positively deprived of it, we see no reason to doubt 

 why the next inquisition should not sit upon our thoughts. They make 

 no scruple, in certain Catholic countries, of instituting penal punishments 

 against presumptive thinkers. The Hall of Eblis, and the glass windows 

 in the breasts of the unhappy, are not, after all, such monstrous fictions 

 as our mythological critics would have us believe. Some of our rulers 

 would, no doubt, be glad to realize the fable. 



While, however, all men, except those who fear discussion, lest it 

 might approach themselves — are agreed upon the necessity and utility 

 of an unshackled press, they disagree upon the extent and administra- 

 tion of this universally admitted good. It is one of the ingenious 

 blessings of our laws, that there shall always be an admixture of evil, 

 in every legislative benefit; so that we cannot have the pleasure of 

 congratulating ourselves upon the possession of any given privilege 

 without its alloy in one shape or another. If the scales of justice are of 

 the finest equality, thej;^ are sure to be committed to a palsied hand, that 

 will destroy the nice equilibrium ; if they are falsely constructed, they 

 are consigned, with consistent contradiction, to a firm hand that will 

 carefully preserve their original undue balance. The office of the 

 expounder of the law seems to consist, less in extracting its wholesome 

 properties, than in confusing its ingredients, so that, be the intention of 

 the legislature what it might, it is never suffered to operate simply and 

 satisfactorily. One of the expedients which has gained most favour in 

 the eyes of the law makers, is to leave parts of our code in a state of 

 delightful chaos, so that the statutes, like the books of the enchanter, 

 may be quoted with corresponding effect, at both sides of any possible 

 case. The doubt is the drop of poison in the cup of honey. This is 

 specially the case in all enactments and judicial precedents respecting 

 the press. When an Englishman goes abroad he boasts of the freedom 

 of writing what he pleases in his own land of liberty ; when he comes 

 home he acknowledges that he does not know in Avhat that freedom 

 consists, or how far he may proceed in the expression of opinion without 

 subjecting himself to the fearful penalties of fine and imprisonment. It 

 is this absence of definition in the law, and the consequent exposure to 

 the whim and unsettled prejudices of its professors, that provokes the 

 very offences which they affect to repress. If public writers knew the 

 limits of their prerogative, and the amount of their responsibility, we 

 should have fewer libels, and freer discussions. The law itself being 

 of so heterogeneous a character, it admits, of course, all the theories of 

 the various sects and parties that lie scattered through the community. 

 The Whig, whose liberality is like the suspicious patronage of that 

 portion of our fellow subjects whose names are to be found in the roll 

 of the Insolvent Court, objects, according to occasion, nullifying to day 

 the dogma he set up yesterday ; and prepared to deny both, should it 

 suit his purpose, to-morrow. A second grade of politicians refers all 

 the mischief to the human con-uption of the juries; just as the French 

 sophistH accused Machiavel of teaching the art of intrigue to princes, 

 when, in point of fact, it was the jjrinces who taught that admirable 



M.M. Sew Scries.— y Oh. VIII. No. 44. T 



