208 
common, fome mediator is evidently 
wanted to take the part.which Horace 
affigns to Venus: 
cui placet impares 
Formas atque animos fub juga aénea 
Szxvo mittere cum joco 5 
and where the clergyman affumes this 
office, his Jabours certainly deferve com- 
memoration. Under this idea, T fhall for 
the future fuppole that more is meant than 
meets the ear, when we are gravely told 
that the Rev. Mr. Such-a-one married 
fuch a couple; and that his taik was fome- 
what more arduous than merely reading 
fome fentences out of a book, and after- 
wards, perhaps, dining with the happy 
party. I remain, Sir, Your's, &c. 
PHILOGAMUS. 
ET 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazxize. 
SIR, 
HE monftrous and ineonfiftent doc- 
teines which have been lately main- 
tained in caies of LIBEL have given a juft 
and ferious alarm to the real friends of the 
Britith Conftitution ; and if the affertions 
of lawyers are not counteracted by the ex- 
erticns of juries, they will extend to fuch 
an excefs as to be fatal to the liberty of 
the prefs, which was fo juitly a fubjeG of 
eulogium with our preieat worthy and 
conttitutional minifter. | 
Mr. Fox's bill has re imweffed juries 
with a great and conttitutional power jbut 
this power does not feem te have been hi- 
therte felt, and much lef a&ed upon, by 
juries as “it ought te have been, and 
as might have been expefted from 
the fpinit of Englifrmen: The cafe of 
Johnfon, who was. convicted merely for 
an a& of his fhopman, the fupplying a cuf- 
tomer with Mr. Wakefield’s pamphler; 
not publifhed by himielf, in his, Johnfon’s, 
abfence, and while he was perfe€ly un- 
confcious of the tranfaction, was, to fay 
the leaft of it, a bard cafe. The verdia, I 
apprehend, fhould be founded on the words 
ef the indi&tment. Now the werds of 
the indf€iment are ** that he, the faid 
A. B. being a wicked and feditious per- 
fon, did, with a wicked and malicious ir- 
tention, fl or publith, &c. &c.” -Now 
how could Jehnfon felt or publifh with a 
wicked and malictous ‘rtentior what he 
did not fell er publifh atall? and does not 
the cath of a juryman confine him to give 
a frue verdi&, according to the matter al- 
ledged in the indi€tment ? 
* But even this isa matter of fmall con- 
fequence compared with the mecv, and, I ap- 
prehend unfousded, aud -unconititutional 
New Do&rine of Libel: 
[April 1, 
do&ttrine, firft introduced in the cafe of 
Lord George Gordon, who was unfortu- 
nately an obnoxious and unpopular perfon, 
and fince proceeded upon in the cafe of 
the proprietor of the Courier, and of Pele + 
tier :—that of the right of foreign powers 
to infitute criminal procefles in ovr courts 
for libel. If thofe whom we have been ac- 
cutiomed to regard as the oracles of Bri- 
tith law are deterving ‘of credit, I do not 
hetitate to pronounce duch a do€rine, in 
the language of the celebrated Trith Refo- 
lutions —‘* Unconititutional, illegal, and 
a grievance.” —Deitru€tive of the truth of 
hittory, and dangerous in corrupting the 
channels of public information, which, 
even for the fecurity of the government it- 
felt, fhould be left-as open as poffible. 
A libel is a crime, accerding to Black- 
ftone, only as ‘* a breach of. the padlic 
peace, by ttirring up the objects of it to 
revenge, and perhaps to bloodthed.”” Tn 
this point of view a criticiim or a cenfure 
on a foreign government cannot poilibly 
be a breach of the peace in this country, 
jince the object of it is out of reach. The 
remedy in this caie, is in the hands of the 
foreign potentate himéelf, by prohibiting 
the circulation of fuch libels im his own 
deminions. Only couple this doéirine 
with another, which has alio been lately 
introduced in our courts, viz. ** that.a 
libel may affe&t the dead as well as the 
living,” and then it will be ground for an 
information, to arraign the cruelty, ty- 
ranny and ambition of Louis XiVth. 
Carry the do&rine*a little turther, and, 
fuppoie the Pepe might have infiituted a 
proiccution for libel in an Bnglith court 
of juftice, and where would our reformed 
religion now have been? tid? 
But this, thanks to the wifdem and 
fpirit of our anceftors, was not the doc- 
trine of thofe times, which eftablifhed the 
Englith Church, and the Englith Conftitu- 
tion. A well-known and rather trite 
anecdote will ferve to convince us of what 
was the doftrine of thofe times. When. 
Lord Moleiworth publithed his celebrated 
Account of Denmark, many pafiages were 
found extremely offenfive to the reigni 
monarch, who, by his ambafiader, com- 
plained of the infult, and demanded fram 
our Willlam III. the head of the author. 
«* Tell his Danifh Majefty,” faid King 
William, “ that I cannot by my own au- 
thority difpofe of the heads of my fub- 
je&s ; nor can I grant to his Majeity any 
redrefs, except that I can communicate 
to Lord Molefworth the nature of this ap- 
plication, who will, I dare tay, infert it in 
the next edition of his book.” 
. VARRO. 
a 
