We have mentioned above, that it is requisite there should be three or more attesting witnesses to a will of real estate; and it is a rule that all the witnesses to such a will, in case they are living, be examined, or that their signatures shall be proved if dead; and in general this is very proper. But may not cases arise in which the enforcement of this rule would be attended with great mischief? A witness may be tampered with, and by undue or corrupt means prevailed on to deny his own handwriting, or the sanity and competence of the testator to make a will. What can the party who wishes to establish the will do under such circumstances? It is a maxim that a plaintiff or defendant shall not discredit his own witness, but on the contrary that the evidence shall be taken most strongly against the person who calls him. Now if tampering or corruption could be shewn, ought not proof of it to be admitted, and the evidence of that witness dispensed with, on proof of his handwriting? Suppose the Lord Chancellor and Sir Edward Sugden, together with a domestic of the testator, should be subscribing witnesses to the will of some nobleman or gentleman whom they, and all his friends, knew to be of sound mind and memory, shall such a will be defeated by the fraud and knavery of the third witness, and defeated, probably, in favour of his suborners? It is humbly conceived that the courts should have a discretionary power of acting in such a case. It is true that Lord Camden called discretion in a judge, the Tyrant's Law,* and without doubt discretion, like the best things, may be abused; yet it is often essential, in order to prevent greater evils. It is remarkable that the same great authority maintained the legality of a royal proclamation, issued in the administration of Lord Chatham, to suspend the operation of an act of Parliament, (which certainly was a discretionary measure,) though another very great man, Lord Mansfield, held a contrary opinion, contending that the proclamation was illegal: and if we mistake not, a bill of indemnity was brought into parliament in consequence. Doe on dem. Hindson v. Kersey.-Fearne, 535, 6th edit. It is remarkable that this case is not reported by Wilson. See Note 6, Appendix.

ON THE MISCHIEFS OF PUBLIC LIBELS,

AND

BY WHICH ARE MEANT PUBLICATIONS OF A BLASPHEMOUS, SEDITIOUS AND IMMORAL NATURE, INCLUDING SUCH AS ARE VERBALLY PICTORIALLY OBSCENE.

Belief in the existence of the deity, and a superintending providence, of the divine origin of religion, and of a future state of happiness or misery, according to our good or bad conduct in this life, is of the utmost importance to mankind, as it forcibly tends to influence the actions of men in all situations, whether domestic or social. Hence by the laws of christian countries the denial of those doctrines, by teaching or writing, has been held highly presumptuous, indecent and criminal, and therefore deserving of severe punishment. In like manner, writings and doctrines of a seditious or immoral tendency, as being dangerous to the peace and good order of society, have by all civilized nations been deemed justly penal. But of late years new lights, as we are told, have opened on the world; and it has been maintained that there should be no restraint on the liberty of discussion, or the promulgation of opinion, that all publications, on all subjects, should be permitted, except such as falsely and injuriously affect individuals in their private capacity; and that the press should be as free as the air we breathe; leaving it to those who think such publications dangerous, to refute them through the same medium that gave them publicity, namely, the press.

It may be here proper to explain what we understand by liberty or freedom of discussion, and we take it to mean the unrestricted right to publish whatever we choose to say (whether we believe it to be true or not) on the subject of religion, science, government and morals.

This extreme latitude and liberty of the press is surely a subject of vital consequence to the community. If it be allowed

to publish and circulate dogmas tending to make the present and rising generation believe that the Almighty is a nonentity, or that there is no such thing as providence; that there is no future state of existence; that if there ever was such a person as the Messiah, he was an imposter or an enthusiast; that the old and new testament are fables; that miracles are impossible; that all religion and religious rites are priestcraft and imposition, and that all its professors are cheats and knaves; it will follow as a matter of course, that all possible offences may be committed with total impunity, provided the transgressor can escape detection;. let him but use due caution and cunning and he is quite safe. Assuredly it will hardly be denied, that the propagation of such opinions and suggestions will have an effect on men's conduct, inasmuch as theory conducts to practice, and teaching leads to acting.

What is here supposed is not merely imaginary. In France, for some time before, and during the first two or three years of the Revolution, the most blasphemous, seditious, immoral and obscene publications were innumerable. And it is notorious, that during the early part of that unhappy convulsion a great portion of the human species became absolutely brutalised; every crime and vice of which depraved human nature was capable, from murder, treason and robbery to the vilest sensuality, in every way and of every description, including incest and worse unutterable things, were permitted and practised; the scenes of bestial and ultra abomination, which, without restraint, concealment or shame were exhibited and acted at that pandemonium, the Palais Royale, were monstrous and incredible. The first chapter of Saint Paul's epistle to the Romans, verse 24 to 32, gives but a faint idea of their turpitude. Perhaps some future Gibbon may narrate them in Greek.*

It is difficult to say which was greater, the atrocious cruelty, or the heartless levity of the Parisian rabble. After the massacre of the Swiss guards the fish-women stripped them, mutilated their

* This will be understood by those who have read Gibbon's great Work,

bodies, (while some were in the agonies of death,) and hung the abstracted parts as ornaments round their necks. When the guillotine was at its daily work, and the blood of the victims was streaming from the scaffold, fiddlers, with monkeys and dancing dogs, were seen skipping about at its foot. And all these horrors took place among a people who had been considered as the politest in the world; a learned, a scientific nation, which abounded with philosophers; but they had banished religion; they studied nature, but had forsaken nature's God.

One would wish, for the honour of human kind, that these lamentable scenes could be lost in eternal oblivion, or rather that they had never happened; but they cannot be forgotten, and having happened they ought not to be forgotten; their recollection may serve as a warning; for if the same causes should be permitted to arise and operate in this country, they must be presumed to produce similar effects.

And be it well noted and remembered, that during the entire progress of murder and rapine in revolutionary France, a party, and a part of the press in this country, incessantly defended, or palliated the atrocities of the revolutionists there: and let it be recollected also, that these patriotic persons never failed to rejoice at the victories of the French, or to grieve at those of England. Had the same disposition in favour of radical reform, that liberal spirit of the age, that march of intellect, and those councils which have of late prevailed here, been then predominant, the British Constitution would not have lasted a single month.

But thanks to the wisdom of our then statesmen, the vigour of our arms, and the true old English spirit of the nation, this country withstood the shock which threatened its ruin; the Tyrant of Gaul and Terror of Europe was tumbled headlong from his imperial throne, and chained to a rock in the ocean, where he miserably ended his extraordinary and eventful life; and thus a stop was for a time put to the moral pestilence, the modern French disease, whose ravages were so destructive. After the long and ample experience the world has had of its evils, it

might have been hoped that the revolutionary mania would have subsided; but unhappily it has again broken out in France (which it seems nobody except a despot can keep quiet), though not indeed with all its original virulence; and it has begun to make its appearance among us. Accordingly we have our political unions, and regularly arranged processions, consisting of many thousands, intended to overawe the Government, which at first encouraged them; there are trades' unions and their public meetings (at which members of parliament sometimes preside) meant to oppose and control their employers; and bills containing in large letters, "killing no murder,"—" strike right and left," and recommending assassination, are now publicly placarded by some of these trades' unions! Persons in high stations have advised resistance to the legislature, and non-payment of taxes; and we read in the newspapers that a sheriff has refused to carry into execution the sentence of the law.

Now if it be true that laws are necessary for the security of life, liberty and property, and that to enforce them, pains and penalties are requisite, does it not follow that it is expedient to prohibit, by the same means, the circulation of doctrines inevitably tending to the commission of offences which must affect life, liberty, property and every thing that is dear to us? For it cannot be seriously maintained that inculcating and publishing moral and religious essays and exhortations, are sufficient to counteract the evils likely to ensue from free discussion, in which the worst offences are defended and advised. In what manner are the effects of obscene writings and prints to be removed, or the immoral impressions produced by them effaced? Can crimes actually committed, in consequence of such incitements, be rendered harmless? Will they be done away by devout, pious and virtuous lessons, by representations of weeping penitents and dying sinners; or by reading Thomas a Kempes, the Pilgrim's Progress, Hervey's Meditations, Law's Serious Call, or by perusing or hearing the finest Sermons will these restore the innocence of the corrupted matron, or the polluted maiden?