bottle of port with his wife and children, and In closing this imperfect notice of the lives complain, as his family increased, of the dimi- of Lord Eldon and Lord Stowell, we venture to nution of his residue-but port only can har-express a hope that Mr. Twiss's work, minutemonize with the noble simplicity of anciently tracing the course of one and reviving the law, or assuage the fervour of a great intellec- remembrance of the other, will fix the attention tual triumph. Each of the Scotts, to a very of his own profession on examples which have late period of his old age, was true to the gene- raised, and should help to sustain it. If so, rous liquor, and renewed in it the pastimes of the work will be in good season. Great as the youth and the crowding memories of life-long influence of the profession of the law is in this labour. It is related of Lord Stowell, that, a country, many causes have tended of late to short time before his death, having, in the deep- perplex the objects of its ambition, and to ening twilight of his powers, submitted to a tempt its aspirants to lower means of success less genial regimen, on a visit from his brother than steady industry and conduct free from he resumed his glass: and, as he quaffed, the stain. The number of inferior offices which light of early days flashed upon his over-suggest the appliances of patronage, and offer wrought brain-its inner chamber was irra-low stimuli to its hopes-the increase of numdiated with its ancient splendour-and he told | bers, which weakens the power of moral conold stories with all that exquisite felicity which trol, while it heightens the turmoil of competi bad once charmed young and old, the care-worn tion-and a feeling which pervades a certain and the fair-and talked of old friends and old class of members of the House of Commons, times with more than the happiness of middle that any measure which detracts from the reage. When Lord Eldon visited him in his sources of the bar tends to the public good— season of decay at his seat near Reading, he have endangered the elevation of its character, sometimes slept at Maidenhead on his way; in the maintenance of which the interests of and on one occasion, having dined at the inn, order and justice are deeply involved. We and learned that the revising barristers were can conceive of no more vivid proof of the imstaying at the house, he desired his compli- portance of preserving a body which embraces ments to be presented to them, and requested within it alike the younger sons of our nobility the favour of their company to share his wine. and the aspirants of the middle classes, and He received the young gentlemen-very offers to all the opportunity of achieving its young compared with their host-with the highest and most lasting honours, than that kindest courtesy; talked of his early struggles which the history of the two sons of the good and successes as much for their edifica- coal-fitter of Newcastle exhibits: nor any happier tion as delight--and finished at least his own incitement to that industry which is power, bottle of port before they parted. Surely no and to that honour which is better than all lighter or airier liquor could befit such festal gain, than the example it presents to those who hours of honoured old age, or so well link long may follow in their steps. years together in the memory by its flavours!

SPEECH FOR THE DEFENDANT,

IN THE PROSECUTION OF THE QUEEN v. MOXON, FOR THE PUBLIICATION OF SHELLEY'S WORKS.

DELIVERED IN THE COURT OF QUEEN'S BENCH, JUNE 23, 1841.

PREFACE.

In consenting to revise and publish the following Speech, I trust the circumstances attendant on the trial in which it was delivered will be found to justify an exception to the usual abstinence of Counsel from interfering with the publication of speeches delivered at the bar. The peculiarity of the occasion-the prosecution of an eminent publisher of unblemished character at the instance of a person who had been himself convicted of blasphemous libel, on a similar charge-and the nature of the question which that prosecution involved, between Literature and the Law of Libel-may render the attempt of the defendant's advocate, to defeat the former and to solve the latter, worthy of more consideration than it could command either by its power or its success. Observing that the case has been unavoidably deprived, by the urgency of political topics and electioneering details, of the notice it would have received from the press at a calmer season; and being anxious that the references necessarily made to matters of solemn interest and of delicate relation should not be subject to the misconception attendant on any imperfect reports, I have thought it right to take on myself the responsibility of presenting to the public, as correctly as I can, the substance of that which I addressed to the jury. The necessary brevity of the reports of the trial, which has partly induced this publication of the speech for the defendant, also renders it proper to give a short account of the circumstances which preceded it.

In the month of April, 1840, an indictment was preferred against Mr. Henry Hetherington, a bookseller in the Strand, at the instance of the Attorney-general, for selling certain numbers of a work entitled "Haslam's Letters to the Clergy of all Denominations," sold each at the price of one penny, and charging them as libels on the Old Testament. The cause came on to be tried before Lord Denman, in the Court of Queen's Bench, on 8th December, 1840, when the defence was conducted, with great propriety and talent, by the defendant himself, who rested it mainly on a claim of unqualified right to publish all matters of opinion, and on the argument, that the work charged as blasphemous came fairly within the operation of that principle. Mr. Hetherington was, however, convicted, and ultimately received judgment, under which he underwent an imprisonment of four months in the Queen's Bench prison.

While this prosecution was pending, Mr. Hetherington appears to have adopted the design of becoming in his turn the Prosecutor of several booksellers for the sale of the complete edition of Shelley's Works, which had been recently issued by Mr. Moxon in a form similar to that in which he had published the collected works of the greatest English poets. He accordingly commissioned a person named Holt, then a compositor in his employ, to apply for the work at the shops of several persons eminent in the trade, and thus succeeded in obtaining copies of Mr. Moxon, of Mr. Fraser, and of Mr. Otley, or rather of the persons in their employ. On the sales thus obtained, indictments were preferred at the Central Criminal Court against the several vendors, which, with a similar indictment against Mr. Marshall, doubtless preferred by the same Prosecutor, were removed by certiorari at the instance of the defendants, and set down for trial by special juries. Mr. Moxon felt that, as the original publisher of the edition, he ought to bear the first attack; and therefore, although some advantage might have been gained by placing the case of a mere vendor before his own, he declined to use it, and entered his own cause the first of the series which were to be tried in Middlesex. These causes were called on for trial at the sittings after Hilary term; but the prosecutor was not prepared with the Attorney-general's warrant to pray a tales to supply the default of the special jury, and as the counsel for the defendant did not think it right to expedite his proceedings by doing so themselves, the cause went over, and ultimately came on for trial on Wednesday 23d June, when nine special jurymen appeared, and the panel was completed by a tales prayed for the prosecution.

The indictment against Mr. Moxon, which the others exactly resembled, charged that he, "being an evil-disposed and wicked person, disregarding the laws and religion of this realm, and wickedly and profanely devising and intending to bring the Holy Scriptures and the Christian religion into disbelief and contempt, unlawfully and wickedly, did falsely and maliciously publish a scandalous, impious, profane, and malicious libel of and concerning the Christian religion, and of and concerning the Holy Scriptures, and of and concerning Almighty God," in which were contained certain passages charged as blasphemous and profane. It then set forth a passage in blank verse, beginning, “They have three words: well tyrants know their use,

well pay them for the loan, with usury torn from a bleeding world!—God, Hell, and Heaven;" and after adding an innuendo, “meaning thereby that God, Hell, and Heaven, were merely words," proceeded to recite a few more lines, applying very coarse and irreverent, but not very intelligible comments to each of those words. It then charged, that the libel contained, in other parts, two other passages, also in verse, and to which the same character may be justly applied. It lastly set forth a passage of prose from the notes, the object of which seems to be to assert, that the belief in the plurality of worlds is inconsistent with "religious systems," and with "deifying the principle of the universe;" and which, after speaking in very disrespectful terms of the statements of Christian history as “irreconcilable with the knowledge of the stars," concludes with the strange inconsistency pointed out by Lord Denman in his charge, (if the author's intention was to deny the being of God,) "The work of His fingers have borne witness against them."

The case for the prosecution was opened by Mr. Thomas with a judicious abstinence from any remark on the motives or object of the Prosecutor, and without informing the jury who the Prosecutor was. He stated several cases, and dicta to establish the general proposition, that a work tending to bring religion into contempt and odium is an offence against the common law, and, among others, that of Mr. Hetherington; read, besides the indicted passages, several others of a similar character, all selected from the poem of "Queen Mab;" eloquently eulogized the genius of Shelley, and fairly admitted the respectability of the defendant; and concluded by expressing the satisfaction he should feel if the result of this trial should establish, that no publications on religion should be subject for prosecution in future. He then called Thomas Holt, who proved the purchase of the volume for twelve shillings at Mr. Moxon's shop; and who also proved, on cross-examination, that he made the purchase and others at the desire of Mr. Hetherington, whom he understood to be the Prosecutor in this and the succeeding causes.

The success of such a prosecution, proceeding from such a quarter, gives rise to very serious considerations; for although, in determining sentences, Judges will be able to diminish the evil, by a just discrimination between the publication of the complete works of an author of established fame, for the use of the studious, and for deposit in libraries, and the dissemination of cheap irreligion, directed to no object but to unsettle the belief of the reader-the power of prosecuting to conviction every one who may sell, or give, or lend any work containing passages to which the indictable character may be applied, is a fearful engine of oppression. Should such prosecutions be multiplied, and juries should not feel justified in adopting some principle of distinction like that for which I have feebly endeavoured to contend, they must lead to some alteration in the law, or to some restriction of the right to set it in action. It will, I think, be matter of regret among many who desire to respect the Law, and to see it wisely applied, that the question should have arisen; but since it has been so painfully raised, it is difficult to avoid it; and if the following address should present any materials for its elucidation, it will not, although unsuccessful in its immediate_object, have been delivered entirely in vain. T. N. T.

Serjeant's Inn, 28th June, 1841.

Muy it please your Lordship,

Gentlemen of the Jury,

SPEECH,

IT has sometimes been my lot to express, and much oftener to feel, a degree of anxiety in addressing juries, which has painfully diminished the little power which I can ever command in representing the interests committed to my charge; but never has that feeling been so excited, and so justified, by any occasion as that on which it is my duty to address you. I am called from the Court in which I usually practise, to defend from the odious charge of blasphemy one with whom I have been acquainted for many years-one whom I have always believed incapable of wilful of fence towards God or towards man-one who was introduced to me in early and happy days, by the dearest of my friends who are gone before me-by Charles Lamb-to whom the wife

It has not been thought necessary to the argument to set out these passages; as it proceeds on the admission, that, separately considered, they are very offensive both to piety and good taste.

of the defendant was as an adopted daughter; and who, dying, committed the interests which he left her in the products of his life of kindness to my charge. Would to God that the spirit which pervaded his being could decide the fate of this strange prosecution-I should only have to pronounce his name and to receive your verdict.

Apart from these personal considerations, there is something in the nature of the charge itself, however unjustly applied to the party accused, which must depress a Christian advocate addressing a Christian jury. On all other cases of accusation, he would implore the jurors, sworn to decide between the accuser and the defendant, to lay aside every prepos session-to forget every rumour-to strip themselves of every prejudice-to suppress every affection, which could prevent the exercise of a free and unclouded judgment; and, having made this appeal, or having forborne to make it as needless, he would regard the jury-box as a sacred spot, raised above all encircling

under which he has suffered, odious by sanc tioning the odious application which he contemplates; and that at his bidding you should scatter through the loftiest and serenest paths of literature, distress, and doubt, and dismay, awarding him that success which," if not vie tory, is yet revenge."

The charge which Mr. Moxon is called upon to answer is, that with a wicked intention to bring the Holy Scriptures and the Christian religion into contempi, he published the volume which is in evidence before you, and which is

influences, to which he might address the-that you should aid him to render the law
arguments of justice and mercy with the as-
surance of obtaining a decision only divested
of the certainty of unerring truth by the im-
perfection of human evidence and of human
reason. But in this case you cannot grant-
I cannot ask-the cold impartiality which on
all other charges may be sought and expected
from English juries. Sworn on the Gospel to
try a charge of wickedly and profanely at
tempting to bring that Gospel, and the holy
religion which it reveals, into disbelief and
contempt, you are reminded even by that oath
-if it were possible you could ever forget-characterized as a libel on that religion, on
of the deep, the solemn, the imperishable in-
terest you have in those sacred things which
the defendant is charged with assailing. The
feelings which such a charge awakens are
not like those political differences which it is
delightful sometimes to forget or to trample
on; or those local partialities which it is en-
nobling to forsake for a wider sphere of con-
templation or those hasty opinions which the
daily press, in its vivid course, has scattered
over our thoughts, and which we are proud
sometimes to bring to the test of dispassionate
reflection; or those worldly interests which,
if they sway the honourable mind at all, in-
cline it to take part against them;-but the
emotions which this charge enkindles are in-
tertwined with all that endears the Past and
peoples the Future-with all that renders this
life noble by enriching it with the hope of that
which is to come. If the passages which
have been read to you-torn asunder from the
connection in which they stand-regarded with-
out reference to the time, the object, the mode of
their publication,-should array you at this mo-
ment almost as plaintiffs, personally wronged
and insulted, against their publisher, I must
not complain; for I shall not be provoked,
even by the peculiarity of this charge, to de-
fend Mr. Moxon by a suggestion which can
violate the associations which are intertwined
with all that is dear to you. He would rather
submit to the utmost consequences which the
selfish recklessness of this prosecution could
entail, if you should sanction, and the court
hereafter should support, its aim; he would
rather be severed from the family whom he
cherishes, and from the society of the good
and the great in our literature, which he is
privileged to share; than he would obtain im-
munity by a recourse to those weapons which
the prosecutor would fain present to his choice.
Neither will I, notwithstanding the anticipation
of my learned friend, ask you to palter with
your consciences, and, because you may doubt
or deny the policy of the law which is thus
set in action, invite you to do other than ad-
minister justice according to your oath and
your duty. I take my stand on Christian
ground; I base my defence on the recognised
law; and if I do not show you that the Christian-
ity, which the prosecutor most needlessly pre-
sumes to vindicate, and the law which with un-
hallowed hands he is striving to pervert, justify
your verdict of acquittal, I am content that
you should become the instruments of his at-
tempt to retort the penalties of his own sentence
on one who never wronged him even in thought

the Scriptures, and on Almighty God. I speak
advisedly when I say the whole volume is thus in-
dicted; it must be so considered in point of
justice-it is so charged in point of form. The
indictment, indeed, sets forth four passages,
torn violently asunder from their context; yet
it does not charge them as separate libels, but
as portions of one "impious, blasphemous,
profane and malicious libel," in different parts
of which the selected parts are found. Now
these are not all to be found even in one poem,
for the first three being in poetry, the last is
taken from a mass of prose appended to the
first poem of "Queen Mab," and intervening
between it and a poem entitled 'Alastor,"
which is the next in the series. And if this
were not the form of the record, can it be
doubted that, in point of justice, the scope, the
object, the tendency of the entire publication,
must be determined before you can decide on
the guilt or innocence of the party who has
thus published the passages charged as blas-
phemous? Supposing some question of law
should be raised on the sufficiency of the in-
dictment in which they are inserted, and they
should be copied necessarily for the elucidation
of the argument in one of the reports in which
the decisions of this court are perpetuated;
would the reporter, the law-bookseller, the
officer of the court, who should hand the
volume to a barrister, be guilty of blasphemy?
Or if they should appear in some correct report,
partaking of a more popular form, and that re-
port should be indicted as containing them,
what form would the question of the guilt or in-
nocence of the publisher assume? Would it
not be, whether he had been honestly anxious
to lay before the world the history of an un-
exampled attempt to degrade and destroy the
law, under pretence of asserting it; or whether
he was studious to disseminate some frag
ments of strange and fearful audacity, and
had professed to report an extraordinary trial,
only as a pretext to cover the popular dissemi-
nation of blasphemy? And would not the
form, the commentary, the occasion, the price,
all be material in deciding whether the work
were laudable or guilty-whether, as a
it tended to good or to evil? These passages.
like details and pictures in works of anatomy
and surgery, are either innocent or criminal,
according to the accompaniments which suc
round them, and the class to whom they are
addressed. If really intended for the eye of
the scientific student, they are most innocent;
but if so published as to manifest another in-
tention, they will not be protected from legal

nole,

pressions, and the imperfect victories of such a spirit, because the picture has some passages of frightful gloom. I am far from contending that every thing which genius has in rashness or in wantonness produced, becomes, when once committed to the press, the inalienable property of mankind. Such a principle, indeed, seems to be involved in an argument which was recently sanctioned by the authority of a Cabinet Minister more distinguished even as a profound thinker and an eloquent and accomplished critic, than by political station. When I last urged the claim of the descendants of men of genius to be the guardians of their fame, as well as the recipients of its attendant rewards, I was met with denial on the plea that, from some fastidiousness of taste, or some over-niceness of moral apprehension, the hereditary representatives of a great writer may cover his works with artificial oblivion. I have asked, whether, if a poet has written "some line which, dying, he may wish to blot," he shall not be allowed by the insatiate public to blot it dying; and I have asked in vain! Fielding and Richardson have been quoted, as writers whose works, multiplying as they will through all time the sources of innocent enjoyment, might have been suppressed by some too dainty moralist. Now, admitting that the tendency of Fielding's works, taken as a whole, is as invigorating as it is delightful, I fear there are chapters which, if taken from their connection-apart from the

censure by the flimsy guise of science. By a similar test let this publication be judged! If its whole tenor lead you to believe that the dissemination of irreligious feelings was its object-nay, that such will be its natural consequence-let Mr. Hetherington have his triumph; but if you believe that these words, however offensive when abstractedly taken, form part of a great intellectual and moral phenomenon, which may be disclosed to the class of readers who alone will purchase the volume, not only without injury, but to their instruction, you will joyfully find Mr. Moxon as free from blasphemy in contemplation of the strictest law, as I know he is in purpose and in spirit. The passages selected as specimens of the indicted libel are found in a complete edition of the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley-a work comprising more than twenty thousand lines of verse, and occupy something less than the three-hundredth part of the volume which contains them. The book presents the entire intellectual history-true and faithful, because traced in the series of those works which were its events of one of the most extraordinary persons ever gifted and doomed to illustrate the nobleness, the grandeur, the imperfections, and the progress of human genius-whom it pleased God to take from this world while the process harmonizing his stupendous powers was yet incomplete, but not before it had indicated its beneficent workings. It is edited by his widow, a lady endowed with great and original talent, who, as she states in her preface, hast-healthful atmosphere in which their impurities ens "to fulfil an important duty, that of giving the productions of a sublime genius to the world, with all the correctness possible, and of, at the same time, detailing the history of these productions as they sprang, warm and living, from his heart and brain.” And, accordingly, the poems are all connected together by statements as to the circumstances under which they were written, and the feelings which inspired them. The "alterations (says Mrs. Shelley) his opinions underwent ought to be recorded, for they form his history."

The first of these works is a poem, written at the age of eighteen, entitled "Queen Mab;" a composition marked with nothing to attract the casual reader-irregular in versification, wild, disjointed, visionary; often difficult to be understood even by a painful student of poetry, and sometimes wholly unintelligible even to him; but containing as much to wonder at, to ponder on, to weep over, as any half-formed work of genius which ever emanated from the vigour and the rashness of youth. This poem, which I shall bring before you presently, is followed by the marvellous series of works of which "Alastor," "The Revolt of Islam," the "Prometheus Unbound," and "The Cenci" | form the principal, exhibiting a continuous triumph of mellowing and consecrating influences, down to the moment when sudden death shrouded the poet's career from the ob-servation of mortals. Now the question is, whether it is blasphemy to present to the world-say rather to the calm, the laborious, the patient searcher after wisdom and beauty, who alone will peruse this volume-the awful mistakes, the mighty struggles, the strange de

evaporate and die-and printed at some penny cost for dissemination among the young, would justly incur the censure of that law which has too long withheld its visitations from those who have sought a detestable profit by spreading cheap corruption through the land. It may be true, as Dr. Johnson ruled, that Richardson "had taught the passions to move at the command of virtue ;" and, as was recently asserted, that Mrs. Hannah More "first learned from his writings those principles of piety by which her life was guided;" but (to leave out of consideration the Adventures of Pamela, which must sometimes have put Mrs. Hannah More to the blush) I fear that selections might be made, even from the greatest of all prose romances, Clarissa Harlowe, which the Society for the Suppression of Vice would scarcely endure. Do I wish them therefore suppressed! No! Because in these massive volumes the antidote is found with the bane; because the effect of Lovelace's daring pleas for vice, and of pictures yet more vicious, is neutralized by the scenes of passion and suffering which surround them; because the unsullied image of heroic purity and beautiful endurance rises fairer from amidst the encircling pollutions, and conquers every feeling but those of admiration and pity. Yet if detached scenes were, like these passages of Shelley, selected for the prosecution, how could they be defended-but, like them, by reference to the spirit, and intent, and tendency of the entire work from which they were torn? And yet the defence would be less conclusive than that which I now offer; as descriptions which appeal to passion are far less capable of correction by