COMMUNICATIONS MARKED PRIVATE. 387 



review on the novel published by me, of " Berkeley 

 Castle," and which appeared in "Fraser's Magazine," 

 was written not on the worh but at me^ for reasons of 

 which I have since become fully aware, and it needs 

 but little more to make me tell them. 



If there is to be no personal reference in matters 

 that come not under the punishment of the statutes, 

 what is to prevent any man from surreptitiously 

 netting possession of a letter marked " private," and 

 reading it, if it suits his purposes or his will, to the 

 public ? I do not think that any man has a right to 

 write what he pleases to another, and then to suppose, 

 if the contents of his letter, in justice to the commu- 

 nity, demand publicity, that they will be withheld. 

 The assumption that secrecy will be accorded in such 

 a case is unwarrantable ; and more, the receiver of 

 such a communication would seriously commit him- 

 self if he assented to become the silent sharer of a 

 dishonourable mj^stery. A man might communicate 

 murder or robbery, and write above the information, 

 " private and confidential; " but he who became pos- 

 sessed of the guilty knowledge is not bound to con- 

 ceal it. In viewing this subject, it is not a mere ab- 

 stract question, but the consequences of information so 

 received, and the way in which the communication was 

 got at, that must be considered. A revelation under 

 the mark of privacy may, or may not, be justly deemed 

 available to public knowledge, according to its nature. 

 One of the secondary places where the absence of an 

 appeal to arms is felt, is in the interests of our various 

 hunting counties ; and, as such, it becomes still more 

 matter to be dealt with in the present Reminiscences. 

 The old law among masters of hounds used to be, that 

 when once the bounds of a hunting country were de- 



c c 2 



