Whatever was the cause, the effect was most unfortunate to these realms.

Proceedings relative to the freedom of the press afforded much discussion in the House of Commons. The debates turning. on constitutional points, Burke took a very distinguished part. Among many printers who republished Junius's Letters from the original, in the Public Advertiser, one was Almon; a man obnoxious to Government on account of personal attacks upon, some of the Ministry, and the supposed favourites of the Court. He copied the letter to the King into a monthly magazine. Although it had been copied before into all the newspapers in the kingdom, none of the publishers had been prosecuted :-but an action was commenced against Almon for his republication. From the object prosecuted, this step was imputed by the Opposition to resentment, more than to the sense of justice, If justice had been the motive, it was alledged that the publisher would have been the first and principal object.

It was contended that the AttorneyGeneral's official power of filing informations was too extensive to be compatible with freedom. A bill was proposed to modify and limit that law-officer's power; by explaining and amending an act of William and Mary, for preventing malicious informations in the Court of King's Bench. In supporting this bill, Burke made a speech replete with legal knowledge, shewing his thorough acquaintance with crown law in general, and with particular acts, in their history, detail, spirit, and constitutional tendency. Serious information and reasoning were enlivened by wit and humour. Some of the opposite party had dwelt very much on the antiquity of the power lodged in the Attorney-General. Burke, though a reverencer of antient usage when found generally accompanied with good, yet not reverencing it when productive of evil, and not conceiving the antiquity in this case proved, placed the argument in a variety of ridiculous lights. • Several gentlemen,' he said, have expressed a kind of superstitious

veneration for this power, on account of its supposed antiquity; as the father of Scriblerus extolled the rust and canker which exalted a brazen pot-lid into the shield of á hero. I hope to scour off the false marks of antiquity which have made this power venerable, as effectually as the honest housemaid scoured off the false honours of the pot-lid.' While Burke impugned the power of the Attorney-General, he inveighed against licentious libels. He characterised the North Briton with a severity at once witty and just. • Number forty-five of the North Briton is a spiritless though virulent performance, a mere mixture of vinegar and water, at once sour and vapid.' When he attacks ministerial oppressions and usurpations, he assigns, as the most immediately hurtful effects of their conduct, the incitement of popular sedition and violence. In descanting on libels, he takes occasion to speak of JUNIUS, in a manner that implies either, that he was not the author, or thought himself secure of concealment. How comes JUNIUS to have broke through the cobwebs

of the law, and to range uncontrouled and unpunished through the land? The myrmidons of the Court pursue him in vain. They will not spend their time on me or you; they disdain such vermin, when the mighty boar of the forest, that has broke their toils, is before them. When I saw his attack upon the King my blood run cold; not, that there are not in that composition many bold truths, by which a wise Prince might profit it was the rancour and venom with which I was struck. When I expected from his daring flight his fall and final ruin, I behold him soaring higher, and coming souse upon both houses of parliament; nor has he dreaded the terrors of your brow, Sir,* King, Lords, and Commons are the sport of his fury.'

Doctrines promulgated by some of the judges, particularly by the great Mansfield, were, by many friends of the constitution, deemed inimical to the rights of juries. It

* Sir Fletcher Norton, the Speaker, of no very pleasing

aspect.

was maintained on the Bench, that in cases. of libels juries were to judge of the facts and tendency only, and not of the intention; and that the truths of the allegations could not be pled in abatement of the guilt of defamatory writings. Sergeant Glynn made a motion for an enquiry into the practice of the judges, and for ascertaining and declaring the law of the land. This motion, though somewhat different in detail, was nearly the same in principle as the bill since proposed by Mr. Erskine, and passed into a law. Burke argued, that the power exercised by the Chief Justice and his imitators was inimical to personal security, and arrogated to judges appointed by the crown the right vested by the fundamental laws in juries; that thus a man might be deprived of his liberty and property without the judgment of his peers. After deducing the rights of juries to find the guilt as well as the fact, he went into the practice of our greatest times, since the abolition of the StarChamber, and shewed it to recognize this