Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864

Let me tremble not for pain,
But lest I may lose the gain
Which thereby my soul should bless,
Through mine own unworthiness.

Let me, drawing deeper breath,
Stand more firmly, lest beneath
Thy load I sink, and slavishly
In the dust it crusheth me.
Bearing this, so may I strength
Gather to receive at length
In turn eternal glory's great
And far more exceeding weight.

No, I am not crushed. I stand.
But again Thy helping hand
Reach to me, my pitying Sire:
I would bear my burden higher,
Bear it up so near to Thee,
That Thou shouldst bear it still with me.

He, upon whose careless head
Never any load is laid,
With an earthward eye doth oft
Stoop and lounge too slothfully:
Burdened heads are held aloft
With a nobler dignity.

By Thine own strong arm still led,
Let me never backward tread,
Panic-driven in base retreat,
The path the Master's steadfast feet
Unswervingly, if bleeding, trod
Unto victory and God.

The standard-bearer doth not wince,
Who bears the ensigns of his prince,
Through triumphs, in his galled palm,
Or turn aside to look for balm?
Nay, for the glory thrice outweighs
The petty price of pains he pays!

Till the appointed time is past
Let me clasp Thy token fast.
Ere I lay it down to rest,
Late or early, be impressed
So its stamp upon my soul
That, while all the ages roll,
Questionless, it may be known
The Shepherd marked me for His own;
Because I wear the crimson brand
Of all the flock washed by His hand—
For my passing pain or loss
Signed with the eternal cross.

THE ENGLISH PRESS

IV

It was in January, 1785, that there appeared, for the first time, a journal with the title of The Daily Universal Register, the proprietor and printer of which was John Walter, of Printing House Square, a quiet, little, out-of-the-way nook, nestling under the shadow of St. Paul's, not known to one man in a thousand of the daily wayfarers at the base of Wren's mighty monument, but destined to become as famous and as well known as any spot of ground in historic London. This newspaper boasted but four pages, and was composed by a new process, with types consisting of words and syllables instead of single letters. On New Year's day, 1788, its denomination was changed to The Times, a name which is potent all the world over, whithersoever Englishmen convey themselves and their belongings, and wherever the mighty utterances of the sturdy Anglo-Saxon tongue are heard. It was long before the infant 'Jupiter' began to exhibit any foreshadowing of his future greatness, and he had a very difficult and up-hill struggle to wage. The Morning Post, The Morning Herald, The Morning Chronicle, and The General Advertiser amply supplied or seemed to supply the wants of the reading public, and the new competitor for public favor did not exhibit such superior ability as to attract any great attention or to diminish the subscription lists of its rivals. The Morning Herald had been started in 1780 by Parson Bate, who quarrelled with his colleagues of The Post. This journal, which is now the organ of mild and antiquated conservatism, was originally started upon liberal principles. Bate immediately ranged himself upon the side of the Prince of Wales and his party, and thus his fortunes were secured. In 1781 his paper sustained a prosecution, and the printer was sentenced to pay a fine of £100, and to undergo one year's imprisonment, for a libel upon the Russian ambassador. For this same libel the printers and publishers of The London Courant, The Noon Gazette, The Gazetteer, The Whitehall Evening Journal, The St. James's Chronicle, and The Middlesex Journal received various sentences of fine and imprisonment, together with, in some cases, the indignity of the pillory. Prosecutions for libel abounded in those days. Horace Walpole says that, dating from Wilkes's famous No. 45, no less than two hundred informations had been laid, a much larger number than during the whole thirty-three years of the previous reign. But the great majority of these must have fallen to the ground, for, in 1791, the then attorney-general stated that, in the last thirty-one years, there had been seventy prosecutions for libel, and about fifty convictions, in twelve of which the sentences had been severe—including even, in five instances, the pillory. The law of libel was extremely harsh, to say the least of it. One of its dogmas was that a publisher could be held criminally liable for the acts of his servants, unless proved to be neither privy nor assenting to such acts. The monstrous part of this was that, after a time, the judges refused to receive any exculpatory evidence, and ruled that the publication of a libel by a publisher's servant was proof sufficient of that publisher's criminality. This rule actually obtained until 1843, when it was swept away by an act of Parliament, under the auspices of Lord Campbell. The second was even worse; for it placed the judge above the jury, and superseded the action of that dearly prized safeguard of an Englishman's liberties, it asserting that it was for the judge alone, and not for the jury, to decide as to the criminality of a libel. Such startling and outrageous doctrines as these roused the whole country, and the matter was taken up in Parliament. Fierce debates followed from time to time, and the assailants of this monstrous overriding of the Constitution—for it was nothing less—were unremitting in their efforts. Among the most distinguished of these were Burke, Sheridan, and Erskine, the last of whom was constantly engaged as counsel for the defence in the most celebrated libel trials of the day. In 1791, Fox brought in a bill for amending the law of libel, and so great had the change become in public opinion, through the agitation that had been carried on, that it passed unanimously in the House of Commons. Erskine took a very prominent part in this measure, and, after demonstrating that the judges had arrogated to themselves the rights and functions of the jury, said that if, upon a motion in arrest of judgment, the innocence of the defendant's intention was argued before the court, the answer would be, and was, given uniformly, that the verdict of guilty had concluded the criminality of the intention, though the consideration of that question had been by the judge's authority wholly withdrawn from the jury at the trial. The bill met with opposition in the House of Lords, especially from Lord Thurlow, who procured the postponement of the second reading until the opinion of the judges should have been ascertained. They, on being appealed to, declared that the criminality or innocence of any act was the result of the judgment which the law pronounces upon that act, and must therefore be in all cases and under all circumstances matter of law, and not matter of fact, and that the criminality or innocence of letters or papers set forth as overt acts of treason, was matter of law, and not of fact. These startling assertions had not much weight with the House of Lords, thanks to the able arguments of Lord Camden, and the bill passed, with a protest attached from Lord Thurlow and five others, in which they predicted 'the confusion and destruction of the law of England.' Of this bill, Macaulay says: 'Fox and Pitt are fairly entitled to divide the high honor of having added to our statute book the inestimable law which places the liberty of the press under the protection of juries.' Intimately connected with this struggle for the liberty of public opinion was another mighty engine, which was brought to bear, and that was the Public Association, with its legitimate offspring, the Public Meeting. The power and influence which this organization exerted were enormous, and, though it was often employed in a bad or unworthy cause—such, for instance, as the Protestant agitation, culminating in Lord George Gordon's riots in 1780—yet it has been of incalculable advantage to the progress of the state, the enlightenment of the nation, and the advancement of civilization, freedom, and truth. Take, for instance, the Slave-Trade Association, the object and scope of which are thus admirably described by Erskine May, in his 'Constitutional History of England':

'It was almost beyond the range of politics. It had no constitutional change to seek, no interest to promote, no prejudice to gratify, not even the national welfare to advance. Its clients were a despised race in a distant clime—an inferior type of the human family—for whom natures of a higher mould felt repugnance rather than sympathy. Benevolence and Christian charity were its only incentives. On the other hand, the slave-trade was supported by some of the most powerful classes in the country—merchants, shipowners, planters. Before it could be proscribed, vested interests must be overborne—ignorance enlightened—prejudices and indifference overcome—public opinion converted. And to this great work did Granville Sharpe, Wilberforce, Clarkson, and other noble spirits devote their lives. Never was cause supported by greater earnestness and activity. The organization of the society comprehended all classes and religious denominations. Evidence was collected from every source to lay bare the cruelties and iniquities of the traffic. Illustration and argument were inexhaustible. Men of feeling and sensibility appealed with deep emotion to the religious feelings and benevolence of the people. If extravagance and bad taste sometimes courted ridicule, the high purpose, just sentiments, and eloquence of the leaders of the movement won respect and admiration. Tracts found their way into every house, pulpits and platforms resounded with the wrongs of the negro; petitions were multiplied, ministers and Parliament moved to inquiry and action.... Parliament was soon prevailed upon to attempt the mitigation of the worst evils which had been brought to light, and in little more than twenty years the slave trade was utterly condemned and prohibited.'

And this magnificent result sprang from a Public Association. In this, the most noble crusade that has ever been undertaken by man, the newspapers bore a conspicuous part, and though, as might be expected, they did not all take the same views, yet they rendered good service to the glorious cause. But this tempting subject has carried us away into a rather lengthy digression from our immediate topic. To return, therefore:

In 1786 there was a memorable action for libel brought by Pitt against The Morning Herald and The Morning Advertiser, for accusing him of having gambled in the public funds. He laid his damages at £10,000, but only obtained a verdict for £250 in the first case, and £150 in the second. In 1789 John Walter was sentenced to pay a fine of £50, to be exposed in the pillory for an hour, and to be imprisoned for one year, at the expiration of which he was ordered to find substantial bail for his good behavior for seven years, for a libel upon the Duke of York. In the following year he was again prosecuted and convicted for libels upon the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, and the Duke of Clarence, but, after undergoing four months of his second term of one year's imprisonment, he was set free, at the instance of the Prince of Wales. The last trial for libel, previous to the passing of Fox's libel bill, was that of one Stockdale, for publishing a defence of Warren Hastings, a pamphlet that was considered as libellously reflecting upon the House of Commons. However, through the great exertions of Erskine, his counsel, he was acquitted.

In 1788 appeared the first daily evening paper, The Star, which continued until 1831, when it was amalgamated with The Albion. The year 1789 is memorable for the assumption of the editorship of The Morning Chronicle by James Perry, under whose management it reached a greater pitch of prosperity and success than it ever enjoyed either before or since—greater, in fact, than any journal had hitherto attained. One of the chief reasons of this success was that he printed the night's debates in his next morning's issue, a thing which had never before been accomplished or even attempted. Another secret of Perry's success was the wonderful tact with which, while continuing to be thoroughly outspoken and independent, he yet contrived—with one exception, hereafter to be noticed—to steer clear of giving offence to the Government. He is thus spoken of by a writer in The Edinburgh Review: 'He held the office of editor for nearly forty years, and he held firm to his party and his principles all that time—a long time for political honesty and consistency to last! He was a man of strong natural sense, some acquired knowledge, a quick tact, prudent, plausible, and with great heartiness and warmth of feeling.' His want of education, however, now and then betrayed him into errors, and a curious instance of this is, that on one occasion, when he meant to say 'epithalamia,' he wrote and printed 'epicedia,' a mistake which he corrected with the greatest coolness on the following day thus: 'For 'epicedia' read 'epithalamia.'

The next event of importance is the appearance of Bell's Weekly Messenger, in 1796, a newspaper that met with immediate success, and is the only one of the weeklies of that period which have survived to the present time. The year '96 is also remarkable for an action brought by The Telegraph against The Morning Post, for damages suffered by publishing an extract from a French paper, which purported to give the intelligence of peace between the Emperor of Germany and France, but which was forged and surreptitiously sent to The Telegraph by the proprietors of The Morning Post. The result was that The Telegraph obtained a verdict for £100 damages. In 1794, The Morning Advertiser had been established by the Licensed Victuallers of London, with the intention of benefiting by its sale the funds of the asylum which that body had recently established. It at once obtained a large circulation, inasmuch as every publican became a subscriber. It exists to the present day, and is known by the slang sobriquet of the 'Tub,' an appellation suggested by its clientèle. Its opinions are radical, and it is conducted not without a fair share of ability, but, occasionally venturing out of its depth, it has more than once been most successfully and amusingly hoaxed. One of these cases was when a correspondent contributed an extraordinary Greek inscription, which he asserted had been recently discovered. This so-called inscription was in reality nothing but some English doggerel of anything but a refined character turned into Greek.

In 1797, Canning brought out The Anti-Jacobin as a Government organ, and Gifford—who began life as a cobbler's apprentice at an out-of-the-way little town in Devonshire, and afterward became editor of The Quarterly Review in its palmiest days—was intrusted with its management. The Anti-Jacobin lasted barely eight months, but was probably the most potent satirical production that has ever emanated from the English press. The first talent of the day was engaged upon it; and among its contributors we find Pitt, Lord Mornington, afterward Marquis of Wellesley, Lord Morpeth, afterward Earl of Carlisle, Jenkinson, afterward Earl of Liverpool, Canning, George Ellis, Southey, Lord Bathurst, Addington, John Hookham Frere, and a host of other prominent names at the time. The poetry of The Anti-Jacobin—its strongest feature—has been collected into a volume, which has passed through several editions. This journal was the first to inaugurate 'sensation' headings; for the three columns which were respectively entitled 'Mistakes,' 'Misrepresentations,' 'Lies,' and which most truculently slashed away at the opponents of the political opinions of The Anti-Jacobin, decidedly come under that category.

We have now arrived at another era of persecution. Those were ticklish times, and Pitt, fearing lest revolutionary theories might be promulgated through the instrumentality of the press, determined to tighten the reins, and curb that freedom of expression which, after an interval of rest from prosecution, was manifestly degenerating. Poor Perry was arraigned on a charge of exhibiting a leaning toward France, and he and his printer were fined and sent to prison. Pitt really appears to have had good ground for action, in one instance, at least, for The Courier had made certain statements which might fairly be construed as hostile to the Government, and favorable to France. Moreover, it was stated in the House of Commons by the attorney-general, that a parcel of unstamped newspapers had been seized in a neutral vessel bound to France, containing information 'which, if any one had written and sent in another form to the enemy, he would have committed the highest crime of which a man can be guilty.' Among other things, the departure of the West India fleet under the convoy of two frigates only was noticed, and the greatest fears were expressed for its safety in consequence. Another thing mentioned was, that as there was to be a levy en masse in this country, the French would not be so ill advised as to come here, but would make a swoop upon Ireland. A bill was brought forward, the chief provisions of which were that the proprietors and printers of all newspapers should inscribe their names in a book, kept for that purpose at the stamp office, in order that the book might be produced in court on occasion of any trial, as evidence of the proprietorship and responsibility, and that a copy of each issue of every newspaper should be filed at the stamp office, to be produced as good and sufficient evidence of publication. A vehement debate followed, in the course of which Lord William Russell declared the bill to be an insidious blow at the liberty of the press; and Sir W. Pulteney said that 'the liberty of the press was of such a sacred nature that we ought to suffer many inconveniences rather than check its influence in such a manner as to endanger our liberties; for he had no hesitation in saying that without the liberty of the press the freedom of this country would be a mere shadow.' But the great speech of the debate was that of Sir Francis Burdett, who did not then foresee that the time would come when he himself should make an attack upon the press.

'The liberty of the press,' he said, 'is of so delicate a nature, and so important for the preservation of that small portion of liberty which still remains to the country, that I cannot allow the bill to pass without giving it my opposition. A good Government, a free Government, has nothing to apprehend, and everything to hope from the liberty of the press; it reflects a lustre upon all its actions, and fosters every virtue. But despotism courts shade and obscurity, and dreads the scrutinizing eye of liberty, the freedom of the press, which pries into its secret recesses, discovering it in its lurking holes, and drags it forth to public detestation. If a tyrannically disposed prince, supported by an unprincipled, profligate minister, backed by a notoriously corrupt Parliament, were to cast about for means to secure such a triple tyranny, I know of no means he could devise so effectual for that purpose as the bill now upon the table.'

Spite, however, of this vigorous opposition, the bill passed, and among other coercive measures it decreed heavy penalties against any infringement of the stamp act, such as: 'Every person who shall knowingly and wilfully retain or keep in custody any newspaper not duly stamped, shall forfeit twenty pounds for each, such unstamped newspaper he shall so have in custody'—'every person who shall knowingly or wilfully, directly or indirectly, send or carry or cause to be sent or carried out of Great Britain any unstamped newspaper, shall forfeit one hundred pounds,' and 'every person during the present war who shall send any newspaper out of Great Britain into any country not in amity with his Majesty, shall forfeit five hundred pounds.' Stringent measures these, with a vengeance! The onslaught initiated by Parliament was well seconded by the judges, and Lord Kenyon especially distinguished himself as an unscrupulous (the word is not one whit too strong) foe to the press. To such an extent was this persecution carried, that the printer, publisher, and proprietor of The Courier were fined and imprisoned for the following 'libel' upon the Emperor Paul: 'The Emperor of Russia is rendering himself obnoxious to his subjects by various acts of tyranny, and ridiculous in the eyes of Europe by his inconsistency. He has now passed an edict prohibiting the exportation of timber deal,' etc. To fine a man £100 and imprison him for six months for this was a little overstepping the mark, and a reaction soon followed, as a proof of which may be noticed the act 39th and 40th George III., cap. 72, which allows the newspaper to be increased from the old regulation size of twenty-eight inches by twenty to that of thirty inches and a half by twenty.

William Cobbett now makes his bow as an English journalist. He was already notorious in America, as the author of the 'Letters of Peter Porcupine,' published at Philadelphia; and, upon his return to England, he projected an anti-democratic newspaper, under the title of The Porcupine, the first number of which appeared in November, 1800. It was a very vigorous production, and at once commanded public attention and a large sale. Nevertheless it was but short lived, for the passions and fears to which it ministered soon calmed down; and, its occupation being gone, it naturally gave up the ghost and died. Among other celebrities who now wrote for the newspapers are Porson, the accomplished but bibulous Greek scholar and critic; Tom Campbell, several of whose most beautiful poems first appeared in the columns of The Morning Chronicle, Charles Lamb, Southey, Wordsworth, and Mackintosh. These last five wrote for The Morning Post, and raised it, by their brilliant contributions, from the last place among the dailies—its circulation had actually sunk to three hundred and fifty before they joined its ranks—to the second place, and caused it to tread very closely upon the heels of The Chronicle. Tom Campbell, besides his poetry, wrote prose articles, and was also regularly engaged as a writer in The Star. Porson married James Perry's sister, and many scholarly articles which graced the columns of The Morning Chronicle toward the close of the eighteenth century are generally believed to have emanated from his pen. Mackintosh had written foreign political articles in The Oracle and Morning Chronicle, but, marrying the sister of Daniel Stuart, the proprietor of The Morning Post and The Courier, he transferred his services to those journals, as well as occasionally to The Star, which belonged to a brother of Stuart. Southey and Wordsworth's contributions to Stuart's papers were principally poetry. Charles Lamb's contributions were principally short, witty paragraphs, which he contributed to any of the papers that would receive them, and for which he received the magnificent remuneration of sixpence each! Coleridge had first appeared in the newspaper world as a contributor of poetry to The Morning Chronicle, but was soon after regularly engaged upon The Morning Post and The Courier. Some of his prose articles have been collected together into a volume, and republished with the title of 'Essays on His Own Times.' He was especially hostile to France, and the best proof of the ability and vigor of his anti-Gallican articles is that Napoleon actually sent a frigate in pursuit of him, when he was returning from Leghorn to England, with the avowed intention of getting him into his power if possible. The First Consul had endeavored to get him arrested at Rome, but Coleridge got a friendly hint—according to some from Jerome Bonaparte, and according to others from the Pope, who assisted him in making his escape. Bonaparte had probably gained intelligence of the whereabout of Coleridge from a debate in the House of Commons, in the course of which Fox said that the rupture of the Peace of Amiens was owing to Coleridge's articles in The Morning Post, and added that the writer was then at Rome, and therefore might possibly fall into the hands of his enemy. Napoleon was very much irritated by the attacks upon him in The Morning Chronicle as well as by those in Cobbett's Political Register—The Porcupine under a new name—the Courrier François de Londres—the French emigrés' paper—and L'Ambigu, which was rather a political pamphlet, published at periodical intervals, than a regular newspaper. He therefore thought proper peremptorily to call upon the English Government to put these papers down with a high hand. But the British cabinet sent this noble reply:

'His Majesty neither can nor will in consequence of any representation or menace from a foreign power make any concession which may be in the smallest degree dangerous to the liberty of the press as secured by the Constitution of this country. This liberty is justly dear to every British subject; the Constitution admits of no previous restraints upon publications of any description; but there exist judicatures wholly independent of the executive, capable of taking cognizance of such publications as the law deems to be criminal; and which are bound to inflict the punishment the delinquents may deserve. These judicatures may investigate and punish not only libels against the Government and magistracy of this kingdom, but, as has been repeatedly experienced, of publications defamatory of those in whose hands the administration of foreign Governments is placed. Our Government neither has, nor wants, any other protection than what the laws of the country afford; and though they are willing and ready to give to every foreign Government all the protection against offences of this nature which the principles of their laws and Constitution will admit, they can never consent to new-model those laws or to change their Constitution to gratify the wishes of any foreign power.'

But Napoleon indignantly declined to avail himself of the means of redress suggested to him, and continued to urge the English Government; who at length made a sort of compromise, by undertaking a prosecution of Peltier, the proprietor of L'Ambigu. Mackintosh was his counsel; and in spite of his speech for the defence, which Spencer Perceval characterized as 'one of the most splendid displays of eloquence he ever had occasion to hear,' and Lord Ellenborough as 'eloquence almost unparalleled,' Peltier was found guilty—but, as hostilities soon after broke out again with France, was never sentenced. The best part of the story, however, is, that all the time ministers were paying Peltier in private for writing the very articles for which they prosecuted him in public! This did not come out until some years afterward, when Lord Castlereagh explained the sums thus expended as 'grants for public and not private service, and for conveying instructions to the Continent when no other mode could be found.' The trial of Peltier aroused a strong feeling of indignation in the country; the English nation has always been very jealous of any interference with its laws at the dictation of any foreign potentate, as Lord Palmerston on a recent occasion found to his cost.

Cobbett was soon after tried for a libel—not, however, upon Napoleon, but upon the English Government. There must have been an innate tendency in Cobbett's mind to set himself in opposition to everything around him, for whereas he had made America too hot to hold him by his anti-republican views, he now contrived to set the authorities at home against him by his advanced radicalism. He had to stand two trials in 1804, in connection with Robert Emmet's rebellion. On the second of these he was fined £500, and Judge Johnson, one of the Irish judges, who was the author of the libels complained of, retired from his judicial position with a pension. These reflections in question upon the Irish authorities would hardly be called libels now-a-days, consisting as they did chiefly of ridicule and satire, which was, after all, mild and harmless enough. In 1810, Cobbett got into trouble again. Some militia soldiers had been flogged, while a detachment of the German Legion stood by to maintain order. Cobbett immediately published a diatribe against flogging in the army and the employment of foreign mercenaries. He was indicted for a 'libel' upon the German Legion, convicted, and sentenced to two years' imprisonment, to pay a fine of £1,000, and to find security in £3,000 for his good behavior during seven years—a sentence which created universal disgust among all classes, and which was not too strongly designated by Sydney Smith as 'atrocious.'

The Oracle—which, by the way, boasted Canning among its contributors—was rash enough to publish an article in defence of Lord Melville. The House of Commons fired up at this, and, led on by Sheridan—quantum mutatus ab illo!—Fox, Wyndham, and others, who had formerly professed themselves friends to the liberty of the press, but who were now carried away by the virulence of party spirit, caused the publisher to be brought before them, and made him apologize and make his submission upon his knees.

In 1805 appeared The News, a paper started by John Hunt and his brother Leigh, then but a mere boy, but who had, nevertheless, had some experience in newspaper writing from having been an occasional contributor to The Traveller, an evening paper, that was afterward amalgamated with The Globe, which still retains the double title. The year 1808 was fruitful in prosecutions for libels, but is chiefly remarkable for the appearance of Hunt's new paper, The Examiner. This was conducted upon what was styled by their opponents revolutionary principles, an accusation which Leigh Hunt afterward vehemently repudiated. This same year also gave birth to the first religious paper which had as yet appeared, under the name of The Instructor, as well as to The Anti-Gallican, which seems to have quickly perished of spontaneous combustion, and The Political Register, an impudent piracy of the title of Cobbett's paper, and directed against him. In 1809, Government passed a bill in favor of newspapers, to amend some of the restrictions under which they labored. This was done on account of the high price of paper: and yet in the following year another attempt was made to exclude the reporters from the House of Commons. These men had always done their work well and honestly, although in their private lives some of them had not borne the very best character. A capital story is told of Mark Supple, an Irish reporter of the old school, who was employed on The Chronicle. One evening, when there was a sudden silence in the midst of a debate, Supple bawled out: 'A song from Mr. Speaker.' The members could not have been more astonished had a bombshell been suddenly discharged into the midst of them; but, after a slight pause, every one—Pitt among the first—went off into such shouts of laughter, that the halls of the House shook again. The sergeant-at-arms was, however, sent to the gallery to ascertain who had had the audacity to propose such a thing; whereupon Supple winked at him and pointed out a meek, sober Quaker as the culprit. Broadbrim was immediately taken into custody; but Supple, being found out, was locked up in a solitary chamber to cool his heels for a while, and then having made a humble apology, to the effect that 'it was the dhrink that did it,' or something of the kind, was set at liberty. But the reporters at the period of this unjust and foolish exclusion—for it was successful for a time—were a very different class of men; and Sheridan told the House that 'of about twenty-three gentlemen who were now employed reporting parliamentary debates for the newspapers, no less than eighteen were men regularly educated at the universities of Oxford or Cambridge, Edinburgh or Dublin, most of them graduates at those universities, and several of them had gained prizes and other distinctions there by their literary attainments.' It was during this debate that Sheridan uttered that memorable and glowing eulogium upon the press which has been quoted in the first of the present series of articles.

It has been shown that at one time the church was the profession which most liberally supplied the press with writers; but now the bar appears to have furnished a very large share, and many young barristers had been and were reporters. The benchers of Lincoln's Inn endeavored to put a stop to this, and passed a by-law that no man who had ever been paid for writing in the newspapers should be eligible for a call to the bar. This by-law was appealed against in the House of Commons, and, after a debate, in which Sheridan spoke very warmly against the benchers, the petition was withdrawn upon the understanding that the by-law should be recalled. From that time to the present, writing in the newspapers and reporting the debates have been the means whereby many of the most distinguished of our lawyers have been enabled to struggle through the days of their studentship and the earlier years of their difficult career.

The last attempt of the House of Commons against the press culminated in Sir Francis Burdett's coming forward in its behalf, and, in an article in Cobbett's paper, among other things he asserted that the House of Commons had no legal right to imprison the People of England. In acting thus, Sir Francis amply atoned for the ridiculous attempt which, prompted by wounded vanity, he had made a few years before to engage the interference of the House of Commons in his behalf in what he called a breach of privilege—the said breach of privilege consisting merely in an advertisement in The True Briton of the resolutions passed at a public meeting to petition against his return to Parliament. The results of his bold attack upon the power of the House of Commons, his imprisonment, the riots, and lamentable loss of life which followed, are so well known as to render any particularizing of them here unnecessary. Originating with this affair was a Government prosecution of The Day, the upshot of which was that Eugenius Roche, the editor—who was also proprietor of another flourishing journal, The National Register—one of the most able, honorable, and gentlemanly men ever connected with the press, of whom it has been truly said that 'during the lapse of more than twenty years that he was connected with the journals of London, he never gained an enemy or lost a friend,' was most unjustly condemned to a year's imprisonment.

The next important event is the trial of the Hunts for a libel in The Examiner in 1811. Brougham was their counsel, and made a masterly defence; and, though Lord Ellenborough, the presiding judge, summed up dead against the defendants—the judges always appear to have done so—the jury acquitted them. Yet Brougham in the course of his address drew the following unfavorable picture of the then state of the press:

'The licentiousness of the press has reached to a height which it certainly never attained in any other country, nor even in this at any former period. That licentiousness has indeed of late years appeared to despise all the bounds which had once been prescribed to the attacks on private character, insomuch that there is not only no personage so important or exalted—for of that I do not complain—but no person so humble, harmless, and retired as to escape the defamation which is daily and hourly poured forth by the venal crew to gratify the idle curiosity or still less excusable malignity of the public. To mark out for the indulgence of that propensity individuals retiring into the privacy of domestic life—to hunt them down and drag them forth as a laughing stock to the vulgar, has become in our days with some men the road even to popularity, but with multitudes the means of earning a base subsistence.'

Soon after this trial and another provincial one connected with the same 'libel'—one gets quite sick of the word—in which the defendants were found guilty in spite of Brougham's exertions in their behalf and the previous verdict of the London jury in the case of the Hunts, a debate arose in the House of Commons on the subject of ex-officio informations generally, and especially with regard to their applicability to the case of newspapers. In the course of this debate Lord Folkestone charged the Government with partiality in their prosecutions, and said: 'It appears that the real rule which guides these prosecutions is this: that The Courier and the other papers which support the ministry of the day, may say whatever they please without the fear of prosecution, whereas The Examiner, The Independent Whig, The Statesman, and papers that take the contrary line, are sure to be prosecuted for any expression that may be offensive to the minister'—an accusation which was decidedly true.