144 The late Prosecutions against the Press. [|Aijg. 



and their reason, which they might have thought an useful quality in 

 inquiring into the meaning of a disputed publication, treated as the only 

 test they should not bring to bear upon the case. If this be so on 

 ordinary occasions, how must it operate under the terrible trial of scan, 

 mas:- ? The very rank of the prosecutor, which is to the plain under- 

 standing an extenuation, will be tortured into an aggravation : for it is 

 one of the beauties of our libel laws, that the higher the post of wealth 

 or importance of the offended, the greater the guilt of the offender ; 

 which amovmts in fact to this consoling conclusion, that the more we 

 confide to the hands of a minister, the less responsible he becomes for 

 the discharge of his trust ! How can we expect gratitude any where 

 if, by our own laws, we place a premium upon the abandonment of 

 all natural and moral relations ? 



One mode of proving the amount of injury sustained by a libel, and the 

 actual direction with winch it is charged to have been written, is to bring one 

 or twopersons into the witness-box to swear thatthey believed upon reading 

 it that it was intended to convey an imputation upon the prosecutor, and 

 that he was the person to whom it specially referred. This is an insult to the 

 discrimination of the jury, who should be paid the compliment of being 

 left to their own discernment. If the jury cannot, by the exercise of 

 their common sense and general knowledge, discover in an alleged libel 

 upon a public man, that meaning which his friends endeavour to extract 

 from it, then it is no libel ; for it is probable that the public never 

 fathomed Avhat they cannot trace. If an article be so obscure that the 

 jury cannot comprehend it, the inference is plain that it cannot have any 

 of those effects which it is necessary to assume in all cases of libel, 

 namely, of bringing any one of his majesty's subjects into contempt or 

 danger, since none of them, except the prosecutor and his witnesses, can 

 understand its purport. Something must be thrown into the scale on 

 the score of passion and interest ; and it should be borne in mind, that 

 those who are so ready to suspect others are not themselves very safe 

 interpreters of justice. ' 



In conclusion, we have only to add, that the recent cases are calculated 

 in their issue to establish important precedents. In one case, the alleged 

 libel is an imaginary conversation between fictitious characters ; in the 

 other, it is merely the publication of the substance of a rumour ; and in 

 neither is the name of Lord Lyndhurst introduced. The law may, 

 perhaps, be more clearly explained in the course of the trials than it is 

 at present, and the popular right more satisfactorily illustrated. At all 

 events our readers will agree with us that, let the prosecutions terminate 

 as they may, his lordship is at this moment singularly placed, in being 

 the only servant of the crown who has been forced into the King's Bench 

 for the maintenance of his character. 



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