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CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 LIBRARY 
 
THE PEESS 
 
 THE PUBLIC SEEYICE. 
 
 y_N,'PiMr 
 
[jExtract from {he Times of February 6th, 1857.] 
 
 " The Eael or Cardigan put » question to the Secretary of War 
 ia regard to a recent publication on the Crimean campaign, by an 
 ofiScer of the staff, in which he asserted that his character had been 
 maligned. 
 
 "LOKD Panmukb replied : 'Although the noble earl charges a parti- 
 cular officer "with being the writer of the book to which he has referred, 
 let me remind him that, as far as the authorities at the Horse Guards are 
 acquainted with the facts, that book was written under an anonymous 
 signature. The Commander-in-Chief (who would have been present 
 in his place to-day had he not been in attendance on her Majesty), upon 
 receiving an application from the noble earl to redress, through the 
 means of a court-martial, the injury which he had sustained from that 
 book, stated that he did not conceive that it was his province to take 
 notice of anonymous military publications ; because such a precedent 
 once established would lead to inevitable confusion in the administration 
 of the discipline of the army ; and that moreover it appeared to him, as 
 it appears to me, that the noble earl had a recourse open to him by an 
 appeal to the civil courts of the country, whereby he might have 
 obtained reparation for the defamation of his character.' " 
 
THE PEESg 
 
 THE PUBLIC SERYIOE. 
 
 BT 
 
 A DISTINGUISHED WKITER. 
 
 'If on milii, sed patriae." 
 * Fidei coticula crux." 
 
 LONDON: 
 G. EOUTLEDGE & CO. PARKINGDON STEEET; 
 
 KEW YORK: 18, BEEKMAN STREET. 
 1857. 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 Dedicated to the Memory of The Eight Honourable 
 George Canning. Endowed with a rare combination 
 of talentSj an eminent Statesman, an accomplished 
 Scholar, an Orator surpassed by none; he united the 
 most brilliant and lofty qualities of the mind with the 
 warmest affections of the heart. Raised by his own 
 merit, he successively filled important ofifices in the 
 State, he became Principal Secretary for Foreign 
 Affairs, British Ambassador at Lisbon, and finally 
 First Minister of the Crown. He was the most 
 remarkable Anonymous Writer of his generation. 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 "This Bill cares not a fig whether you are guilty or innocent." 
 
 Fox's Speech on Lord North's Bill to empower His Majesty to 
 secwe Persons suspected of tlie Crime of Sigh Treason, 
 Feb. 10, 1777. 
 
 The principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs * 
 has recently asserted his right to question persons in 
 his department respecting their supposed connection 
 with anonymous publications. 
 
 This minister has fui'ther maintained, that, in conse- 
 quence of secret information confidentially communi- 
 cated to him, a suspected person may be called upon to 
 furnish conclusive proof to satisfy his lordship, and to 
 enable his lordship to convince others that such person 
 is not in any way connected with anonymous works 
 attributed to him, either as the author or one of the 
 authors; or by having furnished materials for the 
 works to any other person, or in any other manner 
 whatsoever. 
 
 The evidence required by the principal Secretary of 
 State for Foreign Affairs to establish these negatives, 
 
 * George William Frederick Villiers, present and fourth Earl of 
 Clarendon. 
 
VIU PREFACE. 
 
 must comprise the distinct denial of the supposed 
 author^ corroborated by explicit declarations or affi- 
 davits from the publishers and editors of the anony- 
 mous works in question. 
 
 In the event of the suspected person being unable to 
 obtain affidavits^ or declarations^ from perfect strangers^ 
 who may be interested in concealing the real author or 
 authorSj or who may not even be acquainted with him 
 or them, the suspected person will be deprived of his 
 profession without any form of trial. He will be 
 punished by the degrading sentence of dismissal from 
 his employment, and he will be declared incapable of 
 holding any other appointment. 
 
 It is now sixty-five years since Mr. Fox asked 
 whether it was agreeable to the law of England that 
 the onus in cases of libel should lie on the person 
 accused, to prove his innocence, and not on those who 
 accused him, to prove his guilt ? The noble Secretary 
 for Foreign Affairs is the first British statesman who 
 has yet answered that question in the affirmative. If 
 the solid and brilliant abilities of the distinguished 
 nobleman who at present fills that high office, how- 
 ever, cannot impart an irresistible weight to any side 
 of a public question which he chooses to espouse, 
 his opinions are far too important to be treated with 
 levity or disrespect. When they do not excite our 
 accustomed veneration, therefore, they can scarcely 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 fail to arouse a well-founded and a wide-spread 
 alarm. 
 
 In a recent case the proofs demanded by his lordship 
 were actually obtained ; but the matter appeared 
 seriously to affect the interests of publishers^ editors, 
 and men of letters. It appeared likely to furnish a 
 most hurtful and dangerous precedent. It has there- 
 fore become necessary for their future guidance to 
 bring the subject under public notice. 
 
 It is hoped that no impropriety will appear in so 
 doing; because it is. obvious that the moment an appli- 
 cation for affidavits was made to publishers and editors, 
 their freedom and property were menaced. The matter 
 at once passed beyond the limits of official etiquette, 
 and might decorously be discussed by any person. It 
 concerns, indeed, far too deeply the liberty of the 
 Press and the constitutional rights of Englishmen, to 
 be affected by the conventional forms of a class. 
 
 The solemn questions really at issue are : Whether 
 publishers and editors can be indirectly forced to betray 
 their clients, and be thus virtually compelled to destroy 
 the right of anonymous writing, on which the liberty 
 of the Press is chiefly founded ? Whether the refusal 
 of publishers and editors to reveal the name of an 
 anonymous writer, or their inability to do so from 
 ignorance, maybe the means of ruining innocent men? 
 Whether persons in a certain department of the 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 public service can be condemned to an infamous 
 punisbment upon mere suspicion? Wbetber persons 
 in that department may be interrogated upon the secret 
 accusations of unknown informers? Whether a par- 
 ticular minister may at any time constitute himself 
 prosecutor, judge, and jury in a case of libel ? "Whether 
 a large class of persons may be punished without any 
 form of trial in a manner unrecognized by the law, 
 and with a severity altogether disproportioned to the 
 alleged offence imputed to them? Whether they can 
 be punished on suspicion of such alleged offence by 
 pains and penalties far beyond those inflicted for the 
 same offence when clearly proved against any of the 
 rest of their countrymen ? 
 
 It must not be forgotten, also, that a matter which 
 seems only to concern a few insignificant persons to- 
 day, may to-morrow affect some of the highest per- 
 sonages in the realm: for if a law be good in one 
 case, it is good in all. This is a novelty in our 
 Constitution which would constantly suspend misery 
 and degradation over some of the happiest and most 
 respectable homes in the kingdom. If the innovation 
 proposed by the Foreign Secretary is to become law, it 
 may one day apply to a premier as clearly as to a penny 
 postman : all Englishmen are equal before the law. 
 
 A Sovereign, misled by secret information confi- 
 dentially communicated, might insist that an obnoxious 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 minister should give proof sufficient to satisfy the Crown 
 and the leader of the opposition that he had not written 
 some anonymous work attributed to him. If a premier 
 could submit to the humiliation of requesting an affi- 
 davit from a Catnach^ such a person might possibly 
 decline to give it. The rumour would be far too valu- 
 able to Mr. Catnach for him voluntarily to suppress it. 
 Under such circumstances, even the most respectable 
 publisher might refuse an affidavit. He might say with 
 perfect propriety, " I cannot conscientiously furnish 
 an affidavit that any man is not the author of this 
 work. Popular opinion, sir, attributes it to you. I 
 have no proof to the contrary. Indeed, the manuscript 
 was sent to me with your card, and with directions 
 which I believed to have come from you, or I should 
 not have published it. You may say your card 
 was stolen, and that you never gave any such 
 directions, nor heard of the mysterious manuscript. 
 This may be true, but I have only your word for it, 
 and that when you are in danger of losing your place, 
 and being tried for high treason. If you are not the 
 real author, I am sorry to see you in so painful a 
 position; but the law is to blame, not I." 
 
 To serve the country in very humble employments, 
 also, has hitherto been often a laudable object of ambition 
 among Britons. Many a man who has attained celebrity 
 and respect in some calling or profession feels proud of 
 
Xll PREFACE. 
 
 a public appointment. "Would it be wise in any states- 
 man to turn such a feeling into mockery ? Should the 
 Lord Chancellor have the power to call upon a Queen's 
 counsel or Government solicitor to furnish proof that 
 he had not written an objectionable article in the Times ; 
 and if the editor of that journal decline at any time to 
 make affidavits on such subjects, should the suspected 
 person be deprived of his profession and his bread? 
 
 A. is a medical man, in a practice worth £1,200 a 
 year. Some patron ofiPers him a Government appoint- 
 ment worth £700. He has a large family, and many 
 claims upon him ; but, after full and careful considera- 
 tion, he agrees to accept £700 a year, which he 
 fancies to be secure, rather than a precarious £1,200, 
 which involves high house-rent and a carriage. He 
 feels also flattered at the distinction conferred upon 
 him. But if his appointment arouses the anger and 
 jealousy of B., a worthless, envious, man in the same 
 profession, B. may deprive him of his appointment 
 before he has held it six months. Should B. once 
 resolve on the gratification of his envy and malevo- 
 lence, an abominable plan will be easy of execution. 
 
 B. may write something disagreeable to A.'s immediate 
 superior. He may get this work published by his 
 brother or son, an obscure printer. He may then 
 furnish secret information to the proper quarter, and 
 A. will be ruined. The gentleman, who six months 
 
PREFACE. XJll 
 
 before was a prosperous physician^ will have to begin 
 life again penniless, with a blasted reputation, and 
 health broken by insult and anxiety. 
 
 Countrymen, this case may be his to-day, it may be 
 yours to-morrow. Prom the Premier to the exciseman 
 and the policeman, stand forward and protest against 
 this new test for the public service. Let it not be 
 said that our servants may obey the laws, earnestly 
 strive to do well, be industrious, conscientious, patriotic ; 
 but their fortune and happiness shall at aU times be 
 entirely in the power of any printer m the kingdom. 
 Such a person will only have to publish a work objec- 
 tionable to some man in of&ce ; furnish secret informa- 
 tion that the individual he desires to injure is the 
 author of it; refuse to give the affidavit requisite to 
 clear him, and any one in the public service of Great 
 Britain may be ruined. 
 
 No person can for a moment suppose that a 
 statesman, believed to be one of the most conscientious 
 and upright men in the kingdom, would act from any 
 but the highest motives. If it were possible to suppose 
 the contrary, there would be no reason to shrink 
 from the inquiry; but it is only just to assume the 
 contrary. If there is any mistake in the conduct of a 
 minister so widely popular, it arises probably from the 
 extreme difficulty of the question at issue, and the great 
 division of opinion upon it. 
 
XIV PREFACE. 
 
 The object of this little book, therefore, is not to 
 set forth anything which could possibly be construed 
 into a censure, either open or implied, upon Govern- 
 ment or any public man. A minister, however, whose 
 integrity no one can dispute, may sometimes get into 
 a situation which there is no defending, without for- 
 feiting the dignity of his character, or prejudicing his 
 reputation for wisdom. 
 
 It is, therefore, with a sincere feeling of respect 
 and deference for a man, so high in office and public 
 esteem, that some arguments are here put forth 
 against the right he has claimed ; and it is anxiously 
 hoped that the sentiment which has dictated those 
 arguments will not be misinterpreted; for a compli- 
 ment of the most delicate nature can only be implied 
 in the confidence which appeals to a statesman's mag- 
 nanimity and liberality of mind to reconsider his views 
 upon a subject involving so much happiness and so 
 many interests. 
 
 Nothing remains but to lay down the pen with the 
 courtesy of a debater who bears no malice. We admir^ 
 his lordship's abilities ; we admit that he may possess 
 excellent taste and excellent temper. But the claim 
 he has put forth appears to us, after calm and long 
 reflection, to be founded in error, to be in the highest 
 degree dangerous; and the principle he has asserted 
 to be such as, if followed out in practice to its legiti- 
 
PRBl'ACE. XV 
 
 mate consequences, would infallibly produce the de- 
 struction of our liberties. 
 
 For this opinion we shall proceed to give our reasons 
 with that freedom which the importance of the subject 
 requires, and which his lordship we feel sure would 
 invite us to use, but, we hope, without rudeness, and 
 we are sure without animosity. On almost every point 
 upon which the opinions we have ventured to urge are 
 opposed to those of the Minister, they are supported by 
 the authority of some statesman eminent as a defender 
 of existing establishments, and of some lawyer remark- 
 able for the extent of his knowledge, and the correct- 
 ness of his views upon the constitutional laws of the 
 kingdom. If the Press is to remain free; if we are 
 right in our principle, we shall humbly acknowledge 
 that the success of our arguments is due to no merit of 
 our own. If we are proved to be in error, we shall be 
 the first to admit it, and admit our defeat. But in 
 either case, examination and inquiry into so grave a 
 matter may do much good, and cannot possibly prove 
 injurious to any one. 
 
 The following pages will endeavour to show: that 
 the liberty of the Press is the most valuable of our 
 constitutional rights; that it rests chiefly on the pri- 
 vilege of anonymous writing; that the virulence of 
 personalities is more than equalled by the intemperance 
 of recriminations; that government persecutions of 
 
XVI PREFACE. 
 
 writers are needless, mischievous, and unjust; that the 
 Law is fully sufficient to satisfy any one who has 
 reasonable ground of complaint against the Press; 
 that it may be expedient to consider how far, in the 
 present general state of enlightenment, official secrets 
 are useful to the cause of constitutional government ; 
 that public servants should enjoy the same rights as 
 the rest of their fellow-subjects; that petty tyranny 
 should not be allowed to feed fat its ignoble grudges 
 merely by pronouncing the word subordination; and, 
 finally, that the dismissal of any person from the 
 public service because he is unable to prove that he 
 is not an anonymous writer, is an act at once improper, 
 cruel, and unconstitutional. 
 
 To conclude, it would be impossible to use more 
 stirring and manly language than that recently em- 
 ployed in the House of Lords by the noble Foreign 
 Secretary himself. The matter immediately at issue 
 may be indeed a " miserable afiair ;" but if a principle 
 is involved in it, and a right has been violated. English- 
 men would be guilty of a complete dereliction of duty 
 if they allowed it to pass unnoticed. 
 
 London, March 19, 1857. 
 
THE 
 
 PRESS AM) THE PUBLIC SEEVICE. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 
 
 There must he either something very simple and 
 loveable, or a vast deal of demure impudence, in the 
 man who can fancy he has anything new to say about 
 the Liberty of the Press in England. Nobody pre- 
 tends to doubt it. Nobody pretends to dispute it. 
 Any serious discussion on the subject seems like 
 reviewing passages in our history which bear date 
 nearly two hundred years ago. The most recent of the 
 arguments on both sides are as old as the time of Swift 
 and Steele. An uninitiated person would be whoUy 
 unable to comprehend the utiUty of further speech or 
 writing on the matter ; for the curtest summary of the 
 reasons which have been already used, is conclusive to 
 aU who can either learn or blush. 
 
 It is doubtful, however, whether the true state of the 
 case is very well understood ; whether any one can tell 
 clearly how far the Liberty of the Press extends, how 
 far it is a delusion, and how far a reality. 
 
 Plain country gentlemen, and brave boys from college, 
 
2 THE LIBERTY OF THE PKESS. 
 
 honestly believe that every question as to the right and 
 propriety of free political writing, has long been satis- 
 factorily set at rest. Every student of constitutional 
 law can tell glibly from Hallam and Bentham — from 
 the speeches of Pox and of Burke, of Erskine and of 
 Macintosh, or from the living pages of Macaulay — ^how 
 the mischiefs which arise from a free Press may be 
 easUy and effectually obviated ; and that experience has 
 repeatedly shown British statesmen the peril and the 
 utter fruitlessness of all attempts to curb it. 
 
 A man must have thought little, or to little piu"pose, 
 who is not in our days prepared to admit that any 
 restriction which abridges the freedom, of expression 
 is a plain invasion of the rights and property of English- 
 men. Restraints upon the Press serve but to enthral 
 the judgment and conscience of the nation; to bind it 
 over in slavery to any party for the time in power ; to 
 condemn it to an unreasoning faith in one set of doc- 
 trines to-day, and in another set of doctrines to-morrow. 
 They constitute, indeed, only a direct method to involve 
 it in hopeless ignorance and error. 
 
 Our title to the hard- won honour of a Press perfectly 
 free is indeed so clear and indisputable, that it is strange 
 we should not be allowed to enjoy it in peace. Its 
 freedom was prepared by Bacon and Milton, by Halifax, 
 Somers, and Locke. It was urged by the most emi- 
 nent men among the founders of our constitution. 
 The splendid rewards which were held out to slaves by 
 the Stuarts, could bring no opponent of consequence 
 into the field against it. At last it was conceded to us 
 under William III. ; and it is the' greatest of the long 
 
THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 6 
 
 list of benefits whicli the reign of that politic prince 
 conferred upon us. 
 
 Statesmen diflfering as widely as Bolingbroke and 
 Harley, as Walpole and the Grenvilles, as Pitt and 
 Fox, as Canning and Sir E.. Peel, have all acknowledged 
 the inestimable value of that magnanimous concession. 
 A list of the churchmen who have contributed to 
 sanctify and secure it would comprise almost every 
 divine remarkable for piety and learning during the 
 last two centuries ; Burnet and Atterbury, Butler 
 and Warburton, Lowth, Watts, Hurd, Home, John 
 Wesley, Nathaniel Lardner, with the respectable names 
 of Bloomfield, Maltby, and Archbishop Whateley. 
 Among the lawyers who have defended it in times of 
 danger will be found most of those who have been 
 distinguished at the bar or on the bench. All the 
 literary men of note have added to their reputation by 
 asserting it. 
 
 The obstinate contention, however, still goes on, the 
 distressing strife between Power and Reason. The 
 result, indeed, is always the same. Power is ultimately 
 worsted in a cause which it cannot avow without 
 humiliation, and in which it cannot strike with safety. 
 Still, it rarely gleans wisdom from the past ; and none 
 but the very highest order of statesmen can be brought 
 to see the error and impolicy of engaging in a struggle 
 where all is to be lost and nothing is to be gained ; 
 where victory, the heat of argument once over, would 
 be more melancholy to a patriot than defeat. Every 
 new generation is obliged to rescue the most precious 
 of its privileges from the insidious encroachments of 
 
 B 2 
 
4 THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 
 
 power, and to write in defence of the liberty which is 
 the foundation of all other liberties ; which is essential 
 to everything that can with propriety be termed good 
 government. 
 
 Yet, if the freedom of the Press originally worked its 
 way in this country, against numbers and prejudices ; 
 if, in times of its infancy, the most bigoted and pow- 
 erful oppressors could not prevail against it; surely 
 when confirmed by time, and rooted in the affections 
 of the people, it will be impossible to overthrow it. 
 The attacks upon it which are sometimes made by good 
 and conscientious men, must be classed with those 
 weaknesses by which the greatest pay tribute to their 
 mortality. Such a mistake, however, can only arise 
 during the overwhelming pressure of public business, 
 from the weariness of mind which is the penalty of 
 overthought, and of tasking the most generous nature 
 too hardly. The Press is to us what the militia was to 
 Charles I. If we were to lose all our other liberties, it 
 would ultimately bring them all back again. The 
 liberty of the press, and the liberties of the country, 
 must stand or fall together. Other liberties have been 
 held under governments; but the liberty of opinion 
 keeps government itself in subjection to duty. It has 
 therefore always been the last right that subjects have 
 been able to wrest from power. When yielded, it has 
 been yielded like a banner to a foe, shred by shred 
 with fears and misgivings always ludicrously falsified in 
 the sequel. Thus, the publication of debates in Par- 
 liament, seemed to the most liberal statesmen of the 
 old school a practice full of danger ; it is now regarded 
 
THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 5 
 
 by tte most prejudicedj as a safeguard of the constitu- 
 tion, tantamount to all the rest put together. It is 
 certain, also, that the Press has become respectable, in 
 proportion as it has become free. Restrictions which 
 suppressed truth and reason, made it licentious in the 
 worst sense. When John Bunyan was in prison for 
 expounding the Gospel to the poor, Wycherley was the 
 most popular poet in England. When piety and virtue 
 were gagged, iniquity and ribaldry were let loose. 
 Now all may speak, no man offers an insult to religion 
 or morality. 
 
 Political liberty depends altogether upon the frequent 
 and genuine manifestation of the public will. A free 
 Press provides Parliament with the means of profiting 
 by the information of the public. It enables electors 
 to act with some knowledge of the conduct of their 
 representatives. It informs legislators of public opinion. 
 It informs the people of the acts of legislation. It 
 conduces to the maintenance of order ; and prevents 
 the stern necessity of revolutions. For nearly all that 
 keeps up in us, permanently and effectually, the spirit 
 of regard to liberty and public good, we must look to 
 the unshackled and independent energies of the Press. 
 It is as the air which Liberty breathes ; if she has it 
 not, she dies. 
 
 The Press virtually governs this country, because 
 public opinion governs it, and is represented in no 
 other way. For some months during the year it is 
 the only check on the conduct of the Government and 
 the power of the Crown. It is as important to a prime 
 minister as to anybody else; for, if it did not exist, he 
 
b THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS, 
 
 might be replaced by his own footman, without power 
 of appeal or demur. When Parliament is sitting, it is 
 only in the language of irony that it can be said to 
 represent the nation. One man seats half a dozen 
 members ; another three or four — all his dependants. 
 Government has great influence ; money has great in- 
 fluence : the Press is, therefore, the real representative 
 of popular feeling — the Parliament of the people. It 
 has not been abused. It has made of Englishmen a 
 race of earnest and thoughtful patriots, differing widely 
 from the unruly populace of despotic states. So far is 
 it from being true among us, that no stable Govern- 
 ment could exist with it, all admit that no good 
 Government could exist without it. On the other 
 hand, there is no freedom of the Press in Turkey — no 
 power to complain; yet, of all countries, Turkey is 
 that in which revolts and revolutions are the most 
 frequent and the most violent. 
 
 A free Press is a real censorial power lodged in the 
 impartial hands of the people. It gives them the right 
 to express their disapprobation of public evils. It is a 
 beneficent power, which begins where other checks 
 fail; it touches matter out of the reach of the law; it 
 indicates, it does not punish ; it is the mildest, yet the 
 most eflectual, restraint that could be devised for 
 authority. In all liberty there is, indeed, some 
 danger ; but so there is in all power. The question is, 
 in which there is most danger, in power limited by this 
 check, or in power without this check to limit it. 
 When complaints are freely heard and deeply con- 
 sidered ; when evils are speedily reformed, then only is 
 
THE IIBEKTT OF THE PRESS. 7 
 
 the utmost bound of civil liberty attainedj which wise 
 men in our age and country are entitled to expect. 
 The greater the number of temptations to which the 
 exercise of political power is exposed, the more neces- 
 sary is it to give to those who possess it the most 
 powerful reasons for temperance and good conduct. 
 There is no reason more forcible than is furnished by 
 the consciousness of acting under the perpetual super- 
 intendence of the public. The public compose a 
 tribunal which is more powerful than all other tri- 
 bunals put together. An individual may pretend to 
 disregard its decrees, — to represent them as formed of 
 fluctuating and opposite opinions, which destroy one 
 another ; but every one feels, that though this tribunal 
 may err, it is incorruptible ; that it continually tends 
 to become enlightened; that it unites all the wisdom 
 and all the justice of the nation; that it always decides 
 the reputation of public men ; and that the judgments 
 it pronounces are inevitable. The enemies of publicity 
 may be collected into three classes : the malefactor 
 who seeks to escape the notice of the judge ; the tyrant 
 who would stifle public opinion because he fears to 
 hear its voice; and the timid or indolent man, who 
 complains of the general incapacity, in order to screen 
 his own. Absolved from the beneficent censures of 
 the Press, men in office, especially abroad, might dis- 
 pense with being just, provided they were cautious not 
 to infringe the letter of the law. But, happily, no 
 man can now count upon secrecy; and irregularities 
 are immediately divulged. Fortunately for England, 
 the juryman knows that his verdict, the judge that his 
 
8 THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 
 
 charge, will be laid before the public — a public, 
 keen, discerning, merciless to corruption. There 
 is no man in office who does not feel compelled, in 
 almost every instance, to choose between his duty and 
 the surrender of his reputation. Without publicity 
 no good would be permanent; with it no evil can 
 continue. 
 
 A foreigner, who visited our police-courts, told Lord 
 Mansfield he was surprised to find them so thinly 
 attended by the public. " No matter, sir," replied the 
 Chief Justice, shrewdly ; " we sit every day in the 
 newspapers." To say that an English judge is incor- 
 ruptible is, therefore, scarcely to praise him. 
 
 Public and free deliberations respecting the laws, 
 measures, and conduct of official persons, also, are sure 
 to operate in favour of the Government. If their 
 position is not utterly untenable, it enables them to 
 refute objections, to confound false reports, to prove 
 the necessity of the sacrifices required from the people. 
 Government has always far greater means of employing 
 the Press than are possessed by the Opposition. The 
 Opposition must also assist them, even against its will ; 
 for when they are in the right, who resists, strengthens. 
 Finally, ministers are enabled to assure themselves of 
 the success of a measure, before they risk their reputa- 
 tion upon it, by submitting it frankly to public discus- 
 sion; allowing it, prudently, to stand or fall by its 
 own merits ; or amending it according to such useful, 
 suggestions as they may receive in the course of the 
 Argument. Hurtful and wide-spread prejudices, pub- 
 licly cpmbated, soon begin to have less dominion ; the 
 
THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 9 
 
 multitude are secured from the tricks of demagogues 
 and the cheats of impostors. 
 
 In countries where unfettered discussion is fairly- 
 permitted, the people are every day more easily 
 managed by honesty and good sense. A habit of 
 reasoning penetrates all classes of society. The pas- 
 sions, accustomed to a public struggle, are kept in 
 check. They lose that morbid sensibility which, 
 among nations without liberty and without experience, 
 renders them the sport of every alarm and of every 
 suspicion, at once timid and arrogant, equally despi- 
 cable in their transports and their subjection. Even 
 in circumstances where discontents are greatest, the 
 signs of uneasiness are not the signs of revolt. The 
 nation relies on those trusty friends whose public 
 character ample knowledge has taught them to respect ; 
 and legal opposition being permitted to every measure, 
 prevents even the idea of illegal resistance. If the 
 general wish of the country be opposed for a time by 
 too powerful a party, it knows that the cause is not 
 decided without appeal ; and hence persevering patience 
 becomes one of the most prominent virtues of a free 
 state. Men, con%'inced they are in the right, console 
 themselves with the reflection that it is the character 
 of error to possess but a transitory existence when 
 exposed, while truth is indestructible, and needs only 
 to be generally known that it may prevail. The main 
 difference between a despotic and an undespotic 
 Government is, that in the latter some faculty of 
 effectual resistance is purposely left to the people. It 
 was the right of remonstrance which so long preserved 
 
lO THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 
 
 the liberties of Geneva^ and it has done more than 
 everything else put together to maintain our own. 
 
 The Press is infinitely more serviceable to the repu- 
 tation of public men than injurious to them. It is 
 their security against malignant representations and 
 calumnies. It is not possible^ where it is free, to attri- 
 bute to them false discourses, nor to hide the good 
 they have done, nor to give their conduct an unfair 
 colouring. The liberty of the Press is also the surest 
 guard of a private good name. Where there exists no 
 -safe means of communicating with the public, every one 
 is exposed to the secret shafts of malignity and envy. 
 The official loses his popularity, the merchant his credit, 
 the humble man his character, without so much as 
 knowing who are his enemies, which way they carry on 
 their attacks, or the nature of their accusations. But 
 where there exists a free Press, an innocent man may 
 immediately bring the matter into open day. All 
 differences of rank, fortune, and society are equalized. 
 He may crush his adversaries at once by a demand to 
 lay before the public the grounds of their imputations ; 
 and falsehood only raises the fame of those it has 
 attacked. 
 
 The functions of the Press are not always ungracious. 
 To commend just reasoning, felicitous illustration, can- 
 dour, fairness, modesty, equanimity, is required of it as 
 much as to denounce qualities of an opposite nature. 
 It has as strong a sense of excellence as of error. It 
 is as prone to praise as to blame. Its plaudits result 
 in no imperfect accents of abortive eulogy. They are 
 the permanent record of the lusty huzzas of a great 
 
THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 11 
 
 people. It represents things much as they are — a 
 faithful mirror. Vice, indeed, in aU its meanness and 
 deformity, but good in its sanctity, honour in its spot- 
 lessness. 
 
 Cheering as the liberty of the Press is to good men, 
 they who suppose that it is no restraint on bad ones, 
 and no impediment to bad measures, know nothing of 
 the case. Ministers and magistrates have in reality 
 little punishment to fear, and few difficulties to contend 
 with, beyond the censure of the Press, the spirit of 
 inquiry it excites among the people, and the knowledge 
 that wherever there is an abuse there will be a clamour. 
 This constitutes, indeed, practical self-government, which 
 is the only righteous government, the government which 
 the Almighty has left to His creatures. 
 
 Whoever fairly considers the present condition of 
 England, and compares it with the past, will under- 
 stand how great and good a thing the liberty of the 
 Press has been. The noble thoughts and writings of 
 free men have infinitely advanced the science of go- 
 vernment. Much that was dark to the greatest of 
 the dead is made clear to us by the light of the 
 many intellects which are now, by God's blessing, 
 permitted to cheer each other, and to co-operate for 
 good ends. No fanatic primate could now roast 
 heretics in Smithfield ; no judge could sentence a 
 witch to be drowned; no king could conjure gold 
 into his treasury with the teeth of a Jew; no black- 
 smith could count upon public sympathy if he knocked 
 down the tax-gatherer. 
 
 Thoughts never die. If the Press be only really free 
 
13 THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 
 
 in one countryj its healtty influence must be felt in all. 
 Hence, the public opinion which is now beginning to 
 govern the earth. The subtle influence which is felt 
 from Pekin to St. Petersburg, from Washington to 
 Siam. No post-office regulations, no clipping out of 
 heterodox passages, can extinguish the electric spark of 
 a new idea. Eve could as easily have forgotten the 
 shame of her nakedness, as men can go back to their 
 ignorance who have once tasted also the fruit of that 
 immortal knowledge-tree which grew in Paradise. We 
 cannot now be made less capable, less thirsty after 
 knowledge. We cannot grow again as uninformed as 
 we were. No vicissitude in the world's affairs, short 
 of the complete extinction of mankind, can hence- 
 forth ever restore the empire of the world to ignorance. 
 Although the winged words of thought may be seen 
 only by a policeman in his closet, yet will they sink 
 into his mind, and come forth again in some form or 
 other at the appointed season. 
 
 The freedom of the Press, therefore, in any country 
 should be anxiously and conscientiously preserved as a 
 blessing to the whole world. It should not be used as 
 a means of meddling with the aflkirs of foreign states ; 
 but only as a means of disseminating those sound 
 general principles on which depend the happiness and 
 prosperity of all. Its part towards foreign governments 
 is neither to reprove nor to lecture them. Example in 
 such cases is better than precept. But it must not be 
 overlooked that our Press speaks in English to English 
 people. Foreign governments, if they can, may deprive 
 their subjects of the power of reading; but they must 
 
THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. iS 
 
 not deprive Englishmen of the power of instructing 
 themselves. If our Press is objectionable to any govern- 
 ment, the remedy is in their own hands. They may 
 refuse to allow English publications to enter their 
 country. They may prevent their people from learning 
 English. They may refuse to grant passports for Eng- 
 land. But we cannot consent to sit in darkness, for 
 fear our lights should frighten strangers, who have no 
 business to be looking at them. 
 
 It is difficult for a man of ordinary experience to 
 feel much enthusiasm about the generality of news- 
 papers. The nation owes, indeed, a deep debt of gra- 
 titude to the conductors of the Times. In a day of 
 great national peril and humiliation, they formed an 
 honourable band of gentlemen, who were proof to 
 every seduction, sneer, and menace, which could be 
 directly or indirectly brought to influence them : to 
 the threats of a censorship, to the imputation of the 
 worst motives. They fearlessly told on their sad and 
 painful truths, till the great heart of the nation was 
 stirred to its inmost depths, and the evils discovered 
 by their untiring and dauntless energy, by their courage 
 and fortitude, which shrunk from no form of privation 
 or of death, were happily remedied. An idle argument 
 has, however, sometimes been used against the inter- 
 ference of the Press in such matters. The Govern- 
 ment, it is said, will not be dictated to by newspapers ; 
 any cause or individual censured by them shall be 
 supported; any cause or individual whose claims are 
 advocated by them shall find it a disadvantage. Yet, 
 what matters it to wise men whence advice comes. 
 
14 THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 
 
 SO ttat it is good advice. Government should never 
 feel tliat restraint irksome, which only constrains it 
 to he just. Its power is not private property, to he 
 used according to the suggestions of pride or caprice ; 
 but a public trust. The problem Government should 
 seek to solve, therefore, is how to use it rightly for 
 the public weal. 
 
 The Times has grown too mighty a power to be 
 influenced by small motives; it has, therefore, during 
 many years, been the consistent opponent of every 
 abuse, however intrenched and protected, which has 
 been made plain. But it has justly felt that its in- 
 fluence was decisive, and has thoughtfully paused for 
 irrefragable proof. It has seldom, therefore, been 
 in the van of attack, but in the centre ; and its great 
 arm has thus smitten down evils so ancient and so 
 vast, that any other arm would have been lifted against 
 them in vain. The Post and one or two other news- 
 papers have also done fair service, on many occasions. 
 But the abominable and contemptible trick of hedging 
 and diplomatizing, which has nonsensically been thought 
 essential to statesmanship, is fast seizing hold of jour- 
 nahsm, and there are few papers in Britain that either 
 can or will speak plainly. It is this wretched mixture 
 of weakness and cunning, which has tended so often 
 to lower tbe influence of newspapers. The reason 
 they do not always flourish, when supported by the 
 requisite ability, is that they are not always honestly 
 and truthfully conducted. The persons connected 
 with them have often some trumpery private object 
 which they serve to their own loss and disrepute. But 
 
THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 15 
 
 it is never difficult to predict that any body of gentle- 
 men, who agree to look at public ijuestions on higher 
 grounds than party grounds, will earn both success and 
 reputation. The public is always gratified to hear the 
 truth, and eagerly supports every respectable literary 
 enterprise. 
 
 There is a small part of the newspaper press, 
 however, quite able to praise itself; and it does so 
 with a downright straightforward efiProntery, some- 
 times amusing, and sometimes contemptible. Scarcely 
 any great author has long remained connected with 
 it. Coleridge tried it, and a fellow whose name is 
 never remembered but in connection with the great 
 poet, got into an ignoble dispute with him, and has 
 left some coarse abuse of the man of genius. Moore 
 and Scott tried the same experiment, but the result 
 in every case was discouraging. Between writers 
 of books and writers of newspapers, there is often, 
 to the shame of human nature, a great deal of positive 
 jealousy and ill-feeling. A man of genius, who would 
 live by the Press, must sell his principles, forget his 
 wisdom, and mar his wit; for the class of speculators 
 who trade upon principle, wisdom, and wit, are seldom 
 very good judges of the commodity they purchase. 
 There is, therefore, a small portion of the Press which 
 is nothing but a sturdy sham. Verba et voces. It 
 can be bought like other things. It can be influenced 
 by cajoleries, by jealousies and enmities, by likes and 
 dislikes. It is free from none of the taint which clings 
 to most earthly things. Hence men, by no means 
 illiberal in their general views, have learned to con- 
 
16 THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 
 
 found the honest with the dishonest, and to look on, 
 newspapers with little respect or kindness. 
 
 The fault, however, does not even here rest so much 
 with the newspapers as their readers. If a newspaper 
 does not express the ideas and sentiments which hap- 
 pen to he in fashion ; if subscribers do not read their 
 own prejudices repeated in decent language, they soon 
 cease to read it at all. A leader by Strafford or Filmer 
 would disgust the Carlton. An article by Milton or 
 Locke would disturb the temper of the Reform Club. 
 Everybody agrees to be satisfied with a compromise, 
 no matter how unsatisfactory ; and to stop half-way in 
 their course of good. But when all this is freely 
 admitted, when all is granted that can in any way be 
 urged against it, our free Press is still the most admi- 
 rable of our institutions. It is really surprising, all 
 things considered, not that there is so much objec- 
 tionable in it, but that there is so little ; and that 
 newspaper writers are as fair and upright a body of 
 gentlemen as they undoubtedly are. 
 
 Notwithstanding a great deal of fustian and bad 
 taste, with many other things as little to be com- 
 mended, a free Press must, in its nature, be an instru- 
 ment of good. It is as much as can be hoped from any 
 human institution, that the good shall greatly exceed 
 the evil of it. There is nothing quite perfect. It is 
 certain that a free Press, under the least favourable 
 circumstances, is more conducive to the public welfare 
 than a censorship, however disguised, under the best. 
 
 The Press, indeed, has fallen under the very power 
 it has created. It must be the friend of all opinions 
 
THE LIBERTY OF THE PKESS. 17 
 
 whicli can stand the test of time. It requireSj however, 
 all the native vigour of truth to prevail against a 
 popular delusion ; and until a principle is thoroughly 
 established and widely admitted, it can seldom hope 
 for effectual help from newspapers. It is, perhaps even 
 hetter thus. 
 
 For the great man's work goes on imperceptibly; 
 and his thoughts, filtered through a thousand channels, 
 make their devious way to the troubled sea of human 
 affairs, calming it, purifying it, stemming its fierce 
 tides. One by one, the eternal truths, which perhaps 
 herald the coming of God's kingdom, are made known 
 to us. They are turned and twisted to suit the views 
 of this party and of that ; they are opposed, ridiculed, 
 mis-stated, denied; still something of their divinity 
 remains throughout all changes : once admitted into 
 the mind of the people, they can never be expelled ; 
 and, at last, those who saw truth as through a glass 
 darkly, behold it face to face. The long strife is won. 
 That which yesterday seemed but the vision of some 
 ardent dreamer, shall to-morrow be a fact in our daily 
 lives. The use and the beauty of it shall be felt and 
 recognized by all. He who was first elected to reveal it 
 may have passed away successless ; but he left the pious 
 legacy to happier heirs ; while his hand stretches out 
 from the tomb, and within it, kindled at no earthly 
 fire, is a torch which cannot be quenched, to light them 
 on their mission. 
 
18 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ANONYMOUS WRITING. 
 
 Theke is no reason why a patriot should always be a 
 martyr. A very good and great divine, who has but 
 just passed away from us, writes amusingly: "1 love 
 liberty; but hope it can be so managed that I may 
 have soft beds, good dinners, fine linen, &c., for the 
 rest of my life. I am too old to fight or to suflPer." 
 This was a very frank confessidn, but it is full of plain 
 homely good sense. The more helps, therefore, we can 
 find to protect such lovers of liberty in time of peril 
 the better, or liberty may chance to keep few friends. 
 Now an admirable device to preserve them in good 
 heart is the right of anonymous writing. It is the 
 principal point, indeed, in which our Press differs from 
 that of despotic countries. It is the very essence of a 
 free and useful Press. It permits men to write when 
 they would fear to speak. Anonymous writing is a 
 surer guarantee against injustice and oppression than 
 any form of government could be. Even the most 
 liberal and popular executive wields fearful instruments 
 of quiet and insensible tyranny, which the victims of 
 them can neither escape nor resist, but which they may 
 expose and bring to shame. Instances of harshness- 
 and iniquity every day occur, of which the law can 
 take no cognizance, and which would have no chance 
 
ANONYMOUS WRITING. 19 
 
 of hearing or redress, were it not for that tribunal 
 which is always open gratuitously and to every com- 
 plainant. Neglected or unrewarded merit, which can 
 obtain no audience from men in power; long services 
 which have been discarded or superseded to make way 
 for the high-born and the favoured; sufferers under 
 unjust and brutal exertions of undeniable power; — all 
 these can make their appeal to a judge whose authority 
 is the greatest, and to a court whose publicity is the 
 widest, in the realm. In Great Britain, scarcely any 
 public or private iniquity can now be done in a corner. 
 Silence can never be counted upon; secrecy is never 
 safe. The right of anonymous writing is a protection 
 the value of which cannot be exaggerated. It is one 
 that no power can silence, no money can corrupt, no 
 flattery can lull to sleep. To abolish it would be to 
 bid the soldiers of truth go forth to attack the fortresses 
 of error without armour, while any fool might launch 
 poisoned arrows at them in security. To stand up for 
 it stoutly, therefore, is not to encourage a nameless 
 body of literary men in a course of doubtful honour, 
 but it is to protect life, to insure property, to fence the 
 altar, to guard the throne, to give space and liberty to 
 all the finer powers of man, and lift him up to his right 
 place in the order of creation. 
 
 In estimating the high tone and character of the 
 Press, the chief cause must never be forgotten which 
 secures and maintains it. It is a good thing that the 
 Press should be exempt from all the small vanities of 
 authorship. Whatever influence a newspaper writer 
 may wield, he generally remains unknown. The names 
 
 c2 
 
20 ANONYMOUS WRITING. 
 
 even of tlie editors of journals -which exercise the most 
 ■important influence on public events, are scarcely heard 
 beyond the circle of their own private friends. Year 
 after year they toil on with unequalled ability, energy, 
 and public spirit, yet in complete obscurity. Connec- 
 tion with political literature among us leads neither 
 to office nor reputation. There is nothing to gratify 
 vanity nor ambition in such a calling. The suppression 
 of anonymous writing would undermine the healthful 
 power of the Press more perhaps than any measure 
 which could be devised, and would take from it a great ' 
 guarantee of its earnestness and sincerity. 
 
 We are already a great deal too much disposed to be 
 swayed by authority rather than argument, to consider 
 the man who says a thing more than the thing said. 
 Unfortunately, the world is much too apt to be misled 
 by presumption. It cannot understand that wrong is 
 not right because it is sanctioned by power. Any 
 gentleman who puts on an important look, and a proud, 
 grave, imperious manner, has only to speak nonsense 
 decisively to cheat it at once out of its senses and 
 respect. He may maintain opinions neither true nor 
 likely, but he conquers by astonishment and awe. 
 Wise men will be seen waiting open-mouthed to learn 
 the opinions of a solemn dolt, instead of trying to form 
 just opinions for themselves. They like better to know 
 what is thought by such a person than what ought to 
 be thought. They are fond of strutting after some 
 stalking error in the livery of truth. They prefer being 
 puzzled to being convinced. It is long before laughter 
 
ANONYMOUS WRITING. 21 
 
 succeeds to veneration, and they who doffed their caps 
 to Sir Oracle, perceive he is a goose. 
 
 Were all writings signed, therefore, the public would 
 devour with eagerness and curiosity the feeblest and 
 most unsound reasoning of a man in office, but pass 
 lightly over, or perhaps not read at all, the unanswer- 
 able logic of a writer unknown to fame. The public 
 would lose also, or silence, many of their safest guides 
 and best instructors. Many unsparing condemnations 
 which ought to be expressed, many grave charges 
 which ought to be brought forward, would be sup- 
 pressed if the shelter of the anonymous were with- 
 drawn. One of two risks would be incurred. Either 
 things which ought to be said would remain unsaid — 
 facts which ought to be dragged to light would be 
 hushed up and concealed ; either the task of correcting 
 delinquents, detecting jobs, and dealing out the fittest 
 measure of refutation and of blame must be abnegated, 
 or it must be left to literary bravos. A far higher and 
 more conscientious class can now venture to undertake 
 the functions of censors and denouncers than would be 
 willing to wield the lash, had they to do so without a 
 mask. To say the harsh things which ought to be 
 said, to make the fierce onslaught which needs to be 
 made, to stigmatize the evil deeds which it is for the 
 interests of the public should be ruthlessly exposed, is 
 pleasant and easy only to the unfeeling and malignant. 
 
 One of the most important services rendered to the 
 nation by anonymous writing consists in the exposure 
 of abuses in the various departments of Government. 
 
22 ANONYMOUS WRITING. 
 
 These abuses are cLiefly known and most thoroughly 
 comprehended by officials. To suppress the right of 
 anonymous writing would be to close the mouths of 
 such persons completely^ as long as power, vanity, and 
 jealousy remain inseparable. Nothing can be clearer, 
 therefore, than the value and necessity of anonymous 
 writing in this case. It enables a Government servant 
 to make the same reply as was made by an engineer, 
 who had invented a new piece of ordnance, to the 
 Government of Geneva. The magistrates, cowed by 
 France, told him that he could not be permitted to fire 
 his piece and exhibit its powers in the republic. " Very 
 well," said the man, " that makes no sort of difference, 
 for I can very easily fire over the republic." 
 
 Many instances occur in which statesmen and public 
 functionaries may be highly blameable, without com- 
 mitting offences for which they may be impeached or 
 punished bylaw. Moreover, no person can contend, with 
 a grave face, that public-spirited men should institute 
 impeachments, instead of exposing official delinquencies 
 by the short and efficient means of the Press. An 
 impeachment is a parliamentary proceeding, competent 
 only to a majority of the House of Commons. To use 
 no machinery for the abatement of any public nuisance, 
 but one so cumbrous, would be indeed an agreeable 
 arrangement for official wrong-doers. They might well 
 feel secure in their places, and amuse themselves with 
 the destruction of the country at their leisure, if they 
 were never to hear the voice of censure till it was re- 
 corded in the votes of Parliament. Such an idea is 
 absurd. Whoever thought of telling a man who had 
 
ANONYMOUS WRITING. 33 
 
 beaten another in self-defence^ that he ought to have 
 submitted in the first instance, and then indicted for 
 the battery, or brought an action for damages? A 
 gentleman who so demeaned himself would be generally- 
 ridiculed and avoided. Such an argument was never 
 even used in answer to a case of verbal provocation. 
 But it is said, that some latitude may be allowed to 
 self-defence, in order to repress aggression or insult, 
 and to prevent others from beginning an affray. The 
 principle of anonymous writing may be defended on 
 precisely the same ground. It gives to individuals a 
 power of exposing and punishing oifences which no 
 other vengeance can reach, and which each individual 
 has an interest in repressing. Assaults upon our liber- 
 ties by bad rulers, injustice, malevolence, unprovoked 
 outrages of superiors upon inferiors, and a thousand 
 other evils of the same kind. 
 
 An anonymous writer has no advantage over his 
 opponent. He merely chooses a field in which a power- 
 ful opponent can have no advantage over him — a fair 
 field and no favour. He may be as easily answered 
 and refuted as if he signed his name, and he will be 
 heard always under protest. For his opponent to skulk 
 and lie in ambush, therefore, to talk of anonymous 
 writing, to abuse his adversary for choosing equal arms, 
 is but one of the shifts and contrivances of conscious 
 weakness and error. It is mere cowardly begging the 
 question. What have names to do with facts and 
 reasons. 
 
 Members of Parliament, advocates at the bar, clergy- 
 men in the pulpit, are each protected by their respective 
 
^4 ANONYMOUS WRITING. 
 
 privileges. They are not personally responsible in 
 private for the expression of opinions which may affront 
 men in power. Anonymous writing gives the same 
 privilege to the author^ nothing more. He enjoys this 
 privilege, moreover, with a far higher claim to it ; for 
 as he derives neither personal honour nor repute from 
 his labours, however successful, he is at least entitled 
 to demand that he shall not be subjected to personal 
 inconvenience. 
 
 It has been sometimes said that men of rank and 
 consideration cannot condescend to answer anonymous 
 accusations. This is untrue. They always condescend 
 to answer if they have anything to say. If not, they 
 look out for some plausible fallacy to cover their silence 
 and confusion. The real inconvenience of which com- 
 plaint is made by corrupt people, is easily detected. 
 A public man has grossly erred j his misconduct is 
 properly and truthfully exposed ; he has no defence, or 
 a weak one. When, therefore, he is convicted by the 
 voice of the nation, he is angry, because he cannot send 
 for a constable to take his accuser into custody for the 
 breach of the peace. Such tactics may be very clever ; 
 but as they would transfer punishment from the guilty 
 to the innocent, and perpetuate all kinds of abuses, it is 
 by no means for the public interest that they should be 
 permitted to succeed. 
 
 Lord Bolingbroke, in a much more dignified age than 
 ours, wrote anonymously to the Examiner, and was 
 answered anonymously by Lord Chancellor Cowper in 
 the Tattler. Judge Blackstone and Lord Mansfield both 
 defended themselves anonymously from anonymous 
 
ANONTMOUS WRITING. 25 
 
 attacks. Archbishop Seeker defended the memory of 
 Dr. Butler^ bishop of Durham^ from an anonymous 
 attack in the St. James's Chronicle. Mr. Croker, 
 Secretary to the Admiralty, answered Malachi Mala- 
 growther. Some of the proudest gentlemen in the 
 kingdom replied to the recent work of an officer on the 
 staff of Lord Raglan. 
 
 The private motives which may induce a man to 
 write anonymously are as numerous and powerful as 
 any which could influence a reasonable being. In early 
 life, every author, not utterly blinded by vanity, must 
 be conscious that his style is unformed, his thoughts 
 immature, his arguments doubtful, his knowledge 
 small. 
 
 The mind has its youth as well as the body; and 
 something ought in fairness to be allowed it. The 
 greatest intellects that have adorned the annals of man- 
 kind have not always shone steadily and early. Young 
 men see clearly, but they do not see far enough. They 
 are so eager to remove a stumbling-block as not to 
 perceive that the cumbrous mass is sometimes the 
 keystone of a valuable arch. There is a Quixotry also 
 about them which often leads them into needless 
 hostilities. They seldom estimate quite correctly the 
 strength of an adversary, or the degree of his culpability. 
 They have not yet learned that in the very best men 
 there will be always something to condemn and some- 
 thing to pardon. 
 
 But a young man need not think it shame to follow 
 Milton, and covenant with his readers that for some 
 few years he may go on trust with them. Wisdom is 
 
26 ANONYMOUS WRITING. 
 
 not raised from the heat of youth nor the vapours of 
 wine, like the trifling jests which flow waste from the 
 pens of vulgar scribblers and trencher-loving parasites. 
 Many weary years must pass in toil and vigils before 
 the bright countenance of perfect truth appears at 
 last through the quiet and still air of delightful 
 musingSj and the seraphim come with the hallowed 
 fire of the altar to touch and purify a student's 
 thoughts. 
 
 Nevertheless, circumstances or necessity may compel 
 a young man to write, however poor an opinion he may 
 have of his labours; and it is unjust to force on him 
 in riper years errors which he has long ago, perhaps, 
 discovered, regretted, and outlived. It cannot be said 
 that a man ought not to write till his mind is ripe. 
 Some of the most delightful books in the language 
 have been written by mere boys. Keats and Chatter- 
 ton were still youths when they died. It would have 
 been as hard to silence Pascal in his teens, as to oppose 
 the rise of Pitt to power at a time when other men 
 have hardly left off cricket ; but it would be incredibly 
 absurd to suppose that either wrote or thought as 
 wisely in their youth as in their manhood. On the 
 other hand, a man may alter his opinions, like Strafford, 
 so that his first thoughts may be better than his last. 
 It is for the public to judge these things. No man is 
 obliged to adopt opinions merely because they have 
 been written. 
 
 Locke wrote anonymously because he feared to be 
 engaged in personal quarrels, which would have pre- 
 judiced his arguments. Men will sometimes yield to 
 
ANONYMOUS WRITING. 27 
 
 correct reasoning wlien they will not to those by whom 
 it is employed. 
 
 For rich men the advice of Johnson on this point 
 was as plain and sensible as usual : " If the authors 
 who apply to me have money, I bid them print boldly 
 without a name." 
 
 "Observe," says Scott, in a letter about the 'Quar- 
 terly Eeview ' to Mr. Sharpe, " carefully, this plan is 
 altogether distinct from one which has been proposed 
 by the veteran Cumberland, to which is annexed the 
 extraordinary proposal that each contributor shall place 
 his name before his article, a stipulation which must 
 prove fatal to the undertaking. If I did not think this 
 likely to be a well-managed business, I would not 
 recommend it to your consideration." Again, he says, 
 " As strict secrecy would be observed, the diffidence of 
 many might be overcome." 
 
 No man can be blamed for not choosing to be per- 
 secuted. A writer may begin to conceal his name 
 from modesty, and continue to do so through prudence. 
 There may not be danger in writing the truth to-day, 
 but there was yesterday, and there may be again to- 
 morrow. It is never possible to calculate on the 
 feelings of those in power. It is remarkable that 
 Luther thought at first that his well-deserved censure 
 of abuses in the Church would be received with favour 
 by the pope. He was miserably deceived. Had Wick- 
 liffe written anonymously, perhaps he would not have 
 been harried into a palsy for translating the Bible. 
 
 The influence of fear has been constantly put for- 
 ward with great insolence as the chief reason which 
 
28 ANONYMOUS WRITING. 
 
 induced writers to conceal their names. It has been 
 very loudly asserted that there is something cowardly 
 in anonymous writing ; but this opinion will appear, on 
 examination, to be only one of those which the world 
 has been content to receive without thought. It 
 would not be courage that would induce a man alone 
 and defenceless to expose himself voluntarily to a band 
 of armed fanatics, however the welfare of society might 
 be interested in their suppression: an unreasoning 
 fanaticism equal to their own might indeed urge him 
 to do so, and so might rashness, madness, or despair. 
 As for courrge, what more can the people ask of their 
 champions than that they should expose themselves to 
 the risk of a long and disheartening conflict with men 
 in high places ? This risk they always incur ; for 
 though it is impossible that an anonymous writer can 
 be discovered, he is likely to be among the suspected, 
 and the mere suspicion is enough to ruin his worldly 
 fortunes. A man who attacks an abuse is like one who 
 attempts to pull down an old house. If he succeeds in 
 so gigantic an attempt, the ruins are certain to fall on 
 his own head, and overwhelm him. The gain is to 
 those who stood aloof. * It is for the lookers-on to 
 dance and make merry upon the site. It was surely 
 courage enough in Sampson to fall beneath the ruins 
 of the temple he overthrew. There was no need for 
 him to brave the stones of the Philistines, while he 
 shook the pillars which supported it. True courage 
 consists in meeting fairly an equal enemy with equal 
 weapons. David was the champion of the chosen 
 people. He is supposed to have acted directly under 
 
ANONYMOUS WRITING. 29 
 
 divine guidance ; but he did not ofifer to fight Goliah 
 with a club. He used a sling, which put him upon 
 more equal terms with his adversary. The giant might 
 have used a sling also; David could not use a club. 
 There is no reason in the laws of honour or of war why 
 David should have fought hand to hand with a stronger 
 man than himself. Goliah had the best of his legs and 
 his strength. He might easily have run away ; but if 
 they were to fight, the pious hero determined it should 
 be on even terms. 
 
 What opinion could be entertained of the prudence 
 or discretion of any general who engaged his army in a 
 battle where defeat was certain. " We must fight," said 
 a thoughtless officer to a renowned commander in front 
 of a superior enemy. "That," answered one of the 
 most valiant captains of a valiant age, " that will be as 
 I please." It is fortunate for society that anonymous 
 writing enables the opponent of any powerful abuse to 
 give a vulgar bully, who charges down upon him with 
 an army of furious sycophants, the very answer that 
 was made by the great duke of Schomberg. 
 
 It is very easy to tax a writer with cowardice be- 
 cause he refuses to commit an act which is tantamount 
 to suicide. Cowardice^ however, is really on the other 
 side, — that worst, basest, and most revolting cowardice, 
 which would award punishment to an honest adver- 
 sary in an argument, because he cannot be refuted by 
 reason. 
 
 A fellow who challenges an anonymous writer to 
 avow himself, gives but a small proof of courage. He 
 only braves a single enemy when his blood is warm. 
 
80 ANONTMOITS WRITING. 
 
 The author may expose himself to a thousand. Some 
 may fight, some might murder, some might calumniate, 
 some might ruin him. A writer may well hesitate 
 before laying himself open to the ignoble vengeance of 
 those who, perhaps, could and would effectually silence 
 him by starvation. A rascal who is a dead shot will 
 not shrink from an encounter with a philosopher, who, 
 perhaps, notoriously never fired a pistol in his life. A 
 scamp drunk with wine and rage cannot fairly claim 
 credit for valour by threatening a man who may be 
 obliged to allow himself to be bullied without resist- 
 ance, who may be a bishop, or old, or blind, or one- 
 handed. 
 
 Again, a person in high authority, or his favourite, 
 needs no courage to call a subordinate to account in 
 the most offensive manner for any writing, however 
 harmless, which may affront them. They will not 
 fight : they fear no consequences ; they expect to be 
 met on ground which gives them every advantage. 
 No prudent writer will submit to this, and accept an 
 adverse judgment. If he did so, he might voluntarily 
 allow a man in power, or his dependant, to blacken 
 him for life by any verdict, no matter how unjust, 
 passed upon any publication, or passage of a publica- 
 tion, no matter how innocent. He might voluntarily 
 place himself under the ban of a sentence which, in the 
 eyes of many thoughtless persons, would degrade both 
 himself and his labours. 
 
 Personal fear in such cases may be put altogether 
 out of the question. Fear truly, but fear of a very 
 different kind, may sway a writer. He may fear for the 
 
THE LAW OP HONOvJR. 31 
 
 progress of a sound principle if subjected to the open 
 condemnation of high authority. He may not fear the 
 day of judgment, but the day of no judgment. 
 
 Nothing can be more diflFerent than personal and 
 political fear. It is the flimsiest of artifices to confound 
 them together. 
 
 If a man really desire to serve his country, why 
 should he take a step which would put it in the power 
 of any bravo, with a pistol or a bludgeon, to silence 
 him for ever ? 
 
 What is called the law of honour, is sometimes put 
 in force by cunning people to enable them to practise 
 very dishonourable arts. For instance, grave moralists 
 and philosophers have reluctantly admitted that duel- 
 ling is sometimes justifiable, and sometimes inevitable. 
 Some of the most eminent men in the world have 
 fought duels. But suppose a body of subtle and shame- 
 less rogues take advantage of this to push an empty- 
 pated fellow forward, to ofibr a mortal insult to a man 
 whom they wish out of the way ; is that man to be 
 blamed who sees through the paltry trick and despises 
 it; who contemptuously declines to enter on a deadly 
 struggle with a fool, at worst merely the silly tool of 
 others' malice? Why should he become the dupe of 
 so shallow an artifice ? A great rogue always puts a 
 small one foremost. Is it necessary to the public wel- 
 fare that a useful writer should be exposed to the deadly 
 resentment of some of the most powerful and unscru- 
 pulous people in the country? Appeals to cold iron 
 are no better proofs of a man's honesty, than hot iron 
 and burning ploughshares were of female chastity. 
 
32 THE LAW OF HONOUR. 
 
 Any bully may acquire a cheap reputation for courage 
 who challenges an anonymous writer, but what is the 
 reputation worth? It neither clears his character nor 
 establishes his innocence. When there is no argument 
 against a writer but a fist or a pistol, his position must 
 be very strong indeed. An anonymous writer is not 
 entitled to shrink from an encounter of wits with his 
 adversary ; but he may fairly say, " You shall not break 
 my head because it is not so thick as yours. You 
 shall not bring into a discussion elements which do not 
 belong to it. If you can reply to me, do so ; but you 
 shall not murder me if I can help it, because I have 
 the better of you in reasoning." 
 
 Assuming, however, that an anonymous political 
 writer sometimes may feel personal fear, is it ill 
 founded ? The spirit of revenge is so universal, that 
 no man can be known to censure an abuse with safety. 
 Wise men will not write for a punishment of this kind. 
 Had De Foe not written anonymously against the 
 frightful excesses of the Mint and Friars, the lawless 
 ruffians who found sanctuary there would have torn 
 his heart out in their rage. A savage fool, one Blaney, 
 chivied Swift into a ditch on the strand, towards Howth. 
 
 In 1702, John Tutchin wrote some able articles in 
 the Observator. He was prosecuted, but set free. One 
 night the unfortunate newswriter was waylaid by a 
 gang of ruffians, and beaten so cruelly that he died of 
 his wounds. 
 
 A near relation of Lord Castlereagh openly ex- 
 pressed his wish to shoot Peter Finnerty, a writer in the 
 
THE I/AW OP HONOUK. 33 
 
 Chronicle, who had commented in very just terms on 
 the Walcheren expedition. 
 
 A political writer may object to have his head 
 punched, to be beaten with bludgeons, or to be assassi- 
 nated ; but is this a valid reason why his opinions 
 should be fallacious, and that the man who punches 
 his head, or maims or murders him, is entitled to the 
 honour of having refuted him ? If a hard fist is to 
 become the evidence of political truth, there will be 
 joy at the Seven Dials, and in the purlieus of White- 
 chapel. The Billingsgate pet may strut with perfect 
 confidence into the House of Lords, overturn the Chan- 
 cellor, and rout the bench of Bishops. If the fighting 
 system had prevailed among our fathers, Molyneux 
 might have been Premier. He might have entered public 
 life with the utmost assurance, and knocked down every- 
 body who stood in his way. He might have answered 
 every argument with a black eye or a backhander. He 
 might have broken Lord Chatham's head with his own 
 crutches, and doubled up the great commoner with a 
 single punch. But how would such a method of settling 
 disputes appear to sober people ? Who would have liked 
 to see the difierence between Locke and Filmer, or 
 between Bentley and Boyle, settled by a stand-up scuflSe 
 with dictionaries ? Perhaps there were many owners 
 of rotten boroughs, fresh from the banks of the Cam 
 and the Isis, who could have thrashed Earl Grey in 
 three rounds. But this would not have proved that he 
 was wrong in carrying the measure of parliamentary 
 reform. There were certainly farmers in Yorkshii-e 
 
 D 
 
34 THE LAW OF HONOUR. 
 
 and Bucks, who would have settled the corn-law ques- 
 tion by a wrestle with Mr. Cobden in three minutes. 
 But the qualities which make a statesman do not 
 necessarily make a prize-fighter. A man may argue 
 correctly, and be a weak hitter. 
 
 Few scholars and statesmen would not shrink from 
 this new tax upon eminence. It is possible to have 
 wisdom without the fortitude to become a martyr. 
 Many valuable men would not liave firmness enough to 
 meet beggary and blows us the meed of ennobling and 
 anxious toil, or shame and wounds for honourable 
 aspirings. But shall men, who may be as timid and 
 as great as Lord Bacon, or John Locke, unnerved by 
 the confinement which long studies ask, be scared from 
 conferring their priceless benefits upon mankind by 
 ruffians confident of the applause of society? If so, 
 unhappily their choice may be soon made, and improve- 
 ment will march but slowly. 
 
 To sum up, the fact of a man writing anonymously 
 is certainly not a reproach to him in any sense that 
 can be conceived, either as a gentleman of birth, 
 honour, or piety. Charles I. was an anonymous writer, 
 and so was Louis XVI. All the great Tory statesmen 
 and all the great Whig statesmen, all the bishops and 
 all the lawyers of repute, since the Revolution, have 
 followed so excellent an example. Even the pious 
 Mrs. Hannah More was an anonymous writer, and 
 gave us her ideas upon marriage with greater freedom 
 in consequence. Therefore, this tower of strength and 
 bulwark of the liberties of the Press may be strenuously 
 defended without a blush or a misgiving. It may be 
 
THE LAW OF HONOUR. S5 
 
 defended in the name of trutli, as the most fearless 
 and redoubtable opponent of error. It may be de- 
 fended in the name of reason, as often the only possible 
 opponent of error ; and it may be defended in the name 
 of the law, as the unalienable right of all Englishmen. 
 
 VA 
 
36 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 QUESTIONS. 
 
 Questions coming from men in authority ' with 
 respect to anonymous writings, ultimately resolve 
 themselves into an intolerable inquisition, wholly at 
 variance with the laws of the land and of society. 
 They become, indeed, such a serious interference with 
 civil liberty, that if evasive replies were not admitted, 
 as they are by universal custom, no intercourse what- 
 ever could go on between persons in office and men of 
 letters. 
 
 No man in power would ever enter upon an inquiry 
 respecting anonymous writings, if he had previously 
 considered its difficulty. He will be foiled at every 
 step of the investigation. He will find it impossible to 
 obtain reliable proofs ; for without personal confession 
 there will always be a link in the chain wanting. Per- 
 sonal confession, if he should succeed in extorting it, 
 cannot be ti-usted. 
 
 Unless the questions asked apply to participation 
 and furnishing information, they are idle; if they do 
 so apply, they are worse. Shall a person who may 
 have furnished matter, however insignificant, either in 
 conversation or otherwise, intentionally or otherwise, 
 or in any other maimer whatsoever, for a publication, 
 
QUESTIONS. 37 
 
 be held accountable to his official superior for the 
 whole of it ? If a writer in a periodical has penned an 
 article upon salad, shall he be answerable for an article 
 on patronage written by another person ? Shall the 
 Liberty of the Press thus become subject to restrictions 
 which would at once destroy and defeat all the best 
 purposes for which it was established ? Shall any 
 man, under any circumstances, be bound to criminate 
 himself? 
 
 If the right of anonymous writing is a legal right, it 
 can by no means be properly challenged. Any magis- 
 trate who should raise a question on the subject would 
 run serious risk of bringing his authority into contempt, 
 for he would have plainly exceeded the power delegated 
 to him by the constitution, and have thus violated the 
 law it is his peculiar function to protect. 
 
 Such questions on the part of a superior to an 
 inferior are twice wrong. In the first place, because, 
 if answers were enforced, this would establish not only 
 a censorship but an inquisition ; and an inquisition is 
 worse even than a censorship ; for the first would insti- 
 tute a vindictive law, anfl the latter would merely be a 
 protection. 
 
 Questions are wrong in such cases, also, because they 
 clearly hold out rewards for lying and punishments 
 for truth. No conscientious man would wilfully do 
 this; and no prudent man would surely lay himself 
 open to the hurricane of ridicule which fell on the 
 questioning bishops of a generation ago. 
 
 Questions may be dangerous to the innocent, from 
 
38 QUESTIONS. 
 
 the magnitude of the temptation offered to falsehood. 
 When a bishop of London told the assassin Felton that, 
 unless he would confess, he should be put to the rack, — 
 "If it must be so," he answered, "I do not know 
 whom I may accuse in my extremity; Bishop Laud, 
 perhaps, or any lord at this board." " Sound sense," 
 says Wooton, " though in a bad mouth." 
 
 It can be nothing but solemn and refined banter in 
 any public man to pretend to feel indignation on the 
 subject of anonymous writings. Such inconsiderate 
 jesting, however, would place him in a very awkward 
 position. If not himself an anonymous writer, he is 
 nearly certain to be the employer of many ; and it is 
 ludicrously indecorous in any man to affect a horror of 
 that which he himself notoriously practises. If anony- 
 mous writers are an abomination in his sight, how can 
 he cherish and protect them for his own purposes, and 
 only grow cross and angry when they serve the pur- 
 poses of others, or their own ? If the authorship of an 
 anonymous work is not certain, it is but a sneer or an 
 insult to question any man concerning it. If it is certain, 
 why question him ? It is shocking to inquire for a lie. 
 If a man is questioned, it is obvious his denial should 
 be sufficient to exculpate him ; because in no court of 
 law can a suitor refuse credit to his own witness. The 
 value of such evidence, however, let Sir John Bow- 
 ring, her Majesty's minister plenipotentiary in China, 
 declare. In this diplomatist's edition of Bentham's 
 " Deontology," it is explained with pecuhar frankness 
 and point. " There is an instrument of tyranny," 
 says Sir John, " and consequent source of annoyance. 
 
QUESTIONS. 30 
 
 against whose intrusions it is most desirable to find 
 'protection : it is that of impertinent interrogation. It 
 assumes various shapes, and sometimes produces evil 
 of no inconsiderable amount. Its powers of annoyance 
 vary with the situation of the person who asks the 
 question, as compared or contrasted with that of him 
 who is expected to answer it. Where an individual in 
 a superior situation asks a question of an inferior, 
 which that inferior is known to be unwilling to answer, 
 what is the question but the interference of despotism 
 on the part of the questioner; and what to the party 
 questioned but a cause of suffering and of mendacity — 
 self-preservative mendacity ? When a monarch in- 
 quired of an anonymous writer (liis subject and 
 servant), in the presence of others, whether he was the 
 author of certain works whose authorship the monarch 
 knew was intended to be kept a profound secret, the 
 interrogation was an exhibition of tyranny, a lie-com- 
 pelling tyranny. But to avoid collision, prudence 
 requires, not that the intrusion of offensive question- 
 ings should be met with ofi^ensive answers, but rather 
 that they should be turned aside by good-humoured 
 management. 'What a question!' — 'You are not 
 serious, surely ! ' — ' Thereby hangs a tale ! ' — a facetious 
 quotation, the singing of a line of a ballad, an appro- 
 priate look or gesture" (adds Sir John), "may relieve 
 the mind of its embarrassment, and prevent the mis- 
 chief of imprudence." 
 
 To insist upon a man furnishing conclusive evidence 
 that he is not the author of any publication, is to 
 require proof of a negative, or, in other words, to 
 
40 QUESTIONS. 
 
 demnnd an impossibility. Were such a practice to be 
 admitted as part of the law of the land, it would give 
 to the civil authority a power never arrogated to them- 
 selves even by the dullest and most determined bigots 
 in religion. 
 
 A Jew Avho denied his faith, a Catholic who con- 
 formed, a Protestant who acknowledged the pope, were 
 never asked for further proof that they had forsworn 
 their errors. The only proof required of loyalty to 
 Csesar was the payment of the penny. To require 
 proof in such cases would be not only to establish an 
 inquisition, but to give to that inquisition such means 
 of tormenting mankind as no inquisition ever held. 
 Unscrupulous power might henceforth choose its victims, 
 and none elected to suffer could escape. 
 
 Viewed in any light whatever, also, questions are 
 . unjust, because they would establish a vexatious and 
 improper inequality before the law. An inferior could 
 not question his superior; why should a superior be 
 able to question an inferior? If a powerful man could 
 not be questioned, it is oppression to question a weak 
 one. One of the most painful instances of questioning 
 on record is that to which was subjected no less a 
 man than Edmund Burke. The universal opinion of 
 his contemporaries fixed on Burke as author of the 
 letters of Junius. Conversations, pamphlets, para- 
 graphs, and caricatures, arrived simultaneously at that 
 conclusion. All his enemies^and the accusation alone 
 made many — told him so. All his friends, including 
 Dr. Johnson, believed it ; his relations firmly believed 
 it. In vain he tried to convince the ministry of his 
 
QUESTIONS. 41 
 
 innocence. The belief was general : Lord Mansfield 
 was implacable; Sir William Draper^ who fancied 
 everybody to be Junius, and Mr. Gerard Hamilton, 
 who may have had his own reasons, clamorously 
 accused him. Even his old friend the bishop of Ches- 
 ter joined the band of his persecutors. At last Tommy 
 Townshend questioned him by letter. 
 
 No party, however contemptible or infamous, has ever 
 been in want of a Tommy Townshend. He was one of 
 those men who appear always proud to serve as tools to 
 wiser people than themselves ; to be made use of by men 
 who laugh at them, who despise them for their folly, 
 and who leave them to roar and bellow nonsense to the 
 moon as soon as it suits their purpose. But though 
 Tommy Townshend was a contemptible puppet, Burke 
 knew very well that behind him loomed the cautious 
 anger of Mansfield, the legal acuteness of Blackstone, 
 the powerful dukes of Bedford and Grafton, with their 
 interminable clans, and the popular marquis of Granby. 
 The contest was unequal, and he prudently declined it. 
 The great statesman's answer to Mr. Tommy Towns- 
 hend, therefore, was well considered and memorable, 
 " His friends," he said, " he had satisfied ; his enemies, 
 who had advanced this charge for malignant purposes, 
 he never would satisfy." Townshend again addressed 
 him, stating that some of his backers required " a more 
 positive and distinct negation, — an unqualified disavowal 
 of all participation in the letters.'" It appears probable 
 that this was an attempt to entrap him into a private 
 admission, which was afterwards to be used publicly 
 against him. If so, it was a small device enough. Burke, 
 
42 QUESTIONS. 
 
 like most Irish gentlemen of his time, was in debt ; he 
 was supporting his indigent relations; he had refused 
 official emoluments which other meU; who called him 
 an adventurer, had not scrupled to accept; the best 
 years of his life had been consumed in the public 
 service, and had been ill requited ; he had been taken 
 from a vigorous pursuit of literary reputation, from 
 every effort to make himself rich ; and now his last 
 hopes were at stake. He might, indeed, have exchanged 
 politics for literature, but such an exchange, however 
 advantageous and tranquillizing, is made by few persons 
 while they can avoid it. The law, the church, the state, 
 then engrossed, as they still engross, all honour and all 
 respectability. Mr. Boswell considered his club de- 
 graded by the admission of Adam Smith and Gibbon — 
 a degree of disgrace, levior quadam infamicB macula, 
 attached, as it still attaches, to a literary life. He 
 might in vain, therefore, have reasoned that he would 
 act wisely and bravely to throw off the contemptible 
 trammels that fettered him. He had had experience 
 enough to know that literary men are by no means free; 
 and that to give up his public career for such inde- 
 pendence would be merely' exchanging servitude for 
 slavery. 
 
 His situation as a public man, if recognized as having 
 any share in the authorship of a book so offensive 
 to power, was one which could not be contemplated 
 by the coldest without emotion. He had not yet 
 obtained that position as a party chief, when he could 
 defend himself by deputy — profit by bold acts and 
 escape their consequences. No half-denial, no dignified 
 
QUESTIONS. 43 
 
 silence, would have served liim. There were many 
 persons who would have listened to none of those 
 exculpatory explanations, which it was undoubtedly in 
 his power to offer ; who would never have been brought 
 to see the difference between a part and the whole — 
 between the wise thoughts of the philosophic statesman 
 and the grovelling nonsense of scurrilous folly. All 
 the avenues of political life would have been barred to 
 him for long, or at least till the people were roused, as 
 they always are roused at length, to speak out for an 
 honest man under persecution. 
 
 Such a hope, however dear it has been to many, 
 would have been particularly distasteful to him. Burke 
 was a Conservative in politics, and something more 
 than an aristocrat in feeling. With him the people were 
 a swinish multitude; and henceforth he would be 
 classed among the rabble. His ears might also have 
 been cut off, and his nose slit by a resolute judge. 
 
 His position with his private friends would have been 
 intolerable ; Johnson would have rolled his great body 
 about, and perhaps have pondered long ; but if Burke 
 had been restrained, as he probably was restrained, by 
 motives of private honour towards others from satis- 
 factorily clearing himself, the good old man would at 
 last have turned away his head. Goldsmith and the 
 rest of the club would have been fairly frightened out 
 of their wits. Fox would have snarled, Pitt would have 
 sneered. Every ground of defence would have been cut 
 jfrom under him. All the doors in Bloomsbury would 
 have been closed to him. Few would have liked to 
 speak for him, and stiU fewer would have dared to do so. 
 
44 QUESTIONS. 
 
 There was one also on whose pale cheek and altered 
 looks he did not perhaps dare to think, whose humilia- 
 tion he could ill have borne, whose long sweet hope in 
 him it would have been torture to see marred. 
 
 He could not confess, or he must confess to a humi- 
 liating falsehood. He could not explain without placing 
 others, probably, in a most cruel and unfair position. 
 He was obliged to answer, because silence would have 
 been tantamount to confession; and he could not deny, 
 however carefully he chose his words, without an appa- 
 rent equivocation, from which he must have shrunk 
 with an absolute spasm of despair. The throes of his 
 anguish must have been pitiable. The dullest imagina- 
 tion may conjure up that terrible scene with fearful 
 distinctness. It is impossible to recall any passage in 
 history more pathetic than that which relates that a 
 man like Burke was forced by an insect like Townshend 
 into so distressing a position. It was not that he could 
 have been obliged to tell a lie. He would probably 
 rather have been burned at the stake than have done 
 that. The bare thought is enough to scare a strong 
 man into dotage. But that he should have been 
 shamelessly tricked into a trap, where he might appear 
 in the eyes of any human being to huckster with his 
 self-esteem and bargain with his honour, must have 
 been almost sufficient to overthrow his reason. An 
 ordinary man might have consoled himself, but the 
 mind of Burke must have been positively numbed with 
 horror. There are griefs in life so overwhelming and 
 inexplicable, that the stoutest heart will quail at them. 
 There is no resource in such afflictions but prayer. 
 
QUESTIONS. 45 
 
 Burke was a devout man ; perhaps he entered into his 
 chamber, and having fastened the door, he prayed with 
 sweat and anguish that the strange plot against him 
 might fail. If so, his prayer was answered. But it is 
 impossible to reflect on the cruel ordeal through which 
 he passed without the deepest sympathy; and unborn 
 generations of Englishmen will read with indignation, 
 that a creature like Tommy Townshend was put forward 
 by a corrupt clique to defraud one of the best and 
 wisest men who ever lived of his well-earned repu- 
 tation. 
 
 The attempt to humiliate the great Irishman signally 
 failed. To the final question of Mr. Tommy Townshend 
 Burke replied with grave irony, " pledging his honour 
 that he knew nothing whatever of the writer." An 
 answer which may have been perfectly true as far as it 
 went. 
 
 Whether what a man says under such complicated 
 circumstances is clear or not of falsehood, must depend 
 altogether on the manner in which the question is put. 
 If chalk and charcoal were mixed together in equal 
 parts, and a man were obliged to answer whether the 
 mass were black or white, he would have some difficulty 
 in replying to such a question, either by yes or no. If 
 all attempts at explanation were drowned by a senseless 
 repetition of the inquiry, he might say yes or no with 
 equal truth, if compelled to speak, and he could obvi- 
 ously only adhere to the truth by finding a reply like 
 that of Burke, which said nothing. The impropriety 
 of such a course was not on his part, but on that of the 
 inquirer. 
 
46 QUESTIONS^ 
 
 Junius repeatedly said that he should never reveal 
 himself. He made the most explicit declaration to 
 that effect. If he had broken this promise to the 
 public, he must have told a distinct falsehood. If he 
 was about to tell a falsehood, indeed, he might as well 
 tell one lie as another ; but there was more reason for 
 an inquirer to expect that he would keep his word 
 when voluntarily given, than that he would break it to 
 please the first person who asked him an impertinent 
 question, merely because that question was stupidly 
 reiterated. 
 
 Extorted evidence of any fact is as valueless as any 
 other security obtained by fear; it can be at once 
 cancelled by law ; and no one is entitled to be offended 
 if a purely legal matter of this sort is treated on purely 
 legal principles. 
 
 It is altogether taking an unfair advantage of any 
 man to make him a witness against himself on his own 
 trial, and then complain that he makes the only legal 
 defence which is possible to an illegal persecution. 
 Any person unjustly assailed by power, may surely 
 intrench himself behind the technicalities of the law 
 in self-defence, for one of the main ends of all laws is 
 to protect the innocent. No man charged with an 
 imaginary offence, of which he is not morally guilty, 
 can be seriously blamed for making use of a flaw 
 in the indictment to escape his tormentors. He no 
 more tells a lie than a prisoner who has killed a man 
 by accident, departs from the truth when he pleads not 
 guilty to a charge of murder. The burden of proof in 
 all cases lies naturally with the accuser. 
 
QUESTIONS. 47 
 
 So thoughtful a man as Burke, also, must have had 
 much higher grounds than personal feelings for refusing 
 to answer the questions of the Townshend clique, or 
 any one else, on such a subject as this. He might 
 have felt himself for a moment the depositary of an 
 important constitutional right, which it became him 
 to defend to the utmost extent of his power. If Junius 
 had made statements which were untrue, they might 
 be refuted ; and in any case there was the law of libel 
 to protect any one who might have to complain. 
 With respect to interrogatories, they were altogether 
 wrong; but had he refused to answer, he might have 
 as well admitted the charge, a charge which was pro- 
 bably, at least in part, a false one. The only possible 
 course, therefore, was that which he took. Confession 
 or denial, indeed, had nothing whatever to do with 
 the matter at issue. Such questions should not be as 
 to the man who wrote a thing, but as to the thing 
 written. It is a strange argument to oppose a supposi- 
 tion which no man can prove, to facts which perhaps 
 prove themselves. If it were once admitted that an 
 anonymous writer, when questioned, is obliged to avow 
 himself, he may as well be obliged by law to put bis 
 name to his writings ; for whenever it . becomes the 
 interest of any person to question him, he will be 
 questioned, and the fancied right of anonymous writing 
 becomes a delusion — a snare for the unwary. This 
 would altogether do away with the chief end of anony- 
 mous writing, which is to enable individuals to correct 
 public evils without exposing themselves to the ven-. 
 geance of interested parties. 
 
48 QUESTIONS. 
 
 The importance of the principle which Burke main- 
 tained had long been evident, and he had some notable 
 precedents. On the 8th of June, 1688, Archbishop San- 
 croft and six bishops, furnished by the ablest lawyers in 
 England with full advice, were summoned to the palace 
 of James II. to answer for the authorship of a petition 
 which the courtiers of those days had agreed to term a 
 libel. The document was lying on the table. The 
 chancellor took the paper up, showed it to the arch- 
 bishop, and said, " Is this the paper which your grace 
 wrote, and which the six bishops present delivered to 
 his majesty ? " Sancroft looked at the paper, turned 
 to the king, and answered, " Sir, I stand here a culprit. 
 I never was so before. Once I little thought that I 
 ever should be so ; least of all, could I think that I 
 should be charged with any offence against my king ; 
 but, since I am so unhappy as to be in this situation, 
 your majesty will not be offended if I avail myself of 
 my lawful right to decline saying anything which may 
 criminate me." "This is mere chicanery," said the 
 foolish king, determined to lose his crown : " I hope 
 your grace will not do so ill a thing as to deny your 
 own hand." " Sir," said Bishop Lloyd, whose studies 
 had been much among the casuists, " all divines agree 
 that a person situated as we are may refuse to answer 
 such a question." The king, as slow of understanding 
 as quick of temper, could not comprehend what the 
 prelates meant. He persisted, and was evidently be- 
 coming very angry. " Sir," said the archbishop, " I 
 am not bound to accuse myself. Nevertheless, if your 
 majesty positively commands me to answer, I will do 
 
QUESTIONS. 49 
 
 sOj in the confidence that a just and generous prince 
 will not suflFer what I say in obedience to his orders to 
 be brought in evidence against me." " You must not 
 capitulate with your sovereign," said the chancellor (it 
 was the infamous Jeffreys) . " No," said the king, " I 
 will not give any such command. If you choose to 
 deny your own hand, I have nothing more to say to 
 you." 
 
 In the November of 1688, also, the lords Halifax, 
 Clarendon, and Nottingham were summoned likewise 
 before James II., and interrogated as to whether they 
 had written an invitation to the prince of Orange to 
 invade England. Halifax refused to answer. "Your 
 majesty asks me," said he, " whether I have com- 
 mitted high treason. If I am suspected, let me be 
 brought before my peers. And how can your majesty 
 place any dependence on the answer of a culprit whose 
 life is at stake ? Even if I had invited his highness 
 over, I should, without scruple, plead not guilty." 
 Bishop Compton was also summoned into the presence 
 of the king and questioned. The bishop was in a 
 strait; for he was actually one of the seven who had 
 signed the invitation. " Sir," he replied, " I am quite 
 confident there is not one of my brethren who is not as 
 guiltless as myself in this matter." 
 
 Precedents more recent than the statesmen and 
 divines of the Revolution were in plenty. 
 
 Swift systematically denied his works on principle. 
 Though rewards were ofi'ered for their author. Parlia- 
 ment interfered, and his publishers were imprisoned, 
 Harding, who was among them, said he would rather 
 
50 QUESTIONS. 
 
 perish in jail than be guilty of the treachery of revealing 
 an author's name; and Swift writes that — 
 
 " Not a Judas could be found 
 To sell him for £300." 
 
 Burke's greatest contemporary was clearly on his 
 side. Johnson never would own aU his works, and at 
 his death burnt large masses of papers. When Boswell 
 told him he had felt a strong inclination to steal two 
 manuscript volumes of memoirs, Johnson answered, 
 " If you had done so, I believe I should have gone 
 mad." No one can listen to the doctor's general 
 opinion also on this subject without respect and atten- 
 tion. He was the greatest moralist of the last century. 
 Divines and statesmen have unanimously agreed that 
 they could be guided without disgrace by the principles 
 of the author of " Rasselas," and the " Vanity of Human 
 Wishes." Now, in answer to a direct question from 
 Boswell on the subject, that great and good man em- 
 phatically declared it was his opinion that an anony- 
 mous writer when questioned, " might think he had a 
 right to deny." The care with which these words are 
 reported, and the delicate nicety of the expression, is 
 remarkable. They appear to mean that opinions were 
 so divided on the subject that, for all one of the pro- 
 foundest reasoners of his time could see, any person in 
 such an extreme case might fearlessly use his own 
 judgment, and act as he thought fit. If he was willing 
 to suffer the loss of his ears like Daniel Defoe, if he 
 was willing to be sent from jail to jail like Grotius or 
 
QUESTIONS. 51 
 
 Galileo, he might avow his writings; hut if hope was 
 not quite dead within hinij if he thought that he might 
 yet do good service to mankind when the folly which 
 persecuted him had overthrown itself, he might deny 
 them, and he would be justified in doing so. The 
 doctor has also a passage which is still more distinct, 
 "Suppose," he says, "a man had confided his secret to 
 me. I must keep it. Must I then do for another what 
 I may not do for myself?" The depositor of another's, 
 confidence can neither forfeit his good faith nor betray 
 his friend. 
 
 There was but one higher tribunal to which a Chris- 
 tian philosopher could appeal for guidance, and its 
 decision in many instances had, happily, been plain. 
 
 It would have been the foulest sacrilege to believe 
 that the patriarchs, the apostles, and even the Redeemer 
 himself, had left us examples of error. And if this 
 could not be believed, the inference, on the purest 
 grounds of religion and morality, was perfectly clear, 
 that whenever a man is questioned with an obvious 
 view to persecution, he has a right to be silent, or, if 
 silence is not permitted, to evade the question. It 
 would be monstrous to suppose that Divine Wisdom, or 
 any human code drawn up by sane men, could have 
 imposed on us a law by which a man's own virtue and 
 integrity could be used by bad men to destroy him, 
 and that the divine command had placed a power in 
 the hands of the wicked and foolish, to injure the 
 good and wise. There is deep wisdom and moral in 
 that verse of the Old Testament, which says, "Thou 
 
 E 2 
 
52 QUESTIONS. 
 
 shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk." Indeed, 
 there is scarcely an event which can occur in human 
 life, or a difficulty in human conduct, which may not 
 be regulated by a reference to the instructions which 
 have been left us by Him who knew all forms of human 
 misery and oppression, who sanctified every suffering 
 but remorse. We err only when we depart from the 
 teaching of the infallible guide and example of the 
 Most Highest. 
 
 Men as great and good as Burke have also in our 
 own generation decided on this question far less scru- 
 pulously than he decided. Walter Scott praised his 
 own works, reviewed them, and assured John Murray 
 that he had never read a line of them till they were 
 printed. The secret of the Waverley novels was con- 
 fided to upwards of twenty persons. No one betrayed 
 it. Mr. Adolphus wrote a book to fix it on Scott. 
 Scott urged that the case had not been made out. 
 Although he had the highest respect for the royal 
 family, he denied his writings to the Prince Regent in 
 the plainest and gravest terms. He said " he had no 
 pretensions to the authorship of ' Waverley.' " 
 
 The last case which need be cited at length is that of 
 Sydney Smith. He was emphatically an honest man. 
 He was courageous and sensible. He was remarkable 
 for his fearless love of truth. Lord Melbourne said, with 
 keen self-reproach, " there was nothing he more deeply 
 regretted, on looking back on his past career, than not 
 having made Sydney Smith a bishop." Well, this 
 great, good, and fearless man, who should have been 
 a bishop, and was something infinitely better, denied 
 
QUESTIONS. 53 
 
 his own writings in a most distinct and remarkable 
 manner. In 1807 he wrote "Peter Plymley's Letters." 
 They were from beginning to end a satire on the mis- 
 conduct of the Government. Though he held a crown 
 living, he would speak the truth on public questions. 
 Government were angry; they were not disposed to 
 shrink from the disgrace of a persecution ; but all they 
 could find out was that the manuscript had been taken 
 to Mr. Budd, the publisher, by the earl of Lauderdale. 
 Somehow or other, however, it came to be conjectured 
 that the incumbent of Foston was Peter Plyraley. 
 
 The case was peculiar. The shelter of the anonymous 
 had alone enabled him to advocate the Catholic claims. 
 It would have been impossible for him to do so openly. 
 He was one of the inferior clergy of the Establishment. 
 His opinions, wise and good as every one has since 
 acknowledged them to have been, were against the 
 declared sentiments of the bishops and dignitaries of 
 the Church to which he belonged. He would, there- 
 fore, have placed himself in the position of a man 
 writing against the universal sentiment of his pro- 
 fession, and using the sharp weapons of wit and ridicule 
 to expose the errors of his spiritual superiors. Such 
 a course would have been highly insolent, indelicate, 
 and impolitic. The protection of the anonymous alone 
 could save him, and give a chance to his opinions. 
 Inquiries soon began; Sydney Smith not only denied 
 the authorship of his work, but humorously states, in 
 a friendly letter to Lady Holland (July 14, 1807), that 
 " he has obtained the book from the adjacent town, and 
 read it with some entertainment." " My conjecture," he 
 
54 QUESTIONS. 
 
 addsj " lies between three persons, Sir Samuel Romilly, 
 Mr. Arthur Pigott, and Mr. Homer, for the name is 
 evidently fictitious." In another letter to Lady Holland, 
 he says, "Dugald Stewart is extremely alarmed by 
 the repeated assurances made by me that he was 
 the author of ' Peter Plymley's Letters,' or gene- 
 rally considered so to be." In a letter to Earl Grey, 
 he says, " I wish I could write as well as Peter 
 Plymley." Again, he says, "I will write one or two 
 pamphlets, but I shall never own them." In his eyes 
 such questions were only fit for banter. Other men 
 of that day were of the same opinion. Lord Grenville 
 could not be called a person drunk with democratic 
 delusions, yet Lord Holland wrote to Sydney Smith 
 from Dropmore, of the " warm and enthusiastic way 
 he spoke of Peter Plymley," — "rallying" Lord H. 
 ''on the aff'ectation of concealing the author." The 
 whole thing was a joke, and a very wise and bright 
 one. It was impossible, indeed, to treat such a subject 
 seriously. Finally, the right of an author to disavow 
 writings published anonymously, is maintained iii our 
 own time by one of the most learned and pious of 
 living prelates. Archbishop Whately, in a note to his 
 "Elements of Logic," avows himself an anonymous 
 writer, but distinctly claims his right of denial. 
 
 To say even who was not the author of an anony- 
 mous work, might indicate who was, if a case should 
 ever occur in which suspicion could only attach to 
 two persons. 
 
 An editor who betrayed a correspondent would 
 render himself peculiarly infamous. He would commit 
 
QUESTIONS. 55 
 
 not only a breach of contract but a breacb of trust, — 
 a trust which the principle on which he is supposed to 
 conduct his business has invited. Any editor, there- 
 fore, who should, under any pretence whatever, give 
 up the name of a contributor, in answer to inquiries, 
 should state that he acts against the rules established 
 among his brethren, or he commits a fraud. Also of 
 two things he does one. Either he gives up to punish- 
 ment a worthy fellow-labourer in a good cause, or, 
 Avith a turpitude from which felons often in their drink 
 recoil, he informs against his accomplice in a bad one. 
 
 As for persons who will not be bound by the laws of 
 honour, should such exist, a cogent argument has been 
 employed to convince them, that if they decline to act 
 as gentlemen, they will be looked upon as criminals. 
 Turning king's evidence wiU cover them with deserved 
 infamy ; but it will not save them from punishment. 
 In 1809, Cobbett was tried for an article in the 
 " Political Register," in which he censured a disgraceful 
 case of flogging in the militia. Sir Vicary Gibbs, a 
 narrow-minded lawyer, was set to work by an im- 
 prudent ministry, and a verdict of guilty was obtained. 
 Cobbett was sentenced to pay a fine of 1,000Z., to be 
 imprisoned for two years in Newgate, and to give 
 bonds for 3,000Z. that he would keep the peace for 
 seven years. Hansard, the printer of the " Register," 
 together with two of the vendors of the publication, 
 were also punished, though they sought mercy of the 
 authorities by confessing their share of the transaction, 
 and by giving up the name of the writer of the article. 
 A mere private individual who should worm himself 
 
56 QUESTrONS. 
 
 into the confidence of an author to inform against him, 
 must necessarily be looked upon as a false witness, 
 false either to the Government or the man who has 
 trusted him — a liar or a traitor. 
 
 If it may be fairly assumed that an anonymous writer 
 may deny his works ; that no honest man will betray 
 him; and that no rogue will dare to do so, — what evi- 
 dence remains ? Rumour. But what is popular rumour 
 when fairly examined ? The more widely a fact is really 
 known, the easier must it be to obtain proof of it; 
 whereas of popular rumours there is commonly no proof 
 at aU. As soon as a man acquires a reputation, his 
 name is in everybody's mouth. AU must have some- 
 thing to say about him, and much is nonsense. 
 
 If a writer's own denial, corroborated by that of the 
 publisher of the obnoxious works, is not sufScient to 
 exonerate him, any man may have the authorship 
 of any anonymous book fixed upon him by a cabal 
 determined to compass his ruin. If denial and cor- 
 roboration are valueless, what is the value of inter- 
 rogatories ? 
 
 To prove anonymous writings were written by any 
 particular person is simply impossible. Who wrote 
 " Eikon Basilike," Charles I. or Bishop Gauden ? Who 
 wrote the pamphlet for which Locke was turned out of 
 his fellowship ? Who wrote all the other anilities that 
 were attributed to the greatest reasoner of his genera- 
 tion ? Who wrote the works which were ascribed even 
 to Roger L'Estrange, the licenser of the press? Did 
 George or William Cavendish write the life of Wolsey ? 
 Did Lady Packington write the " Whole Duty of 
 
QUESTIONS. 57 
 
 Man?" If so, who can prove the fact in any case? 
 Who was George Psalmanazar ? " Sir," said Swift, in 
 answer to Bettesworth, " it was a piece of advice given 
 me in my early days by Lord Somers, never to own any 
 writings laid to my charge, hecause, if I did this in some 
 case, whatever I did not disown afterwards, would 
 infallibly be imputed to me." " My custom," he says 
 also, in a letter to Harding, " is to dictate to a 'prentice 
 who can write in a feigned hand ; and what is written 
 we send to the printer by a blackguard boy.^' This 
 was nearly true. The dean's butler was his faithful 
 secretary. 
 
 Junius wrote in a feigned hand, and left his letters 
 at a coffee-house. Peter Plymley sent to his publisher 
 by an earl. Proof escapes wherever it is sought. There 
 is nearly always a copartnery in political writings. One 
 of the papers for which Steele was prosecuted was 
 written by a Mr. Moore, of the Inner Temple. Walpole 
 and Pulteney clubbed their wits to write a satire on 
 Lord Oxford. Steele, Addison, Hoadley, Lechmere, 
 and Marshall, wrote the " Crisis." Moore gives a 
 curious instance of literary copartnership in a review on 
 " Ritson," which appeared in one of the early numbers 
 of the Edinburgh Review. The " RoUiad" and the 
 " Probationary Odes" were written in platoons. The 
 writers themselves cannot always remember their 
 separate parts, and the most unjustifiable liberties have 
 been taken with manuscripts. Barber, the printer who 
 was patronized by Bolingbroke, showed him Swift's 
 manuscript pamphlet, " Free Thoughts on the State of 
 Public Affairs." Bolingbroke immediately made addi- 
 
68 QUESTIONS. 
 
 tions to it more favourable to his own intrigues against 
 Oxford. 
 
 The " Guardian" complained that the Examiner dis- 
 torted one of his papers about " Ants" into a political 
 satire. 
 
 Coleridge relates that some editors for whom he 
 wrote garbled his papers so as to leave but little intel- 
 ligible, and that little ruinous to his literary reputation 
 and his character as a gentleman. He remonstrated, 
 and received for answer, that the said editors had bought 
 his goods, and should use them as they pleased. 
 
 As for convictions by comparison of style, the notion 
 is absurd, for nearly every petty writer mimics the 
 style of the literary kings of the age ; and of all things 
 in literature, a fresh style is the rarest. Psalmanazar 
 imposed on bishops and dignitaries of the Church. 
 Chatterton's imposture was believed by many. The 
 Shaksperian forgeries of Ireland deceived such judges 
 as Lauderdale, Somerset, Burgess, Parr, Pinkerton, and 
 the poet laureate. Burke wrote such a wonderful 
 imitation of Bolingbroke (" Vindication of Natural 
 Society"), that it deceived everybody. The poems of 
 Ossian deceived Gray, Home, and Blair. What elo- 
 quence was wasted to proved the celebrated Dunning to 
 be Junius. The defence of single-speech Hamilton 
 against the same accusation rests only on his denial to 
 Lord Temple, who was also suspected, with no less than 
 twenty-eight other persons. Lord George Sackville 
 was furiously suspected. The circumstantial evidence 
 was particularly strong. Talent, politics, personal feel- 
 ing ; Sir W. Draper's belief again. Yet now we have 
 
■QUESTIONS. 59 
 
 ample proof that he was guiltless. " I cannot/' writes 
 Junius angrily, " be confounded with Peter Porcupine/' 
 a lampooner for whom the puhlic, as usual, had very 
 generally mistaken him. 
 
 " I believed Burke to be Junius/' said Johnson, 
 " because I know no man but Burke who is capable of 
 writing the letters." " To hold that Junius was Mr. 
 Francis/' writes Lord Brougham, " is libelling that 
 gentleman's memory . . . He certainly was not Lord 
 Ashburton, or any other lawyer." This is against the 
 almost universally received opinion ; but it is the opinion 
 of a great lawyer, of a Lord High Chancellor of Eng- 
 land. If many are not convinced by it, therefore, how 
 shall matters so vexed be satisfactorily decided by any 
 gentleman who may happen to be in power, though 
 perhaps he never in the whole course of his life spent 
 an hour in balancing legal probabilities? The law, 
 righteously administered, can be content with nothing 
 short of conclusive proof; it cannot allow conjecture 
 to magnify suspicion into certainty, or no man could 
 sleep secure in his bed who had an artful enemy. 
 
 There is no end tothe freaks of suspicion. Even foreign- 
 ers are not protected from the absurd accusations of irri- 
 tated vanity. D'Alembert complained that he was accused 
 of having written Walpole's squib against Rousseau. 
 
 Smollett, who appears to have done his best to 
 deserve the distinction, generally got the discredit of all 
 articles of an offensive nature which appeared in the 
 Critical Review. Time has, however, exculpated him 
 in many cases. Poor Murphy also, who never wrote 
 a line in the obnoxious periodical, was gibbeted by 
 
60 QUESTIONS. 
 
 Churchill, under the belief that he was one of its con- 
 tributors. 
 
 The well-known satire called " All the Talents/^ 
 published during the Grenville ministry, was attributed 
 to several people ; but at last suspicion fixed tenaciously 
 on George Canning. The secret was well kept. Stock- 
 dale himself, who published it, knew not whence it 
 came. The author is now known to have been a Mr. 
 Barrett. 
 
 The famous answer of the Prince of Wales to Mr. 
 Pitt, on the regency question, was supposed, by some 
 of the best-informed of his contemporaries, to have 
 been written by Sheridan ; but an extract of a letter 
 from Sir Gilbert Elliott, given by Moore, proves that it 
 was composed by Burke. 
 
 One of the founders of the Edinburgh Review, says 
 he was incited to his article on the " Curates' Salary 
 Bill," by Sir William Scott. He cites, also, an ex- 
 traordinary case of disputed identity, mentioned by a 
 M. Fievee, who wrote some letters on England in 
 1802. " Comment," says M. Fievee, speaking in- 
 dignantly of Anglomania in French philosophers — 
 " Comment nous ont-ils presente FEncyclopedie ? Sous 
 quel patronage ont-ils eleve ce monument immortel ? 
 Est-ce sous I'egide des ecrivains dont la France 
 s'honorait? Non, ils out choisi pour maitre et pour 
 idole un Anglais, Bacon; ils lui out fait dire tout ce 
 qu'ils ont voulu, parce que cet auteur, extraordinaire- 
 ment volumineux, n'etait pas connu en France, et ne I'est 
 guere en Angleterre que de quelques hommes studieux : 
 mais les philosophes sentaient que leur succes pour 
 
QUESTIONS. 61 
 
 introdaire des nouveautes, tenait k faire croire qu'elles 
 n'etaient pas neuves pour les grands esprits ; et comme 
 les grands esprits franjais, trop connus, ne se pretaient 
 pas h. un pareil dessein, les philosophes ont eu recours h, 
 I'Angleterre." 
 
 Mr. D'Israeli, in "Vivian Grey/' very pleasantly 
 ridicules any idea of finding out anonymous authors. 
 " Who is the author of Tremaine ?" asks a young lady, 
 naively. — " Oh, TU tell you in a moment," is the reply, 
 "It's either Mr. Ryder, or Mr. Spencer Percival, or 
 Mr. Dyson, or Miss Dyson, or Mr. Bowles, or the 
 duke of Buckingham, or Mr. Ward, or a young oflBcer 
 in the Guards, or an old clergyman in the north of 
 England, or a middle-aged barrister on the Midland 
 Circuit." The choice was by no means more various 
 than was offered about the authorship of Pelham. 
 
 Even apparent confessions have often been noto- 
 riously used to mislead us, for there are men whose 
 minds are so diseased as to seek notoriety at any price. 
 Examples even are numerous of persons, under some 
 delusive impulse or motive, confessing to acts which 
 they have not done, even when they have knowingly 
 inctirred torture or death by doing so. Persons have 
 owned themselves to be witches and necromancers. 
 The value of personal confession is altogether overrated. 
 Had Sir Philip Francis confessed himself to be Junius, 
 would this have closed the controversy ? Had he even 
 produced proofs, and shown the original letters ad- 
 dressed to him bv Woodfall, and the identical volumes 
 bound in vellum sent to him by his own directions, he 
 could not have satisfied a sceptical inquirer. He might. 
 
62 QUESTIONS. 
 
 like Boyd, have been a pretender; his documents, 
 like those of Chatterton or Ireland, might have been 
 fabricated. 
 
 No good or sensible man would covet the reputation 
 of Junius ; but there have been a host of aspirants to 
 it. General Lee, an officer in a service supposed to 
 cherish the most sensitive notions of private honour, is 
 said to have told an' American gentleman, with much 
 circumstantiality, that he was Junius. The Eev. Philip 
 Rosenhagen, a divine, who ought to have considered 
 a lie with still more delicate abhorrence than a layman, 
 tried to persuade Lord North that he was Junius. 
 The value of rumour as to what any man uttered even 
 on his death-bed is uncertain. " Save my country. 
 Heaven," was the grand farewell to life said to have 
 been spoken with the last breath of Pitt. His nurse, 
 on being interrogated, said he asked for barley-water. 
 
 One final instance of disputed authorship should still 
 be cited. At this time a discussion, begun by Pope, 
 has just been revived, respecting the writer of those im- 
 mortal works of genius, which now for more than two 
 hundred years have illustrated the name of William 
 Shakspeare. If inquiry should end by fixing the 
 authorship of some of them upon Bacon, it will only 
 be an additional proof of the ciu-ious uncertainty of 
 almost every fact in literary history. Great men have 
 estimated with mournful truth the low value of a 
 scholar's fame. Some have despised it, some have 
 rejected it, some have been indifferent to it. It has 
 been thrown like a waif upon the strand, for any of the 
 
QUESTIONS. 63 
 
 coast folk who prowl by the great waters of learning to 
 seize on and appropriate as they listed. 
 
 Men deny their writings and their loves, says the 
 philosopher of Dourdan, as if it were a crime to have 
 either head or heart. No lady can possibly be bound 
 to confess that she is thirty-five years of age. No 
 gentleman can be bound to own that he is an author. 
 Both crimes are equally heinous in the eyes of society. 
 To serve mankind, we must first have the power to 
 rule them. He who endeavours to confer upon them a 
 benefit without being able to enforce its acceptance, 
 must cautiously prepare to avoid the effects of their 
 strange resentment; for whosoever tries boldly and 
 openly to do good without the hope of honour or reward, 
 too often reaps nothing but misery for his labour. 
 
64 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PERSONALITIES. 
 
 One of the best arguments against personalities is 
 that brought forward by Ai-chbishop Tillotson. His 
 Grace wisely holds up for imitation the prudent meek- 
 ness of St. Michael in his discussion with the devil; 
 and assures us, on the authority of St. Jude, that " he 
 durst not bring a railing accusation, because the devil 
 would have been too hard for him at railing, being 
 better skilled in that kind of weapon and more expert 
 at that kind of dispute." 
 
 The success of a mere personal satire is the vulgarest 
 of triumphs. It places a writer on a bad eminence, 
 •where no gentleman would condescend to remain. 
 Solomon says, that oppression makes wise men mad. 
 Wise men, therefore, have been personal satirists ; but 
 to have written one line of personal satire, is a mistake 
 that a good man who had been goaded into it would 
 be the first to regret, and it is one of which a scholar 
 would be ashamed. The vulgar-minded only admire 
 such things. Their appetite for satire is as depraved 
 as their appetite for pickles. Nothing marks the 
 booby more certainly than a sneer. Men of sense 
 despise personal censures, and for very sufficient 
 reasons. A. says that B. is a bad man; this, if true, is 
 tolerably well known to all whom it may concern. 
 
PERSONALITIES. 65 
 
 Why trouble the world about B.'s backslidings ? He is 
 probably no worse than a great many other people. C, 
 if judged sternly, is likewise a bad man. We have no 
 right to estimate people by too high a standard, and 
 then grow angry when they fall below it. A., the 
 censor, also must know himself to be a bad man, 
 whereas he is perhaps accusing B. or C. from mere 
 hearsay and the interested scandals of enemies. A. 
 must know himself to be a bad man, because, if he 
 knows anything, he must be aware that he is disobeying 
 the express command of God, — " Judge not, that ye be 
 not judged." He must also know the penalty of dis- 
 obedience to this mandate, — " For with what judgment 
 ye judge, ye shall be judged." We are bid not to pass 
 sentence upon each other, because we are incapable of 
 doing so with justice. No man is able to see into the 
 heart of another, or to judge him aright. Therefore 
 the command, like all those that were given us by the 
 Divine Master, is at once pious and politic. It points 
 the way to heaven through the gardens and pleasant 
 places of the world. 
 
 As for retribution, no man can feast on vengeance 
 with impunity. Wrong and injustice, also, are so 
 general as to be almost the conditions of life. We are 
 constantly made to understand the nothingness of those 
 worldly advantages which we can but enjoy for a day 
 and a night, and a night and a day. Reflection makes 
 us indifferent to the baubles which are generally 
 snatched by the worthless, and are valueless for any 
 good purpose when obtained. We see that nothing 
 need really be desired but health, strength,, and sense. 
 
 F 
 
66 PERSONALITIES. 
 
 "Why battle for more ? Why care if everything else is 
 vrithheld or torn from us ? 
 
 Personalities commonly betoken anger; but a man 
 with even moderate powers of mind will soon learn to 
 look upon the world with very different feelings from 
 those of animosity. He will pity evil-doers too ten- 
 derly and regretfully to be offended at them. He 
 will know that the worst part of mankind is seldom 
 intentionally malignant, that it is merely thoughtless 
 and ignorant ; and there is hardly any conceivable occur- 
 rence in human affairs which will disturb his equanimity 
 or lessen his benevolence. 
 
 Attacks upon private character, upon private grounds, 
 are improper in every case. No one has a right to 
 ransack the secret habits of any man, and hold them up 
 to public view. To publish even his concealed vices, is 
 an injury done to him and to society. Still more does 
 this remark apply to his frailties and eccentricities. 
 
 In public life, all who have watched political discus- 
 sions, are aware that harsh language is the source of 
 half the difficulties which stand in the way of reforms. 
 
 Fox, who was the most consummate master of debate 
 ever known in England, carried to the highest pitch the 
 art of avoiding everything which might irritate his op- 
 ponents. In his most animated moments, he was always 
 master of himself, and never wanting in a scrupulous 
 regard to politeness. Indeed, there is no secret of 
 eloquence more persuasive than benevolence. A really 
 able and experienced man will always take care to show 
 himself modest in his superiority, and generous in his 
 strength. 
 
PERSONALITIBS. 67 
 
 Personalities are contemptible, both, as a sign of awk- 
 wardnesSj and a sign of weakness. They may as easily 
 be employed in the worst cause as in the best. To 
 have them at command demands neither labour nor 
 intellect. They are only convenient to those who desire 
 to speak without the power of thinking. They place 
 ignorance and industry, genius and folly, on a par in 
 •the contest. They prove nothing whatever. 
 
 A man may be told of his mistakes, errors, and 
 misrepresentations, without one word inculpating his 
 motives. Politeness is the chivalry of debate. It by no 
 means prevents those who prastise it from unhorsing 
 an antagonist, and cleaving him to the chin ; it merely 
 enjoins them a lofty and effective courtesy for their 
 own sakes. A little prancing and capering round the 
 lists merely puts a weU-bred destrier in good temper 
 and in good mettle. ,It wins the smiles of the fair, and 
 the homage of the crowd. 
 
 The most sharp and energetic denunciation may be 
 applied to measures and opinions. It may be shown 
 that they tend to establish tyranny or anarchy j but 
 there should be no imputation that anybody foresaw 
 or designed such consequences. This is, indeed, but 
 just. It is difficult even to know our own true and 
 secret motives. There is temerity in pretending to 
 develop those of others. From our own experience, we 
 ought to know how easy it is to be deceived. The 
 complimentary epithets bandied about between Mem- 
 bers of Parliament, and which sometimes make us 
 smile, were, therefore, very wise inventions. The ob- 
 servation of such rules, when argument grows warm^ 
 
 r3 
 
68 PERSONALITIES. 
 
 requires an effort ; but this very circurastance proves 
 that it is necessary. 
 
 Politeness is especially conformable with prudence, 
 and anxiety for the success of the cause advocated by it. 
 If an antagonist is in error, he may receive the truth 
 if skilfully presented to him ; but if his motives are 
 impugned, he is offended and provoked. He no longer 
 possesses the quiet of mind necessary for reasoning and 
 attention. He becomes heated ; the fire communicates 
 from one to another; his friends make common cause 
 with him, and resentments which are prolonged for a 
 lifetime carry into political opposition all the asperity 
 of private quarrels. Personalities are disastrous to any 
 cause ; they make it enemies too many and too fierce. 
 It is not enough for a sensible man to exclude mere 
 personalities from his speech and writing; he should 
 scrupulously guard against all violent and bitter ex- 
 pressions as signs of clumsiness, still more than as signs 
 of ill-temper. Perfect good-humour is an indispensable 
 to useful discussion, and to the complete freedom of 
 opinion. 
 
 Nevertheless, personalities of a certain kind are not 
 only justifiable, but necessary. All private considera- 
 tions must yield to public duty. If the principle were 
 once admitted that no man was personally responsible 
 for his acts, delinquents of all kinds would have a claim 
 to shelter themselves from public scorn. It would 
 avail nothing to expose crime or folly, if the guilty and 
 the ignorant reaped nothing but reward from them. 
 A fraudulent trustee might say, " Stop, my Lord Chan- 
 cellor, you and your court may decide as you please on 
 
?ERSONALITIES. 69 
 
 the abstract question of breaches of trust. I have no 
 objection in the world to your so doing. Severity to one 
 in such cases is mercy to many ; it is highly laudable. 
 But you must not censure me; for that would be in- 
 dulging in offensive personality. The principle on 
 which I have acted is wrong, I grant; but I am a 
 person. The laws of society grant me complete in- 
 demnity from the consequences of my misconduct. A 
 person is like a king, he can do no wrong. Confine 
 your attention, if you please, to principles.^' 
 
 This is no fanciful possibility. Criminals of the 
 worst kind actually have endeavoured to escape punish- 
 ment by such means. The 2nd of September, 1730, 
 \ras a sad day in England. The great South-Sea 
 bubble had just burst. In vain the Duke of Portland 
 tried to console the frantic dupes. In vain Mr. Hun- 
 gerfordj a highly-respected public thief of the period, 
 made a magniloquent speech in the House of Com- 
 mons, in defence of swindling. In vain Mr. Secretary 
 Craggs praised the conduct of fraudulent directors. 
 It was very well known that Sir John Blunt, with the 
 most wily of his accomplices, had sold out his stock ; 
 and every fool who had aspired to be a knave was 
 ruined. The ciphering cits, whose upstart pride and 
 profusion had disgusted Steele, were aghast. In the 
 space of eight short months had been seen the rise, 
 progress, and fall of a mighty commercial fabric, which, 
 being wound up by mysterious springs to a wonderful 
 height, had fixed the eyes and expectations of all 
 Europe; but which fell to the ground, because its 
 foundations were laid in illusion and credulity. 
 
70 PERSONALITIES. 
 
 The very name of a Soutt-Sea director was synony- 
 mous with that of robber. Blunt, Craggs, Aislabie, 
 Stanhope, Janseen, Sawbridge, and Eyles, were exe- 
 crated by the whole nation. Craggs, who was a Secre- 
 tary of State ; and Aislabie, who was Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, were the most deeply implicated. 
 
 Under these circumstances, Mr. Shippen accused 
 Craggs in the House of Commons ; Craggs retorted 
 with a ridiculous charge of personalities, and, according 
 to the custom of the time, offered to fight the Parlia- 
 ment. This was, however, too much for the generation 
 which gave birth to Mohun, and the cunning bully was 
 obliged to apologize. 
 
 Had he lived in our day, he would have escaped. 
 Walpole, and the seventeen peers who had spoken 
 against the national madness, were all of them marked 
 men. Had Mr. Secretary Craggs, therefore, lived in 
 our time, he might have accused Cowper, Sunderland, 
 North, or Wharton, of having lampooned him, and 
 there would have been an end of it. The torrent of 
 public indignation would at once have been arrested, 
 if he had only boldly asserted that Walpole was the 
 anonymous author of the " South-Sea Ballad" which 
 was being sung about the streets, or that he had " fur- 
 nished" matter for some squib about the " Globe 
 Permits," or suggested the South-Sea playing-cards. 
 If Mr. Secretary Craggs had not liked to attack men 
 so powerful as Walpole and the peers, he need only 
 have fixed on Mr. Trenchard, a petty ofiicial in Ireland, 
 as the author of Cato^s Letters, and he would have been 
 
PERSONALITIES. 71 
 
 exonerated : the ruin and disgrace would have fallen 
 on his accuser. 
 
 As an official malefactor, he might then have safely 
 sneered at the resentment of the people ; and he would 
 have been obsequiously allowed to screen himself by a 
 stratagem which no defendant in any other country or 
 circumstances in the world could employ with the 
 smallest chance of success. 
 
 Long after the widow-and-orphan plunderer Craggs 
 had paid the penalty of his rascality, persons had the 
 effrontery to complain against reports of judicial pro- 
 ceedings as libellous ; but, at last, Lord Ellenborough 
 set this question at rest (Rex v. Fisher), by deciding 
 that " the benefit they produce is great and permanent ; 
 the evil that arises from them is rare and accidental.^' 
 No man can reasonably feel surprise that he is per- 
 sonally accused, for public objects, of public misdeeds 
 that can be fairly proved against him. " Measures, not 
 men," is but the common cant of affected moderation ; 
 a counterfeit language fabricated by knaves for the use 
 of fools. How can measures and men be separated ? 
 "What is the use of attacking measures, if those who 
 advise and those who execute them are never to reap 
 anything but advantage from folly and misconduct ? 
 
 This argument indeed may be easily translated into 
 plain English. Attack abuses, but do not attack those 
 who batten on them. Express your horror of crime, 
 but compliment the criminal. Let every one profit by 
 the worst corruptions, as long as possible, in perfect 
 honour and security. All censures are admissible but 
 
72 PERSONALITIES. 
 
 those only which are of any use. Anything may be 
 asked but the one thing wanted — Reform. This is an 
 excellent and charming theory, only it is impracticable. 
 To reform and not to chastise is, unhappily, impos- 
 sible. To attack evils in the abstract, without touching 
 persons, may be safe fighting, indeed ; but it is fighting 
 with shadows. The fact is, whenever men's interests 
 are attacked, their resentment is certain. A sure way 
 is found to blacken the opponent of every species of 
 evil, and so to shift the argument, if possible, from 
 the real point at issue. Persons whose conduct cannot 
 be defended are fond of retorting on their censors with 
 a flat general charge of scurrility and falsehood. This 
 is an ingenious device, by which guilt, with the utmost 
 effrontery, appeals for aid to some of the best sym- 
 pathies of human nature. But any power or society 
 which constitutes itself the protector of men who 
 merely add cunning to crime, is false to its highest 
 duties, and abuses its influence. 
 
 It is very easy for a man to cry out he has been 
 defamed. The question to be considered is whether he 
 has been rightfully or wrongfully defamed. We should 
 carefully ascertain whether any expressions a writer 
 may have used are open to just exception. Whether 
 they are really malicious and improper, or whether 
 they have been falsely represented to be so. Not only 
 should we learn whether the conduct of the accused 
 has been described in harsh language, but, also, whether 
 it merited to be so described. Criminals are always 
 averse to having their crimes called by right names.. 
 An adulterer likes to be called a man of gallantry, and 
 
PERSONALITIES. 73 
 
 a stock-jobber a man of business; but adultery- 
 is not gallantry, and stock -jobbing is not honest 
 business. 
 
 The matter, therefore, at issue is, Shall we squeamishly 
 stand up in defence of corrupt people, and punish all 
 who call them to account for the general "good ? Shall 
 we suffer punishment to fall on criminals or on their 
 accusers? Political invective and public censure must 
 be nicely distinguished from personal insult, or a great 
 many wrongs might be inflicted with impunity. 
 
 Individuals among us are representatives of political 
 opinions ; and all our political publications are necessarily 
 filled with personalities. No single writer amongst us 
 is free from them. These personalities, however, are 
 not the arms of private malice, but the fair and legiti- 
 mate weapons of political warfare, without which no 
 public evil could be attacked at all. They are the 
 weapons which Englishmen, and emphatically English 
 gentlemen, have now used for two centuries to maintain 
 their opinions and assert their rights. Did the fiercest 
 satirist ever use language harsher than that which 
 daily passes unchallenged at the hustings, in the House 
 of Commons, and at the bar ? If any one in authority 
 be enamoured of gentle words, let him give us the 
 advantage of his example in the next debate with the 
 Opposition. Let the private secretaries of ministers be 
 instructed to order the editors of ministerial papers to 
 omit every word that can offend the gentlemen of the 
 Administrative Reform Association. Everybody would 
 then be on equal terms. It cannot be expected, however, 
 that the Opposition will leave them all the lively airs. 
 
74 PERSONALITIES. 
 
 set their own political anthems to the melodies of 
 Sternhold and Hopkins. 
 
 A vast concern is constantly expressed for the liberty 
 of the Press, and the utmost abhorrence for its licen- 
 tiousness. But by the licentiousness of the Press is 
 meant every disclosure by which any abuse is brought 
 to light, and exposed to shame. By the liberty of the 
 Press is meant only publications from which no such 
 inconvenience is to be apprehended. A sham approba- 
 tion of liberty is employed as a mask for real opposition 
 to all free discussion. To write so ill that nobody will 
 read ; to censure evils in terms so weak that no hatred 
 is excited against them, this is liberty ; — to write boldly 
 and well ; to strike terror into the guilty ; to rouse the 
 attention of the public to the defence of their highest 
 interests, this is license. This is the crime which is 
 punished by timid and corrupt rulers with the greatest 
 severity they still dare to inflict. 
 
 Whoever writes or speaks in a plain straightforward 
 manner, is immediately hunted down with the crv 
 that " He has gone too far." Nothing is more absurd 
 than this charge, which is always brought against sin- 
 cerity. It is bandied about also by the oddest people ; 
 even Jeffrey taunted his colleagues with it. But if 
 every man who attempts to do a public service is to be 
 hooted at under the pretence that he has gone too far^ 
 perhaps some gentlemen jobbers will kindly state how 
 far a man may go on the right road before he reaches 
 the wrong one. Is it when he goes too near the goal, 
 and puts their spoil in peril ? Every hearty writer has 
 gone too far to please . bigots and cowards. Swift, 
 
PERSONALITIES. 75 
 
 whose perception was peculiarly keen, saw througli this 
 trick at once, and appealed to public prudence for 
 protection. 
 
 " If not quite lost to common sense, 
 Assist your patriot in your own defence ; 
 That stupid cant — ' He went too far ' ilespise, 
 And learn that to be brave is to be wise." 
 
 Many of those who are so ready to condemn a writer 
 for a careless or inadvertent expression uttered in the 
 height of his zeal for a good cause, do not even trouble 
 themselves to read the book they condemn. They 
 condemn it on the authority of others who have not 
 read it. No terms can be held to please presumption 
 and ignorance like this. 
 
 Let it not be said that reflections on the conduct of 
 official men are a persecution and an annoyance, to 
 which an honourable man ought not to be exposed. 
 A notion to any such effect can hardly be advanced 
 with a grave face. Censure is a tax upon eminence, 
 and exposure to even unjust imputations the inevitable 
 appendage of office. If men were pressed into office 
 without reward, they might have some ground for 
 complaint at its inconvenience : but they choose their 
 own service. It belongs to the nation to dictate the 
 conditions on which they can safely be permitted to 
 rule it. A butler does not think himself aggrieved 
 because, from time to time, his master goes over the 
 family plate. Honest men have no absurd sensitive- 
 ness of this kind ; they would rather have their conduct 
 exposed to inquiry than otherwise, because they are 
 then certain to reap the reward of virtue. 
 
76 PERSONALITIES. 
 
 The man who will not accept au office but on con- 
 dition that his conduct in it shall remain exempt from 
 all imputation, cannot intend that his conduct sliall 
 be what it ought to be. He is at heart a tyrant ; he 
 wants nothing but the power to glut himself or his 
 parasites with public spoil in security ; to commit any 
 evil he pleases for his and their advantage, without 
 incurring the responsibility of the worst steps which 
 it may suit his caprice to take. 
 
 It is, therefore, of most dangerous example, and of 
 most corrupting tendency, ever to commit unobserved 
 power to public men, or to let their faults pass uncensured. 
 The errors and crimes which involve the interests of 
 millions, cannot claim from charity, worthy of its name, 
 the same indulgence which may be gracefully accorded 
 to the frailties of private men, whose transgressions 
 commonly only injure themselves. 
 
 It would be doubtless an excellent thing indeed, if 
 we could invent a machine which would inflict wounds 
 severe enough to defend us, and heal them when our 
 danger was past j but no man, since the time of Telephus, 
 has been able to do this. He died, and his invention 
 appears to have been buried with him. 
 
 As long as there are such things as printing and 
 writing, there will be libels. It is an evil arising out 
 of a much greater good. 
 
 Even perfect impartiality in discussion is inconsistent 
 with the advocacy of any cause or the conduct of any 
 controversy. If exacted, it would convert every argu- 
 ment into a mere dry and naked summing up of 
 evidence, with far less leaning towards either side 
 
PERSONALITIES. 11 
 
 than most judges show in their observations from 
 the bench. 
 
 It is necessary to strike on one side or the other. 
 A person praised the impartiality of Johnson in the 
 speeches he wrote for the House of Commons, and said 
 that he had dealt out reason and eloquence with an 
 equal hand to both parties. " That is not quite true, 
 sir," said the Doctor j "I saved appearances well 
 enough, but I took care that the Whig dogs should not 
 have the best of it." 
 
 As to party censures and misrepresentations like 
 this, they must be borne patiently. They are in- 
 evitable in all countries where the Press is free. 
 They can only be corrected by the gradual improve- 
 ment of public taste and the growth of political 
 honesty. 
 
 A truly great statesman can well afford to smile at 
 mere jibes. There was a dispute at a dinner at Lord 
 TankerviUe's, between Burke and Fox, as to who had 
 been oftenest the subject of caricatures. Burke carried 
 it. He then detailed the lampoons which had been 
 published against him so humorously as to keep the 
 table in continual laughter. " My dear Doctor," also 
 said Johnson to Goldsmith, very sensibly, " what harm 
 does it do any man to call him Holofernes ? " "I 
 should," observed Franklin, when abused by the syco- 
 phants of power in his day, ''think myself meaner than 
 I have been described, if anything from such a source 
 could trouble me." 
 
 Every prudent politician has held the same opinions. 
 Sidney Smith exhausted the keenest ridicule on Lord 
 
78 PERSONALITIES. 
 
 John Russell, and Lord John wished to make a prelate 
 of him. 
 
 Lastly, it may console the worst public men, to 
 reflect that they can scarcely commit any crime with- 
 out supporters and defenders. " Far be it from me," 
 said Lord Thurlow, with a dry wit exquisitely pungent, 
 ''to express any blame of any official person, whatever 
 may be my opinion, for that I well know would lay 
 me open to hear his panegyric." 
 
 No respectable publisher would now print a scur- 
 rilous lampoon; but ideas as to what constitutes a 
 lampoon dificr widely. The only redress against a 
 fraud for which the law has made no provision, is the 
 exposure of it ; and we cannot safely allow a public 
 man to escape censure by the artful trick of branding 
 with disgrace the denouncer of his crime. 
 
 It is a lampoon to say of a public man that he has 
 bandy legs, or that he has too much stomach, because 
 such imputations can tend to no purpose but to cause 
 private pain. It is not, however, a lampoon to say that 
 any man's political conduct is improper, and to point 
 out why it is so, whatever the cause may be ; for by so 
 doing a public good is obtained, against which no man's 
 mortification can for an instant be weighed. Even 
 personal defects may be mentioned, if, by reason of such 
 defects, a public man is rendered unfit for his duties. 
 If an overseer had become blind, if a judge had grown 
 deaf, it would not be indecorous or unfeeling to mention 
 even circumstances so distressing, if the persons suffering 
 from such absolute disqualifications insisted on retain- 
 ing their places to the injury of the public service. It 
 
PERSONALITIES. 79 
 
 would be perfectly proper to say that a man got drunk, 
 if when drunk he could or would not perform his public 
 duties. A magistrate who appeared drunk upon the 
 bench would be a scourge of society ; his dismissal on 
 such grounds would become necessary to the happiness 
 of thousands. 
 
 The general rule is clear. The feelings and interests 
 of individuals must always be sacrificed, if the sacrifice 
 be necessary for the benefit of the community. 
 
 Junius was guilty of a low lampoon in writing that the 
 Duke of Bedford ill-treated his son ; but it was no lam- 
 poon to comment on the general report that his grace 
 had been bribed by the French court to negotiate the 
 peace of 1763. Lord Granby's mismanagement of 
 army patronage ought to have been sternly exposed. 
 He indulged his whims and caprices, his likes and his dis- 
 likes, at the expense of the state ; he paid private ser- 
 vices by salaries taken out of the public purse ; he was 
 ignorant and short-sighted ; he neither understood the 
 interests of his party nor the means by which his own 
 reputation could be honourably secured. This might 
 be easily proved. If the real strength of any govern- 
 ment is closely examined, it will be found to consist 
 mainly in the reputation of the able men who belong 
 to it. Lord Granby neglected able men, and misapplied 
 the honours and emoluments of the state for the gratifi- 
 cation of his friends. What could be said, therefore, 
 of the prudence or honesty of a minister who acted 
 thus ; who now and then, indeed, bought up at any 
 price some mouldy influence defunct half a century 
 before, and insulted those who had created a living 
 
"80 
 
 PERSONALITIES. 
 
 influence on the times? But the errors of Lord 
 Granby's youth ought never to have been made public, 
 because the public were not afi'ected by them. The 
 Duke of Grafton's intrigue with Nancy Parsons, also, 
 was an affair for society and his grace's own conscience, 
 not for a newspaper. But there was good reason to 
 inquire why he bestowed a pension of five hundred 
 pounds public money on Sir John Moore. It was mere 
 vulgar insolence to speak of Mr. Bradshaw as a " cream- 
 coloured parasite;" but his secret dealings with Lord 
 Bute were justly open to animadversion. The anti- 
 jacobin ought never to have invaded Fox's retirement 
 at St. Anne's Hill with coarse buffooneries; but his 
 doings in Ireland and his connection with the Prince of 
 Wales were fair game. There was much in Mr. Canning 
 open to objection ; but we ought never to have heard of 
 his relations coming to London by the waggon. The 
 smallness of Mr. Sturges Bourne and the price he paid 
 for Moulsham Hall should never have furnished occa- 
 sion for comment. Writers who indulge in scandals of 
 this kind commit, moreover, a very notable error in 
 judgment. They must be ill acquainted with the cha- 
 racter of Englishmen ; they must be ignorant of the 
 first principles and noblest duties of their art, if they 
 outrage the sanctity of private life. It is astonishing, 
 nevertheless, to mark how silly people will go in search 
 of a lashing, and how loudly they cry out when they are 
 hit. It is positively painful to think how the brilliant and 
 genial mind of Sheridan must have been tortured before 
 he could have found gall enough to write the " School 
 for Scandal." Poor fellow; he was so provoked as 
 
PERSONALITIES. 81 
 
 even to put malice into the sweet lips of Lady Teazle. 
 It would be well if the aggressors in society would 
 remember that authors are not like so many sandal- 
 wood-trees. They cannot always give a perfume to the 
 axe that smites them. 
 
 The just limit between political and private censure 
 is now far better drawn than in the time when courts 
 of justice had not deigned to acknowledge the theoreti- 
 cal liberty of the PresSj and no writer except of the 
 most broken reputation, could venture on the calumnies 
 which passed tmcensured a generation ago. With 
 respect to the trumpery complaint of the increasing 
 licentiousness of the Press, it is almost as old as the 
 Press itselfj and it is utterly groundless. The sup- 
 porters of Pelham and Walpole, though professedly 
 Whigs, cried out against the liberty of the Press, as 
 tending to produce insubordination and republicanism ; 
 yet at this time the principles of constitutional monar- 
 chy are more firmly rooted in England than ever, and 
 we have no riots which cannot be quelled by a few 
 special constables. These and similar assertions, how- 
 ever, are systematically made by jobbers, to create 
 alarm among the aristocratical classes, and furnish 
 specious pleas against the redress of abuses. The Press 
 in England is supposed to be free, and it undoubtedly 
 grows daily more Conservative in its tendency. We have 
 no living writer like Peter Pindar. There is no existing 
 newspaper conducted with the mingled acrimony and 
 ability of the old Chronicle, or the Examiner. There 
 is no modern representative of the Edinburgh Review 
 of half a century ago. It is certain that the Press was 
 
 G 
 
82 PERSONALITIES. 
 
 never so temperate as it is now. To assert that it is 
 becoming audacious and unscrupulous in its attacks^ is 
 merely a convenient fallacy, employed to draw inquiry 
 from the improper proceedings of those who use it. 
 The writers of former times were certainly not so 
 measured in their language, or so guarded in their 
 topics, as those of our own age. They inveighed 
 against the government with all the force of passion. 
 They stung it with the sharpest shafts of satire. 
 Writers who had great names to injure and to lose, 
 suffered themselves to be hurried away in the heat of 
 their invective into the most indefensible personalities. 
 The highest ornaments of English literature have 
 indulged in effusions for which, by the law of libel, 
 they might have been ignominiously punished. 
 Heaven forbid that they should have any imitators 
 in our day ! But Tadpole and Taper would be startled 
 if they knew that the crime for which they would be 
 wilhng to award a disgraceful penalty was the passport 
 to that immortality by which the names of Dryden, 
 Pope, and Swift, continue to live familiar amongst us. 
 
 It is remarkable, even, that their very best writings 
 invariably contain matter consolatory to our desponding 
 countrymen, who look upon libellous writings as the 
 appointed sin of our own day. 
 
 Among the most respectable of our writers is Alex- 
 ander Pope. He was President of the Republic of 
 Letters in the Augustan age of England. Let any one 
 take up the prologue to the Satires, and read his highly- 
 finished character of a nobleman, an avowed favourite 
 at court, who held the high offices of Privy Seal and Vice- 
 
PERSONALITIES. 83 
 
 Chamberlain. The first part is too coarse for re-produc- 
 tion. Let us take the concluding lines. The Poet of 
 Reason calls the nobleman "an amphibious thing, a 
 trifler, a fop, a flatterer. He is effeminate, corrupt, 
 vain-glorious. He resembles the Devil whom the Rab- 
 bins say tempted Eve; for he has the face of a cherub, 
 and the body of a reptile. His beauty is such as shocks 
 the beholder ; his wit is mean ; his pride licks the dust. 
 Nobody will trust him." 
 
 The Moral Essays are almost entirely made up of 
 such characters affixed to persons either living or 
 recently deceased, and they are unquestionably among 
 the first productions of the master. It would be super- 
 fluous to cite the black sketch of Wharton. 
 
 Swift, who was a churchman, holding government 
 preferment, thus introduces to us one of the most pro- 
 minent men of his time : — " Thomas, Earl of Wharton, 
 Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, by the force of a wonderful 
 constitution, hath passed some years his grand climac- 
 teric without any visible efliect of old age on his body 
 or on his mind, and in spite of a continual prostitu- 
 tion to those vices which usually wear out both." The 
 rest of the picture is a faithful filling up of this outline. 
 
 In a tract, entitled " A Short View of Ireland," he 
 says that Lord Chief Justice Whitshed is a perjured 
 traitor. In a subsequent publication, he defends him- 
 self from a charge, which had, it seems, been made 
 against him, of having treated the Chief Justice with 
 " an appearance of severity," by saying that " he lays 
 it down for a postulatum which will be universally 
 granted, that no little creature of so mean a birth and 
 
 g3 
 
84 PERSONALITIES. 
 
 genius had ever the honour to be a greater enemy to his 
 country and to all kinds of virtue." He also attacked 
 Dr. Heruig, a court chaplain, afterwards Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, for preaching against the Beggars' Opera, 
 in Lincoln's Inn, and affirms that the play will do more 
 good than a thousand sermons, from so stupid, so 
 injudicious, and so prostitute, a divine. 
 
 In " Gulliver's Travels" the description of the House 
 of Lords is not quotable. "Drapier's Letters" were 
 prosecuted. The pamphlet on the "Public Spirit of 
 the Whigs " was complained of by all the Scotch peers, 
 and a reward was oifered for the discovery of its author. 
 
 Of the tone in which the Examiner was con- 
 ducted by Swift, Bolingbroke, and the rest of the Tory 
 wits, we may learn from the language used about the 
 Duchess of Marlborough — " Insolent woman ; the 
 worst of her sex ; a fury ; an executioner of divine 
 vengeance ; and a plague." 
 
 It would be endless to speak of Dryden. His most 
 perfect and original poem of any length, the " Absalom 
 and Achitophel," is one deep and rapid torrent of the 
 most vehement invective. The sketch of a Whig poet, 
 by the laureate, is also noticeable. " Readers are re- 
 quested to stop their noses at his approach. He is a 
 ton of midnight work. His name is Og. He passes 
 his time in treason taverns. He is bulky, but there is 
 nothing lost in him, for every inch that is not fool is 
 rogue. He is a monstrous mass of foul corrupted 
 matter, as all the devils had spewed to make his batter. 
 He curses God whenever wine has given him courage 
 to blaspheme. He has reason to do so if man can have 
 
PERSONALITIES. 85 
 
 reason^ for he is oppressed by Heaven with a rich paunch 
 and a poor pocket. Heaven would not trust him with 
 wealth, because Heaven had learned, in old time, what 
 ii was to pamper a Jew, and, 
 
 " To what would he on qaail and pheasant swell, 
 That even on tripe and carrion could rebel." 
 
 A most courtier-like efifusion certainly ! 
 
 The best of Dr. Johnson's poems are, perhaps, the 
 Imitations of Juvenal. "London" is throughout a 
 piece of sneering at the government ; abuse of its un- 
 willingness to break the peace with Spain; and praise 
 of happier times, before " excise oppressed, or English 
 honour grew a standing jest." It attacks the Parlia- 
 ment, the courts of justice, special juries, and paid spies. 
 
 Let no one think that these were merely expressions 
 which slipped from the great moralist's pen in the imma- 
 turity of his intellect. His greatest and most elaborate 
 work, the Dictionary, was published while the ferments 
 that attended the excise scheme of Walpole were fresh 
 in every one's recollection. He therefore defines the 
 excise as " a hateful tax levied upon commodities, and 
 adjudged, not by the common judges of property, but 
 by wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid." 
 Subsequently in the Idler (No. 65), he describes a 
 commissioner of excise as " one of the two lowest of all 
 human beings." Boswell tells us that the Board laid 
 a case before the Attorney-General for his opinion. 
 He deemed it libellous, but advised the "honourable 
 commissioners to take no further steps." The olfice of 
 Attorney- General was then filled by a wise and great 
 man. It was Lord Mansfield. 
 
86 PERSONALITIES. 
 
 From Jolinson the transition is easy to his friend and 
 contemporary Edmund Burke. Let us examine his 
 famous " Thoughts on the Causes of the Present Dis- 
 contents." It is from beginning to end a fierce attack 
 on the ruling powers. He describes the ministers as 
 knots or cabals of men, who have got together, avowedly 
 without any public principle, in order to sell their con- 
 joint iniquity at the highest rate, and are therefore 
 universally odious. The favourites he compares " to 
 Janissaries, who derive a kind of freedom from the 
 very condition of their servitude, act just as they please, 
 provided they are true to the ruling principle of their 
 institution, and carry themselves with a lofty air to the 
 exterior ministry." He then sums up the effects produced 
 on parliament by " this unnatural infusion of a system 
 of favouritism into a popular government, and breaks 
 forth into that famous description of the state of the 
 House of Commons and of its duties. To these abuses 
 Burke ascribes " the present discontents.'' The Govern- 
 ment, however, persevered, the Parliament continued 
 lethargic. They were awakened by a war and the loss 
 of thirteen colonies. A few years afterwards a quiet 
 gentleman was seen about London, and he was ambas-' 
 sador for the United States of North America. 
 
 Burke's attack on Paul Benfield, and his allusion to 
 that person's connection with Mr. Pitt, are well known. 
 He calls Benfield " a criminal who ought long since to 
 have fattened the region kites with his offal." To go 
 back before the time of Anne, it is enough to say that 
 E/Ochester's libel on Charles II. is too foul for descrip- 
 tion. To come nearer to our own time, who is not 
 
PEKSONALITIES. 87 
 
 familiar with the tremendous things of the " Political 
 Register," the "Rolliad," and the " Antijacobin." The 
 grave also has but just closed over one whose great and 
 beloved name will always be associated with some of 
 the severest personal satires in our language. Stern 
 truths cannot he spoken in honeyed words. 
 
 The highest kind of satire belongs to the highest 
 kind of poetry. Isaiah and Jeremiah were satirists. 
 St. Paul was eminently a satirist. A great satirist must 
 be a kind man, or how should he sympathize with 
 public suffering? He must be a good man, or how 
 should he be able to excite indignation against evil? 
 He must be a man of high aspirings, for he will hardly 
 serve any personal object by satire. Voltaire, Rousseau, 
 Cowper, Crabbe, Byron, Jeffrey, Giffard, were all sati- 
 rists ; and in our own time, what must we call Macaulay, 
 Brougham, Playfair, and Hazlitt ? 
 
 How can the charge of severity be avoided. No one 
 will accuse Maria Edgeworth of virulence in her writings. 
 She was assuredly no ferocious calumniator. That 
 admirably balanced mind, that sweet and temperate 
 nature, never indulged one hateful thought. Yet the 
 gentle author of the Moral Tales gives us, in one of the 
 best novels we possess, a conversation well worth re- 
 cording for its homely good sense : — 
 
 " Frankly and sincerely," said Mr. Percy, " I detest 
 and despise the whole system of patronage." 
 
 " That's very strong," said Mr. Falconer ; " and I 
 am glad, for your sake and for the sake of your family, 
 that nobody heard it but myself." 
 
 " If the whole world heard me," pursued Mr. Percy, 
 
88 PERSONALITIES. 
 
 " I should say just the same. Strong, very strong ! I 
 am glad of it ; for (excuse me, you are my relation, 
 and we are on terms of familiarity) the delicate, 
 guarded, qualifying, trimming, mincing, pouncet-box, 
 gentleman-usher mode of speaking truth makes no sort 
 of impression. Truth should always be strong, speak- 
 ing or acting." 
 
 One word more. Personalities have frequently taken 
 the form of ridicule ; and ridicule has been called the 
 test of truth. It is not, however, by any means the 
 test of truth; but it is a fortunate circumstance for 
 mankind, that those who have no fear of anything else 
 may be reached by it. Ridicule is harmless when it 
 offers no offence to public morals, when it betrays 
 no confidence, insults no hearth, and keeps strictly 
 within its province. A little laughter does foolish 
 people more good than all the arguments in the world. 
 They cannot understand when they are outargued; 
 but their irritability soon shows that they know when 
 they have become the object of universal derision. 
 
 A great deal has been said of the illiberahty of 
 ridicule ; but it is the proper weapon against folly, 
 as satire is the proper weapon against vice. It is not 
 needed, indeed, to recommend truth to wise men, but 
 to scare away rogues by a view of the stocks. It con- 
 founds fools, and destroys their prejudices. As their 
 prejudices are very dear to them, they grow angry, but 
 they are convinced for all that. The lancet is not 
 needed for the healthy, but for the ulcered : — " Riden- 
 tem dicere verum quid vetat V We may laugh without 
 bitterness. There has been a mirth and playfulness in 
 
PERSONALITIES. 89 
 
 the best of men, — in Phocion, in Socrates, in Luther, 
 in Sir Thomas More. Those who have been the richest 
 in wit and humour have also been the simplest and 
 kindest-hearted. Such were Fuller, Bishop Earle, La 
 Fontaine, Matthes Claudius, Charles Lamb, and a host 
 of others. " Le mechant," says De Maistre, shrewdly, 
 " n'est jamais comique, le vrai comique n'est jamais 
 mechant." No one need wear a perpetual frown 
 because he is in earnest. Plato sported with truth, 
 and made it lovelier ; so did Cervantes and Shak- 
 speare. A laugh is perfectly consistent with the 
 deepest feeling. Men sometimes smile because they 
 will not weep ; leaving those to hate them who are too 
 dull or too angry to answer smile for smile. Olivia 
 has told us why Malvolio disliked the clown. 
 
 The greatest students seem to have loved wit and 
 laughter as two of the sprightlier angels sent down 
 from heaven to reconcile men to life. Guilt only is 
 jealous of merriment, because it can so rarely learn to 
 smile. 
 
 " Grave with glad thoughts " is a phrase worthy of a 
 great poet. So were Boccacio, Chaucer, Goethe, Tieck, 
 and Scott. A man who has no humour in him has only 
 half a mind. But the pen that portrayed the desolation 
 of Lear, and the agony of Othello, gave us also the 
 infinite mirth of Falstaff, and the buffooneries of 
 Bottom. 
 
90 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 RECRIMINATIONS. 
 
 The licentiousness of recriminations has been always 
 studiously forgotten by those who cry out loudest 
 against the licentiousness of the Press ; yet the recri- 
 minations of evil-doers, whose guilt has been proven 
 by writers, have always been singularly ferocious and 
 impudent. They have pursued their ignoble vengeance 
 with shameless effrontery. Every device that low cun- 
 ning could hatch j every vile, sly trick that could be 
 planned by virulent malignity and irritated baseness, 
 has been infamously practised to draw public indigna- 
 tion from rascality to those who have exposed it. 
 
 These artifices have commonly succeeded, because 
 they have been unopposed. Society has been duped^ 
 because writers have sometimes bowed their heads for 
 ever beneath the calumnies which have assailed them, 
 and suffered in silence ; because they have sometimes 
 been too surprised or disheartened to reply, and be- 
 cause they have sometimes disdained to do so. They 
 have too often become unnerved and dejected, or 
 angry and bitter. The world, which is always right in 
 its instincts, has not been to blame. If writers supinely 
 allow the odium which naturally attaches to vice to be 
 fixed upon them without protest, they are not entitled 
 to complain that society, at last, believes them cul- 
 
RECRIMINATIONS. 91 
 
 pable, and punishes them with reluctant severity. 
 Their silent submission, and false pride, has too often 
 made them accomplices in their own ruin. But if 
 good men are condemned to the chastisement of the 
 worthless, it is only when they are too much shocked 
 and hurt to defend themselves against shameful accu- 
 sations. 
 
 The consequences of their silence, however, have been 
 often truly painful to themselves, and have stigmatized 
 mankind with undeserved opprobrium. At the sugges- 
 tion of vindictive and unscrupulous roguery, balked 
 of its nefarious gain, we have rewarded aU who have 
 spoken the truth to us with ostracism. We have done 
 our best to abase them. We have unblushingly joined 
 the harpy crew of wily sharpers who have tried to 
 break their hearts. 
 
 With strange imprudence we have leagued ourselves 
 with abuse-mongers and hooted at the projectors of 
 every reformation. We have made our noblest bene- 
 factors pass lives devoted to our service in disquiet and 
 in danger. We have bowed down all public spirit with 
 the heaviest penalties. A reward has been held out 
 to all who would tear down civil virtue and insult it. 
 Indiscretion has clutched at that reward ; but it might 
 have remembered the sheep who were cozened into 
 sending away their shepherds and their dogs, that they 
 might be devoured by the wolves at pleasure. 
 
 To attack any abuse, no matter how disgraceful, is 
 certain to secure a new lease for it. It is sure to de- 
 molish its opponent and to live on his spoils. His muti- 
 lated remains are used with brazen insolence to scare 
 
92 RECRIMINATIONS, 
 
 off others from the hive of corruption. The way to 
 truth grows at last like the path which led to the 
 dragon's den. Every step is strewed with the bones 
 of brave men, who have paid with their lives and fame 
 for their attempts to destroy a monster. 
 
 Let any writer boldly tear the veil from some foul 
 and festering public sore. From that moment he is 
 set upon, pulled in pieces, and hounded to his grave by 
 a scoundrel pack in full cry after him. They claim a 
 right to say what they please of him. They assume 
 a natural superiority over him. Being of different 
 opinion he is of an inferior species, and justly liable 
 to be tortured, worried, and harried like any other 
 vermin. They propagate any falsehoods about him 
 that suit their turn. The more barefaced the impo- 
 sition the more pious the fraud. He is a foe to abuses ! 
 That of itself implies all other crimes and misde- 
 meanours. It being granted that he has endeavoured 
 to do good in any direction, they have a clear right to 
 heap every outrage and indignity upon him. He 
 cannot complain of that which is no more than a 
 commutation of punishment. He is an enthusiast in 
 the cause of reason and progress : it follows that he 
 is a liar and a villain. He is against corruption : he 
 must therefore be a Ghoul. If it be once admitted 
 that he is a fearless writer of sense, spirit, and celebrity, 
 it results, as a matter of course, that he is of low life, 
 parentage, and education. Every miserable hireling 
 runs a-muck at him. Every goose cheers the truculent 
 scamp on. His mind and his morals are handed over 
 to some drunken anatomist to be dissected without 
 
KECRIMINATIONS. 93 
 
 mercyj like the body of a condemned malefactor. The 
 disproportion between facts and allegations only points 
 the moral more strongly against their victim. The 
 odiousness of his conduct in differing with power and 
 its sycophants is such that no colours can be black 
 enough to paint it. If he is not indeed guilty of all 
 the petty vices and absurdities imputed to him^ it is' 
 plain that he ought to be so as a fiction in loyalty, for 
 the credit of their opinions. He is a bad parasite ; he 
 connives but indifferently at a job. He is, therefore, 
 a bad writer and a bad man. He is entitled, in short, 
 neither to justice nor mercy. All who volunteer to 
 deprive him of his livelihood or his good name by any 
 means, however atrocious or dastardly, are at once 
 greeted with the warmest thanks and congratulations 
 of a large body of the most influential rogues in 
 the kingdom. The vocabulary of invective is copious ; 
 but those whose refinement is shocked by the licen- 
 tiousness of the Press are masters of its resources, 
 and the arts of recrimination have exhausted them all. 
 
 It is worthy of observation, that the bishop at whose 
 suggestion Burke was questioned about the authorship 
 of Junius, addressed the rising statesman in lan- 
 guage extraordinarily coarse and fierce. Lord Hills- 
 borough, also, who complained of the personalities of 
 Junius, called him " a wretched scribbler," " a worth- 
 less fellow," " a vile incendiary," " a false (!) liar," 
 "snarler," "contemptible thing," "abandoned tool," 
 " diabolical miscreant," " impudent scurrilous wretch," 
 " rascal," " scoundrel," " barking cur," " barking 
 animal," — arguments on a level with their politeness. 
 
94 RECRIMINATIONS. 
 
 Sir William Draper, who was a fair type of his class — 
 a stupid, well-meaning, imprudent man, called Junius 
 "viper," "monster," "ruffian," "asssassin," "base 
 man." His writings were "florid impotence." Sir 
 William took the same opportunity of attributing to 
 himself all the cardinal virtues. He was possessed, he 
 said, of womanly sensibility, high honour, courage, 
 constancy, fidelity in friendship, fortitude, innocence, 
 and disinterestedness. The account was at least 
 equal. 
 
 Junius was accused of " deism," " atheism," and 
 "dissent ;" of "vanity," of "total want of self-esteem," 
 "insane boldness," "abject fear," " sordid love of gain," 
 "arrogant contempt of money," "cowardice," "rash- 
 ness," " ignorance of public affairs," and " betrayal 
 of official secrets." There must have been an error 
 somewhere, or he must have been a most extraordinary 
 piece of human mosaic. 
 
 Burke once read to the House of Commons a curious 
 paper, purporting to be a bill of charges furnished by 
 the editor of the Public Advertiser to a Major Scott. 
 In this account was an item, " For attacking the 
 veracity of Mr. Burke, 3s. 6d." 
 
 Fox observes in his speech on the India Bill, that it 
 was " the profession of several people to abuse him.'' 
 
 " We killed Canning," said a pert official to a popular 
 statesman, " and we will kill you if you do not join us." 
 
 It is good to have a foolometer. Fox had a friend 
 whom he averred was the exact representation of all 
 common-place English prejudices. He never failed to 
 consult him, and had no surer safeguard throughout 
 
RECRIMINATIONS. 95 
 
 his political career. It is good also to have a rogue- 
 ometer. Stand forth^ theoj Jeremy the wise, and tell us 
 with thy keen wit how to judge the slanderers of the 
 good and great — acquaint us with the real characters of 
 these gentry, their small objects and base designs. 
 Make them throw off their disguises and speak out 
 for themselves. 
 
 First Slanderer : " I am a dignified nonentity, a ridi- 
 culous abuse-fed incumbrance on the public purse. 
 The money with which I live in idleness and evil, the 
 power which I exercise over better men than myself, 
 the repute I enjoy, depend on the undiminished con- 
 tinuation of abuses in. the public service. These abuses 
 are my screen, pleasure, and profit. Therefore, I very 
 naturally call good men naughty names to deter them 
 from attempting to alleviate those evils in which my 
 comforts have their source." 
 
 Second Slanderer : " I am a snug old fellow in the 
 receipt of many thousands a year, public money, for 
 doing nothing. I have palaces to live in, and well- 
 dressed slaves to flatter my vices and humours. I have 
 no more wit' than honesty; and have never been able 
 to open my mouth to pronounce any articulate sentence 
 in the whole coiirse of my life. Nevertheless, hearing 
 a cry of ' No sinecures !' I am come to join in the shout 
 of ' No innovation !' in hopes of drowning by this 
 defensive hiss and cackle the cry which chills my blood 
 and makes me tremble." 
 
 Third Slanderer: "I am an artful jobber. I have 
 bought a seat in Parliament, to sell my votes for a suc- 
 cession of good jobs. I am too sharp a fellow not to 
 
96 RECRIMINATIONS. 
 
 see in the language of a determined enemy of public 
 abuseSj a material injury to this branch of trade. 
 Therefore, I say, ' Down with him !' He is dangerous. 
 He is a bull in our china-shop. He is throwing back 
 stones at our glass house. He is unfit for decent society. 
 He should be despatched to death by small clerks.'" 
 
 Nothing is new. Even the twists and shuffles of a 
 jobber's rage are as old as the time of Aristotle. They 
 are easily explained. The most miserable worms that 
 crawl the earth under the form of men, would not dare 
 cry out, " Hurrah for waste, oppression, corruption, 
 and nepotism !" But they take off their hats boldly, 
 and shout, " Hurrah for our old institutions \" They 
 cannot bellow out, " Down with civil courage!" " Death 
 and dishonour to virtue \" So they try to misrepresent 
 and blacken the brave and good. 
 
 Such devices, however, are not merely an indication 
 of artfulness on the part of those who use them, but 
 also of sheer contempt for the judgment of those to 
 whom they are addressed. Such tricks are too flimsy 
 not to be understood by the meanest capacity. By 
 the redress of evils the public prey would be snatched 
 out of corrupt hands. The abolition of abuses trans- 
 lated into such language as jobbers best understand, 
 plainly signifies, no dignity supported by depredation, no 
 pompous sinecures for friends, no starved show-clerks 
 to baffle and defy inquiry, no hiring flatterers and 
 pampering parasites with public money. No wonder 
 the jobbers grow angry. If a policeman endeavours to 
 prevent the robbery of a house, he is immediately set 
 upon and bludgeoned by the burglar and his gang. 
 
RECRIMINATIONS. 97 
 
 Public depredators will not give up their booty without 
 a struggle. 
 
 It was very long before the courts of justice in 
 Jersey would put down smuggling; because the judges^ 
 counsel, attorneys, crier of the court, grand and petty 
 jurymen, were all smugglers ; and the high sheriif and 
 constables were running goods every moonlight night. 
 
 An attack upon any abuse is immediately felt through 
 all the gradations of small plunderers. The acquittal 
 of any official thief or malefactor diffuses the liveliest 
 satisfaction among his cronies and accomplices. The 
 defeat and confusion of an honest man affects every 
 dealer in abuses, just as a victory over a foreign enemy 
 influences the funds. Great is their consternation, 
 however, and implacable their resentment at the rise of 
 a reputation which is to be built on the security and 
 welfare of mankind. 
 
 There is even a particular sort of grin with which 
 the most infamous calumnies are uttered by these 
 petty Jesuits. It is a grin made up of malicious 
 triumph, with a dash of concealed foreboding and tre- 
 pidation at the bottom. It is accompanied by a sub- 
 sequent chuckle or a grimace of regret, according to 
 the person spoken to. 
 
 Those jolly roysterers, commonly called good fellows, 
 are always very indignant against the enemies of cor- 
 ruption ; for a large part of the revenues of public 
 abuses is usually spent in pleasure and festivities. 
 Pleasant gentlemen of this sort are very fond of gaiety 
 and feasts. They feel offended at any project for cur- 
 tailing their enjoyments. They do not^ they cannot. 
 
98 RECRIMINATIONS. 
 
 with minds fuddled by jokes and claret, go deeply into 
 any question. They consider honesty as a churl. They 
 do not understand that he is a public benefactor. They 
 would be surprised, and perhaps grieved, if forced by 
 plain demonstration to admit that their laughter is very 
 often but the echo of many groans ; and that money 
 wasted in profligacy is usually filched from the honest 
 rewards of toil, or the consolation of misery. 
 
 Even the ladies range themselves against those who 
 are always among the most respectful of their admirers. 
 But fair, unreasoning, delightful, pitiless Amazons, why 
 always use your bright artillery on the wrong side ? 
 Your praises are hymned by immortal harpers when- 
 ever your white plumes appear nodding in the van 
 of Genius. It is said, that once upon a time, when 
 the Dublin mail was robbed, a soft female voice was 
 heard exclaiming from a hedge, " Shute the jintleman, 
 Patrick dear." The fact was, that the jintleman had 
 remonstrated against the energetic proceedings of her 
 husband, and the lady acted with true female instinct 
 when his interests were in peril. Every philosopher, 
 however, who has had the smallest experience of the 
 world will be prepared to admit that the ladies are 
 always in the right. Tyburnia and Belgravia are, 
 indeed, two discreet virgins, who are ever to be found 
 leaning on the arm of power ; but what would power 
 be worth if our womenkind did not set some value on 
 it ? It is their smile which makes the barren possession 
 priceless in the eyes of the young, who can see no othe^ 
 good in it. It is their respect which, even for the old 
 and wise, gives to a closely-watched slavery something 
 
RECRIMINATIONS. 99 
 
 of the dignity of freedom. Lastly, it is tlieir sweet 
 sympathy and belief in good which reconciles just men 
 in authority to the envy and detraction which follow 
 them as shadows. 
 
 The best of mankind have been successfully harried 
 by small enemies. " Great is Diana of theEphesians," 
 cried Demetrius the silversmith ; and his fellow-crafts- 
 men raised an uproar against the Apostle without diffi- 
 culty. The Ephesians were perfectly ready to be 
 damned, that Demetrius and his friends might continue 
 to make silver shrines for the moon. St. Paul was 
 twice beaten with rods, and once stoned by similar 
 worthies. When he and Barnabas waxed bold, and 
 preached the word of God to the Gentiles at Antioch, 
 the Jews stirred up the devout and honourable women 
 and the chief men of the city, and raised a persecution 
 against them. 
 
 When the Apostles had healed the lame man who 
 was laid daily at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple, all 
 the people ran together unto them. They remained, 
 greatly wondering under Solomon's Porch ; but no man 
 durst join himself to them. 
 
 Of the ten lepers whom Christ cleansed in Samaria, 
 but one remained to thank him, and he a stranger. 
 
 When Jesus drove the buyers and sellers out of the 
 Temple, the rulers would have destroyed him. Neither 
 did his brethren believe in him; and no man daied 
 praise him openly, for fear of the Jews. 
 
 " Shall Christ," said the Pharisees, " come out of 
 Galilee?" when some of&cers said, "Never spake man 
 like this man." 
 
 h2 
 
100 RECRIMINATIONS. 
 
 "Are ye also deceived?" said the Pharisees. 
 
 When he drove legions of devils out of the country of 
 the Gadarenes, the Gadarenes prayed him to depart out 
 of their coasts. 
 
 When John the Baptist came, neither eating nor 
 drinking wine, they said he had a devil. When the Son 
 of Man came eating and drinking, they said, " Behold 
 a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber, the friend of 
 publicans and sinners." 
 
 When the dead arose, the Pharisees had still an 
 argument : " Is not this," said they, " the carpenter's 
 son ? Is not his mother called Mary, and his brethren 
 James and Joses, and Simon and Judas? His sisters, 
 are they not with us?" And they were offended at 
 him. 
 
 The insane cry of the multitude has too often been 
 the name, " Not this man, but Barabbas." Crucify the 
 Saviour, and free the robber. 
 
 The answer which Paul received from Felix he owed 
 to the subject on which he spoke. All men who have 
 spoken to power on disagreeable matters have received 
 the same reply. It is said, however, Felix trembled 
 when he answered the Apostle. He was afraid of the 
 subject : he should have feared the delay. 
 
 Weak-minded people always feel unwilling to hear 
 those who disturb the repose of their minds, call their 
 opinions in question, and compel them to exert their 
 reason. All the fat and sleek well-as-we-are people 
 are perfectly outrageous at being compelled to do their 
 duty, and to sacrifice a single prejudice for the lower 
 orders of mankind. 
 
RECRIMINATIONS. 101 
 
 All those who love the eflfects of public liberty without 
 knowing or caring how it is preserved, indignantly 
 attack every person who complains of abuses, and accuse 
 him of gross exaggeration. No sooner is the name of 
 any public thief or tormentor brought in question than 
 out bursts the spirit of jobbing eulogiura, and there is 
 not a virtue under heaven which is not ascribed to 
 every delinquent. The panegyric goes on increasing 
 with the dignity of the lauded person : the doorkeeper 
 of an office is of approved fidelity, — the junior clerk a 
 model of assiduity; all the clerks are models — seven 
 years' models, eight years' models, and upwards; the 
 first clerk is a paragon, the minister a Solomon. 
 
 If there is ever anything in a measure disagreeable 
 to the decrepit humours of ignorance and prejudice, it 
 is really extraordinary that it should ever see the light. 
 Till the examples are before his eyes, it would not be 
 easy for a man who has not himself made the obser- 
 vation, to conceive to what a pitch of audacity political 
 improbity can soar; what thorough confidence it has 
 in the roguery and folly of mankind. There are persons 
 who will stand up boldly without a blush, and say that 
 to aim at doing a good thing is a bad thing, and that 
 the friends of mankind are its enemies. On the other 
 hand, to escape from the imputation of meditating 
 destruction to society, there is no better receipt than 
 to disclaim everything which puts a man above the level 
 of a beast. 
 
 There are fellows so shameless as to look upon politics 
 as a kind of game, of which the stake or prize is the 
 administration of a great empire — the power to render 
 
102 RECRIMINATIONS. 
 
 millions of their fellow-men happy or miserable ; there 
 have been even avowed professors and teachers of this 
 kind of profligacy. One Hamilton (Gerard being his 
 other name) was a scamp of this sort ; he wrote a book 
 on what he impudently styled parliamentary logic. 
 
 In this shocking publication he deliberately recom- 
 mends every vice that could disgrace a statesman — 
 Jesuitism, m.isrepresentation, premeditated lies of addi- 
 tion, substitution, and suppression. He was a shrewd 
 fox, was this Hamilton ; he had watched parliamentary 
 tactics closely for forty years ; he was a curious observer 
 of character. It is humiliating to human nature to own 
 that he was right after a fashion. Indeed, he put the 
 value of his abominable scheme to the best practical 
 test possible. Pour years after he had been visited by 
 a fit of the palsy, he was visited by a fit of virtue. A 
 seat in Parliament was no longer an object to him, and 
 he resolved to become a martyr to his literary reputa- 
 tion. The sly rogue, therefore, wrote to a noble lord, 
 who had offered to return him for a family borough, 
 and respectfully requested that the " power of thinking 
 for himself might be included in the gift." This 
 startled the patron out of all self-possession, and " his 
 confidence," as the nomination imposture was called, 
 found another object. 
 
 Hamilton was now fully authorized by experience to 
 guarantee the truth of his dastardly theory. The 
 miserable sinner, therefore, actually drew up a series of 
 formal instructions for mining honest men, and bring- 
 ing their great designs to nought. 
 
 " It is," writes this fearful gamester, " an artifice to 
 
RECRIMINATIONS. 103 
 
 be used, to begin some personality, or to throw in some- 
 thing that may bring on a personal altercation, and 
 draw off attention from the main point" in a debate. 
 " If your cause is too bad," he pursues, " call in aid 
 slander ; if an opponent is powerful, he must be made 
 obnoxious ; if helpless, contemptible." 
 
 Hamilton's book was that of a sharper. Why he 
 called it ''Parliamentary Logic" it is not easy to 
 understand. The whole scheme rests on the most 
 trumpery of exploded fallacies. If a measure is in- 
 expedient, why not show it to be so ? If a measure 
 is good, does it become bad because it is proposed 
 by a bad -man? If bad, does it become good be- 
 cause a good man has produced it? Such shallow 
 artifices prove nothing. 
 
 It is the saddest of truths, that all must prepare for 
 suffering who desire to act greatly. In proportion only 
 as knowledge is unimportant, can it hope for a favour- 
 able reception. A man who invents a new toy may 
 escape martyrdom ; he who relie^'es mankind from a 
 great inconvenience will hardly do so. The bigot's 
 story has always been the same : — No inoculation ! — 
 no turnpikes ! — no learning ! — no popery! — no parlia- 
 mentary reform! — no administrative reform! — down 
 with Jenner! — hurrah for Welsh rioters! — down with 
 Hamilton ! — down with the duke of Norfolk and Lord 
 Shrewsbury ! — down with Earl Grey ! — down with the 
 Times ! — hurrah for rampant jobbery !^-let parasites 
 and sycophants flourish for ever ! 
 
 There can be no surprise that flattery of the power- 
 ful and the meanest cunning should open the road to 
 
104 KECR.IMINAT10NS. 
 
 riches and favour, that the way to wealth and fine 
 houses should often be closed to honesty ; but the case 
 of any nation becomes serious when the vilest syco- 
 phancy and the most abandoned corruption is the only 
 recognized or possible path to honours in the state, 
 and when talent or civil virtue is openly denounced as 
 a permanent bar to all promotion or security in the 
 public service. 
 
 There are two circumstances in English history 
 which might puzzle the profoundest speculator. They 
 may be stated in the form of questions. How was it 
 that so accomplished a sycophant as James Boswell did 
 not found a new dynasty ? Was it because he flattered 
 the wrong people ; and, right in his theory, he erred 
 only in practice ? Secondly, how was it that we have 
 no record of the murder of the man who first invented 
 or introduced spectacles ? How did all the people 
 with weak eyes conceal the inevitable effects of their 
 vengeance against their benefactor ? Was the in- 
 genious man slyly induced to commit suicide, or did 
 he disappear suddenly in a fright and become a hermit, 
 or wear an iron mask ? 
 
 Every sensible person who has ever lived among us 
 has been attacked with bitter and relentless hostility. 
 " My brother Bobus," says Sidney Smith, " avers that 
 if he saw a man walking into a pit he would not advise 
 him to turn the other way.'' As a matter of prudence 
 Bobus was right. It really matters little what any one 
 has written or said, if it has been to any good purpose 
 whatever, the miserable harpies who feed on garbage 
 have immediately fastened on him as their foe. Men — 
 
RECKIMINATIONS. 105 
 
 and Englishmen— have been offended at toleration, at 
 liberty, at the compassion of ladies, and at the courage 
 of soldiers. They blamed the arguments of Locke and 
 the government of Cromwell. They burned Alice 
 Lyle, and petitioned Parliament against the grant of 
 a pension to WelHngton, on the ground that he had 
 " exhibited with equal rashness and ostentation nothing 
 but a useless valour." 
 
 All the qualities which command the gratitude of 
 posterity have been punished by insult and detraction. 
 No reports are more readily believed than those which 
 disparage genius to soothe the envy of conscious medio- 
 crity. All who would live in comfort and honour, or 
 who desire to act advantageously for their own interest, 
 must make up their minds to give up every attempt 
 to do good. It is melancholy to remember that Bacon 
 was obliged to crawl on bended knees for pardon to 
 the minion of a dotard, and that England's greatest 
 son remained for days in an anteroom, a mark for 
 mockery to the lackeys of a sodomite. Bacon had, 
 indeed, erred, yet it was but a poor triumph to the 
 insolence of authority to abase further a mind so vast, 
 to conjure the grosser atoms out from a lofty nature, 
 only that fools might see the philosopher was made 
 from some of the same weak clay as themselves, and 
 that they might claim kindred with him and despise 
 him. 
 
 Milton was obliged to hide himself in Cloth Fair. 
 Wickliffe was teased into a palsy for translating 
 the Bible; Sir Thomas More was murdered for 
 preferring his conscience to his king; Raleigh was 
 
106 RECRIMINATIONS. 
 
 murdered; the works of Buclianan and Baxter were 
 burned at Oxford; Locke was turned out of his 
 fellowship for a book he never wrote ; and the most 
 shameful traps were laid to punish his gratitude to 
 his friend and patron, the fallen Lord Shaftesbury. 
 Penn pleaded for his pardon afterwards, and would 
 have obtained it, but even the timid spirit and 
 extraordinary self-command of Locke at last revolted 
 against his persecutors, and he told the officious 
 Quaker that " he had no occasion for pardon, having 
 been guilty of no crime." It is hard to add that a 
 large part of that great philosopher's time was spent 
 in controversies with abusive dunces. 
 
 The conduct of the doctors of the age to Hervey 
 was simply infamous. " Oh," said a French dunce, '' I 
 know that fellow Descartes — there is nothing in him ; 
 he is quite a common person." Another said that he 
 was " a dangerous, chimerical fool." He died in exile. 
 A Mons. Regis, whom no human being remembers, 
 successfully harried Malebranche. He was assisted in 
 worrying the searcher after truth by a Mons. Arnauld, 
 equally obscure. Pope was badgered into writing the 
 "Duneiad;" Adam Smith was long considered as a 
 dreamer ; Pitt did not fully comprehend the " Wealth 
 of Nations;" Fox arrogantly declared it " past under- 
 standing." It is so painful even for great men to 
 acknowledge a superior or a peer, that a generation 
 passed away before the doctrines of Adam Smith were 
 generally admitted. As for the majority of the people, 
 it is of course evident that the commanding minds of 
 the age are years of thought and study in advance of 
 
EECRIMINATIONS. 107 
 
 tliem. A stupid sergeant " Sliook his head at Murray 
 as a wit." 
 
 The treatment experienced by the Quaker Lancaster 
 shows the very first rudiments of learning to have been 
 an object of fear and dislike to some of the most power- 
 ful men of the country. 
 
 It is not long ago that a posthumous son was accused 
 of murdering his father. He had, of course, written a 
 sensible book. Unblushing assertors of falsehood seem 
 to have a race of easy believers, provided on purpose to 
 be deceived, — people who will not believe the truth, but 
 who are always ready to believe anything else. 
 
 "I am about to open the subject of classical learning 
 in the Edinburgh Review," says Sidney Smith ; " it 
 will give great offence." 
 
 Winsor was ridiculed for years before he could make 
 the Londoners believe in the brilliancy and utility of 
 gas. Macadam had the same straggle before we would 
 consent to travel ten miles an hour instead of six. 
 Franklin was obliged to conceal his discoveries in elec- 
 tricity, for fear of being mocked as a madman. The 
 tale of steam and railroads is as pathetic as any in 
 history. Writers make enemies from the most extra- 
 ordinary causes. An Edinburgh reviewer mentioned 
 casually the names of Joseph Hume and Mr. Croker. 
 " I meant no harm," he says, " but I have made two 
 bitter enemies.''^ A Mr. Hall, an officer in the army, 
 paid a compliment to the gallantry and humanity of 
 the American army. It was at once resented at the 
 Horse Guards. 
 
 It would seem as if men of letters had obsequiously 
 
108 RECKIMINATIONS. 
 
 aided their traducersj and deliberately conspired against 
 their own honour and happiness. No literary man 
 defends another; and when any writer is singled out 
 for persecution^ he stands alone. Even where authors 
 have been above jealousy, they appear to have been 
 smitten with a species of infatuation which has abso- 
 lutely deceived them into decrying each other as a 
 duty. They have appeared oppressed with the value and 
 beauty of their own endowments, and bashfully deferred 
 to the contemptuous opinions of those whose minds 
 were too narrow, and whose hearts were too vile, to 
 appreciate the grand practical utility of truth, or to 
 admire the rarity of civil courage. So they have tried, 
 with a touching modesty and good faith, to magnify 
 the dolts who asserted superiority over them, and to 
 lower their own station and respectability. The social 
 position of men of letters has not been so low for 
 several generations as it is now. The opinion enter- 
 tained of them is much the same as the opinion of 
 actors, expressed by a peer at the trial of Lord Mohun 
 for" the murder of Mountfort : " After all, the fellow 
 was but a player; and players are all rogues." The 
 most insignificant of mankind think they are entitled to 
 sneer at an author. Had Poote's Papillon lived in our 
 day, he would probably have said : " As to authors, 
 whatever might happen to me, I was determined not to 
 bring disgrace on my family; so I resolved to turn 
 footman." The labour of the hands is far better remu- 
 nerated than the labour of the brain. A profound 
 book, the fruit of long and serious thought, would 
 probably consign its author to a jail, if he could sup- 
 
KECRIMINATIONS. 109 
 
 port himself till its completion. Government will give 
 none of their sinecures to men who would condescend 
 to employ their leisure in the service of mankind. 
 They will purchase, readily enough, a mouldy and cor- 
 rupt influence, defunct half a century ago ; but they are 
 careful to insult those who have created a living influence 
 on the times. The pensions which are awarded to philo- 
 sophers are far more inconsiderable than kind-hearted 
 old ladies leave for the maintenance of the cats who 
 survive them. How is it possible that the dignity of 
 genius should not disappear under circumstances like 
 this? 
 
 Nothing is more likely to damage a man in any 
 grave profession than the reputation of an author. No 
 mechanical art, no trade, but ofi^ers richer rewards than 
 are given to those whose hves are spent in study for 
 the good of millions. A tumbler in his carriage splashed 
 Corneille on foot. Johnson was offered a pair of shoes 
 by charity ; Garrick made £100,000. 
 
 There is a class of impudent oaves going about who 
 say that authors are fit for nothing but writing ; as if 
 authorship was, or could be, a separate profession. 
 Writing is merely a means of communicating informa- 
 tion to the people. Books, worthy of the name, are 
 the fruits of long practical experience and deep thought. 
 The best writer on theology must necessarily be the 
 most useful religious instructor, and therefore the best 
 bishop. The best writer on law must be the best man 
 for Chancellor ; the best writer on medicine, the best 
 physician; and the writer who could ennoble the infi- 
 nitely small science of modern politics into something 
 
110 KECRIMINATIONS. 
 
 honest and great^ would infallibly make a useful public 
 servant. 
 
 If the objection made to literary pursuits as a dis- 
 qualification for the public service could ever have the 
 smallest force, it is impossible to imagine any three 
 cases where it could be more fairly supposed to apply 
 than in those of Newton, Locke, and Adam Smith. 
 All three were philosophers, deeply engaged in the most 
 abstruse and absorbing studies : yet Newton was the 
 best AVarden of the Mint of whom we have any record ; 
 Locke was an admirable Commissioner of Trade ; and 
 Adam Smith an excellent Commissioner of Customs. 
 Indeed, to say of an eminent literary man that he is 
 unfit for any kind of mental exertion, is to say of a 
 strong man accustomed to toil at the plough, that he 
 could not carry a small sample of oats to market. All 
 the ablest rulers have understood the importance of 
 employing literary ability. It was especially evident 
 to the two greatest monarchs of modern times — Wil- 
 liam III. and Napoleon I. William, the most consum- 
 mate diplomatist who ever sat upon a throne, repeatedly 
 enti-eated Locke to go on an embassy to the emperor, 
 or the elector of Brandenburg, where English interests 
 were then most seriously involved. The reign of 
 Napoleon has given to history the names of a greater 
 number of prominent literary men than any other 
 period in French annals, except that of Louis XIV. The 
 Government of the United States of North America, 
 also, has always been honourably anxious to reserve 
 its highest distinctions for men of letters; and the 
 names of Irving, Bancroft, and Everett, have given 
 
RECRIMINATIONS. HI 
 
 to their foreign embassies an extraordinary dignity and 
 value. 
 
 A man, indeed, who has never given any public 
 evidence of capacity may be a wise and able man ; but 
 he is not entitled to claim our belief that he is so. A 
 writer whose works are before the world, however, has 
 plainly a claim to appeal to them as a proof of his 
 capacity. Persons, therefore, who arrogantly despise 
 the practical abilities of authors as men of business, can 
 only remind us of one Dr. George, who entertained 
 considerable doubts whether the great king of Prussia, 
 with ajl his victories, knew how to conjugate Greek 
 verbs in jut. 
 
 But here again, the error cannot be charged upon 
 society. The authors themselves have been in fault. 
 They have constantly stepped down from the hard-won 
 eminence, on which they have spoken great truths for 
 the service and- instruction of the world, to mingle 
 unobserved in the crowd below ; and when men have 
 turned with sparkling eyes to' ask for their masters and 
 friends, knaves and charlatans have cunningly stepped 
 into their vacant places to receive the heartfelt applause 
 and the magnificent rewards which were offered to toil 
 and wisdom. 
 
 It is impossible to reflect without concern and sorrow 
 on the slight esteem in which literary men appear 
 resolved to hold themselves — the inferior and improper 
 position in which they seem determined to remain. 
 TKe impertinent folly by which Congreve affronted 
 Voltaire, and which offends us in Walpole ; the senti- 
 ment which induced the "proud Boswell," insect as 
 
113 RECRIMINATIONS. 
 
 he was, to consider his club disgraced by the admission 
 of Gibbon and Adam Smith, still influences the literary- 
 mind. It persists in affixing a stigma on itself, and 
 aping the pranks and foppery of fools. One of the 
 most brilliant and profound writers of the age, who, 
 after having overcome more serious obstacles than ever 
 before stood in the way of an English statesman, has at 
 length attained high political distinction, is the chief 
 supporter of a scurrilous paper, which lets itself out for 
 hire, to calumniate and hunt down any struggling man 
 of letters likely to attain political distinction. One of 
 the most justly popular and admired of our authors 
 tells Government plumply to buy up men of genius if 
 they become troublesome enough to be worth buying ; 
 and if not, to leave them in convenient neglect and 
 obscurity. This, however, may be fine irony and but a 
 stroke of characteristic humour in our greatest master 
 of prose satire. 
 
 Many of our authors, certainly, possess a most un- 
 happy resemblance to the cannibals described by Captain 
 Cook, whose eyes immediately lit up with delight when 
 a brother was slain : and to Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton 
 alone belongs the honour of having worthily vindicated 
 the dignity of his calling to the present generation. 
 
 No wonder that our Governments are unjust to 
 literary men when thus encouraged by themselves. No 
 wonder that our public men consider a writer who may 
 be able to sway opinion from one hemisphere to the 
 other, as a person infinitely less respectable than a 
 small clerk in a red-tape office. Our ministers are justly 
 entitled to contemn men who despise themselves. 
 
HECIUMINATIONS. 113 
 
 One of the most prominent of our statesmen, there- 
 fore, superciliously calls the anxious toils by which most 
 of the greatest personages who ever lived created their 
 renown, "the employment of the Pen." A trumpery 
 little newspaper, said to have been thoughtlessly chosen 
 as the organ of a great literary politician, calls the labour 
 by which its patron obtained his reputation, " the art 
 of stringing sentences together," as if it were enough 
 for a writer to understand the meaning and property 
 of words, to range them in order, to turn neat and 
 harmonious phrases of nothings. Its patron could have 
 told it, had he deigned to do so, that great thoughts 
 are but the language of great souls, and a writer must 
 have the rarest gifts of wisdom and fancy, deep thought, 
 sound judgment, a cultivated delicacy of taste, and 
 exquisite wit, if he would have his works touch the deep 
 heart of the people, or their popularity last longer than 
 a day. The fame of the soldier or the minister may be 
 gained by others ; it may be a lucky accident : that of 
 the author must be always won by merit and labour. 
 There is no more painful toil than to make a great 
 name in literature. Death overtakes us before the task 
 is well begun. 
 
 To say of writers that they have many infirmities, 
 is merely to say that they are mortals who must pay 
 tribute to their mortality. But their weakness and 
 follies are only common to mankind, and their genius 
 and great qualities are their own. The ribaldry of a 
 few hired literary bravos, therefore, it may be said, 
 matters little; but the first literary periodical of our 
 time is at once ignorant and guilty in this matter, 
 
 I 
 
114 RECRIMINATIONS. 
 
 and it has recently praised Government in extravagant 
 language for having given a place usually reserved for 
 retired servants, to a gentleman of high character, 
 immense learning, and European reputation. 
 
 What marvel, then, that all the literary genius of the 
 age is cowed and hides itself? It has taken the mean 
 opinion held of it to heart. It is learning to look re- 
 gretfully on callings more esteemed than letters. It 
 has grown ashamed of itself. Yet scholars may surely 
 he forgiven, if they remember with pride that the fame 
 of Lord Albans is only preserved by his writings ; that 
 Southampton will be remembered to the latest ages 
 only by his discerning friendship to Shakspeare; and 
 England has contemptuously forgotten the nicknames 
 of Addison^ to think with respectful aflFection of the 
 " Spectator." 
 
 In some low minds there is a malignant passion 
 to destroy the noblest works of art and freedom. 
 The Vandal and the monk found equal gratification in 
 it. Their modern representatives are distressingly 
 numerous ; while, unfortunately, we have in Britain 
 no hostile barbarians to exterminate our Vandals ; no 
 high-walled convents to shut up our monks, and let 
 them exhaust their raging envy among themselves. 
 This is really melancholy, because it is absurd to say 
 that detraction does not wound true greataess — that 
 the taunts of vulgar contempt and crazy enmity cannot 
 offend a man who is above them. No man is above 
 the law of nature. 
 
 Men of genius are not invulnerable. Socrates died 
 when poisoned. Cato himself could smart. Those who 
 
RECRIMINATIONS. 115 
 
 struck him hurt him. He was not insensible to shame, 
 nor to hunger, nor to cold. He could not suffer without 
 heiug disquieted. 
 
 St. Paul and the early Christians had more virtue 
 than Cato and the Stoics ; but they own that they were 
 rendered miserable by the persecutions they endured. 
 " Si tantum in hac vita sperantes sumus, miserabihores 
 sumus omnibus hominibus.^' Even the Redeemer paused 
 in his beneficent career, grieved by the fierce rancour 
 of his blind assailants ; and saying that a prophet was 
 not without honour save in his own country, he did 
 not many works among them, because of their unbelief. 
 
 Charity may doubt whether calumny and evil-speaking 
 really arise from malignity. Scandal is often merely 
 poverty of wit. In some persons the vice of abusing 
 others is an incontinent humour which they cannot 
 restrain. In some it appears a desire for amusing 
 themselves and taking exercise. They get all in a glow 
 with it. In some it is a silly desire to raise a laugh ; 
 in others, a wish to avow high principles, no matter 
 how, or at whose expense, in the belief that this may 
 remove the mean opinion which they are conscious is 
 entertained of them. 
 
 Some sneer to gain attention, and from the mere 
 love of talking. So respectable a man as Rogers owned 
 to that cruel offence. 
 
 A great deal of calumny is soluble into nonsense of 
 this sort, and a man who can repel the injuries he 
 receives from it with dignity, need not despair of con- 
 verting them into triumphs, and making the falsehoods 
 of his antagonists redound to their own discomfiture. 
 
 1 2 
 
116 PECRIMINATIONS. 
 
 Malignity, even when it exists, is merely another form 
 of ignorance. The deepest and truest knowledge always 
 teaches kindness and brotherhood. It is sure to incul- 
 cate a love of human nature, perhaps even a respect 
 for it. No earnest thinker can contemplate without 
 awe and tenderness its honest aspirations to be good ; 
 its humility in secret; its sensitive conscience; its ex- 
 quisite happiness when it has strength to be worthy; 
 its bright soul, which seems always struggling to fly 
 with feeble pinions. 
 
 The world is assuredly good and kindly : the people 
 generally desire to do right, and to act justly ; but 
 experience is a cruel doubter of individuals. Men who 
 run the terrible race of public life soon begin to grow 
 reserved and stern. People call them cold and crabbed ; 
 but pain of heart has too often petrified their feelings. 
 The more open and kindly any great writer or states- 
 man may be at the commencement of his career, the 
 harder and sadder he will probably become at its close. 
 Nothing but a nature thoroughly genial, a temper too 
 sweet to be disturbed by the fiercest malignity and the 
 basest ingratitude, spirits so buoyant as to resist de- 
 pression with perpetual elasticity, can possibly save a 
 good man's character from being soured by the bitter 
 fruit of his own virtues. 
 
 Calumny is too apt at last to teach a mournful 
 indifference to the world's blame and to its praise. 
 Men find out by patient and sad analysis of the 
 motives which actuate human conduct, that the first 
 may spring from causes which elevate its object, 
 and the latter from causes which degrade it. There is 
 
RECRIMINATIONS. 117 
 
 l)ut one tribunal to whicli a good man will care to 
 appeal. It is his own conscience. The approval of the 
 watchful monitor within his own breast wiU console 
 him through every trial. But who, that is not borne 
 up by the consciousness of a great and noble mission, 
 and the firm support of a single heart, is likely 
 to stand for any time the pelting of the pitiless storm 
 which bursts on the head of honesty — the precipitation 
 of nicknames and foul words from such a height ; 
 the thundering down of huge volumes of dirt and 
 rubbish ; the ugly blows at character. It is a hard 
 battle to fight, and there is no gain in victory. The 
 enemy, meanwhile, are well intrenched on the heights 
 of place and power ; they can hide or appear at will ; 
 they can skulk behind their ramparts; those whom 
 they assail are exposed to every missile ; the honour of 
 their friends and companions in arms is shamelessly 
 purchased; their brethren appear as witnesses against 
 them. Letter-opening, questioning their servants, 
 bribing the shop-boys of publishers, intimidating wo- 
 men, are among the commonest of the arts practised by 
 those who have neither generosity nor justice. 
 
 Nevertheless, an arrow shot at the sun misses its 
 mark after all. Sacrilege is a crime, but it cannot 
 lower the majesty of God. He who strikes must be 
 stronger than he who is struck, to overthrow him. 
 Vice is not stronger than virtue, nor falsehood than 
 truth. 
 
 If a good man, therefore, persevere in a good cause, 
 he will at last reap his reward. The husbandman is 
 pierced by the wind and drenched by the rain, but he 
 
118 KECEIMINATIONS. 
 
 gathers in his harvest. Thus obstacles give way; 
 slanderers and bigots die ofif; they are succeeded by 
 men whose minds are imbued with truer principles, and 
 who do not feel their reputation pledged against im- 
 provement. 
 
 In the hottest of the good fight, also, let no man of 
 real genius complain of his lot, or in his own heart 
 rebel against it. For sorrow is as the manna of the 
 wilderness, God's diet for his chosen people. One year 
 of such nourishment will make a man better and wiser 
 than ten years of prosperity. 
 
 What matters it that genius is usually despised and 
 avoided. Great men are best alone. They are perhaps 
 happiest when most persecuted by the world, and borne 
 up only by the strength of their mighty hearts. Crowds 
 and adulation would be merely irksome to them, and 
 society rather a degradation than an enjoyment. 
 The courser cannot marry its paces with the steer. 
 Kings have few friends. Men of genius have fewer. 
 The gulf between great minds and small is sometimes 
 too vast for social intercourse to leap without an effort 
 almost painful. Every great man, also, has his course 
 appointed and his cross to bear. 
 
 Let him bear it, doubting nothing. Without the 
 small jealousy of the Cecils and the tipstaff of the 
 goldsmith, what might we have had of Bacon ? It was 
 grief and debt, the sharp spur of scorn, and the golden 
 leisure of solitude, that made him all things. He had 
 small cause afterwards to regret that he had been held 
 as " a man of no great depth " by that good queen to 
 whom he paid the finest compliment on record. If he 
 
RECRIMINATIONS. 119 
 
 had few friends in early life, he had one who was 
 well worth many. What brawling patron of a bull- 
 fight, what ruffling captain of an ordinary, what official 
 prig like Robert Cecil, or solemn mediocrity like 
 Burleigh, could offer him the magnanimous heart of 
 Essex ? 
 
 Moreover, whenever true genius is insulted, it is sure 
 to take its own beneficent revenge. We crush it with 
 griefs hard to bear; it gives us back the perfume of 
 wondrous endurance and sweet thoughts. Blind 
 authority knows not what it does when it places its 
 rough heel upon a noble mind : yet, guided in its own 
 despite by divine omniscience, it does well. It teaches 
 genius to wander among the flowers of its own soul, 
 till, turned astray upon no meaner errand, it culls them 
 all, and offers us the garland. 
 
 A great man, at the height of his reputation, how- 
 ever, has no right food for vanity, nor an humble man for 
 envy of him. Neither made one hair of his own head ; 
 both are entirely dependent the one upon the other. If 
 a philosopher were obliged to live alone and support 
 himself, what time would he have left for philosophy. 
 Strong arms are as necessary in the world as strong 
 brains, and their possessors to the full as happy. The 
 balance of aU things even here has been adjusted by 
 Almighty goodness very evenly, if we judge aright, and 
 see with cleansed eyes. 
 
 One man is great because his parents were rich and 
 idle. One is a worthless dunce because his father fell 
 asleep early, exhausted by noble toils unrewarded. One 
 is great because his mother suckled him, and gave him 
 
120 RECRIMINATIONS. 
 
 strength and health to battle with the difficulties of 
 life. Another is feeble and wretched because his 
 mother died in giving birth to him, and he fell an 
 orphan to the care of strangers. When distinction is 
 attained, where is the pride of it? It is often only 
 a remedy that men seek for grief and loneliness. In 
 much wisdom is much sorrow, and a man will scarcely 
 be renowned and glad togethei*. 
 
 Let us thank God with overflowing gratitude that 
 He has given us all the blessed hope of death. Should 
 we be permitted to remember anything about this 
 brief life when it is once over — this life which is but 
 as a vapour that appeareth for a little time and then 
 vanisheth away — with what a pitying smile we shall 
 look back on its struggles and vexations. The oppressed 
 and the oppressor, learning at last to know each other, 
 will be estranged no longer; and the wretched will 
 only wonder that they should ever have repined at 
 griefs that lured them another step on the road to 
 heaven. 
 
 It is time to close a chapter already too long ; a few 
 words more, then, and it shall end. It is not because 
 religion and philosophy may afford consolation to 
 misery that those who wantonly inflict it upon others 
 should be permitted to escape with impunity. 
 
 It may be asked why these hideous old sores have 
 been dragged to light, why the history of some of the 
 gravest crimes committed by society should be studi- 
 ously recapitulated, when the tone of public feeling has 
 grown so much more healthy during the last generation? 
 Words. The evil here indicated is as rank as ever. 
 
KECEIMINATIONS. l2l 
 
 Society is still silly and cruel enough to echo the foul 
 lies which are invariably got up by corrupt people against 
 every one who can be convicted of desiring to be useful. 
 There is a quaint old French proverb which says, " He 
 must be a good man, I hear so much evil of him." If 
 slanders are invariably to follow brave public deeds 
 wrought among us, it should become an English pro- 
 verb also. The calumnies of corrupt coteries will then 
 happily be understood to disprove themselves, and 
 they will only point out to the judicious the proper 
 objects of their gratitude and respect. 
 
 Till then, old and stale as this sad story is, it should 
 be perseveringly repeated. The lessons of life have 
 been, indeed, long learned, and nothing is new. But this 
 makes a sad matter only sadder. Whence comes it 
 that these things are universally admitted to be true, 
 and are yet looked upon in servile silence by a country 
 which has been hitherto accustomed to make great 
 efforts for its prosperity and safety ? 
 
 The most regrettable and improper part of the present 
 state of things, is the strange manner in which we 
 appear to have made up our minds to it. We seem to 
 consider the destruction of all our valuable men as pre- 
 ordained; as a' part of the natural order of human 
 affairs, which was, is, and must be, for ever and ever. 
 Thus we see some fine fellow periodically get up, and 
 measure his strength against the giants. All at once 
 he disappears ; nobody asks after him : but Mr. Jobber 
 shakes his head shrewdly at Mr. Easy, and says casually, 
 ''Ah, Mr. Valiant would have done well in public life^ 
 but you see he attacked abuses, and got everybody 
 
122 KECRIMINATIONS. 
 
 against him." " Very true/' says Mr. Easy, and looks 
 upon what has been said to him as a most satisfactory 
 explanation. 
 
 The mere utterance of this base coinage of argu- 
 ment is not the principal mischief. If there were no 
 thoughtless receivers of bad money, there would be no 
 coiners. It is the reception of counters for gold which 
 constitutes the ultimate evil. Laws are not made to 
 punish coiners, but to prevent the ruin of honest 
 tradesmen. Thus with slanders, people should be as 
 ashamed to hear as to utter them; ashamed to be 
 known to turn towards the political smasher with any 
 other feeling than hatred and contempt. 
 
 It is for this good and righteous end that the practice 
 of calumniating writers and politicians should be held up 
 to view in the strongest and clearest colours ; till, repro- 
 bated by general opinion, it becomes universally con- 
 sidered as arrant roguery. The moment it is divested 
 of its power to break hearts and palsy honest hands, will 
 form a great epoch in the history of mankind. The 
 serpents who trail their slime over the footsteps of our 
 heroes, will slink away when they see that the lash is 
 ready poised to destroy them. 
 
 The use, therefore, of steadily reiterating over and 
 over again this disgraceful story, is to make society 
 understand its highest interest. The solemn warning 
 should be repeated till the jobber's artifice becomes 
 placarded in every house, and only reminds us all of 
 the shabby piece of bombast paraded by the impostor 
 Jenkins to the Vicar of Wakefield. Whenever or 
 
RECRIMINATIONS. 123 
 
 wherever a malicious or discreditable story is told 
 against a public benefactor, let us act on the prudent 
 suggestion of BenthaiUj and having recognized the cheat 
 by his stale trick, bow demurely to the self-convicted 
 scoundrel, and say, " Your servant, Mr. Ephraim." 
 
124 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PERSECUTIONS. 
 
 When recriminations are countenanced and sup- 
 ported by the authority of a government ; when they 
 begin to have a serious influence on the fortunes and 
 happiness of its subjects; when they thwart honest and 
 lawful ambition at every step ; when they act as a per- 
 manent bar to employment or promotion in the public 
 service ; when they interfere^ , by the actual imposition 
 of heavy penalties, with the right of private judgment ; 
 when they virtually deprive freemen of their liberty and 
 nations of wise counsel, — they become persecutions. 
 
 When Government propagates its opinions by means 
 which have no reference whatever to their truth or 
 falsehood, by arbitrarily uniting certain unfair advan- 
 tages with one set of ideas and certain unfair punish- 
 ment with another set, it wanders into one of the most 
 melancholy errors that can be committed by authority. 
 
 Persecution is merely a compound of folly and wicked- 
 ness. Besides the direct injury which it inflicts on 
 society, it defeats its own object; and it strengthens 
 the conviction of those opinions against which it is 
 directed. Persecution is a combination of all that is 
 weak and deplorable in our nature. It is the senseless 
 activity of an idiot destroying his own happiness, with 
 the malignity of a demon blasting that of others. A 
 
PERSECUTIONS. 125 
 
 violent persecutor is frequently an unbeliever in his 
 own creed. Sometimes he has no creed at all. Nothing 
 is more common than for such people to be persuaded 
 of they know not what nor how, and to be head- 
 strong in maintaining their absurd notions precisely in 
 proportion as they have ill considered them. 
 
 The puny attempts at intolerance in our own day 
 would be altogether ludicrous, were it not for the 
 sufferings of the victim. In other respects they are 
 absurd from their pretensions, and contemptible from 
 their impotence. 
 
 Even the rudest peasant knows the value of an argu- 
 ment that can only be supported by violence. Jupiter, 
 says Lucian, had a discussion with a countryman. 
 They talked with ease and freedom till they differed. 
 Then Jupiter turned angrily round, and menaced his 
 opponent with a thunderbolt. "Ah, ah!" said the 
 clown ; " now, Jupiter, I know you are wrong ; you 
 are always wrong when you appeal to your thunder." 
 The gods of Olympus were but men; and, unfortu- 
 nately, it is not so easy to human weakness to adopt a 
 right opinion after having avowed its opposite, as before. 
 If such then be the case even between equals, how must 
 it be when the concession cannot take place without 
 mortifying the pride of rank as well as the pride of 
 wisdom. Hence our sorrow. 
 
 The world seems averse to cheap benefits. It has 
 only been purged from its ignorance by the tears of 
 those who have enlightened it. But woe unto those 
 who have caused such tears to flow. 
 
 Had not Wickliffe been suppressed as a schismatic 
 
126 PERSECUTIONS. 
 
 and an innovator, perhaps neither Husse, Jerome, Lutherj 
 nor Calvin, had ever been known. It is the nature of 
 suppressed truth to rise again, and grow strong ; stifle 
 it in one place, and it springs up in many others. 
 
 It would be laughable, if it were not shocking, to see 
 men who have acquired the current quantity of infor- 
 mation on any subject, constantly parading it as the 
 perfection of knowledge, and attempting to stifle every 
 symptom of improvement, lest their own personal con- 
 sequence should be scratched. Truth is the daughter 
 of Time, not of Authority. This doctorial and pro- 
 found nonsense therefore should be rallied. Plato, 
 Socrates, Aristotle, were but men ; who can pretend to 
 be more? No sane person would wish us to pack up 
 his miserable stock of acquirements, and label it com- 
 plete, merely that the trumpery little bundle should 
 bear his name. 
 
 The wisest and most judicious fall in some things 
 behind the spirit of the age as they grow old, and are 
 apt to commit strange mistakes respecting the value of 
 new ideas. Bacon rejected the theory of Galileo with 
 scorn. Milton saw him grown old, a prisoner of the 
 Inquisition for thinking otherwise than the Franciscan 
 and Dominican friars, among whom indeed were many 
 wise men. He was made to promise on his knees 
 never again to teach his theory of the motion of the 
 earth and the sun. As part of his punishment he was 
 directed also to write every week the Seven Penitential 
 Psalms. But how did the bigots of that age profit by 
 aU this sharp pain and humiliation ruthlessly inflicted 
 upon a learned man ? The Jesuits, says Pascal in the 
 
PERSECUTIONS. 127 
 
 last of his incomparable letters^ have obtained a papal 
 decree condemning Galileo's doctrine about the motion 
 of the earth. It is all in vain. If the world is really 
 turning round, all mankind together will not be able 
 to keep it from turning, or to keep themselves from 
 turning with it. 
 
 Opinion is always changing. "Paradise Lost" was 
 nearly wrecked by the censorship; and the copyright 
 produced only a sixth part of the sum charged by the 
 House of Commons as the price of its author's release 
 from custody. Indeed, he narrowly escaped hanging. 
 " Paradise Lost " is now held the finest poem in our 
 language, and has been even considered as inspired. 
 
 John Locke was persecuted during two reigns. A 
 foolish king took away his livelihood ; but there came 
 a wise king at last, who entreated him to keep a great 
 place on any terms, and he died the friend of Pem- 
 broke and of Peterborough, surrounded by all that 
 should accompany old age, a courtier's honoured guest. 
 
 A Colonel Sackville was severely persecuted for 
 speaking disrespectfully of Gates and Bedloe. Black- 
 stone's " Commentaries" were read with applause in 
 those very schools where, eighty years before, books had 
 been publicly burned for containing the damnable doc- 
 trine that the English monarchy is limited and mixed. 
 Men of high dignity in both Houses of Parliament 
 derided railways as impossible. Even the Edinburgh 
 reviewers sneered at the penny postage. The fortunes 
 of the most persecuted men in our own day have been 
 seen to change as strangely as ever. Richard Lalor 
 Shell was the object of a government prosecution for 
 
128 PERSECUTIONS. 
 
 sedition in 1827. His wife's relation, Sir William 
 M'Mahon, wrote "that a sense of public duty rendered 
 it impossible for him to identify himself with a person 
 holding and expressing such opinions ! " Who remem- 
 bered Sir William M'Mahon when Shell was Master of 
 the Mint, or Minister at Florence ? An apter illustra- 
 tion of the changes of sentiment which are constantly 
 taking place among us, can hardly be found than in 
 Erskine's speech on the trial of Paine. That great 
 lawyer said Lord Mansfield had treated his opinions 
 respecting libels as those of a child who lisped its prattle 
 out of season. " Yet," he added solemnly, " I have lived 
 to see it resolved by an almost unanimous vote of the 
 whole Parliament of England, that I have all along 
 been in the I'ightj"- — an awful lesson of caution to 
 bigots. Any man in power, also, about to venture on a 
 persecution against the humblest person for disagreeing 
 with him, . would do well to read the trial of Hone, 
 an obscure bookseller, by Lord Ellenborough. The 
 judge was made in open court to sue for pity to his 
 intended victim. 
 
 The Duke of Wellington, it is said, exposed to candid 
 and discerning men the first signs of the weakness of 
 his administration when he began to prosecute for 
 libels. Soldiers expect to be shot at. Public men 
 must expect to be attacked, and sometimes unjustly. 
 Tliey should by no means be freed from this salutary 
 apprehension. It keeps up among them the excellent 
 habit of considering their conduct as exposed to scru- 
 tiny, and makes them "properly careful. On the part 
 of the people, it keeps alive the expectation of wit- 
 
PERSECUTIONS. 129 
 
 nessing sucli attacks. The friends and supporters of 
 Government always fight at an advantage, and their 
 forces must be weak indeed if they are beaten. 
 
 An upright minister labouring for a while under a 
 strong popular prejudice, should be borne up by the 
 consciousness of his innocence, and endure with patience 
 the severest imputations. He may safely wait for the 
 tide to turn. But the guilty man, who hears nothing 
 in the reproaches of the public but what he knows to 
 be true, and whose conscience is already upbraiding 
 him, cannot enjoy any such comfort. When a 
 man's own heart takes part against him, the weakest 
 hand can inflict a wound, and he must bear its 
 smart. In any case, however, one of the chief reasons 
 which should guide a prudent minister in avoiding 
 quarrels with the Press, is that the sympathy of the 
 people is invariably against the Government, and success 
 is more disgraceful than failure. Such discussions are 
 at once imprudent and unpatriotic. They serve no 
 purpose whatever, but to bring annoyance and humilia- 
 tion on all who enter upon them. 
 
 If the liberty of the Press could be still put down by 
 persecution, could men's ideas be put down with it ? The 
 Christian faith, once a schism, spread over all Asia 
 long before any gospel or epistle was seen in writing, 
 and when governments were infinitely more absolute 
 than any the world is likely to see again. Power 
 cannot free itself from difficulties and opposition merely 
 by binding the pen. What then is the use of this 
 petty tyranny? and if anything could be gained by it, 
 is effective persecution any longer possible ? A bloody 
 
130 PERSECUTIONS. 
 
 and unsparing massacre, like that which put down the 
 Albigenses, might, indeed, put down political writers. 
 But the time for such wholesale proscriptions is gone 
 by in England. The punishments which governments 
 are still able- to inflict are sufficient to irritate, but not 
 sufficient to destroy. The war is between power on 
 the one side, and wit on the other. The power is hap- 
 pily under far more restraint than the wit. 
 
 Were this otherwise, were free speech and free writ- 
 ings still punishable according to the caprice of every 
 person patronized into a great place ; could a Hyde 
 or a Jeffreys again take his seat on an English bench, 
 to commit judicial murders more foul than any in our 
 history, what good could be hoped from them ? 
 
 From minds subdued by the terrors of punishment, 
 there could issue no works of genius to expand the 
 empire of human reason. There would appear none of 
 those masterly compositions on the general nature of 
 government, by the help of which the great common- 
 wealths of mankind have founded their establishments ; 
 much less any of those useful applications of them in 
 critical conjunctures, by which our own constitution 
 has often been hrought back to its just standard. 
 Under the debasing dread of chastisement, all the great 
 lights of civilization must be extinguished ; for men 
 could not communicate their free thoughts to one 
 another with a lash poised over them. 
 
 Let an English Government always take care to 
 make its administration correspond with the true spirit 
 of the constitution, and nothing will ever endanger it. 
 Let it seek, to maintain ahuses by severity and coercion. 
 
PERSECUTIONS. 131 
 
 neither laws nor arms wiU long support it. It is never 
 in such fear of being brought into ridicule and con- 
 tempt as when disfigured by the indiscreet zeal of 
 ignorance and fanaticism. It had better adopt almost 
 any course of conduct than that which shows it in 
 no other light than taxings punishing, and restraining. 
 
 Public opinion is the basis of all legitimate authority; 
 it is both the interest and duty of Government to attend 
 much to it. When Government persecutes a popular 
 authorj it sets public opinion at defiance, and is like a 
 man who wantonly injures the foundations of his own 
 house. There is no constitutional maxim more true 
 than that the representatives of public opinion should 
 be respected. It is wrong, and it is unsafe for authority 
 ever to lay hands upon them. 
 
 If Government suffers sometimes severely from the 
 effects of popular ignorance, this arises usually because 
 it has taken away the key of knowledge. If it is ever 
 assailed with blind fury, that is only because it has 
 required an equally blind submission. The people are 
 generally right in their disputes with Government; 
 they have no interest in disorder. Whenever, there- 
 fore, they make complaints, they should be heard at 
 least with respectful attention. If they judge one way 
 and Government another, it is the duty of a repre- 
 sentative ministry to accept the judgment of their 
 countrymen. If they have any objections to offer, 
 the pen should settle the controversy, not the sword. 
 Power applied to influence opinion is merely a means 
 of upholding fallacies, and no English Government 
 will surely profess to study Arbuthnot's art of " con- 
 
 k2 
 
132 PERSECUTIONS. 
 
 vincing people of salutary falsehoods for some good 
 end." Should they do so, it will be well to keep their 
 design a profound secret, for the people will naturally 
 ask, To what end ? To an end which appears good in 
 the eyes of authority or in the eyes of the people? 
 The Opposition also in such a case would be entitled 
 to ask whether the right of coining political falsehoods 
 was a monopoly belonging exclusively to the Govern- 
 ment, as the right of printing almanacs was formerly 
 reserved to the universities. 
 
 Books that acquire a wide and immediate circulation 
 are but the language of the times. If not seen in 
 print, it will be heard in riots : there is the utmost 
 rashness and folly in trying to suppress it. The pun- 
 ishing of wits, says Bacon shrewdly, enhances their 
 authority. A forbidden writing is thought to be a 
 certain spark of truth that flies up in the face of those 
 who try to tread it out. It does not follow, because 
 libels are a sign of discontents, that the suppression 
 of them should be the remedy for discontents. De- 
 spising them often checks them best, and severity only 
 makes a wonder long-lived. The surest way to prevent 
 discontents is take away the matter of them ; for if 
 there be fuel prepared, it is hard to tell whence the 
 spark may come to set it on fire. To give liberty for 
 griefs and discontents to evaporate is the best and 
 safest course. To choke them but injures the consti- 
 tution of the state, as suppressed ulcers do that of 
 the body. 
 
 The honour and dignity of Government is always 
 best consulted by forbearance in such cases. It ought 
 
PERSECUTIONS. 133 
 
 to feel too certain of its rectitude to care who questions 
 it. Magnauimity in politics is the truest wisdom, for 
 mercy is not opposed to justice. To be compassionate 
 can offend no man's self-esteem, since compassion does 
 not consist in the weakness of the means for punish- 
 ment, but in the benignity of the judge. A little 
 generous prudence on the part of authority towards 
 those who differ with it would moreover unite us all 
 in one general and brotherly search after truth. An 
 author may not indeed be quite right — no man is so. 
 But even the errors of one writer often serve as guides 
 to his successors. 
 
 '' Behold," says the Areopagitica very grandly, " this 
 vast city. The shop of war has not more anvils and 
 hammers to fashion out the plates and instruments of 
 armed justice than there be pens and heads there, 
 sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, 
 revolving new notions and ideas wherewith to present, 
 as with their homage and fealty, each approaching 
 reformation. Others as fast reading, trying all things, 
 assenting only to the force of reason. What could be 
 required more for a nation, so pliant and so firm, to 
 seek out knowledge ? What need of punishments to 
 coerce our judgments ?" There is also in persecu- 
 tions imminent danger of inflicting pain on the wrong 
 man ; and the honour of Government is far more con- 
 cerned in the protection of the innocent than in the 
 punishment of the guilty. 
 
 Suppose even that the judgment of a writer should 
 be obviously unsound, it is the part of authority rather 
 to cure such errors of judgment than to chastise them. 
 
134 PERSECUTIONS. 
 
 It is but a poor thing for a physician to have the better 
 of his patient in a dispute ; the complaint or its causes 
 ought to be removed. Authority never wants the means 
 of force ; but when a prudent and enlarged policy does 
 not precede and attend it, a Government may take what 
 name it will, but it is, in fact, despotic. 
 
 To stifle free speech or writing is merely to send men 
 away out of the world, like unsuccessful merchants 
 from an eastern bazaar, sans deplier, so that we are 
 none the better for the goods they brought us. Philo- 
 sophy and common sense will hardly reject advantages 
 of unknown magnitude that cost nothing ; they will see 
 in all differences of opinion that the subject in question 
 requires examination, and that it is likely to obtain it. 
 Anger, vexation, sentences, penalties, acts of authority, 
 are but the weapons of anility ; and they are ultimately 
 powerless. Truth may remain for a time proscribed 
 and in obscurity; but she only awaits a favourable 
 moment to step forward again into the daylight, and 
 she always shows herself anew, refreshed and stronger, 
 on the very ground where she has been beaten down. 
 One victory error maj' obtain over her and survive its 
 triumph, but a second is fatal to it. 
 
 Macaulay has a fine explanation of the great Chan- 
 cellor's maxim, that " dry light is best." Men are 
 never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they 
 discuss it freely. A government can interfere in a dis- 
 cussion only by making it less free than it would other- 
 wise be. Men are most likely to form just opinions 
 when they have no other wish than to know the truth, 
 and are exempt from all influence either of hope or 
 
PERSECUTIONS. 135 
 
 fear. Power can bring nothing but the influence of 
 hope and fear to support its doctrines; it carries on 
 controversies not with reasons, but with threats and 
 bribes. Instead of a contest between argument and 
 argument, we have a contest between argument and 
 force ; instead of a discussion, in which truth, from the 
 natural constitution of the human mind, has a decided 
 advantage over error, we have a contest, in which truth 
 can be victorious only by accident. 
 
 No matter what may be the strength of an English 
 Government, it will never gain its ends by intimidation. 
 De Foe made the pillory in which he liad stood the 
 subject of a popular ode, and established a review in 
 Newgate. 
 
 The rays of ministerial indignation collected on any 
 man serve only to illuminate, they cannot consume. A 
 writer may be persecuted into fame, but not into ob- 
 scurity; the meanness of the cause throws an air of 
 ridicule on any minister who engages in it. In the 
 persecution of Wilkes the Government made itself not 
 only odious, but absurd; and one of the most con- 
 temptible impostors of his time was thus raised to an 
 extraordinary height of popularity, from which he never 
 fell till he ceased to enjoy the prestige of official resent- 
 ment. A man so thoroughly unprincipled as Wilkes, 
 could only have acquired the support of the people by 
 the senseless animosity of the Government. But 
 Englishmen have always a generous sympathy with the 
 weaker side; and to gain their protection, it is only 
 necessary to be oppressed. If authority persist in its 
 insane course in spite of warnings, also, the question 
 
136 PERSECUTIONS. 
 
 soon becomes transferred from the rights and interests 
 of one man to those of all. From wishing success to 
 the cause of an individual, the people are at last forced 
 to unite with him in their own. The case of Wilkes is 
 not the solitary case in history. The trial of Sache- 
 verell disturbed all England, and made a very foolish 
 fellow looked on as a martyr. Had Lord Carteret seized 
 Swift as the author of " Drapier^s Letters," a revolt 
 in Ireland would have probably shown how deeply 
 private wrongs sometimes move the public. The pro- 
 secution intended against Peter Plymley might have 
 ended as awkwardly. It would have required very little 
 sense or logic to show the absurdity of the sparkling 
 sophisms which Madame de Stael was weaving at 
 Copet. A review would have demolished her reputation 
 in France as it did in England ; the severity of Napo- 
 leon made her at once famous and almost respected. 
 
 The recognized punishments which experience has 
 shown can be awarded without much observation to fear- 
 less writers, are surely discouraging enough. A long 
 and hopeless professional career, the chuckling grin of 
 noodles, the sarcastic leer of jobbers, is certain. Political 
 honesty is not a profitable business, and it has few 
 followers. The Government has places, rewards, sine- 
 cures, pensions, titles, bawbles, secret-service money, 
 ofiicial news, to propagate its opinions and defend its 
 acts; it may surely dispense with persecution. The 
 conduct of Government must be improper and corrupt 
 to an almost inconceivable degree if the whiff of a 
 pamphlet can damage it. No good thing was ever so 
 damaged ,• many evil ones have been thus overturned. 
 
PERSECUTIONS. 137 
 
 No writing could impair the authority of an upright 
 judge ; even the satire of Beaumarchais would not have 
 compelled the French Parliament to put a degrading 
 stigma on a magistrate less culpable than M. Goezman. 
 
 In England the ruling power has scarcely ever real 
 grounds for apprehension. The progress party, though 
 usually the most numerous, is never the most influential. 
 We have a determined partiality for all established 
 things. We are a nation of bowers-down. The pro- 
 gress party are ashamed of one another. They are 
 jealous, disunited, unorganized. Nothing whatever is 
 to be feared from them, for they have never any con- 
 certed plan of action. Their attacks consist merely in 
 the irregular onset from time to time of a few young 
 enthusiasts, who scorn the danger of the assault because 
 they do not know it. The rest are always ludicrously 
 ready to join the yelp of every cur that barks at the 
 heels of a comrade. For all the purposes of constitu- 
 tional opposition, the progress party are little better than 
 an undisciplined rabble. They ultimately win, indeed, 
 every battle ; but they never gather the fruits of 
 victory. They are successful only when their assailants 
 are weary of repulsing them, and shocked at their 
 slaughter. Then corruption takes possession of the 
 field that honesty has won, and composedly claims the 
 reward of a triumph. The friends of power, on the 
 other hand, are always a compact and formidable body, 
 firmly united and proud of their cause. They run no 
 danger. They are secure in defeat, victorious even 
 ■when overthrown or retreating. 
 
 If by some strange accident the progress party comes 
 
138 PERSECUTIONS. 
 
 into power^ it straightway becomes retrograde. It never 
 dreams of rewarding its adherents. There was much 
 truth in the words of Lord Stowell, to the tremendous 
 curate : " Ah^ Mr. Smith, you would have been in a 
 different situation, and a far richer man, if you had 
 belonged to us." Indeed, it was left to the magna- 
 nimity of Lord Lyndhurst to give him any reward 
 at all. 
 
 There is a very evident reason for all this. No Con- 
 servative party in England could hold office if it did 
 not really act on the most enlightened principles of 
 Government known among us. No Liberal Govern- 
 ment could remain in power a month, if it were not 
 well known to be essentially Conservative. A Tory 
 Government is always most favourable to the people. 
 
 Patience, said Pitt, is the quality most essential for a 
 minister, and a statesman is hardly fit for his trade who 
 is not pen-and-ink proof. Nine-tenths of the follies 
 and difficulties of authority arise from nervous appre- 
 hension of that which is never likely to happen. But 
 if, whenever some speech or writing startles a man in 
 power, he is to be privileged to lose his wits, the most 
 painful consequences may ensue. If imaginary evils in 
 the distance can afford reasonable excuse for punishing 
 a writer, we are no further advanced than in the time 
 of King Herod ; for this is precisely the principle on 
 which he instituted his massacre. Fear of conse- 
 quences, unsupported by reasons or probability, is 
 merely the argument of a driveller to a driveller. 
 
 Persecutions directed against men of letters are 
 shocking, because they are always one-sided, and there- 
 
PERSECUTIONS. 13& 
 
 fore unjust. Any -writer who pleases may commit 
 treason against the country with safety and applause. 
 He may lament the dangers of constitutional govern- 
 ment; reprobate the peevishness of parliamentary 
 opposition ; recommend us to look only to the excel- 
 lence of ministers for quiet comfortable government ; 
 and he will be extolled from the confines of Pad- 
 dington to the farthest limits of Belgravia. 
 
 Viewed in any light, persecutions are equally wrong. 
 If, however, they are adopted to show the necessity of 
 a censorship, and prepare the public mind for it — an 
 idea recently stated by a high legal authority in a court 
 of law — it may be well to examine that matter. If a 
 censorship of the Press could ever be re-established, how 
 could any political writer ultimately escape persecution, 
 when the principles of Government alter with every 
 change of ministry? Suppose the censorship of the 
 Press to be virtually restored under some disguise to 
 save appearances, the old objection to it must always 
 recur. The censorship must be a political office, to be 
 conferred by every succeeding Government on the most 
 zealous of its supporters. The publication or suppres- 
 sion of books vvUl then depend on any caprice or hide- 
 bound humour that the creature of some powerful 
 patron may be pleased to call his judgment. This evil 
 is by no means imaginary; and as it always has 
 occurred under a censorship, it is not unreasonable to 
 suppose that it always would do so. Those who had 
 authority to license books formerly, constantly clashed 
 in their opinions. Thus it appeared in the parlia- 
 mentary proceedings against Richard Montague, that 
 
140 PEESECUTIONS. 
 
 the Archbishop of Canterbary had disallowed his book 
 and tried to suppress it. The other bishops all approved 
 it, and hastened its publication. Such disputes were 
 frequent and endless. 
 
 As for putting down the Press by any such obsolete 
 machinery, the idea is almost insane. The most power- 
 ful Governments have never been able to make the 
 censorship anything but a lugubrious farce. The cen- 
 sorship at Rome was a cunning piece of statecraft, 
 contrived by the senate as an additional means of 
 securing their authority. Those who are familiar with 
 Roman literature will scarcely want to know how it 
 worked. In later time, it is the censorship which has 
 damped the glory of Italian intellect, and the sparkle 
 of the wits of France,- — which has obscured the sound, 
 homely sense of Germany, and silenced the patriot 
 songs of Spain. 
 
 What does a censorship, therefore, practically effect ? 
 To put down the right of free remonstrance is only to 
 put down patriotism, and encourage jobbery, by a pro- 
 mise of secrecy, and consequent impunity, for the worst 
 corruptions. To silence the demands and grow angry 
 at the counsel of honest men, is to have no defence 
 against the petty coercion of cliques and coteries. It 
 is merely to convert public life into a series of mys- 
 terious tricks, in which the vilest intriguer will infallibly 
 win the game. 
 
 Once restore the censorship under any mask, or in 
 ever so modified a degree, and the result cannot be 
 contemplated with calmness. Nearly every political 
 writer has been obnoxious to Government, from Lil- 
 
PERSECUTIONS. 141 
 
 burne and Tutchin to Cobbett and Mr. Hunt. The 
 most harmless writings have been adjudged, by men 
 ■with a high reputation for wisdom, as deserving of 
 punishments that it causes a shudder to mention. All 
 history is full of the most shocking instances of such 
 intolerance. A countess of Salisbury was beheaded 
 for writing a letter to her own son. A member of the 
 Restoration Parliament suggested that an insignificant 
 writer named Drake should be hanged up, and roasted 
 at a fire made of his own writings. Bacon was 
 severely punished for the only honest speech he ever 
 made in Parliament, and rewarded for torturing one 
 Peachum, on a Star-chamber prosecution for treason 
 contained in some passages of an unpublished sermon 
 stolen from his study. The enemies of the Press have 
 always been of the same type — bigots and cowards. 
 Rulers of a different order have, of course, held opinions 
 more favourable to it. Harrington's " Oceana " was 
 seized by Cromwell as a libel. The author went to 
 the Protector's daughter to beg it back. Entering her 
 apartment, he snatched up her child, and ran away. 
 She rushed after him. "I know," said Harrington, 
 turning to her, " you feel as a mother ; feel, then, for 
 me. Your father has got my child.'^ The " Oceana" 
 was restored, Cromwell merely observing, drily, " If 
 my government is made to stand, it has nothing to 
 fear from paper shot." A statesman, as calm and mag- 
 nanimous as Cromwell, has also left his successors 
 some notable advice. " That man," said William III. 
 of a troublesome subject, " wishes to become a martyr, 
 and I am determined to disappoint him." He knew that 
 
143 PERSECUTIONS. 
 
 the reputation of a martyr-maker is much more easily 
 gained than lost, and that the martyrs of one genera- 
 tion become the saints of the next. Finally, a very 
 fine remark of Napoleon I. on this subject is men- 
 tioned in the autobiography of M. Arago. It requires, 
 however, as much judgment to act on good advice 
 as to give it ; and nothing will convince a certain sort 
 of obstinacy till it comes to open shame. 
 
 The meanness of political hatred has been absolutely 
 wonderful. Strange, the Jacobite engraver, complained 
 that the English Government caused him to be for- 
 bidden access to the picture-galleries of Italy. A Mr. 
 Carteret Webb, solicitor to the Treasury, employed a 
 thief named Currie to steal a manuscript essay of 
 Wilkes's for prosecution. A man of classical taste and 
 attainments was the editor of an opposition paper, and 
 he published a pathetic poem. The first announce- 
 ment of the work in a Government print set out with 
 the statement that the author had been recently 
 relieved from Newgate. Keats was said to have been 
 crushed, as a warning to genius how it keeps company 
 with honesty, and as an infamous means of inoculating 
 the rising talent of the country with timely and syste- 
 matic servility. The Chronicle and the Examiner were 
 prosecuted for printing that the successor of George III. 
 would have a fine opportunity of becoming popular. 
 The Examiner was again prosecuted for an article 
 against flogging in the army. 
 
 There is no end to this kind of tyranny when it 
 once begins. At the time of the " No Popery " cry, 
 Mr. Percival had every newspaper not devoted to the 
 
PERSECUTIONS. 143 
 
 Treasury under prosecution at once. Sir Vicary Gibbs 
 was attorney-general. He was a man as violent in his 
 disposition as contracted in his views, and he pursued 
 the Press with relentless ferocity. He filed his in- 
 formations by the score, and though he did not venture 
 to bring many of his cases to trial, he harassed his 
 victims by anxiety and delay. He exhausted them by 
 costs. His caprice was equal to his bigotry : he would 
 prosecute the man who copied a passage, and let the 
 original publisher go free ; or he would prosecute both 
 together and bring the copyist first to trial. If dis- 
 comfited, he would then let the author go free ; or he 
 would first try the copyist, and though defeated by his 
 acquittal, afterwards try the original publisher in some 
 other county. To show the mere party feeling, how- 
 ever, by which this man was influenced^ a single 
 instance will suffice. There was one, only one, ex 
 officio information left him by his upright and indepen- 
 dent predecessor. The atrocious nature of that libel 
 could not admit of a dispute ; it was a scandalously false 
 charge of an offence almost amounting to murder, with 
 the design of making the soldiery mutiny. This prose- 
 cution Sir Vicary Gibbs abandoned at once, because 
 the libel was directed against those who had formerly 
 turned Sir Vicary and his friends out of office, and 
 because it was published in a newspaper devoted to his 
 party. Happily for England, however, it was Sir 
 Vicary's truly painful fortune to be defeated in most 
 of his attempts to crush the Press, and he caused those 
 discussions of the ex officio power which first brought 
 it into hatred and then into disuse. 
 
144 PERSECUTIONS. 
 
 Let us hear no more of it, or we should very soon 
 hear too much. There has certainly not appeared for 
 the last fifty years a political work that might not by 
 one person or another, by one party or another, have 
 been made the subject of an ex officio prosecution. 
 How many political libels, moreover, have daily issued 
 from the Press against both individuals and bodies of 
 men in the highest stations ; yet has there ever been 
 one of these prosecuted or punished when it was not 
 levelled against persons in power ? Can a single in- 
 stance be produced of any attempt ever made by Govern- 
 ment to check the utmost scurrility of the Press when it 
 was directed against any person or party in opposition ? 
 Punishments, therefore, can only be looked upon as 
 party vengeances ; and it seems to require more than 
 common hardihood to assert that the Government may 
 systematically employ a libellous Press as part of the 
 machinery of administration, while it can punish with- 
 out disgrace any one who merely attempts to set the 
 nation right on public affairs. The question therefore 
 is. Can Government be allowed to pay bodies of anony- 
 mous slanderers with secret-service money to libel 
 whole parties of gentlemen ? — to pounce with especial 
 malignity upon any member of the Opposition who may 
 distinguish himself? And are none to stir a pen 
 against them ? If the Government insists upon having 
 open-mouthed defenders, is it fair fighting to gag its 
 adversaries ? 
 
 Cardinal Richelieu says, indeed, in his political testa- 
 ment, that subjects with knowledge, sense, and reason, 
 are as monstrous as a beast with hundreds of eyes 
 
PERSECUTIONS. 145 
 
 would he, and that such a beast will never bear its 
 burthen peaceably; whence he infers that it is im- 
 possible to promote despotic power while learning is 
 encouraged. His eminence assures us that the people 
 must be hoodwinked, or rather blinded^ if one would 
 have them tame and patient drudges. In short, you 
 must treat them, says he, everywhere like pack-horses 
 or mules, not excepting the bells about their necks, 
 which by their perpetual jingling may be of use to 
 drown their cares. His eminence the late Cardinal 
 Wolsey was also deeply impressed by similar sentiments, 
 and with a courage worthy of his perspicacity, observed 
 to his colleagues, " We must destroy the Press, or the 
 Press will destroy us." The apostate Julian, who 
 wished to destroy the Christians, forbade them all 
 heathen learning. The devil whipped St. Jerome in 
 a Lenten dream for reading Cicero. The Bible was 
 long prohibited in England, and is still prohibited in 
 many places by churchmen who think their flock should 
 remain in ignorance. 
 
 This is plain dealing and consistent policy. It is 
 mistaken, but intelligible. To talk, however, of liberty 
 and free government, public good and national hap- 
 piness, requiring any limitations of the Press, is to 
 speak of liberty in chains. There can be no more 
 glaring barefaced folly than to say the support of a 
 free constitution and liberal institutions requires the 
 muzzling of any human being who lives under them. 
 
 It can scarcely be credited, therefore, that England, 
 the knight errant abroad, should attempt to play the 
 ogre at home; that she should declaim against all 
 
146 PERSECUTIONS. 
 
 oppression, and be herself an oppressor ; that she 
 should cry out against despotisnij and be herself a 
 despot. This is a bitter satire on our philanthropy, 
 and a melancholy negative of our professions. Our 
 sentiments are so lofty, our deportment to foreigners so 
 haughty, no one could suppose we were hypocrites, 
 and could be found out taking the diversion of private 
 tyranny after the most approved patrons of that 
 amusement. 
 
 To conclude. A tree is known by its fruits. What 
 fruits has this tree of persecution produced but evil 
 fruits? Let us turn then with the homage of our whole 
 hearts to liberty and to justice. If it is a vain dream, 
 to look for their reign on earth, — if there are questions 
 on which some say they dare not hope, it is surely more 
 impious to dare despair. Let us take courage, too, from 
 the past. There was a time when men expiated political 
 honesty at the scaffold and at the stake. It is over. 
 Let us trust, with strong but humble minds, then, that 
 the time will soon pass, also, when it may still be 
 punished by the long slow torture of social degradation, 
 professional ruin, perpetual exile, and a broken heart. 
 
147 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE STATE OF THE LAW. 
 
 No man can tell precisely what is or what is not a 
 libel. Bentham, with caustic humour, defined it as 
 " anything that may at any time displease anybody .'' 
 The severity of our law of libel, says Hallam, is an 
 evil beyond any complete remedy, and evidently renders 
 the liberty of free discussion more precarious than 
 could be wished. Our law of libel has been declared 
 by French jurists to be even stricter than theirs; 
 for ours is an avenging law, and theirs a preventive 
 one. 
 
 It is proper to speak with great diffidence on legal 
 subjects ; but it certainly appears that no Englishman 
 can venture to write boldly on any subject in perfect 
 safety without an attorney at one elbow and a counsel at 
 the other. A writer may flirt with an abuse, indeed, 
 as charmingly as he pleases ; but the moment his inten- 
 tions grow serious, he may be called to account by its 
 guardians. The problem is even still unsolved, whether 
 we must have the Government for critics as well as for 
 rulers. 
 
 It is held in the law-books, that an attack on the 
 reputation of a dead man is actionable. There is no 
 modern decided case to that effect; but so late as in 
 1790, the proprietor of a newspaper called The World 
 
 l2 
 
148 THE STATE OP THE LAW. 
 
 ■was found guilty of a libel against a deceased Earl 
 Cowper. The court granted an arrest, chiefly on the 
 ground of informality in the indictment. In I Lord 
 Raymond, 486, there is a case where judgment was 
 arrested on an indictment for a libel on persons " to 
 the jurors unknown," because they could not properly 
 say that the matter was false and scandalous when 
 they did not know the person of whom it was spoken. 
 Had even this case, however, been brought before 
 Scroggs, he would have overcome the difficulty. That 
 bad man was so shameless an enemy to the liberties 
 of his countrymen as to explain initials, translate 
 asterisks, and declare imaginary persons to be real 
 ones. 
 
 The power of anonymous writing will not evade the 
 anger of any one who holds himself aggrieved by the 
 Press. Though Junius remained a shadow, Woodfall 
 was fined. One object of vengeance may be always 
 found. If a Government does not like to risk so 
 unpopular a proceeding as an attack on the Press, it 
 may choose a convenient instrument. The case of the 
 Dean of St. Asaph was a private prosecution for a state 
 offence. 
 
 The greater the truth, the greater the libel, has 
 become a popular proverb, and every one admits that 
 in some cases there is some good in this doctrine. 
 Since Mr. Fox's Libel Bill of 1792, however, declaring 
 the right of juries to find a verdict on the whole matter, 
 persons justly accused have been rather shy of actions 
 for libel. Nevertheless, the law can have lost little of 
 its power to punish, when a travelling tailor could 
 
THE STATE OF THE LAW. 149 
 
 recently obtain £400 damages from the most powerful 
 journal in the world. Most of the verdicts in recent 
 cases have been equally severe. 
 
 Even the Star-chamber, however, held that there 
 was a diflference between defamatory and reformatorjr 
 writings, and punishment for libel in our time is under 
 some important restrictions. 
 
 The law denounces as libellous all writings published 
 with intent, and having a tendency, to revile, or ridicule, 
 or degrade the Christian religion, the holy Scriptures, 
 the Established Church, or any of its rites, — the Sove- 
 reign and the Government, the Houses of Parliament, 
 the courts of justice, the magistrates, — or, in short, any 
 private individual, however humble or obscure. There 
 must be, Ist, a publication; 2nd, a writing or other 
 sign or representation; 3rd, an offensive tendency 
 to vilify and lower in public estimation; 4th, a mali- 
 cious intent to produce such effect. But the noxious 
 or defamatory tendency of the writing will not alone 
 constitute it libel, where the circumstances are such as 
 to negative a wicked or malicious, and to raise a pre- 
 sumption of honest and conscientious motive in the 
 publisher. To the Supreme Being alone error may 
 never be imputed. 
 
 A writer who has stated the truth may, indeed, be pro- 
 secuted by indictment ; but the serious disadvantages to 
 which such a proceeding subjects the prosecutor renders 
 it comparatively of rare occurrence and inefficient 
 operation. No proceeding can be successfully supported 
 where the publication is made under such circum- 
 stances as show the writer's motive to have been 
 
150 THE STATE OF THE LAW. 
 
 laudable, and the publication necessary or useful for 
 any fair and legitimate object. 
 
 A writer may thus expose the follies or mistakes of 
 any one, and make use of ridicule, however pungent. 
 If the reputation or pecuniary interests of the person 
 ridiculed suffer, it is damnum absque injuria.. The 
 liberty of the Press would be gone if an action could be 
 maintained by a criminal, or a fool, whose crime, or 
 whose folly, had been exposed for the benefit of society. 
 No person would have purchased the works of Sir 
 Kobert Filmer after he had been refuted by Locke ; but 
 he could not even in that age have maintained an action 
 against the great philosopher, who was labouring to 
 enlighten and ameliorate mankind. Every man's public 
 actions and opinions are and should be liable to criti- 
 cism, exposure, and ridicule, if they are wrong or 
 ridiculous. Were this otherwise, the actions of the 
 silly must become precedents for the wise ; and the first 
 person who discussed any question would maintain a 
 monopoly of sentiment and opinion respecting it. This 
 would tend to the perpetuity of error. The rule is clear ; 
 the public conduct of all public men is fairly open to 
 the severest scrutiny, and those who cannot bear it 
 should retire into private life. 
 
 It was long ago observed by the great founders of 
 British liberty, that the power of punishment in arbitrary 
 hands often became a dreadful engine of persecution, 
 jealousy, and revenge. Wisely, therefore, have the 
 laws now guarded our safety on such a point by the 
 most studious precautions. No person can be convicted 
 of high treason committed more than three years before 
 
THE STATE OF THE LAW. 151 
 
 the indictment is found; no paper or writing can be 
 produced ia any proceeding for libel^ either civil or 
 criminalj more than two years after its publication. 
 Trial by jury is emphatically necessary before any 
 punishment at all can be legally inflicted for libel. 
 It is expressly provided that no magistrate shall be 
 sole judge of the criminal nature of any publicatiouj 
 because it might easily happen with regard to a point 
 which highly excites the jealousy of the governing 
 power, that magistrates might exert themselves with so 
 much spirit and perseverance that they might at length 
 virtually destroy the liberty of the Press. Whether 
 the authority of the judges, therefore, is exerted at the 
 motion of a private individual, or at the instance of 
 Government, their sole office is to declare the penaltj^ 
 established bylaw. It is to a jury alone that it belongs 
 to determine on the matter of the law, as well as in the 
 matter of fact. The jury must determine not only 
 whether the writing which is the subject of the charge 
 has really been composed by the man charged with 
 having composed it, or whether it be really meant of 
 the person named in the indictment, but also whether 
 its contents are criminal. 
 
 Experience has fully shown the necessity of these 
 admirably devised precautions for the protection of our 
 liberties. In former times it constantly happened that 
 charges of treason and libel were brought forward by 
 corrupt governments to free themselves from redoubt- 
 able opponents. The law, sensible of the unequal con- 
 test in which a subject may be thus engaged, has 
 assisted his defence with extraordinary indulgence. 
 
152 IHE STATE OF THE LAW. 
 
 By two statutes enacted since the Revolution, every 
 person indicted for high treason must be furnished with 
 a copy of the indictment, a list of the witnesses to be 
 produced, and of the jury to be impanelled. This list 
 must be delivered to him ten days before the trial. 
 He is also permitted to make his defence by counsel, 
 and the distinct testimony of two credible witnesses, at 
 least, is required to convict him. 
 
 Even Government is not permitted to call its own 
 servants and subordinates arbitrarily to account on the 
 weak charge of libel ; and the law has been admirably laid 
 down on this point in Erskine's fine defence of Captain 
 Baillie. That great lawyer solemnly admonished the 
 court to mark the malignant nature of the prosecution 
 and to defeat it. He besought them to consider that 
 even by discharging the rule with costs, the defendant 
 was neither protected nor restored. He entreated 
 their lordships not to rest satisfied with fulfilling their 
 judicial duty, but, as the strongest evidence of foul 
 abuses had by accident come collaterally before them, 
 to protect a brave and public-spirited ofiicer from the 
 persecutions his writings had brought upon him, and 
 not suffer so dreadful an example to go abroad into the 
 world as the ruin of an upright man for having faith- 
 fully discharged his duty. " Fine and imprisonment !" 
 passionately exclaimed the great constitutional lawyer 
 ■ — " the man deserves a palace ! " 
 
 The defendant, he observed, was not a disappointed, 
 malicious informer, prying into ofiicial abuses because 
 without office himself — but himself a man in ofiice. He 
 was not troublesomely inquisitive into other men's 
 
THE STATE OF THE LAW. 153 
 
 departmentSj but conscientiously correcting his own, 
 doing it pursuant to the rules of the law, and, what 
 brightened the character of his conduct, doing it at the 
 risk of his office, from which the effrontery of power 
 had already suspended him, without proof of his guilt. 
 Erskine then gravely censured the first Lord of the 
 Admiralty for the impropriety of which he had been 
 guilty towards his subordinate. 
 
 Lord Mansfield (who was on the bench) interposed, 
 reminding the indignant advocate that the minister 
 was not before the court. 
 
 "For that very reason," replied Erskine, "I will 
 bring him before the court. He has placed other men 
 in front of the battle, in hopes to escape under their 
 shelter : but they are not of dignity enough to vindi- 
 cate the combat with me. And if he keeps this injured 
 man suspended, or dares to turn that suspension into 
 a removal, I shall then not scruple to declare him an 
 accomplice in their guilt, a shameless oppressor, a 
 disgrace to his rank, and a traitor to his trust." 
 
 Is not the law of libel severe enough ? Is power 
 fettered too tightly ? Does any rational man contend 
 that knaves should pocket money for injury sustained 
 by the exposure of their knavery ? Would we return 
 to the judicial murders, the insane cruelties, and ruinous 
 fines of the past ? If so, let us, at least, pass five 
 minutes in recalling them to memory. 
 
 The absurd restrictions on the Press, — the bloody 
 and ferocious punishments inflicted upon writers, were 
 for centuries the foulest disgrace to our annals. All 
 books of law were revised by the chancellor, or one of 
 
154 THE STATE OF THE LAW. 
 
 the chief justices; all books on history and politics by 
 a secretary of state; all books on heraldry by the 
 king-at-arms ; all books on divinity, physic, or philo- 
 sophy, by the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Bishop 
 of London. If printed at either university, they were 
 revised by its chancellor. While these laws were in 
 full force, scurrilous and obscene publications, of course, 
 Abounded to an extraordinary degree. There was a 
 way of getting over the restrictions, indeed, when mere 
 obscenities were to be slurred over ; and John Dunton, 
 in the history of his life, hints that unlicensed books 
 could be published by a bribe to one Robert Stephens, 
 a messenger of the Press, whose business it was to 
 inform against them. The Press was manacled, that 
 she might ransom herself, when most guilty, from a 
 low rogue. 
 
 A long catalogue of literary martyrs disgraced every 
 reign in our history subsequent to the introduction of 
 printing. Even Elizabeth mutilated Stubbs, and put 
 Penry to a cruel death, for their writings. In 1630, a 
 Doctor Alexander Leighton, who published an "Appeal 
 to Parliament against Prelacy," was condemned to be 
 imprisoned in the Fleet for life; to be fined iSlO,000 ; to 
 be degraded from his ministry ; to stand in the pillory ; 
 to be whipped ; to have his nose slit ; to have his ears 
 cropped ; and, further, to be branded on the cheek. 
 
 Lilburne, when only twenty years old, was whipped, 
 pilloried, fined, and imprisoned, on a charge of im- 
 porting books from Holland. Burton, Bastwick, and 
 Prynne were each fined £5,000, imprisoned, pilloried, 
 and branded for the same offence. 
 
THE STATE OF THE LAW. 1^5 
 
 Prynne also wrote a book displeasing to certain moun- 
 tebanks. The queen of Charles I. had taken part in a 
 masque subsequent to the printing of the book : but 
 Bishop Laud was Prynne'a enemy, and did not scruple 
 to aver that the publication was intended to throw 
 discredit on her Majesty. He was convicted on this 
 absurd charge, and he was sentenced to be pilloried, to 
 lose his ears, to pay a fine of j65,000, and afterwards to 
 suflFer imprisonment for life. His book was directed to 
 be burnt by the common hangman. The licenser was 
 fined £50. 
 
 Sparkes, another of the defendants in the same 
 action, was condemned to pay £500, and to stand in 
 the pillory. It was, moreover, decreed that the pillory 
 should be set up in St. Paul's Churchyard. 
 
 " It is a consecrated place," interposed the Archbisliop 
 of Canterbury. 
 
 "T cry your grace's pardon," answered Lord Cot- 
 tington, who pronounced the sentence, " then let it be 
 in Cheapside." 
 
 Noy, the Attorney-General who prosecuted, laughed 
 at Mr. Prynne as he was suffering in the pillory. 
 
 On yet another occasion, Prynne was indicted, with 
 some others, for writing books against the hierarchy, 
 and was not even allowed to defend himself. It is 
 pleasant to remember that Prynne came afterwards to 
 honour, and Laud to the scafibld. 
 
 One midnight, in the October of 1763, a printer 
 named Twyn was seized by the unscrupulous myrmi- 
 dons of the law. He was a very ignorant man. When 
 questioned, he said that he thought he had printed 
 
156 THE STATE OF THE LAW. 
 
 mettlesome stuff, but knew no hurt in it. Rogei' 
 L'Estrange, however, dragged him before Chief Justice 
 Hyde, who then disgraced the English bench. 
 
 " I humbly beg mercy," cried the terrified wretch ; 
 "I am a poor man, my lord, and have three small 
 children ; I never read a word of it." 
 
 "I'U tell you what you shall do," responded the 
 Chief Justice, — " ask mercy of them that can give it ; 
 that is, of God and the king." 
 
 " I humbly beseech your lordship to intercede with 
 his majesty for mercy," piteously whined the abject 
 wretch. 
 
 " Tie him up, executioner," roared Hyde ; and he 
 proceeded to pronounce such a sentence as it makes 
 the blood curdle to copy. 
 
 " I speak it from my soul," began the cold-hearted 
 sycophant, " I think we have the greatest happiness in 
 the world in enjoying what we do under so gracious 
 and good a king [it was Charles II.] ; yet you, Twyn, 
 in the rancour of your heart thus to abuse him, 
 deserve no mercy." 
 
 After a good deal to the same effect, the sanguinary 
 judge ordered that " Twyn be drawn upon a hurdle to 
 the place of execution ; that he be hanged by the neck, 
 and, being alive, that he be cut down, and that his 
 body be mutilated " in a way of which decency forbids 
 the mention; and that his entrails should be after- 
 wards taken out, "and he still hanging the same to 
 be burned before his eyes ; his head to be cut off; 
 and his head and quarters to be disposed of at the 
 pleasure of the king's majesty." 
 
THE STATE OF THE LAW. 157 
 
 "I humbly beseech your lordship/' again cried 
 Twyn, in his agony, " to remember my condition, and 
 to intercede for me." 
 
 "I would not intercede," replied Hyde, "for my 
 own father in this case, if he were alive." The un- 
 happy printer was then led back to Newgate, only to 
 leave it for Tyburn, where his awful sentence was carried 
 into effect. His head and the quarters of his body 
 were set up to fester and rot " on Ludgate, Aldersgate, - 
 and the other gates of the city." * 
 
 On another occasion, a poor countryman, named 
 Benjamin Keach, was also tried before Lord Hyde, for 
 having written a small book in which it was urged 
 that " laymen might preach the Gospel." When brought 
 into court, the accused was treated so shamefully by 
 the judge, that more than a century afterwards the 
 conduct of Hyde became the subject of severe comment 
 in the House of Commons.t Keach frankly avowed 
 the authorship of the publication, and would have 
 spoken in defence of it. But the chief justice inter- 
 rupted him, by loudly declaring that he " should not 
 preach in that court to seduce and infect his majesty's 
 subjects." His lordship then sentenced Keach to stand 
 twice in the pillory, whilst his book was burned by the 
 hangman before his face. 
 
 Indeed, till the accession of William III., a trial for 
 libel has been justly described as merely a murder 
 preceded by the uttering of certain gibberish and the 
 performance of certain ceremonies. It would have 
 
 * Vide State Trials, vol. vi. p. 539. 
 
 t Vide Parliamentary History, Deo. 6, 1770. 
 
158 THE STATE OF THE LAW. 
 
 been irony to call it justice. Long after the time of 
 William, also, the law of libel was perhaps the very- 
 worst law in force in the statute-book. 
 
 In 1764, Meres, printer of the London Evening 
 Post, was fined 100^. for merely printing the name of 
 Lord Hereford. In 1779, Woodfall ventured to print 
 an expression of joy, that Admiral Keppel, the com- 
 panion of Anson, had secured an acquittal by a court- 
 martial. He was sentenced to pay a heavy fine, and 
 suffer twelve months' imprisonment in Newgate. 
 
 In 1782, four newspapers were fined for a libel on 
 the Russian ambassador. In 1792, Lady Elizabeth 
 Lambert obtained a verdict of 4,000Z. against the pro- 
 prietor of the Morning Post. In the same year, 
 Sampson Perry, printer of the Argus, was found 
 guilty of publishing a libel, in stating that the House 
 of Commons were not the real representatives of the 
 people. A reward of 100/. was offered for his appre- 
 hension. Stockdale was punished for printing " that 
 the impeachment of Warren Hastings was carried on 
 from motives of personal animosity, not of regard to 
 public justice." In 1810, Leigh Hunt, John Hunt, 
 and Perry, were prosecuted for writing in the Ex- 
 aminer, that "of all monarchs since the Revolution, 
 the successor of George III. wotild have the best op- 
 portunity of becoming popvdar." In 1811, the same 
 persons were prosecuted for republishing from the 
 Stamford News an article against flogging in the 
 army. Pitt, Burke, and Lord Loughborough, all re- 
 covered heavy damages for libel. Napoleon I. brought 
 an action for libel in the English courts. A Mr. 
 
THE STATE OF THE LAW. 159 
 
 Goldsmid recovered 1,500^. damages from a Mr. Dicken- 
 son, who had accused him of stockjobbing. At last, 
 attracted by such tempting baits, in 1820 an institu- 
 tion, called the " Constitutional Association," was set up 
 to check the freedom of the Press. 
 
 But enough of this dark story. To Lord Erskine 
 belongs the chief honour of having at last saved his 
 country from suicide, and for a while stemmed the tide 
 of such overwhelming disgrace. We have had a terrible 
 lesson. Let us profit by it; and may our hearts be 
 too strong, and our rulers too gentle and too just, to 
 learn or to teach it again. 
 
160 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OFFICIAL SBCEETS. 
 
 TnERti is, happily, a growing disposition among in- 
 telligent Englishmen to prize truth and frankness in 
 public affairs ; to look with disdain on artifice, trick, 
 and disguise ; to regard the business of the world no 
 longer as an affair which demands unremitted intrigue 
 and perpetual deceit ; to consider the great interests of 
 mankind as not requiring to be supported by ignorance 
 and prejudice ; to believe that suppression and conceal- 
 ment can be of no service, except to the few at the 
 expense of the many ; and that every important ques- 
 tion should be freely and boldly examined. The people 
 may still remain quiet, under a system of mystery ; but 
 they are not indifferent. They are waiting with good- 
 humoured patience for a change that must come. 
 They will no longer be satisfied, for official convenience, 
 to live and act under the persuasion that in the vices 
 of concealment and misrepresentation there is virtue to 
 metamorphose bad measures into good. 
 
 Our Government can have no secrets which must 
 not on demand be revealed to Parliament ; and therefore 
 it is but a silly kind of trifling to pretend to maintain 
 an impenetrability which is in fact impossible. Every 
 official mystery is ultimately known to everybody. If 
 it were sometimes known sooner, wars and other great 
 
OFFICIAL SECEETS. 161 
 
 evils would often be prevented. Why, therefore, 
 should a silly and mischievous sleight-of-hand be prac- 
 tised in this matter ? When no state secret in England 
 can resist a well-directed inquiry forty-eight hours, 
 why make believe that it is kept at all ? Dean Swift 
 knew something of the machinery of far more myste- 
 rious governments than ours. He had penetrated 
 behind the scenes; he was a man of no common powers 
 of observation, and he declared that he did not know 
 what a state secret meant. Perhaps, if the case is 
 closely examined, it will be found to mean an official 
 blunder. Let us hope it is seldom more in our 
 times. It is not many years ago, however, that letters 
 addressed to editors of newspapers were systematically 
 retarded by officials, that they might first sell the 
 news such letters were likely to contain for their 
 private profit.* 
 
 Public opinion is lenient and charitable enough 
 surely. It will cheerfully and obsequiously forgive and 
 excuse indolence, nepotism, incapacity, neglect; but 
 it should scarcely be required to tolerate a systematic 
 suppression of the truth for the benefit of individuals, 
 and to suffer an organized war against improvement. 
 Our officials are not fairly entitled to presume that 
 Englishmen may not be trusted with their own afiairs ; 
 and that officials are wiser than all the rest of their 
 countrymen together. 
 
 To attempt to impose upon others, or themselves, by 
 declaring that they conceal the truth, from patriot- 
 ism, would be nothing but the flimsiest of fallacies. In 
 * See "Fourth Estate :" Colbum, 1851. 
 il 
 
163 OFFICIAIi SECRETS. 
 
 the worst-governed countries everything is concealed, 
 and a state of infantine and ridiculous imbecility of the 
 national mind is the consequence. In the best-governed 
 countries there is no concealment at all ; and the result 
 may be seen in the shrewd wit and large understanding 
 of the Americans. 
 
 The attempt to obtain such a crazy shelter for mis- 
 takes as mystery affords is very short-sighted. Nothing 
 is to be really gained by it. Prohibitions and penalties 
 intended to suppress the communication of facts to the 
 public till they have been garbled out of all significa- 
 tioUj is merely to give an implied certificate of truth to 
 the wildest guesses of demagogues and agitators. A 
 man in office may for a time close the lips and bind 
 the hands of a few trembling underlings, whose bread 
 depends upon his nod, by starving and fining them 
 into silence, but he cannot shut the mouths of the 
 Opposition who were in office yesterday, nor of his own 
 colleagues, nor of ofiicers attached to other departments. 
 His act is, therefore, as impotent as an attempt to shut 
 up the birds in his garden by closing the wicket, or a 
 device to smother the knowledge of facts told to all 
 Europe yesterday, by burning a few copies of to-day's 
 newspapers. A wise man, therefore, will yield to 
 necessity where he sees that resistance is vain. When 
 a concession must be made, it should be made grace- 
 fully and at once, while the power to refuse adds 
 kindness and dignity to the gift. It is growing a 
 dangerous speculation for any of our statesmen to cal- 
 culate too closely and precisely how long the quick and 
 earnest spirit which is abroad among Englishmen will 
 
OFFICIAL SECRETS. 163 
 
 still consent to play at hide-and-seek with truth ; how 
 much longer we will submit to be deluded and led 
 astray by mystery upon matters which daily prejudice 
 our interests^ and which may one day, at no distant 
 date, positively concern our independent existence as 
 a nation. 
 
 It is growing hazardous to try how long the Press 
 will consent to write, and the Parliament to debate 
 upon matters of which they know nothing, and about 
 which all information has been confessedly concealed 
 from them. 
 
 It is rash and unpatriotic to attempt to prove in these 
 days of steam and electricity, when a hostile army may 
 be landed on our coasts any fine afternoon, how long 
 the English people can be induced to remain in a para- 
 dise of ignorance for half the year, while the security 
 of their fortunes and their throats, the honour of their 
 wives and daughters, or even the national existence, 
 may depend upon the infallibility of any party that 
 accident or intrigue may place for even a day in power. 
 It is unreasonable to expect us to bind ourselves to 
 listen with complaisance and respect, in the midst of 
 such alarming realities, to the vapouring and vain- 
 glorious assertion of any man in office, of any shade of 
 opinion, while he gravely insists that he shall be allowed 
 to manage or mismanage our affairs as he pleases ; 
 that we shall never presume to inquire too closely into 
 corruptions which may affect our fortunes and our lives ; 
 and that the bare possession of office shall enable any 
 person to involve us in perpetual quarrels with all the 
 earth. A people who could sit down smilingly, and 
 
 M 2 
 
164 OFFICIAL SECRETS. 
 
 tolerate a state of things so menacing as thisj must be 
 oppressed with a moral nightmare. 
 
 It may not be proper^ indeed^ to make the law of 
 publicity absolute^ because it is impossible to foresee 
 all the circumstances in which a nation may be placed. 
 Rules should be made for a state of calm and security : 
 they cannot be formed for a state of trouble and peril. 
 But, in a word, secrecy is a mere instrument of con- 
 spiracy against the people ; and it ought not be the 
 system of a regular government. A well-meaning mi- 
 nistry may safely conclude that it will redound especially 
 to its lustre if it invites discussion on all public matters. 
 God, who gives power, does not give infallibility ; and 
 we are told, in language none may question, that in the 
 multitude of counsel only is there safety in time of 
 trouble. "Better," said the greatest monarch who 
 ever lived, " to hear the rebuke of the wise than the 
 song of fools;" and he reproves, with all the severe 
 and solemn dignity of inspiration, the king who will no 
 more be admonished. The publicity of public questions 
 collects the whole current knowledge of the nation, 
 and brings it to bear upon them. The most useful 
 national plans have often been thus derived from the 
 suggestions of private individuals. The men whose 
 condition in life leads them to cultivate their minds 
 most highly, have rarely an opportunity of entering 
 into the career of politics ; but a Dr. Price proposed 
 the establishment of the Sinking Fund to Pitt, and the 
 science of government is perhaps indebted as much to 
 Dean Swift, Dean Tucker, and Sidney Smith, as to any 
 three right hon. privy councillors who could be named. 
 
OFFICIAL SECRETS. 165 
 
 Nearly every English worthy has bequeathed to us 
 some remarkable saying as a proof of his homage and 
 fealty to the great principle of open dealing in public 
 affairSj and as a testimony to his deliberate and mature 
 conviction that ignorance is almost the universal cause 
 of the misery of mankind. To reveal and point out 
 the truth is to clear this ignorance away ; it is to do 
 good on a large scale. The detection of an error, the 
 establishment of a fact, the determination of a doubtful 
 principle, may ultimately spread its benefits over every 
 portion of the human race, and be the means of lessen- 
 ing the burthens and increasing the happiness of unborn 
 generations. The great interests of mankind demand 
 that the way of discovery should be open ; that there 
 should be no obstructions to inquiry; that every 
 facility and encouragement should be given to efforts 
 directed to enlighten us ; that every man should join 
 in such efforts to the best of his ability, and that none 
 should presume to thwart them. 
 
 Even tentative processes of the wildest nature, the 
 most chimerical speculations, are of advantage. The 
 world is full of ignorance, and a zealous pursuit of even 
 singular and eccentric views may often be the means of 
 lessening the evil. The most visionary of students may 
 furnish a curious body of facts, which may be ultimately 
 to the philosophy of government what alchemy was 
 to chemistry. Let us, therefore, " prove all things, and 
 hold fast that which is good." 
 
 It is not humility to refrain from inquiry upon the 
 most important matters : it is the worst kind of arro- 
 gance, the most deplorable apathy. It is humility to 
 
166 OFFICIAL SECRETS. 
 
 endeavour, laboriously, to make ourselves thoroughly 
 acquainted with every subject which concerns the 
 common welfare before presuming to profess an opinion, 
 or daring to act. Far from being a virtue, passive 
 acquiescence is in most cases a positive vice, stopping 
 all useful advancement. On serious occasions, there- 
 fore, it is an imperative duty to enter upon a rigorous 
 examination of the facts and evidence within our 
 reach, to clear up our doubts, and to guide our conduct. 
 Inquiry can lead us to no forbidden truths ; it can 
 involve us in no criminality ; it is wicked and wrong 
 only to refrain from it, lest we should go astray in bhnd 
 deference to any. Should we cut off our ears, that 
 others might write to us upon music ; should we put 
 out our eyes, that others might guide us in our walks. 
 Had God given to some men eyes and ears and to 
 others none, the beings so gifted might claim a natural 
 and reasonable superiority; but the Almighty has 
 endowed no men with supremacy of this kind. The 
 only reason which can be assigned against inquiry is, 
 that we may not come to a sound conclusion from the 
 facts which might be submitted to us. But it is obvious 
 that we are much more likely to miss it by remaining 
 in our ignorance ; it is therefore incumbent upon us to 
 know whether we are committing an offence by holding 
 our present opinions. It is necessary to inquire whether 
 those opinions are true ; and thus the reason assigned for 
 not inquiring leads to the conclusion that it is proper 
 and dutiful to inquire. 
 
 Any one who has taken due pains to master a subject, 
 who feels persuaded that he can present it in a new 
 
OFFICIAL SECRETS. 167 
 
 liglit, and who is not destitute of the obvious qualifica- 
 tions for the task, is under a moral obligation to com- 
 municate his views to his fellow-creatures. Not to do 
 so, if the matter be important, is reprehensible selfish- 
 ness; he can only conceal his knowledge to avoid 
 trouble, to shrink from responsibility, or maintain a 
 vain and solitary superiority over the rest of the 
 world. In communicating the result of his inquiries, 
 he may, indeed, be unhappily the means of promul- 
 gating error, — to such a misfortune the wisest are 
 liable ; but his errors will be probably such as have, 
 with more or less distinctness, presented themselves to 
 other minds as truths. To bring them openly for- 
 ward with the principles from which they are deduced, 
 is giving them the best chance of being refuted ; had 
 they been kept back, they might have continued to 
 delude other people. When they have been once fully 
 canvassed, their real character will be conspicuous to 
 every one. 
 
 Investigation on public affairs is a pursuit in which 
 there is everything to hope and nothing to fear. In 
 private life there are matters not to be scrutinized with 
 honour by any person ; to infringe their secrecy would 
 be meddling and indelicate. But there should be no 
 closed documents in the transactions of a great nation ; 
 no private processes going on, into which those whose 
 dearest interests are at stake have no right to intrude. 
 No facts of public importance can be profaned by public 
 scrutiny ; no evil can arise from our understanding our 
 own business too well. The strangest absurdities would be 
 involved in the supposition that we could possibly reach 
 
168 OFFICIAL SECKETS. 
 
 to political knowledge which we ought not to obtain. 
 That we cannot extort secrets of legislation which it 
 would not promote our common welfare to know, is the 
 plainest of truisms. 
 
 The object of good government is to promote the 
 public welfare, not to further private ends or gratify 
 vain ambition. Perfection in the art of ruling, as in 
 all other arts, is the offspring of thought and knov^^- 
 ledge. Let us think and learn. There is no instance 
 since the beginning of the world, where human liberty 
 has been established or preserved by little systems of 
 trumpery and trick. Did America cheat herself into 
 independence? Was it by a game at hide-and-seek 
 with her patriots that Holland shook off the yoke of 
 Spain? Such secrecy is but the weapon of small 
 despots against the people. England and Englishmen 
 should be ashamed to touch it. 
 
 Suspicion always attaches to mystery. It supposes a 
 crime when it observes an affectation of secrecy ; and 
 it is rarely deceived. Why should men hide themselves 
 if they do not dread being seen ? In proportion as it 
 is desirable for improbity to shun the light, it is de- 
 sirable for innocence to seek it. The best project pre- 
 pared in darkness excites more alarm than the worst 
 undertaken under the auspices of publicity. In an 
 open and free policy, there is confidence not otily for 
 the people, but for the governors themselves. Let it 
 be impossible that anything should be done unknown 
 to the nation. Prove to it that it can neither be de- 
 ceived nor surprised, and all the weapons of discontent 
 vanish. The public will repay with usury the confidence 
 
OFFICIAL SECRETS. 169 
 
 reposed in it. Calumny will lose its force : it collects 
 its venom in obscurity; it is destroyed in tlie day. Error 
 is only like a shadow — throw a light on it, and it departs. 
 That a secret policy saves itself some inconve- 
 nience may appear true at first sight ; but in the long 
 run it creates more than it avoids. In a dispute 
 between any two governments, one of which should 
 conduct its negotiations secretly, and the other should 
 conduct them openly, the latter would always possess a 
 strength, a hardihood, and a reputation which would 
 render it superior to all the dissimulations of the other. 
 It has been objected against publicity, that it is a system 
 )f distrust. This is true. Every good political institu- 
 tion must be founded on this principle. Whom ought 
 we to distrust, if not those to whom is committed great 
 authority with great temptation to abuse it ? " Sire," 
 said Madame de Stael, absurdly, to an emperor of 
 Russia, "your character is a constitution for your 
 country, and your conscience its guarantee." " Quand 
 cela serait," replied the sensible autocrat, "je ne serais 
 jamais qu'un accident heureux." 
 
 Unhappily, conduct cannot be estimated by character, 
 character must be estimated by conduct ; and if there 
 is any one maxim in politics more certain than another, 
 it is that no possible degree of virtue in governors can 
 render it expedient for the governed to dispense with 
 protective regulations, and leave themselves defenceless. 
 In every public trust, therefore, the legislator should 
 suppose the trustee disposed to break the trust in every 
 imaginable way in which it would be possible for him 
 to reap any personal advantage from such breach. 
 
170 OFFICIAL SECRETS. 
 
 When this principle is applied generally, it can be 
 considered personally injurious to none. But men of 
 reputed good character cannot be safely allowed to 
 act uncontrolled, and to do -whatever suits their 
 inclinations. 
 
 The duties of public servants concern the affairs of 
 others comparatively indifferent to them. These affairs 
 are often difficult, and often complicated. They require 
 the most laborious application. The personal ease and 
 interests of those to whom the management is confided, 
 are frequently in direct opposition to their duties. 
 Such persons may even possess the means of serving 
 themselves at the expense of the public, without the 
 possibility of being convicted of so doing. To coun- 
 teract these dangerous influences, what remains but 
 public opinion, dread of its judgment, desire of its 
 approval ? 
 
 Secrecy imports fear, it is even conclusive evidence 
 of it. This fear may be mingled with a silly and in- 
 tolerable kind of pride, which may induce a man in 
 power to endeavour to palm off his unaided wisdom 
 upon the people as superior to any result which might 
 have been attained by their investigation and counsel. 
 But to say that no explanations shall ever be given of 
 affairs and negotiations in progress, means simply that 
 no explanations shaU be given while explanations are 
 of any use ; that no remedy shall ever be applied to 
 public evils till they are past remedy. Nations will 
 judge the acts of their governors. If they judge without 
 information, or upon false information, their opinions 
 are altogether different from what they ought to be. 
 
OFFICIAL SECRETS. 171 
 
 and from what they would be if founded in truth. 
 But they do not pause for this. The people who would 
 suspend their judgment upon the acts of government 
 till all results were known, would be a nation of philo- 
 sophers, and a very dull nation too. Suppose, then, 
 the people are apprehensive of evil. They may be 
 wrong J but this does not alter the case. They become 
 agitated; they murmur; alarm is created; resistance 
 is prepared. Tardy explanations will not tranquillize 
 them when the mischief is done. The history of the 
 Emperor Joseph II. would furnish a multitude of ex- 
 amples against political mystery, even when the inten- 
 tions of government are salutary. On the other hand, 
 no evil need ever be apprehended from any measure if 
 care is honestly and conscientiously taken to enlighten 
 the people as to its utility. Government cannot dis- 
 sipate at pleasure doubts which have arisen, but it can 
 altogether prevent their arising. Men soon find the 
 truth when they are allowed to discuss a question 
 freely : shadows startle them when they are not. 
 
 Ministers are properly the advisers and agents of the 
 people. They stand towards the nation very much in 
 the same relation as an attorney towards his client. 
 How would a client consider an attorney who persisted 
 in withholding all explanations respecting the proceed- 
 ings he was taking in behalf of a client ; who refused 
 all information as to the matter in hand from those 
 who knew most about it; who declined to examine 
 witnesses, or to see the client upon his own business, 
 till after a verdict, founded upon insufficient information, 
 had been obtained against him ? Would not such an 
 
173 OFFICIAL SECRETS. 
 
 attorney have incurred the just anger and resentment 
 of his unhappy employer, and have irretrievably lost 
 his character, by bringing upon himself a needless and 
 overwhelming responsibility ? 
 
 Summed up in a few words, and divested of all arti- 
 fice, the reasoning of the partisans of mystery in public 
 affairs is briefly this: the people are incapable of judg- 
 ing our acts because they are ignorant, and they shall 
 remain ignorant because they are incapable of judging. 
 There is a small body of corrupt men in power, also, 
 whose interest it is to treat the majority of the people 
 on the double footing of subjects and enemies ; and such 
 is the treatment in store for them to the extent of their 
 endurance. But surely an association of persons com- 
 bined to mystify every one for their own purposes, can- 
 not be countenanced and supported by gentlemen. 
 Such a shameless confederacy would not be more re- 
 spectable than a gang of card-sharpers combined to 
 evade the scrutiny of the police; their pretensions to 
 secrecy would be as wily and shocking. To official 
 men whose conduct is good, publicity can only be of 
 advantage. If their courses are evil, we must be de- 
 mented to allow them to do us mischief in the dark, 
 and to insist upon keeping up a mystery which could 
 alone enable them to injure us. 
 
 To learn the principles of a man in office, a single 
 question will suffice. If he wUl concur in putting 
 matters on such a footing with respect to the liberty of 
 the Press, that no man shall have more to fear from 
 ■writing against Government or ministers than for 
 writins: in their favour, the Government which he 
 
OFFICIAL SECRETS. 173 
 
 desires to see established is liberal and constitutional j 
 if notj he is anxious to maintain a despotic Govern- 
 ment, however he may gloze the fact over to others or 
 himself. 
 
 Instead of being desirous of venal praise, and mor- 
 bidly anxious to conceal all knowledge of his measures, 
 a wise statesman will feel that just censure and careful 
 examination of his proceedings is the most delicate of 
 flattery. No quality in a ruler is so dangerous and 
 contemptible as the jealous arrogance which rejects 
 advice. For a man in power to balk inquiry on public 
 affairs is to allow himself to take steps, involving the 
 happiness of his fellow-creatures and his own peace of 
 mind, without doing all in his power to learn what will 
 be the consequences of those steps : it is to stake the 
 general welfare on the mere chance of his being 
 ignorantly in the right. If he contemplates a bad 
 measure, timely warning can merely serve to deter him. 
 No publicity can injure a good one, for discussion can 
 only m9,ke its merits more prominent, and show tJie 
 error of any objections which may be raised against it. 
 
 The only risk that just and wise acts can incur from 
 publicity is to be found in the consequences of its 
 restriction. Hamper it, and the best laws, the purest 
 intentions, have reason to fear. Something of the truth 
 is sure to ooze out ; and part of a good truth is only a 
 good truth distorted. A Government whose conduct 
 can bear inspection may defy it: it has nothing to 
 apprehend but from concealment. 
 
 It is strange behaviour for the chiefs of the people in 
 a free country to withdraw themselves from the obser- 
 
174 OFFICIAL SECRETS. 
 
 Tation of those whom they represent : yet the principles 
 of constitutional government are still so imperfectly 
 known that there has been no general complaint till 
 lately against a conduct which tends to destroy all 
 responsibility on the part of Government^ and all 
 influence on the part of the nation. 
 
 In a system of rational liberty, publicity will often be 
 found the only buckler of defence that moderation can 
 have against violence, modesty against arrogance, 
 veracity against falsehood, simplicity against deception 
 and intrigue. After the publication of parliamentary 
 debates, all further secrecy is nonsense. 
 
 The triumph of a great minister is not to wring a 
 reluctant assent from the nation to permit bim to take 
 whatever measures he pleases unquestioned : it is not 
 to domineer over gagged and sullen malcontents, but to 
 hold a grateful people in happy bondage ; to give them 
 the power to murmur, but to deprive them of the will. 
 His wisdom can never be so near perfection as when 
 aided by all those comprehensive means of information 
 which nothing but complete publicity can give him. It 
 is not, indeed, always in accordance with public opinion 
 that he should decide ; but he may presume, in consult- 
 ing general utility, that public opinion will support him ; 
 at least, there is no stronger moral probability in a 
 country where discussion is free. 
 
 To a minister of real genius, of large and liberal 
 understanding, the publicity of his acts is a considera- 
 tion at once replete with satisfaction and encourage- 
 ment. He may anticipate with delight the gradual 
 development of truth on every question. He may 
 
OFFICIAL SECRETS. 175 
 
 feel a perfect confidence that any real ser-sdce he can 
 render to his country will be promptly perceived and 
 appreciated. He may rejoice that any errors into which 
 he can unconsciously wander, will do little injury, 
 because they will be speedily corrected. He will per- 
 ceive that nothing can have so salutary an influence in 
 promoting harmony between himself and the people as 
 perpetually showing them that he is candid and liberal, 
 open to conviction, self-knowing, properly cautious, 
 properly fearless, and that he understands the con- 
 stantly progressive character of human knowledge. So 
 far from desiring any one to forbear pointing out his 
 errors, a grave and high sense of the immense respon- 
 sibility of his office will make him feel indebted to all 
 who correct him of fallacy. He will anxiously explain 
 his views to the public, avowedly to avail himself of the 
 varying lights in which dififerent minds will present the 
 same subject. Nothing will be more abhorrent to his 
 feelings than that his errors should be perpetuated to 
 preserve his reputation for wisdom or to save his vanity 
 from mortification; and he will devoutly thank God 
 whenever he is saved from inflicting an unintentional 
 injury upon others. 
 
 Should any intermix the exposure of his errors with 
 opprobrious language, it will be to their own detriment 
 and disgrace, but it will not prevent him from taking 
 advantage of their information to clear up his doubts 
 and difficulties. He will not split upon the rocks 
 because they have shown him how to avoid them. He 
 will not miss the harbour because they can steer bim 
 into it. Truth and practical good will be his objects; 
 
176 OFFICIAL SECRETS. 
 
 he will endeavour to find them by every means within 
 his grasp. He will cheerfully join in the exposure of 
 mistakes in himself or in others. He will know that the 
 firmness to brave a momentary injustice is one of the 
 first qualifications for his office, and the same channel 
 which is open to accusation is open to defence. He 
 will have no puny self-love desiring the prevalence and 
 stability of opinions because they are his opinions; no 
 ignoble vanity, which would have the world stand still 
 for ever at the point which he has attained, and poise 
 his own gratification against the comprehensive inter- 
 ests of humanity : his own shallow individual pre- 
 tensions against the growing science of the age. His 
 magnanimous nature will never dream of binding 
 down all the great spirits which are yet to advance the 
 happiness and elevate the dignity of mankind, to the 
 measure of his own blind dogmas and narrow sphere 
 of vision, or attempt to permit no other intellectual 
 movement in the world than an approximation to those 
 opinions which he himself has chanced to adopt. A 
 wise man must know that his thoughts are like good 
 seed, and that still greater wisdom than his own will 
 spring up from them. 
 
 He will rejoice most when his views are exposed to criti- 
 cism, argument, and ridicule; to all the play and contention 
 of wit and folly, scepticism and pertinacity, sophistry and 
 good sense. Prom these discordant elements, let loose 
 on every question, he may be sure that the people will 
 ultimately attain that enlightened and lasting unani- 
 mity which always attends the thorough knowledge of 
 truth. In proportion to the real intelligence of states- 
 
OFFICIAL SECRETS. 177 
 
 men hasalwaysbeea their disposition to receive newideas^ 
 their readiness to review their most cherished opinions. 
 On presenting a measure to the world destined to 
 influence the happiness of millions, the best men have 
 been glad to see their views put to the severest test 
 which ingenuity could devise. All conscientious states- 
 men, placed, with a power over futurity, on the narrow 
 isthmus of the present time, between the two great 
 oceans of the past and of the future, will be grateful 
 for aid which better enables them to send their glances 
 over both. They will listen to wisdom, no matter 
 whence it comes. 
 
 " Great men," says Lord Bacon, with noble truth, 
 " are thrice servants — of the state, of fame, of business." 
 They have no freedom, and when they seek power they 
 must consent to lose liberty. They must indulge no 
 fancies, no private feelings, no caprices. In great place 
 there is license to do good but not to do evil. The 
 power to do good is the only lawful and right end of 
 aspiring. 
 
 The proper use of liberty in speech and writing is, 
 that it should be employed as much as possible; and 
 it is but a childish proposition to advance, that those 
 who know things deeply concerning the national wel- 
 fare must not speak : for those who do not know cannot 
 speak to any purpose. It is a mere impertinence to 
 maintain that the people may believe what they please, 
 but they shall never have any security for their belief; 
 that they may have power in the state, but shall never 
 be supplied with the knowledge without which it must 
 necessarily be misused. Moreover, could so shocking 
 
 N 
 
178 OFFICIAL SECRETS. 
 
 a principle be avowed by any Government as that it 
 cares nothing for evils, but only for detected evils, 
 and that means shall be used not to lessen abuses, but 
 to conceal them ? To insist on secrecy is merely to 
 insist that bad things shall not be mended ; that any- 
 thing wrong shall never be put right ; that the corrup- 
 tions which our fathers bequeathed to us shall be 
 handed down unimpaired to our posterity. It is to 
 leave the tares to choke up the wheat in our fields, and 
 impiously to bind the hands of the husbandmen. 
 Surely, if honesty has nothing to fear from publicity, 
 publicity should have nothing to fear from honesty. 
 
179 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 
 
 A QUESTION which has been very carefully evaded 
 by all parties for some time past is, whether persons 
 holding employments in the public service are justified 
 in writing upon public affairs relating to their depart- 
 ments. This question has been brought, on several 
 occasions, very nearly to an issue; but all hitherto 
 concerned seem to have felt a misplaced delicacy in 
 entering upon the discussion, and to have been anxious 
 to postpone it as long as possible. 
 
 Writers felt, that although the strong common sense 
 of the people was upon their side, many individuals 
 were against them. Very worthy persons were inge- 
 nious in finding arguments which told against themselves 
 in this matter. There was a kind of well-bred hypocrisy 
 on the subject, an antiquated and not unamiable prejudice, 
 which made them refuse to judge the case merely upon 
 its merits, and to see it, stripped of all conventionalities, 
 in its proper light. Moreover, all who could be in- 
 fluenced by established authority, all who had anything 
 to hope or to fear from the high-placed and powerful, 
 all the prosperous private interests, all connected with 
 obscure national abuses which could exist only by con- 
 cealment, were clamorously and bitterly averse to 
 exposure from the only quarter in which exposure was 
 
 N 3 
 
180 THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 
 
 possible. Writers knew that such a body arrayed 
 against them would be formidable^ perhaps invincible, 
 for it would be composed of the most influential portion 
 — if not of the majority — of the nation. They knew 
 that they must make up their minds to a good deal of 
 rough usage and misinterpretation; that they could 
 count on no open support ; and that they must sacrifice 
 much which renders life agreeable, for the reputation 
 of ill-natured cavillers. Perhaps they doubted whether 
 the object was worth a struggle, seeing that God 
 ordains all things as He sees fit. They may have 
 sometimes asked themselves musingly whether human 
 endeavour can improve the world which Divine Wisdom 
 has made. But men cannot allow themselves to shrink 
 from conscientious labour on any such pretence as this. 
 They cannot presume to build up for themselves a 
 scheme of philosophy of which the result would be the 
 complete inaction of all those higher powers of mind 
 by which men assert their superiority over brutes. 
 The Deity cannot be ofl'ended by the proper use of any 
 power which He has given us, and we cannot adopt a 
 principle which must lead to the total stagnation of all 
 human affairs. 
 
 On the other hand, governments, though often much 
 irritated by a practice which notoriously existed, from 
 the secret closet of the Lord Chancellor to the chap- 
 lain's berth on a man-of-war, were glad by almost any 
 compromise to avoid a direct struggle with the Press, 
 for they knew that was a struggle which no government 
 has ever survived. 
 
 The inconvenience of this state of things, however, 
 
THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 181 
 
 is severely felt. The question can no longer be left 
 open because those in whose hands the administration 
 of affairs is vested are loath to incur the odium of 
 deciding one way or the fancied danger of deciding 
 the other ; and because they appear equally reluctant 
 to run the risk of permitting that which cannot be 
 really prevented, or to issue positive orders that can 
 be and will be continually evaded. 
 
 Government is bound, however, in honour and con- 
 science, to pronounce upon this matter in a straight- 
 forward and open manner. To leave it unsettled can 
 but serve as an excuse to enable individual ministers, 
 differing widely in their opinions, to determine ac- 
 cording to caprice or humour, as occasions arise; to 
 open the door to vengeance and ill-feeling, to close it 
 to justice. 
 
 An appeal to the public has become necessary, be- 
 cause by the general verdict of the nation only can 
 such discussions be finally and satisfactorily concluded, 
 and because many well-disposed persons are at present 
 altogther in a false position. They lie under grievous 
 penalties for having rightly or wrongly supposed that 
 the fact of their holding some small official employment 
 did not necessarily deprive them of the most valuable 
 right of their countrymen — the right of free remon- 
 strance against admitted evils. For having been sus- 
 pected, however, years after the supposed occurrence 
 of the alleged offence, and on the secret and mysterious 
 accusations of unknown persons, to have been concerned 
 in any manner whatsoever in such remonstrances, they 
 have been questioned and ruined. 
 
182 THE PUBLIC SEKVICE. 
 
 Incredible as it may seem in the year 1857, English 
 gentlemen have been required to prove a whole series 
 of the most extraordinary negatives. They have been 
 compelledj on pain of starvation and ruin, to furnish 
 proof that they have neither remonstrated against 
 public evils, nor furnished matter for any other person 
 to remonstrate, nor attempted to enlighten the people 
 on the most flagrant public abuses in any other way 
 whatsoever. It is to be observed that the penalty 
 attached to their inability to prove such negatives has 
 been the loss of their bread, and, what has hitherto 
 been considered an infamous punishment, dismissal 
 from their employment. 
 
 No official, however cautious, can avoid being en- 
 trapped by any superior disposed to do him a mischief 
 by such a process. His conversation with his most 
 intimate friends must be made up of anilities and 
 fallacies, or he will be ruined; solitude will be obvi- 
 ously his only resource to escape disgrace. If any kind- 
 hearted man should meet by accident an acquaintance 
 so distressingly situated, he wiU charitably look another 
 way. A petty ofiicer in our public service will be con- 
 sidered as a British Pariah. To talk common sense in 
 nervous language to so hapless an individual, will in 
 time be considered as ungenerous and indecorous as to 
 talk indecently before a lady. He must tie his hands 
 behind him when he goes home from his office, and sit 
 listlessly ruminating till he returns thither. 
 
 If, however, a large class of people are to be ren- 
 dered systematically ridiculous and miserable, it becomes 
 a matter of vital importance that their condition should 
 
THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 183 
 
 be made known to them, lest their fancied liberty 
 become practically a device to betray them on to ruin. 
 It is but fair and right that they should be clearly 
 told whether the general voice condemns them to 
 remain an inferior caste, leading the abject lives of 
 Romans and Neapolitans in the midst of the great 
 English people; or whether they may henceforth 
 be admitted to an equality with the rest of their 
 countrymen, becoming amenable only to the same 
 laws, and possessing the same privileges, as their 
 brethren. 
 
 It cannot be considered improper to inquire whether 
 terror may be employed to do the office of a censorship 
 among them, and whether their superiors may assume 
 the power of inquisitors ; for if the case is really so, it 
 is only fitting that the debasing conditions of their 
 servitude should be unmistakably defined. Some rea- 
 sons, however, may be here stated which would lead to 
 the belief that persons holding small situations under 
 Government might be allowed to enjoy the same happy 
 and honourable liberty of conscience and expression as 
 their fellow-subjects. 
 
 It may appear, at the first glance, a matter too insig- 
 nificant to engage serious public attention whether a 
 few subordinates in the public service shall or shall not 
 have the right to publish their opinions. But the 
 Government of this country is now so mild and good, 
 that all questions respecting the liberty of the subject 
 must in our age be very narrow. It becomes us, there- 
 fore, carefully to watch small encroachments on our 
 freedom, and to guard ourselves against them as 
 
184 THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 
 
 jealously as our forefathers defended themselves against 
 forest laws and ship money. 
 
 A great constitutional principle is really at stake. 
 The point to be actually decided is whether the liberty 
 of the Press shall be a reality or a fiction. To discuss 
 such a matter fairly and openly is not to attempt any- 
 thing like innovation ; it is merely to call the earnest 
 attention of the people to one of their most important 
 rights. No unjust prejudices should be excited against 
 arguments used to urge the necessity of watching over 
 a lawful privilege. If the British constitution is indeed 
 the most admirable form of government under which 
 any great community has long existed in freedom, 
 honour, and security, it is well to beware how we 
 permit the smallest alteration to grow up and become 
 sanctioned by precedents. 
 
 But grant, for the sake of argument, that it is 
 (although it unquestionably is not) a time-honoured 
 custom for small officials to keep a lofty and impertinent 
 silence towards the people who pay them, and to join 
 in deluding their employers; what then? Could an 
 Englishman now walk through Colchester in a toga, 
 because that garment was probably worn by Ostorius 
 Scapula? Could he even show himself in the periwig 
 of Marlborough, in the laced hats and gay coats of the 
 first Georges, or even in the boots and leather breeches 
 of the last ? Would he not appear an oddity with a 
 pigtail? Would not the juvenile population of our 
 capital feel an intense but uncomplimentary delight if 
 he insisted upon clothing himself publicly in any of 
 the habiliments which may have been decent enough 
 
THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 185 
 
 half a century ago ? If the ridicule of such ohsolete 
 tastes could be borne, shall men exercise no faculty 
 but memory — be wise in precedents, and ignorant of 
 the right ? 
 
 In cases where there is an immense advantage to 
 be gained by dispensing with some rule, or abolish- 
 ing some custom which ought never to have been 
 established, to adhere to it with silly obstinacy is to 
 sacrifice the end to the means. 
 
 Justice should be the standing policy of every society ; 
 equity and utility the foundation of all rules. If by 
 any given change, therefore, the aggregate sum of 
 human virtue and happiness would be promoted, such 
 change ought to be made. Not to make it, in defer- 
 ence to the blind authority of former times, would be 
 for living men, who have many years' more experience 
 and much sounder views on the philosophy of govern- 
 ment, to surrender their intellect to dead men, who had 
 many years' less experience and much more confused 
 views, and who have no other claim whatever to infal- 
 libility. 
 
 We cannot, therefore, tolerate a practice among men 
 in authority which is very wisely described even by 
 Mahomedans, as " mounting on horseback in full uni- 
 form to worship dead men's bones." Lullius was a 
 good chemist in his day, but Sir Humphrey Davy did 
 not consult his works about the safety-lamp. Buddh, 
 Brama, Fob, and Mahomet, were considered wise men 
 and great legislators, but they are not cited even in 
 the East as good authorities upon railways. 
 
 We are bound, therefore, to give the question here 
 
186 THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 
 
 brought forward far more deliberation and anxious 
 thought than we could afford to any trivial subject 
 merely affecting some particular class. 
 
 Absolute power, it must be reraemberedj steals upon 
 a people by being at first too rarely and mildly exerted 
 to create wide-spread alarm, or to rouse general resist- 
 ance against it. But there never has been an instance 
 in the history of nations where tyranny over a few indi- 
 viduals did not ultimately lead to tyranny over all. 
 The public, unfortunately for their best interests, seldom 
 feel much sympathy for the wrongs of private persons ; 
 but whenever power begins to presume in the smallest 
 degree upon the lethargy of the people, woe unto them ! 
 Woe unto them if they do not awake ! In England 
 we have generally begun to awake precisely at the 
 right time. 
 
 The sum demanded of Hampden by the tax-gatherer 
 of Charles I. was trifling; but the principle involved 
 was fearfully important. The dispute about a few 
 shillings was thus well worthy to exercise the abilities 
 of so grave a lawyer as Oliver St. John, and to be heard 
 with respectful attention by the nation ; for it was the 
 commencement of the great struggle by which our 
 liberties were effectually secured. It may not be a 
 Hampden who next hazards his private peace for the 
 sake of the commonwealth. It may not be a St. John 
 who wiU defend him. This matters little. It was to 
 an individual as contemptible as Charles Blount, that is 
 to be ascribed the emancipation of the Press. The per- 
 secution of one Jenks gave rise to the Habeas Corpus 
 Act. Prudence and self-preservation should oblige 
 
THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 187 
 
 the most moderate men to make common cause even 
 with those they cannot entirely approvCj if they see 
 such persons treated in a manner which the law wiU 
 not justify. It would never do to allow advantage to 
 be taken of the particular circumstances of any man 
 for the establishment of a precedent by which our 
 common freedom may be aflFected. One precedent 
 creates another. They soon accumulate and arrogate 
 the dignity of law. A free people who desire to remain 
 free, therefore^ should never show the smallest back- 
 wardness to recover any enthralled right out of the 
 gripe of custom. 
 
 It is surely nothing but a sign of good health in any 
 state when even the voices of government officials are 
 raised to proclaim the least taint of disease in the con- 
 stitution. Were such a numerous class of Englishmen 
 as our subordinate public servants so dead to all the 
 feelings which warm the rest, as openly to bind them- 
 selves for ever to connive at corruption, they would 
 be only fit instruments to enslave us. Our national 
 character would soon lose its prestige and its glory if 
 committed to their keeping. They would be a standing 
 danger to our country and a reproach to the British 
 name. 
 
 If any one allows visible evils to exist in his 
 department without protesting against them, it is 
 obvious that he tacitly acquiesces in them. What a 
 miserable condition then would be that of an honest 
 man, who should be informed, that in accepting 
 some small office, he had inadvertently joined a 
 secret confederacy; that he was considered bound 
 in honour to assist them, even should they be bent 
 
188 THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 
 
 on plundering or deluding the public to any possible 
 extent; that he was constrained by some of the strongest 
 motives which can influence human conduct to aid 
 them heart and hand in such a case, and to keep their 
 nefarious designs a profound mystery ; that it would be 
 prudent for him to join zealously in ruining his country; 
 that to rise to any degree of reputation, he must first 
 become thoroughly contemptible; that by conduct 
 which in private life would infallibly conduct him to 
 the hulks, he could alone hope to come to such honour 
 as might one day admit him to a small share of the 
 booty filched by his accomplices : but that, meanwhile, 
 eyes, ears, senses, were only to be used by the dejected 
 gentleman for the purpose of providing palaces, cooks, 
 and fine carriages for the ringleaders of the con- 
 spiracy. 
 
 An argument of this kind would scarcely be used by 
 the most abandoned of mankind. The coarsest-minded 
 speculator in human crime and folly would perceive it 
 at once to be of that impracticable character, adapted 
 neither for the honest nor for the dishonest. Trans- 
 lated into plain English, it would mean simply this : — 
 If a man would consider himself as sworn to assist any 
 particular political party for the moment in power, 
 although he should well know them to deceive and 
 betray his country ; if he would conspire to maintain 
 them in universal honour and reverence, to the fatal 
 injury of public interests and his own; if he would 
 strenuously support and angrily defend every abuse that 
 might be accidentally discovered and honestly censured; 
 if he would carefully screen his masters while they paid 
 private services with rewards created by intolerable 
 
THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 189 
 
 burthens imposed without reason or mercy on the 
 people ; then, certain fraudulent trustees seised of the 
 national estate, might be induced, by private influence 
 or political roguery, to admit such a man to a share 
 of the labour, but to none of the honours which would 
 arise from the misgovernment of the country. He 
 must connive at evil for the benefit of others ; he must 
 pass his life in lauding and glorifying the worst things, 
 but he would remain for ever a show-clerk on a scanty 
 pittance. He would be always an official hewer of 
 wood and drawer of water; he would do the work for 
 which others were paid, that they might be able to 
 point to him triumphantly as a living witness of their 
 parsimonious care of the public purse, the smallness of 
 their gains, and their purity in ofSce. If any man 
 would not comply with these conditions, his lot should 
 be ignominy and ruin. 
 
 Moreover, the hard terms on which he should be 
 required to serve the State, should by no means be 
 submitted to him beforehand to choose or to leave. 
 On the contrary, they should be concealed under the 
 most impudent and extraordinary flowers of rhetoric. 
 Much should be said about honour, patriotism, glory, 
 to entice him; the shame, the guilt, and the despair 
 should be cunningly hidden. He should only dis- 
 cover them when he had wasted his youth in vain 
 hopes, his health in bad climates, his fortune in absurd 
 uniforms, in fines, and in enforced expenses. He 
 should only be permitted to discover the true extent 
 of his misery when he began to remonstrate against a 
 long series of indignities and injustice, grown at last 
 intolerable. But he should be publicly condemned to 
 
190 THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 
 
 beggary and ignominy for the rest of his days^ so soon 
 as he presumed to wonder at their infliction upon him 
 in secret. 
 
 The people have long been inattentive to official 
 matters, because they have believed, on the whole, that 
 they were faithfully served ; but how would it appear 
 to them, if they found out from repeated experience, 
 that a man who received their wages dared not labour for 
 them to the extent of his capacity or desire ; and that 
 public servants were the only class of Englishmen de- 
 clared, for some incomprehensible reason, incapable of 
 serving the public to the best of their ability ? That 
 they retained their places only on condition that they 
 would assist or connive at a general system of im- 
 position ? 
 
 A principle so abominable would demand the most 
 decisive reprobation : it would be stamped with an 
 indelible stigma of abhorrence : it would be monstrous 
 in its insolence. Such impostors, chuckling over their 
 solemn antics, would remind one of the saying of 
 Crassus : " Mirari se quod haruspex haruspicem sine 
 risu adspicere posset.-" All respect for power would 
 cease. • Such tricks would put a penalty in one scale, 
 and a man's idea of duty in the other, which is the 
 precise idea of persecution. The Minister who should 
 presume to maintain a system so repugnant to common 
 sense, and to common honesty, might mean well, but 
 he would do ill. His conduct would certainly look like 
 an itch for arbitrary power, and a desire for the eternity 
 of corruption. 
 
 No man can respect the legal authority of govern- 
 ment more than the writer of these lines, no man 
 
THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 191 
 
 would go farther to defend it. But the exercise of 
 arbitrary power is illegal^ full of threatening to the 
 people and destruction to the State. No authority 
 should exist amongst us except that which is based 
 upon justice. 
 
 Authority is properly only a trust for the general 
 good. When it ceases to be so, it is no longer right or 
 prudent to respect it. An authority occupied in seeing 
 that all beneath it never enlightened the public, would 
 be no dignified or pleasant object of contemplation. 
 If authority does not hold the truth guiltily ; if it does 
 not know its own conduct to be weak and frivolous ; if 
 it does not condemn the people for a rabble made but 
 to be blindfolded and oppressed, what can seem to it 
 more fit and proper than that judicious and learned 
 men of all degrees should help the common cause with 
 counsel ? Let truth and falsehood grapple in the public 
 service as elsewhere : power should not mingle in the 
 fray. If we desire light, let us close no opening by 
 which it can come through to us. Why destroy the 
 toilful harvest of a great mind, and so perhaps bring 
 famine on our own ? If a man has devoted a whole life 
 of ardent study to some special subject, shall authority 
 be allowed hastily to step in and declare he knows 
 nothing about it ? Is authority inspired to know the 
 right by instinct ? Must every one smother his under- 
 standing because he has the misfortune to earn his 
 bread in a small public employment? A new idea 
 may, indeed, be now and then a startling thing to 
 heads of departments, but the idea that nothing must 
 be said or written except what they like, is the newest 
 idea of all. There cannot be a monopoly of knowledge. 
 
192 THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 
 
 No human power can decree that one shall have it and 
 another shall not. 
 
 If any Government, then, should ever be found to 
 persevere in enforcing a guilty secrecy on its subordi- 
 nates, it would infallibly forfeit all affection and esteem ; 
 it would make its power and patronage not worth the 
 holding. 
 
 It is proper to ask, also, whether any party for the 
 time in power has a right to make conditions for the 
 public service which the law does not make, which 
 common sense and probity indignantly repudiate, and 
 which no government would dare avow, or could pos- 
 sibly explain. 
 
 Heaven has in all ages given work for the intellect 
 of man to accomplish. That work is reformation. It 
 is a reproach to no government that evils exist, but 
 that they should be defended. 
 
 Forbidding able men in the public service to give 
 the fruits of their knowledge and experience to the 
 public in such manner as shall insure them a hearing, 
 is the real stumbling-block which stands in the way of 
 administrative reform. The power of free discussion, 
 which has destroyed nearly every other abuse, would 
 be quite sufficient to put an end to nepotism and 
 favouritism, could it be fairly brought to bear upon 
 them. The demand of the whole country is for admi- 
 nistrative reform. Are we to close the lips of those 
 by whom only it can be organized on a just and pro- 
 per foundation; of those who alone are really aware 
 of the practical requirements for special service ? 
 
 It cannot be urged that, if this concession were 
 
THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 193 
 
 made, subordinates would all begin to write as a means 
 of acquiring an absurd notoriety, and neglect their 
 duties. Any of them so offending might be promptly 
 dismissed. The offence would bring deserved censure 
 or ruin upon them. But one man can do twice as 
 much work as another, not only better, but in half the 
 time ; and all have some leisure. Masters do not forbid 
 their shopmen from working after business hours, per- 
 fecting themselves in their trade, and devising improve- 
 ments in it. All our most prominent self-made men, 
 from Gresham and Hutton to the last law peers, have 
 attained an honourable celebrity from small beginnings 
 by these means. To abolish the privilege of industry 
 in any calling or^profession would be to give no hope to 
 the lowly. 
 
 Should we oblige a man full of high and grave 
 thoughts to trifle his leisure away? Should we hold 
 out to him a premium for idleness and a punishment 
 for labour? Shall an able man be condemned for his 
 toil and his skill, an inefficient man be rewarded for 
 his idleness and inutility ? Shall it be held an official 
 crime to be found guilty of a desire for improvement ? 
 Shall seeing clearly and acting wisely call down the 
 severest verdict a minister can pronounce ? Shall our 
 public servants be told it is their function to resist 
 conviction themselves, and to stultify others ? Shall a 
 man require to be pardoned for doing his duty to the 
 nation ? Shall a tender conscience be considered incon- 
 sistent with the character of a valuable official ? Shall 
 a high sense of patriotism only show that a man cannot 
 be trusted with public affairs ? 
 
194 THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 
 
 It would be surely a most cruel and illiberal affront 
 to every gentleman in the public service to tell bim 
 that he may not prove his fitness for promotion ; and 
 that sycophancy^ interest, or money, shall be the only 
 roads open to eminence in the state. 
 
 Whoever has a wrong to redress, or a right to pro- 
 claim, must desire to speak, and should be allowed to 
 do so. Turn the most abject parasite who holds a 
 sinecure out of his place, and even he will assent to 
 this. "With respect to higher characters, shall the sense 
 of a great man be lost to all posterity for the fear- 
 fulness or the presumptuous rashness of some jealous 
 superior his evil fortune may have placed over him ? 
 It is true that by fining, worrying, and degrading a 
 man of genius, he may be often silenced ; but is it 
 right to silence him ? Does any placeman in England 
 possess the constitutional right of so doing? Could any 
 such person reconcile it with his conscience to carry 
 on a crusade against the truth? What alchemy can 
 extract any good out of a process to silence wisdom ? 
 
 Placemen can find devices enough to screen them- 
 selves. One of them, who has recently published a 
 book, demands " that the placeman shall be separated 
 froin the private gentleman." There is need of this 
 arrangement very often: but if that is a sound principle, 
 let it be applied where it is of service to the public; 
 let the public writer be divided from the petty official. 
 Slander his book; scold it; degrade it; snip out the 
 preface and the word ' Finis ; ' deface its pages; spoil 
 its print and paper; play any absurd tricks with it 
 which may gratify the siUy spite of any person who 
 
THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 195 
 
 fancies himself affronted by it; but leave the man alone, 
 let the trembling wretch who has written it escape in 
 peace. 
 
 Under the fanatic terrors of clique, governments are 
 apt to wrong the earnest and zealous thirst for know- 
 ledge that exists amongst us. They have never any- 
 thing to fear when in the right. Far more persons 
 will be anxious to defend than to attack them. No 
 fallacy to their prejudice is likely to escape undetected 
 or unpunished. 
 
 But at the point of enlightenment at which we have 
 arrived, we have a right to insist on open dealing and 
 fair play. We are the admiration and envy of all the 
 wise men in the world for our free institutions. No 
 man in power should be allowed to turn us into 
 mockery ; our statesmen have no right to impose on 
 the judgment of mankind by false pretences, or man- 
 kind will at last perceive the cheat, and we shall all 
 be despised together as mountebanks. 
 
 The English Government is supposed to be really 
 chosen by the people : the people, therefore, must obey 
 it. But the people may err in their choice, and the 
 Government err when chosen. We shall hardly be told 
 that the Government is in the right because it is the 
 Government ; and it is the Government because it is in 
 the right. Is it decent, then, to say to any one, that if 
 he honestly and ably discusses a great national question, 
 on which he has long deeply and anxiously pondered, 
 he shall forfeit his good name and his bread? If any 
 one be willing to employ his spare hours in the eager 
 study of state questions, instead of going to a ball or 
 
 o2 
 
196 THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 
 
 a whist-party^ wherefore should he be hindered? It 
 is undoubtedly for the national advantage that he 
 should be so occupied. Have we so many patient and 
 laborious thinkers on dry and abstruse subjects that 
 we can afford to silence any of them ? If a man has 
 laboured all day in the routine duties of his department, 
 he has surely acquired a right to spend his evenings in 
 any harmless manner he thinks best. If it is said he 
 works for his own advancement, he does merely as 
 everybody else does. It is natural to every good man 
 to wish for blameless distinction. The labourer is 
 worthy of his hire. If he earns promotion, why should 
 he not have it ? It is better that promotion should be 
 given to a meritorious toiler, whose whole heart and 
 energy is in his profession, than that it should be given 
 to a sycophant or a sluggard. 
 
 The man who first pulls down the house of fraud 
 and nonsense ; who seeks to bottom his reputation 
 upon doing good ; who uses the gifts of reason and 
 the efforts of genius to rectify those evils which all the 
 genius and talent of his profession have previously 
 been employed to support and protect; who turns 
 jobbers into honest men, scares away the plunderers of 
 the public, and is a terror to wrong-doers; such a 
 man is surely the fittest man who can be chosen for 
 advancement. 
 
 The hope of renown is the instinct of great souls. 
 Are public servants to be taught that for them the 
 temple of Fame shall be merely an inner chamber in 
 the palace of Indolence? Away with so enervating 
 a cheat. The shortest road to riches and prefer- 
 
THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 197 
 
 ment should be over the straight rough way of toil and 
 thought. 
 
 It would be impossible to read to a large class of 
 young men so demoralizing a lesson as to tell them 
 that nothing is to be obtained by zeal, energy, and 
 learning ; that any attempt to lighten the burthens of 
 their fellow-creatures is certain to be followed by profes- 
 sional ruin; that their only hope in life is arrant baseness, 
 and eager acquiescence in a state of things which is 
 plainly wrong ; that their minds must make no progress ; 
 that they must know nothing but by ancient rule and 
 statute ; that diligence and understanding will undo 
 them. Whether a man who has given some high pubHc 
 proof of capacity be wiser than those who have not, 
 may be doubted ; but it is clear that a man who has 
 given no proofs has no right to claim our admiration 
 or reverence. We may partly judge a man by what he 
 has done, and he has a right to insist upon our verdict ; 
 but none can surely have the impertinence to claim 
 extraordinary respect because they have done nothing. 
 
 We are all of us more or less governed by interest, 
 but it is very umreasonable to say we shall therefore 
 do wrong. Even a man's interest, well understood, will 
 generally show him that to do right is really the best 
 way to promote it. Therefore, to say that such a one 
 should not be believed because, though a clever man, 
 he acts from interested motives, is a highly improper 
 and silly argument. 
 
 To say of a political writer, that he is actuated by a 
 desire to obtain the preferment due to him, is very 
 probable. The desire of reward is the proper incentive 
 
198 THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 
 
 to industry. A baker does not bake bread for nothing ; 
 if he did, his bread would not necessarily be better. 
 A barrister requires his fee from a client, and may 
 expect to become attorney-general; but who ever 
 thought of making his reasonable demand and his 
 laudable hope the ground of a charge against him? 
 We do not ask what are the motives of the man who 
 makes us a coat, we only demand that the coat shall 
 be well made. Why should we inquire into the motives 
 of the man who makes us a book, if it is a good book ? 
 It is, at all events, ungenerous and absurd indeed to 
 invent motives for him, and then to account it as a 
 crime that he is actuated by the common feelings of 
 humanity. There is no cry which comes more glibly 
 from the lips of a certain class than the accusation of 
 interested motives, which is brought against every 
 person of moderate fortune who mingles in politics. 
 Yet, what are interested motives honestly considered 
 but natural motives ? The legislator who should re- 
 solve to accept no assistance from any but disin- 
 terested motives, would find his laws without vigour 
 and without use. The judge who should determine to 
 receive none but disinterested evidence, might close his 
 court. However, even this argument is chosen with 
 the usual clumsiness of the wrong-headed simpletons 
 who use it. If ever human actions are free from in- 
 terested motives, it is in the case of men who endeavour 
 to reform the abuses of the professions to which they 
 belong ; for they at once offend all who have acquired 
 power or reputation under the old system. Such per- 
 sons are, indeed, often so respected and good-natured. 
 
THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 199 
 
 SO unconscious of their errors, that a tender-hearted 
 man — and most reformers are so — will feel quite a pang 
 of self-reproach at having given them oflfence. An 
 outcast from society, also, he is sure to become. 
 
 "When I began to express my opinions on church 
 politics," says Sidney Smith very truly, " what hope 
 could any but a madman have of gaining preferment 
 by such a line of conduct ?" 
 
 The name of adventurer, however, has always been 
 affixed to such persons. It is considered among the 
 wealthy gentlemen of England as a term implying a 
 mingled feeling of aversion and fear. But it is strange 
 that any one should have presumed to invent such a 
 designation to describe the very class who seldom 
 venture anything. Poor politicians are usually like 
 careful players, who anxiously calculate every chance of 
 the game, till they have reduced success almost to a 
 certainty. A powerful magnate with £100,000 a year 
 may sometimes feel indifferent about the result of a 
 blunder, and become stubbornly attached to impracti- 
 cable theories. He can retire to his palace when dis- 
 comfited, and retain honour and dignity in private life. 
 A Pitt or a Burke, a Sheridan or a Canning, has no 
 such resource. Their merit is only measured by their 
 good fortune, and a single mistake consigns them to 
 hopeless obscurity. 
 
 There is no accusation which can possibly be more 
 illiberal than the charge of place-hunting, that is always 
 used to throw discredit on political writers. Sir K,. 
 "Walpole, of course, discussed politics for the sake of 
 office. Horace Walpole notoriously did not. Politics 
 
200 THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 
 
 to him were an amusement, a relaxation from the 
 labours of the auction-room and the curiosity-shop: 
 yetj will any one pretend that the fashionable letter- 
 writer was a more useful or a more honourable man 
 than the minister? There has been a larger quantity 
 of nonsense advanced upon this subject than on any 
 other one can remember. Why should political writing 
 be the only description of labour which ought not to 
 be paid ? Is the investigation of a vexed question so 
 easy? Are judgment, wit, and patience, enchanted 
 qualities of no value without the possessor is so un- 
 reasonable as to give them for nothing ? Are Scott's 
 books any the worse because he cleared off his debts 
 with them ? or are Byron's any better for having been 
 sometimes given away ? Junius, who vulgarly boasted 
 that he left his profits to Woodfall, was not surely so 
 respectable or so trustworthy a man as Johnson, who 
 buried his mother with the price of " Rasselas." 
 
 It is possible that, in employments scantily paid, poor 
 officials may be sometimes obliged to write for money. 
 Few small places keep their tenants. After long ser- 
 vice in climates often peculiarly unfavourable to the 
 health and vigour of Englishmen, the income of a sub- 
 ordinate, who has passed the best years of his life in 
 the employment of the richest country in the world, is 
 often far less than that of a tradesman's clerk at home. 
 His salary will perhaps rather exceed the wages of a 
 butler, but fall far below the wages of a steward or a 
 cook. To prevent a man, therefore, earning the bread 
 and shoes of his children by the honest exercise of his 
 capacities is virtually to throw the whole government 
 
THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 201 
 
 service into the hands of the rich. "Writing for money 
 may not be very heroic or romantic ; but some with 
 whom most of us would be proud to be classed have 
 done so. It may be much finer to think of the stars 
 than of the bakerj but folks must do so after supper. 
 " I knew nothing of moral philosophy/' writes Sidney 
 Smith to Dr. Whewell, " when I lectured on it, but I 
 wanted £200 to furnish my house." 
 
 The love of the great majority of Englishmen for the 
 Government is a rational attachment to the guardians 
 of the law. In official men it is a warmer — a clan 
 feeling. It is strongest in the breasts of the smallest. 
 Harshness is not wanted to guide it, but justice, or at 
 least some moderation of injustice. 
 
 Now, it cannot be justly assumed, that if small 
 officials were allowed to make their grievances known, 
 we should be deafened with idle complaints and silly 
 outcries. The recent examinations of candidates show* 
 that very few such persons are likely to disturb our 
 equanimity by their writings. We shall not be teased 
 by nonsense, moreover, because nobody is obliged to 
 print or to read nonsense. Writings are read in pro- 
 portion to their general interest. If they are silly, 
 reflecting persons will despise them. Error in print is 
 easily refuted. Wickedness is certain to be punished. 
 
 If any publication, however, contains sound sense 
 and useful suggestions, we should be grateful for it. 
 If it contains both sense and nonsense, such corn and 
 chaff are easily separated. We may take the former 
 and leave the latter. The first half-page of a review 
 will probably show us how to do so. 
 
203 THE PUBLIC SERVICE, 
 
 Very few persons wlio could write good sense in 
 good language have ever existed in any age. The 
 talent of writing well is even rarer than the talent of 
 speaking well. It is also more important and more 
 difiicult to acquire. Fluent words and a good manner 
 will often serve a speaker without the expense of logic. 
 An author cannot be shallow and superficial, without 
 detection, and loss of consideration. The more good 
 writers we can produce by any system, the better for 
 our present purposes, and for our national renown. 
 They should in no wise be discouraged. To suppress 
 the sense of a single writer of genius is a wrong to all 
 mankind, and an insult to the Creator in the person of 
 His inspired servant. " Revolutions of ages," says Milton 
 very finely, " do not often recover the loss of a single 
 rejected truth, for which whole nations fare the worse." 
 It is better to slay a life than an immortality. 
 
 Let us have the full benefit of every one's opinion; 
 we are not bound to act upon it. Truth and under- 
 standing are not so common as to be suppressed by 
 rule, nor so rare that we may never expect to find 
 them. 
 
 There are many well-meaning persons, however, per- 
 fectly ready to admit the urgent need of certain re- 
 forms. If an oiScial has written upon the subject, and 
 called in question many naughty things which cannot 
 be denied, they candidly confess that all he has said is 
 perfectly right ; but that he was not the right man to 
 have said it. It is astonishing that such reasoning 
 should mislead any human being. It amounts simply 
 to this, that for the abolition of all abuses we must 
 
THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 203 
 
 wait till some person who has no knowledge of their 
 existence discovers them by instinct. Every person 
 who has any knowledge whatsoever upon the subject is 
 not the right man to be in the right. If such is to be 
 the code of propriety henceforth among us, judicial 
 astrology will be brought again into fashion. Any 
 man desiring to serve his country must first consult a 
 conjurer. If the conjurer should fail or be corrupted, 
 he must wait for a dream. The ink mirrors of Egypt 
 will be carefully examined by the most profound poli- 
 ticians, and fortune-telUng cards will form a regular 
 part of a patriot's domestic furniture. His butler will 
 carefully preserve the coffee-grounds, aild his house- 
 keeper will throw an old shoe after him as he goes to 
 take his place in Parliament. And why stop there ? 
 Why not agree among ourselves, that drowning people 
 shall only be saved by persons who have never learned 
 to swim, and that no firemen by profession shall go 
 within a hundred yards of a burning house ? 
 
 To say that a man has written a useful book, but 
 that he ought not to have written it, is an argument fit 
 only for philosophers with minds as curiously con- 
 stituted as that of Eaminagrobis, who advised Panurge 
 on the subject of his nuptials. It was doubtless said 
 by the wiseacres of the last generation, that the great 
 and good Romilly was not the right man to reform the 
 law; for that no honourable lawyer could be justified 
 in pointing out the shocking enormities which existed in 
 our courts of justice. They must, however, be reduced 
 to shallow arguments indeed who fall back upon such 
 an extraordinary pretence as this. It would imply a 
 
204 THK PUBLIC SERVICE. 
 
 censure on every public benefactor who has ever existed, 
 from Martin Luther to Earl Grey. All the reformers 
 of the church have been churchmen. All the inno- 
 vators in medicine have been necesssarily doctors, from 
 Hervey and Jenner, to Hunter and Hahnnemann. 
 The inventor of a new dish is usually a cook, the 
 designer of a new coat is a tailor. "But it is an ill 
 bird," say some, " who fouls his own nest." After 
 very offensively exemplifying this in their own persons, 
 they stupidly apply the coarse old proverb to the bird 
 who seeks to cleanse it. 
 
 If Truth have spoken to any man before the rest, 
 who has so be-jesuited us that we should allow him to 
 be silenced on the astonishing plea that he is not the 
 right man to tell it ? How dare human insolence pre- 
 sume to arraign God's election ? Many lepers were in 
 Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet, but none 
 were cleansed save Naaman the Syrian. 
 
 Is it alleged that Halifax ought not to have written 
 against the Exclusion Bill, because he was an official ? 
 that no officer in Hamilton's regiment was the right 
 man to be horrified by the massacre of Glencoe ? that 
 no soldier who had served under Sackville had the 
 right to express an opinion upon his conduct at Minden ? 
 that no captain in the navy should have breathed a 
 syllable about Torrington or Palliser? Was Crabbe 
 not the right man to have written " The Patron," be- 
 cause Lord Thurlow had thrown him, with a curse, two 
 small crown livings in Dorsetshire? The monstrous 
 assertion that officials should be dumb, is merely the 
 revival of the doctrine promulgated by the Star-cham- 
 
THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 205 
 
 ber in the case of Sir R. Knightley. It is the old 
 story of Nero and infallibility translated into modern 
 English. 
 
 If officials are not the right people to put us right 
 on subjects which they only understand, the system 
 established will amount simply to a prohibition to a 
 large class to write, and to the public to read, any work 
 on certain topics which has not the Government mark 
 upon it. The object to be obtained by gagging the 
 one and hoodwinking the other, it would be impossible 
 to understand, and uncourteous to divine. 
 
 Is there any man in power among us who ventures 
 plainly to declare that all books written by gentlemen in 
 the public service should be licensed by some member of 
 the Government for the time being ? — that the old 
 device of the Inquisition should be revived to purify 
 the public service of every original thinker ? If so, 
 who is to be licenser ? Who will accept the office 
 which Mabbot threw up as illegal two centuries ago ? 
 Where is the man of nice judgment to be found who 
 shall tell us what books may be written and read in 
 safety, and what books may not ? What salary shall 
 he have whose judgment is supposed superior to that of 
 the whole nation ? Who is to draw the precise line 
 where a book is, and where it is not, hurtful to the 
 cause of good government ? And why are the people 
 presumed to require the assistance of this strange 
 functionary to prevent their being led astray against 
 their own interests ? Who shall warrant the justice of 
 a party, intrusted with a duty so delicate ? Shall books 
 be revised by the very men interested in concealing the 
 
206 THE PUBLIC SEKVICE. 
 
 truth ? If so, the public service must become another' 
 name for dishonour and slavery of conscience. Pro- 
 gress and reform will be impossible. The principle 
 laid down will virtually provide that no official shall 
 give serious attention to his profession, or attempt to 
 devise improvements for the public good, and that he 
 must submit his judgment in all cases bhndly to his 
 superior. 
 
 It is absurd to say that he may give the benefit of 
 any counsel he has to offer to his chief. A superior 
 will not receive advice from his subordinate. If he 
 would do so, is Mr. Chief Clerk Smith or Thompson 
 better able to judge of truth than the nation? Is 
 Mr. Under-Secretary Wilkins inspired to pronounce 
 correctly upon all human affairs without consideration ? 
 Moreover, if a subaltern confided the results of his 
 knowledge to his superior, it is not absolutely impos- 
 sible that his ideas might, consciously or unconsciously, 
 be appropriated, and never acknowledged ; or contemp- 
 tuously disregarded. An impudent argument is also 
 sometimes uttered by jobbers in this case. It is one 
 of those which might have been stolen from Brutus to 
 be used by Catiline. " Virtue," they say, with a sleek 
 sneer, " is its own reward. A patriot should be satis- 
 fied with the adoption of his measures; he should 
 therefore feel delighted to see all the fruits of his 
 labours enjoyed by other people !" 
 
 The time of ministers and high state functionaries is 
 also, as every one knows, really too much engrossed 
 for them to be able in all cases to give the requisite 
 attention to a new and intricate subiect. Even if any 
 
THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 207 
 
 particular minister did so, he might, with the best 
 intentions, entirely misjudge it. If Bacon had been 
 obliged to submit his ideas on philosophy to an enthu- 
 siastic disciple pf Aristotle, it is probable that they 
 would never have seen the light. 
 
 The scene could only have been painfully ludicrous. 
 " Jjaudemus Deum " (might the one have said, repeat- 
 ing the stupidity of Averrois), "qui separavit hunc 
 virum ab illis in perfectione, appropriavitque ei ulti- 
 mam dignitatem humanam, quam non omnis homo 
 potest in quacumque setate attingere.'' 
 
 In vain might Bacon have pleaded to such a person 
 that his philosophy was destined to the "relief of 
 man's estate ; " that it was " comraodis humanis in- 
 servire ; " that it was " efficaciter operari ad sublevanda 
 vitae humanae incommoda ; " that it was " dotare vitam 
 humanam novis inventis et copiis ; " that it was " genus 
 humanum novis operibus et potestatibus continue 
 dotare." The bigot would have turned a deaf ear to 
 aU this, and sonorously replied, " Aristotelis doctrina 
 est suMMA VERITAS, quoniam ejus intellectus fuit finis 
 humani intellectus ; quare benedicitur de illo, quod 
 ipse fuit creatus, et datus nobis divina providentia, ut 
 non ignoremus possibilia sciri." Tlie last speaker, of 
 course, would have had the best of the argument, and 
 Bacon might have died a pauper with a broken heart. 
 It is remarkable, indeed, that even so enlightened a 
 man as Sir Thomas Bodley, the founder of one of the 
 most magnificent libraries in the world, distrusted 
 Bacon as a dreamer. The truth really is, that two 
 men in the same profession can hardly ever be brought 
 
208 THE PTTBLIC SERVICE. 
 
 to take precisely the same view on any professional 
 question. In proportion as any man is wise or emi- 
 nent, he is likely to incur opposition and jealousy from 
 the folly and envy of his colleagues. The public forms 
 really the only unprejudiced and sane tribunal before 
 ■which any grave question can possibly be discussed. 
 
 When a clever man is employed by Government, is 
 he to use his faculties or to bind them ? If the latter, 
 the public service must no longer be considered a school 
 for statesmen, as it ought to be; but a sanctuary for 
 incompetence, into which wise men gain admittance 
 only by accident, and are immediately deprived of 
 speech, and compelled to pass at once into a lower 
 scale of creation. Every new comer must slink into 
 conformity with the rest; folly will have the same 
 place as wisdom; and merit, if it should chance to be, 
 shall exist without motive and without reward. 
 
 Is every minister who appoints a man of talent to a 
 public ofQce, to consider it an act of private bounty, 
 and then to couple the degrading boon with an implied 
 condition, that its recipient shall become his minion 
 for ever; that he shall serve his patron, and not his 
 country; that he must consider himself, in point of 
 fact, the property of the corrupt jobber, who purchases 
 him by committing a breach of trust with the property 
 of the people ? 
 
 If notions so preposterous and full of peril to the 
 commonwealth be not resented seriously and timely by 
 those who have the remedy in their power; if such 
 iron moulds are allowed to gnaw into the very texture 
 of our freedom ; such a treacherous fraud to be prac- 
 
THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 209 
 
 tised upon us; the more sorrow will belong to that 
 hapless race of men whose misfortune it is to have 
 understanding. Henceforth let no one care to learn, 
 or to be more than worldly wise; for certainly sloth 
 and ignorance in higher matters will be prudence in all 
 who desire to rise. To be a common and steadfast 
 dunce will be the only life endurable. 
 
 There are, strange to say, a class of persons who 
 think that men in power always have had their own 
 way in these matters, and therefore always should have it. 
 Also that whether they should or should not, they will 
 have it, and therefore all argument is out of place and 
 mere vexatious waste of words. Such persons consider 
 thetQselves experienced and practical men of the world. 
 They will tell you with unconscious humour' that they 
 have not time to inquire how things might, could, or 
 should be, but they know very well what is. All resist- 
 ance to established power, they add, is indiscreet. It is 
 hard to kick against the pricks : those who do so must 
 expect to get hurt. There should be no pity for them — 
 they are troublesome fools. The world is very well as 
 it is : it is a very pleasant place for those who take it 
 properly; those who do not, must expect to be put down. 
 They have a variety of similar commonplaces, which 
 they speak off very glibly. They would have made 
 admirable subjects of Charles I. or of Louis XIV., or 
 even of Had the Impaler or Peter the Cruel. 
 
 What is the use of trying for a thing if you cannot 
 have it? say they. Why, because every one must be 
 presumed to be open to the influence of reason, or if 
 not, to the influence of prudence and fear, when he 
 
210 ~ THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 
 
 perceives public opinion to be loudly and clearly 
 against him. To lie by in timid and indolent silence, 
 to suppose an inflexibility in which no set of men under 
 pressing circumstances could persevere, and to neglect 
 a regular and vigorous appeal to public opinion, is to 
 give up all chance of doing good, and to abandon the 
 only instrument by which the few are ever prevented 
 from ruining the many. The sneer about indiscretion, 
 with which these people express a smug contempt for 
 every wise and brave man who has ever dared to record 
 his protest against a wrong, has something apparently 
 so catching in it, that the silly impertinence is worth a 
 good-humoured answer. 
 
 Is it indiscreet to prevent rogues from ruining us by 
 an eternity of roguery ? Were the men indiscreet who 
 attacked Strafford, St. Alban's, Danby, and Dalrymple ? 
 Should they have suffered the first to enslave us by 
 his plan of Thorough ? the second to sell verdicts 
 in Chancery to both suitors ? the third to receive 
 bribes to support monopolies ? and the fourth to 
 massacre his country neighbours as he pleased ? Were 
 the honest patriots who brought all these four persons 
 to justice indiscreet? If not, how can any who at- 
 tempt to tread in their steps be termed indiscreet ? Is 
 any English public man in our day as great and power- 
 ful as the favourite of Charles I., or as the great Lord 
 Chancellor Bacon, or as the first Duke of Leeds, or as 
 the Master of Stair ? If not, where is the rashness or 
 indiscretion of confronting him when he does wrong ? 
 If it is dangerous to strive with corruption in power, 
 the more respect is due to one who puts his fortune to 
 
THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 211 
 
 SO great a hazard. If a man is to be called indiscreet 
 because he is not deterred -in a great enterprise by 
 fearful odds, and matches himself single-handed against 
 an unscrupulous host who will leave no infamous de- 
 vice untried to ruin him ; who will invade with coarse 
 gibes the sanctity of his private life, and harry all who 
 love him with foul calumnies, then indiscretion must 
 be another name for the highest civil virtue ; for that 
 august and serene wisdom which guided the first steps 
 of Rienzi, which inspired Hampden, and which gave to 
 so noble an immortality the names of Washington and 
 of Franklin. The authors of every religious and political 
 reformation in the world have been indiscreet, — Igna- 
 tius Loyola and John Knox; the Englishmen who 
 invited over William, and the Dutchmen who secured 
 the liberties of Holland. 
 
 If by indiscretion is meant a silly want of tlio.ught 
 for his own interests, he may retort the charge at 
 once on his accusers. 
 
 It is they who are indiscreet and unmindful of their 
 own good, when they suffer their champion to be over- 
 thrown and to be dragged through the mire. Would 
 it be said of a servant who opposed himself bravely to a 
 band of robbers, in order to save his master's property, 
 that he was indiscreet ; or should the term be applied 
 to the master who watched the struggle with all his 
 household, indifferently, from an upper window, while 
 the goods were carried away, and the honest fellow 
 murdered for his fidelity ? 
 
 The plain truth, however, is, that discreet or indis- 
 creet, right oi" wrong, obedient or disobedient, proper 
 
 p2 
 
212 THE PUBLIC SEKVICE. 
 
 or improper^ an official should no more be taunted with 
 writing on professional subjects, than a man should be 
 taunted with being black at Timbuctoo. No man need 
 be ashamed of that which is common between him and 
 all the most honourable and distinguished of his class. 
 There is not a department in the public servicCj not an 
 office in Downing-street, or anywhere else in Britain, 
 not a privy council or a vestry, but furnishes special 
 information to the public the moment it is needed. 
 Any body of gentlemen who choose maj' play at being 
 secret and confidential, but let them beware how they 
 do anything which will not bear the light, for it wiU 
 certainly be revealed. 
 
 It is doubtless to be regretted that the English 
 people have generally been wiser than their rulers, 
 and that whatever improvement has for some centuries 
 taken place in the country, has been accomplished 
 through continual violations of absurd laws and regu- 
 lations. But it is gratifying to observe that these 
 innovations insensibly tend to the general perfection. 
 It was long a crime to publish debates in the House of 
 Commons, but it is to that fortunate crime England is 
 indebted for her escape from a government resembling 
 that of Venice. The publication of supposed speeches 
 in the legislature long before the practice was admitted, 
 may be traced to the historian Clarendon ; and this was 
 part of the defence of Wheble, when persecuted by Par- 
 liament for doing the same thing in 1771. This point 
 once gained, however, it is the mere larva of tyranny, 
 the skeleton of malice, to conceal anything else. 
 
 The first London newspaper was edited by a clerk in 
 
THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 213 
 
 the office of the Secretary of State. All our public 
 men since the Revolution have been mixed up with the 
 PresSj from Halifax and Somers to Pitt and Canning. 
 Por nearly two centuries the Press has furnished the 
 real battle-ground of all state questions. It would be 
 absurd to ignore this. Locke was a public servant. 
 Swift held government preferment when he wrote 
 " Drapier's Letters." Atterbury, Prior^ Addison, Steele, 
 Pulteney, and Bolingbroke, were all newspaper writers 
 and public servants. So were Lord Mansfield, Lord 
 Cowper, and Walpole. Trenchard, Commissioner of 
 Forfeited Estates in Ireland, wrote "Cato's Letters." 
 Blackstone was solicitor to the Crown when he at- 
 tacked Mr. Grenville in an anonymous pamphlet. 
 Weston and Draper were both small officials. Charles 
 Lloyd and John Roberts, two of the reputed authors 
 of Junius, were Treasury clerks. Nearly all the thirty 
 persons suspected of having written those letters were 
 official men. It is certain that some person in office 
 must have been concerned in them. Almon, the 
 printer, was persecuted for refusing to reveal the name 
 of an official who had furnished him with an important 
 document. Edmund Burke wrote for the Annual 
 Register while private secretary to Lord Rockingham. 
 Many of Johnson's political works were written after 
 he was in receipt of a pension. Lord Grenville charges 
 Pitt with having " furnished information, for his own 
 purposes, to the papers." Lord Temple wrote for the 
 North Briton. Lady Hester Stanhope says that 
 Pitt used to complain of Canning for "repeating his 
 conversations to people who published them in the 
 
214 THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 
 
 Oracle. Lord Camden was suspected of betraying the 
 secrets of the cabinet to Lord Chatham^ who published 
 them. James Mill, who attacked the Hon. East-India 
 Company in his History of British India, and who 
 was also a writer in the Westminster Review, held 
 a high appointment in the Company's service. Lord 
 Abingdon was tried for libel. Nearly all the founders 
 of the Quarterly Review were men in office. Scott 
 especially numbers among the qualifications of Gifford 
 for its editorship, that "he enjoyed the confidence of 
 Mr. Canning." " Don't you think," he writes again, 
 " Mr. Canning, though unquestionably our Atlas, might 
 for a day find a Hercules on whom to devolve the 
 burthen of the globe while he writes us a review?'^ It 
 was a plump question to a minister, but there was 
 little need of dehcacy. 
 
 In another place Scott recommends his brother, who 
 was paymaster of the 70th regiment, to become one of 
 the writers for the Quarterly, and adds that his doing 
 so may obtain him many powerful friends. It need 
 not be added that the (Quarterly Review was established 
 entirely for political and party purposes. Scott himself 
 was a clerk of session, with a salary of £1,300 a year, 
 and sheriff of Selkirkshire, with an additional salary of 
 j6300 a year, when he wrote the letters of Malachi 
 Malagrowther, and attacked Lord Melville's adminis- 
 tration of Scotland on the one-pound note question. 
 Mr. Croker, another official writer in the Quarterly, 
 replied. With a foolish minister there would have been 
 a serious paper war; but, almost immediately after- 
 wards. Sir E,. Peel appointed him a commissioner for 
 
THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 215 
 
 inquiry into the state of the Scotch colleges. Sir 
 Walter was also generally suspected of a large share in 
 the Beacon newspaper, renowned for its scurrilities, 
 and he certainly wrote not only for the Quarterly, but 
 also for the Edinburgh and the Annual Register. 
 
 Nearly all the founders of the Edinburgh Review 
 ultimately became men in office; among them were 
 Dr. Blomfield, bishop of London, and Dr. Maltby, 
 bishop of Durham. The editor of the Englishman, a 
 political newspaper published three times a week, was 
 Mr. Radcliffe, an attache in the diplomatic service. 
 The Anti-Jacobin originated with Mr. Canning, who 
 wrote the prospectus, and contributed some of the 
 ablest articles, and bitterest personalities. Among the 
 other writers were John Hookham Frere, Mr. Jenkin- 
 son, Mr. George Ellis, Lord Clare, and the Marquis of 
 Wellesley. There is no entire article in the Anti- 
 Jacobin to which even conjecture has ever affixed the 
 name of Mr. Huskisson, but it is probable that he was 
 concerned in several. The reputed author of the 
 " RoUiad " was Mr. Sheridan, though he denied it to 
 Lord RoUe. Sidney Smith had received the living of 
 Foston le Clay from the Lord Chancellor when he 
 wrote " Peter Plymley's Letters." He was dean of St. 
 Paul's when he began a contest with the Ecclesiastical 
 Commissioners, and inveighed against " the permanent 
 and arbitrary power granted to them by a Whig 
 ministry," and to "the gross abuse of patronage." 
 Horace Twiss, who was one of the regular staff of the 
 Times, held successively the offices of Under-Secretary 
 for the Colonies and Vice- Chancellor of the Duchy of 
 
216 THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 
 
 Lancaster. Lastly, the grave has only just closed over 
 the remains of the learned and genial A^Beckett, a 
 metropolitan magistrate and a contributor to Punch. 
 
 The most conclusive case on record, however, is that 
 of Lord Brougham. An apology would be due to his 
 lordship for citing it, but it has already appeared in 
 print ; and it is Lord Brougham's high and honourable 
 distinction that a point of constitutional law could hardly 
 be raised in our time without being referred in some 
 way to our greatest constitutional lawyer for decision. 
 
 Mr. Barnes, then editor of the Times, is said to have 
 called on the Lord Chancellor one day. While waiting 
 in a private room, he took up the Morning Chronicle, 
 in which there was a brilliant condemnation of an 
 article which Lord Brougham had the day before 
 written in the Times. Barnes suspected the author- 
 ship from certain peculiarities of style ; and when the 
 Chancellor came out of court to speak to him, Barnes 
 pointed to the article, and said, " It is almost too bad 
 to demolish yourself in this way." Lord Brougham is 
 reported to have been at first taken a little aback, but 
 admitted that he had written the reply to his own 
 article. A similar story is told of Voltaire ; and, 
 indeed, if a man has occasion to reconsider his opinions 
 on any subject, he might feel it a duty to take such a 
 course without the fuss and bother of making a formal 
 recantation in his own person ; indeed, it was the only 
 course left to Lord Brougham. The Times would not 
 have stultified itself, contradicting one day what it had 
 said the day before: if, therefore, his article in the 
 Times had been unfortunately written under a mistalien 
 
THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 217 
 
 view of the question at issue, it was very proper and 
 very liberal to neutralize its effect in the Chronicle. 
 
 As to the propriety of writing for the newspapers on 
 the part of persons who do not happen to be Lord 
 Chancellors, Mr. Stephens, father of the Foreign-office 
 attache, summed up the question very well in a speech to 
 the House of Commons : — " I will put a case," said he : 
 " I will suppose a young man ,of education and talent 
 contending with pecuniary difficulties, not proceeding 
 from vice, but from family misfortunes ; I will suppose 
 him honestly meeting his obstructions with honourable 
 industry, and exercising his talents for the Press ; 
 where, I ask, is the degradation of such an employ- 
 ment ? who could be so meanly cruel as to deprive him 
 of it? The case which I have supposed was thirty 
 years ago — my own ! " 
 
 Who does not remember, also, the satirical writings 
 of Mr. James Morier, secretary of legation at the court 
 of Persia ? 
 
 Everybody is satisfied that the conservation and 
 secure enjoyment of our natural rights is the great and 
 ultimate purpose of civil society, and that therefore aU 
 forms whatsoever of government are only good inas- 
 much as they are subservient to the purpose to which 
 they are entirely subordinate. To aim at the establish- 
 ment of any form of government by sacrificing what is 
 the substance of it ; to take away, or at least to sus- 
 pend, the rights of nature, in order to fabricate an 
 approved system for the protection of them ; and, for 
 the sake of that about which men will dispute for ever, 
 to postpone those things about which they have no 
 
218 THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 
 
 controversy at all, is a practice as preposterous and 
 absurd in argument, as oppressive and cruel in effect. 
 The advocates of such nonsense fall into a double error ; 
 they incur a certain mischief for an advantage which 
 is altogether problematical, though they were sure of 
 obtaining it; and whatever the proposed advantage 
 may be, the attainment of it is by no means certain. 
 Such deep gaming for stakes so valuable ought not to 
 be admitted ; the risk is 'of too much consequence to 
 society. 
 
 Were this otherwise, to what would the prohibition 
 of professional men to write upon their professions lead ? 
 Is the Press to be free, and writers shackled ? Is no 
 clergyman holding a Crown living to call attention to 
 abuses in the Church? Are Doctors' Commons and 
 Chancery to last for ever? Are all aldermen to be 
 prevented expressing an opinion in public on affairs in 
 the city ? Is no doctor to attend a coroner's inquest 
 to convict such a professional brother as William 
 Palmer ? 
 
 Deny the right of officials to contribute to the Press, 
 and you would impose silence on every respectable 
 newspaper and periodical in the kingdom. Nearly all 
 publications of this class are, indeed, mainly in the 
 hands of officials, for they are precisely the persons 
 who have most knowledge, and feel most interest about 
 public questions. 
 
 Respecting the practice among us at the present 
 day, however, it would be imprudent to speak; but 
 with an Edinburgh reviewer for our Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, whatever our opinions may be, our practice 
 
THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 219 
 
 is clear enough. Either there is one law for one man, 
 and another for another man, or our Press is as free 
 for officials as for the rest of the community. If it be 
 free, how can an official be punished because he is also 
 an author ? 
 
 The practice of foreign countries is equally decisive. 
 General Webb, editor of a newspaper, was American 
 minister in Vienna. Bel Smith was secretary, of lega- 
 tion at Paris. M. Van de Weyer is Belgian minister 
 in London ; M. Nothomb, Belgian minister in Berlin. 
 M. Thiers, M. Guizot, M. Lamartine, and all the most 
 distinguished statesmen of constitutional France, swell 
 the list of those newspaper writers to whom literary 
 genius has not barred the path to pohtical power. 
 
 It is therefore ridiculously unjust to single out any 
 individual for inquiry and punishment. The danger of 
 punishing one man for an act common to many who are 
 rewarded is plain. The subject of every system of laws 
 must expect in his own case what he knows that others 
 have received in cases similar to his. To remove the 
 grounds of this expectation would be to entail upon us 
 the worst species of slavery, which is, to have no assur- 
 ance of our rights or knowledge of our duties. 
 
320 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 SUBOKDINATION. 
 
 We are, on tlie whole, a good and wise nation, yet 
 there is perhaps no more silly and sad page in our his- 
 tory than that which records our misconduct towards 
 our public men. Our choice of them appears to be made 
 from the most improbable motives which could be sup- 
 posed to actuate a sensible and prudent people. Our 
 behaviour towards them, when chosen, is equally sin- 
 gular. It is not necessary to enter into the absurdities 
 of Radicalism to prove this. There is, indeed, a great 
 deal of nepotism and favouritsm in the disposal of em- 
 ployments ; but so there always has been under any cir- 
 cumstances and in every country in the world. There is 
 quite as much in the city as at court. An ex-premier, 
 who has a very commendable habit of plain speaking, 
 stated on some occasion what may be fairly taken as 
 the general feeling of the higher class of our statesmen 
 on this delicate subject. If the relations and friends of 
 ministers may be reasonably supposed as fit for vacan- 
 cies as other people, they prefer to appoint such rela- 
 tions and friends. Sir Bulwer Lytton takes still higher 
 ground on the same side. He says that a statesman 
 who is sincere in his convictions and party faith, is 
 bound to employ men of the same views ; and that it 
 is false liberality to do otherwise. It is certain, also. 
 
SUBORDINATION. 221 
 
 that no English minister in our days ever attempts to 
 appoint an utterly -worthless relative to a place of im- 
 portance. It would be indeed impossible to do so. A 
 man's character must stand fair in the eyes of the 
 world when he receives promotion, or he will meet 
 rough usage. Mr. Yorke destroyed himself, from the 
 anguish he was made to suffer at the construction put 
 upon the conduct by which he obtained the chancellor- 
 ship. No man among us can hold high place for any 
 time without the tacit consent of the community. 
 
 It is usually obtained on easy terms. A man who 
 has never done anything is sure of our goodwill. We 
 can estimate a workman, because we understand him 
 — ^we are ourselves workmen: but we cannot judge of 
 an idler, for he is so far removed from us, that we 
 appear to suppose that he must be something extra- 
 ordinary. Such a person, therefore, can hardly aspire 
 too highly. We have always had a national partiality 
 for incapacity of all kinds, and a veneration for sloth. 
 Many of our leading men in critical periods have been 
 among the stupidest and laziest persons who ever lived. 
 
 Genius has never excited in us any other sentiment 
 than unmixed astonishment. What we prefer in our 
 public men is a sort of decent debility; and we in- 
 variably confound brilliant political abilities with char- 
 latanism. No person appears to comprehend the utility 
 of zeal and talent, or to suppose that they can possibly 
 be applied to any practical purpose. 
 
 Bacon was kept down by his own kinsman Lord 
 Burleigh, for no conceivable reason, except that he was 
 the wisest Englishman who ever existed. The recol- 
 
322 SUBORDINATION. 
 
 lection of his early struggles seems to have been pain- 
 fully fresh in his mind, when in after-years he wrote to 
 Villiers, — " Countenance, encourage, and advance able 
 men in all kinds, degrees, and professions; for in the 
 time of the Cecils, both father and son, able men 
 were by design and of purpose suppressed." Nothing 
 but the extraordinary friendship of Mrs. Morley and 
 Mrs. Freeman could have preserved so great a general 
 as Marlborough long in command. During the War of 
 the Succession in Spain, that wonderful earl of Peter- 
 borough was displaced for Lord Galway, an ignorant 
 formalist. Clive, in the dawn of his splendid career, 
 was superseded in command by Major Laurence ; and 
 even after he had seated Meer JaflSer on the throne of 
 Bengal, and all the East was filled with his fame, a 
 scheme of government was sent out by the home au- 
 thorities, in which his name was altogether omitted ; 
 and the hero ultimately died at forty-nine by his own 
 hand, for having established the British empire in 
 India. 
 
 In consequence of the grossest neglect of duty at the 
 battle of Minden, Lord George Sackville was appointed 
 secretary-at-war during the whole of the American 
 struggle for independence. 
 
 Arthur Wellesley was repeatedly set aside, even by 
 his own brother, till at last his mature renown and 
 invariable success bore down all opposition. Even 
 then he was tormented by every petty device with 
 which we could harass a great commander. 
 
 Wellington's own treatment of Canning is a stain 
 upon his character. The animosity shown towards great 
 
SUBORDINATION. 223 
 
 men has been uniformly the same. Yet it is almost 
 inconceivable that persons, really ■well-meaning and 
 goodnatured, do not revolt with disgust from always 
 pointing the same sad and vulgar moral. It is so petty 
 and shortsighted to persecute men of genius. They 
 are nearly sure to rise superior to oppression. A man 
 in power may indeed gain an ignoble triumph, a short 
 lease of some petty interest by such injustice, but he 
 will probably consign his name to eternal ridicule or 
 execration. He may preserve, perhaps, the power of 
 providing for an importunate connection or a parasite 
 at the price of the contempt of posterity. It is fair to 
 suppose that an immortality of infamy is one of the 
 things which an English statesman would dread the 
 most. Power among us is not a lucrative or an easy 
 possession. If any man seeks personal gain and 
 pleasure, he will hardly find them in what we call the 
 rewards of public life. It is reasonable to suppose, 
 therefore, that our statesmen usually covet power with 
 noble aims ; and they must be more than mortal if they 
 are not also enamoured of renown. Yet while hoping 
 that their names will live in the gratitude of posterity, 
 they not unfrequently venture to heap undeserved scorn 
 and insult on the very men who will transmit their 
 reputation thither. 
 
 It was said of a ministerial duke of Newcastle, that 
 he was equally afraid of breaking with men of parts 
 and of promoting them. A lie circumstantial, propa- 
 gated by the same duke, and probably invented by 
 Single-speech Hamilton, very nearly ruined the official 
 career of Edmund Burke. The duke told Lord Rock- 
 
224 SUBORDINATION. 
 
 ingham he was a Jacobite: it was less dangerous to 
 have been a highwayman. His grace was but a com- 
 mon sample of the men who have constantly held 
 power in England. " Mind, Bobus," said the " Plea- 
 sant Parson " to his brother, " when you are Chancellor, 
 I shall expect one of your best livings." " Oui, mon 
 ami," replied the shrewd man of the world, quaintly ; 
 "mais d'abord je vous ferai commettre toutes les 
 bassesses dont les pretres sont capables." 
 
 Indeed, in the Church the case of clever men has 
 always been peculiarly hard. The splendid talents of 
 Swift lost him a bishopric. George III. called the 
 author of the "Evidences of Christianity," "Pigeon 
 Paley," and thought he had done enough for him. 
 Parr, the most learned divine of his time, languished 
 on a paltry curacy in Warwickshire. The genial wit, 
 fine sense, and enlightened piety of Sidney Smith 
 were a perpetual bar to his promotion. When nothing 
 else could be said against a great scholar, it used to be 
 fashionable to assume that he was not a "presentable 
 man." Persons who had the manners of posture- 
 masters and the morals of Vauxhall, were accustomed 
 to assert that no one could possibly be a gentleman 
 and a man of letters. They were believed ; and society 
 ungratefully forgot Raleigh and his cloak, Bacon and 
 his masques, the brilliant Bolingbroke, the learned and 
 laughing Granville, the exquisite Congreve and Bossuet, 
 Chevreuse, Novion, Goethe, Calderon, Machiavel, 
 Petrarch, — all the most elegant and polished gentlemen 
 of their time. There is a strange story told about 
 poor Swift, driven mad at last by that hope which 
 
SUBORDINATION. 225 
 
 ''maketli the heart sick." The great Lord Somers 
 recommended him to "Wharton for promotion. " Oh, 
 my lord," returned that abandoned rascal, "we must 
 not prefer or countenance such fellows, — we have not 
 enough character ourselves ! " The most ribald liar of 
 his age for once indicated a great truth j for it is 
 certain that the Tories, who have always been the most 
 respectable men in the kingdom, have been invariably 
 more just to genius than the parties which have impu- 
 dently presumed to call themselves liberal. The names 
 of George Canning, Walter Scott, Mr. Disraeli, and Sir 
 Bulwer Lytton, will occur to every one in illustration 
 of this notorious fact. 
 
 What would certain gentlemen have of us more? 
 Have we not borne enough ? May we never be per- 
 mitted one remonstrance against the unhappy condition 
 of our affairs ? 
 
 All the highest posts in the public service are in 
 possession of a few families. Subordinates, who do 
 not belong to those families, revolt against the labour 
 which is not deemed worthy of its hire. Reform must 
 be at last brought about by such revolts, if they are not 
 put down; "and if they are to be always violently sup- 
 pressed, let us in mercy at once by law declare that all 
 our principal offices are hereditary. This is really the 
 case. Every place of power, dignity, and emolument, 
 is an appanage of a few families, who may he numbered 
 on the fingers of a single hand. There is by no means 
 any undue favour shown, as is popularly supposed, to 
 the nobility. Everything is in the power of a few 
 jobbers. It is not against the Lords that the people 
 
226 SUBORDINATION. 
 
 should murmur; the Lords have generally been far 
 more liberal and honest than the Commons. The Lords 
 have done more than yeoman's service in the State. The 
 Peers first allowed the publication of their debates in 
 Parliament, and a hundred times in our history have 
 shown themselves the most incorruptible body of gen- 
 tlemen in the land. It is well that every family in the 
 kingdom also, patrician or otherwise, should have a fair 
 chance of public honours j but it is not right that a 
 few families should monopolize all the chances, for a 
 few families cannot monopolize all the merit. 
 
 It is well that great place, and high social rank should 
 even go as often as possible together. A nobleman is 
 frequently as laborious as his footman, and far more 
 conscientious ; he is not so liable to be actuated by base 
 and sordid motives as a person who has fortune and 
 position to create; he is likely to be better educated, 
 better informed, and consequently wiser than other 
 men; he has a large stake in the prosperity of the 
 country. Of course, there are many titled persons to 
 •whom these remarks do not apply, but they are very 
 general. 
 
 The people, moreover, have always loved the aristo- 
 cracy ; and the deeper we go into any question, the 
 more humbly we shall acknowledge that the great mass 
 of mankind are ultimately in the right. The reason of 
 this is plain : the people form the impartial class to 
 whom great men, God-gifted, are always addressing their 
 advice and warnings. It is dangerous to undervalue 
 any popular opinions which have stood the buffeting of 
 changes and chances during many generations. 
 
SUBORDINATION, 227 
 
 It is a mere rash senseless outcry, then, to declaim 
 against lords ; but it is certain that a small clique, in no 
 way distinguished for virtue, capacity, rank, or posses- 
 sions, have all things their own way. Let any one who 
 doubts of this watch the Gazettes, inquire into the his- 
 tory of each considerable appointment and promotion. 
 He will find that ninety-nine out of a hundred are due 
 to the influence of this little coterie. 
 
 Nobody complains that there are too many Howards, 
 or Seymours, or Nevilles, or Grenvilles, in the public 
 service J but there is certainly too much jobbing. It is 
 true, and it is only right to confess it fairly, that public 
 honours in all nations have been as ill-bestowed as 
 among ourselves. Nero made a consul of his horse. A 
 Spanish queen made a man minister for foreign affairs 
 who did not know one quarter of the world from another. 
 Hence it arises that when any one gets a great place 
 people say he is lucky ; but they do not suppose he is 
 wise. They know he is not likely to have obtained it 
 because he deserved it, but because he did not. Eng- 
 land has, however, set the world a noble example in 
 many things : let her do so likewise in this. Seldom 
 has any good measure which has permanently influenced 
 the happiness of mankind, appeared probable at the 
 beginning; but this serious mischief could be stopped 
 at once, if every minister were obliged to state the 
 grounds on which he gave places and promotions in the 
 same Gazette which recorded them. Great place should 
 be the reward of past services, or the premium offered 
 for great abilities : it should cease altogether to be a 
 private traffic between patrons and proteges. 
 
 q2 
 
328 SUBORDINATION, 
 
 The system is altogether improper : its practical re- 
 sults are disheartening and demoralizing to a degree 
 which it would beggar language to express. An unfit 
 man is appointed to a place because his father's executor 
 has embezzled his property ; and the thief, having some 
 interest with a nominee member of Parliament, smothers 
 a tale of roguery by procuring for his defrauded ward a 
 Government appointment in lieu of a fortune. An idle 
 lad saves a lord-lieutenant from being run over in the 
 street, and a month afterwards receives an appointment. 
 Some unscrupulous person becomes possessed of a 
 minister's family secret, and makes the constant dread 
 of exposure provide for his son, who is as unscru- 
 pulous as himself. When the first appointment is ob- 
 tained, if the young gentleman chances to set himself 
 zealously to qualify for promotion, as to do him justice 
 he often does under whatever circumstances he may have 
 obtained his commission, he will find himself, perhaps, 
 after twenty or thirty years' scrupulous discharge of duty 
 in Canada, contemptuously set aside to make way for a 
 man whose brother has made a successful speech in Scot- 
 land, or whose father has stormed a mud village in India. 
 It is possible that there may be a satisfactory answer 
 to this, but it is not easy to discover what it is. 
 
 There is surely no ill-natured exaggeration here, no 
 improper personality, to draw off public attention from 
 consideration of the miserable and degrading fact that 
 employments, on the proper performance of which the 
 national welfare altogether depends, are bestowed 
 entirely as chance or caprice may direct. Any man 
 who is himself embarked in a profession, or has sons in 
 
SUBORDINATION. 229 
 
 such a situation, may be safely called upon to answer 
 whether the unfair advantages of patronage and 
 favouritism have not mocked his labours with sterility, 
 and perpetually thwarted him in his lawful ambition. 
 Great scholars are rotting on curacies; brave captains 
 are starving in garrets ; profound lawyers are moulder- 
 ing in obscurity, because the parsons, soldiers, and 
 lawyers who have insinuated themselves into favour 
 must be first gorged and crammed with public honours 
 before any one else can be thought of. Thus there have 
 been blind surveyors, deaf auditors, treasurers who 
 treasured nothing, non-registering registrars, tellers 
 by whom nothing was told but the money received into 
 their own pockets ; well-paid sinecures for influence and 
 idleness ; neglect for merit of every kind. It is said, 
 indeed, by some persons, that our system works well; 
 but every one whose opinion is worth having begins to 
 see that it must be made to work better, or it will soon 
 cease to work at all. It is fast growing impossible to 
 persuade reasonable people that there is no better way 
 of governing the country than by a plan which breaks 
 the hearts of good men to swell the pride of fools. Our 
 system is rapidly attaching a sort of disgrace to pro- 
 motion, and an honour to neglect. Every one is learn- 
 ing to understand by what base arts promotion only 
 can be gained ; that by indignities men can alone come 
 to dignities, and suspicion infallibly attaches to all who 
 obtain them. Unless, therefore, the shocking injustice 
 of patronage is speedily put down, the more rapid the 
 advancement any officer obtains in the public service, 
 and the higher he rises in it, the fouler will appear the 
 
230 SUBORDINATION. 
 
 slur on his private character. Honest men will make 
 a wry face at honours which will expose them to general 
 contempt ; and prudent men will shun the favours 
 which cannot be obtained without incurring the terri- 
 ble penalty of utter loss of character and universal 
 derision. A defence of the hard injustice and cruelty 
 of our system could only have been made in the empire 
 of Montezuma. 
 
 " Where," asked one of the high priests of Vitzli 
 Pultzlij " is it that we are to look for the true cause of 
 our glorious pre-eminence?" 
 
 " Look for it \" answered the pontiff, with amaze- 
 ment ; " where shouldst thou look for it, blind sceptic, 
 but in the copiousness of the streams in which the 
 sweet and precious blood of innocents flows daily down 
 our altars." 
 
 We have no right to smile at this. We have solemn 
 wiseacres who make the same answer to the adminis- 
 trative reformers every day. 
 
 Men placed in situations for which the strongest 
 talents would not be more than adequate, have fre- 
 quently no talent at all. The furniture of their minds 
 is often made up of discordant prejudices ; and they 
 follow that prejudice by which their interest or the 
 gratification of their humour for the moment is most 
 promoted. So soon as an employment becomes a 
 source of consideration and of power, it is sought 
 after, bought and sold, or tricked and intrigued away 
 by sharpers who have neither inclination nor power to 
 render themselves useful in it. Such places are the 
 
STJBOllDINATION. 231 
 
 mere appanage of jobbery, or even the prize of some 
 act too shocking to speak of. So snugly have matters 
 been managed by jobbers, that some of the most con- 
 siderable ofi&ces in our empire are not less clear of 
 obligation than a seat at the opera. When they have 
 been begged or bought, all the occupants have to do, 
 after they have once taken possession, is to enjoy. 
 
 Such persons may exercise their power, veithout the 
 smallest regard for the public welfare, in whatever 
 manner may be most agreeable or convenient to them- 
 selves ; and it is the influence they exercise, and the 
 use to which their influence is put, which constitutes 
 the great political disease of our times, and which 
 must ultimately bring about some sweeping reform as 
 a remedy. 
 
 It is impossible to feel respect for a man merely 
 because he fills high oflice under such circumstances as 
 these. It is a melancholy thing enough to see some mean 
 and cunning intriguer lodged and fed at the public 
 expense, endowed with a rich portion of the product of 
 other men's industry, using all the influence of a great 
 situation, perhaps, to deepen the ignorance and inflame 
 the fury of his fellow-creatures. It is sad enough to 
 know, that in times of trouble and difficulty, the 
 greatest obstacle in the way of every settlement will be 
 found in those to whose counsels the country ought to 
 look for dignity and peace. There is something quite 
 revolting in the power given to such men. Officials, 
 who have with the utmost insolence and in the face 
 of day committed the worst acts of injustice and op- 
 
232 SUBORDINATION. 
 
 pression, whose incapacity has been repeatedly testified 
 by the grossest blunders, may unblushingly avow their 
 guilt and incapacity, and punish any one who has con- 
 scientiously exposed it to the country. They have 
 persecuted such men with a cold-blooded ferocity, 
 the more determined because they have been con- 
 scious that the truth only has been proclaimed against 
 them. 
 
 But shall the nation look on approvingly while 
 criminals are protected from the slightest breath of 
 censure, and their accusers, who have gallantly risked 
 everything to bring them to justice or stay their mad 
 career, are put to the rack with impunity ? 
 
 There is a class of official chief, which Mr. Kaye has 
 forcibly described in his fine prose epic on the Afighan 
 war. An idle London dandy, who has passed fifty years 
 of his life at the race-course, the opera, the ball-room, 
 and the gaming-table, suddenly becomes a great man. 
 He knows nothing of statesmanship, except that his 
 elder brother has by some unknown means just got 
 into the cabinet, and that he has been appointed to a 
 magnificent vice-royalty in consequence. He knows 
 nothing of mankind, but the most contemptible part of 
 it. The labour of the brain, as well as that of the 
 hand, is a species of drudgery which he sees the pro- 
 priety and facility of transferring to his inferiors. He 
 is surrounded by flatterers and lauded to the skies. 
 He reads his importance in the reverential looks of a 
 whole court of dependants. His pride soon becomes 
 insupportable. He is ofl'ended if any one should think 
 after he has spoken. He is irritated by the mildest 
 
SUBORDINATION. 233 
 
 opposition. He prefers the fogs of his own intellect to 
 the light of wise counsel. He fancies that he under- 
 stands all things by instinct. He is always in the 
 rightj and impudently decides dogmatically on questions 
 of which he knows nothing. He and his train consider 
 it the grossest vulgarity to examine his conduct. It is 
 disrespectful to doubt his wisdom. His pleasures, his 
 passions, his follies, are a fashion. It is good to curse 
 like him and to drink like him. Not to do so is to be 
 a morose and ridiculous fool. How, therefore, in the 
 name of human nature, is it possible that some of the 
 meanest worms that crawl the earth in the shape of 
 men, should not lose their heads after such an absurd 
 deification ; that they should not be guilty of a thousand 
 follies, and worry and tease to death a hundred better, 
 wiser, and abler men than themselves before they re- 
 cover their senses ? The monstrous proposition main- 
 tained by the advocates of favouritism and patronage is 
 this : No degree of mental deficiency short of idiotcy, 
 no degree of improper conduct short of a criminal con- 
 viction, shall prevent a silly or infamous man in favour 
 from receiving the highest public honours and em- 
 ployments. When the most unfit person has been 
 appointed by favour, he shall be surrounded with a 
 power and authority it would be perilous to intrust to 
 the fittest and most temperate. 
 
 In mercy let us abandon this shocking attempt on 
 the happiness and independence of humble and meri- 
 torious men. Let us withdraw some of the meretricious 
 glitter from persons who are great only in name, and 
 grant some safety and respectability to those who may 
 
234 SUBORDINATION. 
 
 be great in all besides. Diodorus of Sicily says, that 
 tbe courtiers of Ethiopia used to lame and deform 
 themselves, to cut off their limbs, to appear in confor- 
 mity with their chiefs. They were ashamed to appear 
 with two eyes before a one-eyed superior ; or to walk 
 upright in the train of a hunchback. We must not 
 laugh at these worthy people, if we practically enforce 
 the same code of obedience. 
 
 Society sometimes gets confused in its morality, be- 
 cause it will not grapple fairly with facts. It estab- 
 lishes some silly fiction, which obliges it to take a 
 one-sided view of all particular occurrences, and then 
 it persists in judging of them ia a manner totally at 
 variance with common sense or justice. 
 
 The relations between subalterns and their of&cial 
 superiors have thus got miserably wrong. The present 
 state of things should no longer be allowed to exist. 
 The evil has been too notorious. It is a disgrace to the 
 Army and Navy, it is a scandal to the Church. The 
 kind-hearted canon of St. Paul's said he had known 
 bishops speak to their inferior clergy in harsher lan- 
 guage than they would have dared use to their footmen. 
 It appears that they insist on a " dropping-down-dead- 
 iiess" of manner in all who approach them. George 
 Canning pathetically related the early treatment he 
 received while a subordinate in a public office. It is a 
 most serious and insupportable grievance, that unfit 
 men thrust by our system of patronage into the posts 
 which give them absolute control over the happiness of 
 many, should be encouraged to think they may outrage 
 all the decencies of life with impunity. Their ideas of 
 
SUBORDINATION. 235 
 
 human excellence are the same as those of the colonel, 
 ■who said, "Vice was a damned cocked-tailed fellow, 
 and virtue was a fellow fenced about for the good of 
 the service." By the good of the service, they mean 
 the most ahject and unreasonable subserviency to their 
 own private caprices. 
 
 Now it would be well if all ruflELans in authority 
 should be taught that there is at least one check upon 
 them; and that they must treat their subalterns as 
 persons who have rights and feelings ; as they would, 
 for their own sakes, treat those who could turn again. 
 The extravagancies of power shoiild be brought under 
 control of some law, and the oppressor, in whatever 
 station, branded with contempt and shame. 
 
 The very essence of tyranny is to act as if the finer 
 feelings, like the finer dishes, were only delicacies for 
 the rich and great ; that little people have no taste for 
 them, and no right to them. An oppressor is merely a 
 fellow cursed with a mean and selfish spirit of denying 
 to others the advantages he himself enjoys. He is only 
 a miserable creature, tormented with a vindictive love 
 of punishing all who afl'ront his vanity by presuming to 
 entertain opinions opposite to his own. 
 
 Upon what principle of justice or expediency can it 
 be fairly maintained that all persons who serve the 
 state in small employments should be made to act as 
 an escape for the ill humours of men who may have 
 obtained their vaunted superiority by the sale of a wife 
 or a sister, by lending money to the cousin of a mi- 
 nister, or by giving a receipt for the rheumatism to his 
 grandmother? To oblige subordinates in the public 
 
236 SUBORDINATION. 
 
 service to degrade themselves by perpetual grovelling, 
 can only be to discourage and abase them. In a service 
 conducted on such a plan, unanimity and order may 
 indeed appear on the surface of things ; but it is such 
 unanimity as famine and imprisonment extort from a 
 jury. On the other hand, superiors may be taught to keep 
 their temper under seemly control, if they are merely 
 informed that their subordinates can insist on proper 
 respect and enforce it. It is a duty for every subaltern 
 to obey orders, but is it his duty to bear gross private 
 affronts, and even personal outrage on pain of ruin ? 
 It has been said very loudly, that if subordinates were 
 permitted to arraign the conduct of their superiors, no 
 service could go on properly. The maxim is unsound, 
 because no person is so fit to pass judgment on another 
 as a person who knows what he has done. Such a 
 practice, therefore, could be only useful to the public, 
 however inconvenient it might be to superiors. 
 
 If the charges brought by an inferior against his 
 chief are true, why should they have been suppressed ? 
 What national advantage is obtained by our being kept 
 in ignorance of the misdeeds of persons to whom our 
 most important interests are confided ? If such charges 
 are false, they cannot do harm, for they can be denied. 
 What also would be the position of the base and un- 
 happy wretch who had ventured to utter a malignant 
 lie against one who held authority over him? There 
 would be no need of rules and regulations of the service 
 to punish a traducer of this sort. The law would find 
 no difficulty in reaching him, and his deep humiliation 
 would cease only with his life. 
 
SUBORDINATION. Ji37 
 
 M. Thiers, himself a statesman and a newspaper 
 writer^ says plainly, that one of the great advantages of 
 the liberty of the Press is, that it affords a channel 
 through which an injured subordinate may challenge 
 his oppressor at the bar of the nation. Men will have 
 justice when wronged and outraged. To permit a 
 reasonable statement of grievances is safer surely than 
 encouraging the punishment which Mr. Heston Hum- 
 phrey inflicted on an official duke of Bedford, or than 
 the duels and assassinations of the past. 
 
 It cannot be gravely pretended in our time that the 
 qualifications indispensable for an official are those 
 which were formerly considered indispensable for a 
 monk. " Tria faciunt monachum : bene loqui de su- 
 periore, legere breviarium taliter qualiter, et sinere res 
 vadere ut vadunt." Are we to tell all subalterns in the 
 public service that their situations will not depend 
 upon their fitness, nor upon their labours, but upon the 
 caprices of their chiefs ? If this theory is to be en- 
 forced, a persecuted man will have no hope. His rights 
 as an Englishman will become a sham and a snare. It 
 is obviously absurd for him to appeal against oppression 
 to the oppressor himself, and if he carries his case to 
 head-quarters ever so modestly, he will soon find that 
 he is considered like a criminal who submits his cause 
 to the counsel for the prosecution. That the chief 
 tribunal to which he can appeal is not a court of 
 justice, but an altar. On the steps of that altar 
 the oppressor finds sanctuary; the oppressed is im- 
 molated. An innocent man, instead of being con- 
 sidered as well as the worst of criminals, and judged 
 
238 STTBOEDINATION. 
 
 by God and his country, is treated as a victim and a 
 sacrifice. 
 
 Sad as this is, it only appears strange at the first 
 glance. The chief authority before whom the case 
 may be brought is almost certainly a gentleman with 
 the defects and imperfections of his oflSce. Perhaps 
 his mind, from its first entrance upon the subject, has 
 been applying its whole force to devising defences, and 
 finding arguments to support a state of things which 
 has placed him in power. He has learned to look upon 
 abuses as inseparable from human institutions, and with 
 still greater complacency as personally advantageous to 
 himself. For the quiet of his conscience, he has fed 
 himself with the notion, that if there is anything amiss 
 in his practice, it cannot be otherwise, and whatever 
 profit is to be got out of it may as well be enjoyed by 
 himself and friends as by other people. It is useless 
 to plead, for he will not listen. It is silly to explain, 
 for he will not understand. It cannot even be reason- 
 ably expected that he should take part against his own 
 interest. No man can believe that patriotism genuine 
 which seeks to deprive him of some advantage ; and in 
 the person and power of the universal patron of every 
 department, all corruption and sinister interests are, 
 unhappily, embodied into one. It is more than can be 
 prudently demanded of human nature to ask that such 
 a man shall act justly. 
 
 His caprices, indeed, may be perfectly wonderful. 
 A person who was good enough till he obtained 
 supreme command, will sometimes convince himself 
 that it is his duty to treat his fellow-creatures with 
 
STTBORDlNATIOIif- 239 
 
 severity, and then persuade himself that he is doing so 
 very reluctantly and contrary to his real feeling. Such 
 a man cannot and will not explain. If any one seeks 
 in charity to arouse him from his singular self-delusion, 
 he grows angry. He will not argue. His reasons are 
 all in his right arm. A sheet of foolscap is his court of 
 justice, and his pen accuser, judge, and jury all in one. 
 
 No abuse in the preservation of which bad men have 
 an interest will ever be removed ; no improvement the 
 prevention of which suits their low decrepit humour 
 will ever be made, if they can help it. 
 
 In every department of the government abuses and 
 imperfections abound, because we have placed men in 
 power under such circumstances that abuse in every 
 shape is a source of profit to them. When by ac- 
 cident a plan comes before any of them in the forma- 
 tion of which the only legitimate end of government 
 has been fairly considered, the goodness or badness is 
 alike beyond their comprehension, for this end is pre- 
 cisely that which has never entered their thoughts. 
 
 Under the name of ^sculapius, the impostor Alex- 
 ander received to his own use the ofierings addressed 
 to the god, and very likely, in due course of time, im- 
 posed upon himself as well as his votaries, and fancied 
 that he really was divine. Heaven knows we have 
 shams enough without this, but it is practically what 
 occurs among our men in power every day. 
 
 Suppose an earnest, zealous, hard-working man 
 enters the public service as a subordinate ; he has 
 serious ideas of his duties; he is indeed poor and 
 unfriended, but he hopes cheerfully to turn industry. 
 
240 SUBOKDINATION. 
 
 perseverance, and strict attention to good account j 
 his sentiments are soon ascertained ; he is looked upon 
 unfavourably ; he, perhaps, even attracts the attention 
 and goodwill of some patron ; he begins, therefore, to 
 stand in the way of A''s nephew, or B's son ; he be- 
 comes a marked man. Labour and application, how- 
 ever, obtain their infallible, but barren reward; he 
 outstrips the idlers, because he has learned things 
 which they have not learned ; a host of enemies, 
 powerful, implacable, rise up against him; they are 
 jealous of him; they hate and they fear him. His 
 chief, according to our present system of appointments, 
 is of course a trifler; he feels a miserable envy of his 
 underling ; of all the poor fellow's enemies, no one is so 
 determined to ruin him; he watches for matter of 
 complaint ; he finds fault perpetually, and without 
 cause ; there is no end to the small tyranny and petty 
 vexation of his doings ; at last he worries his gifted 
 victim into expostulation, and obtains his disgraceful 
 end. The subordinate who has struggled for years 
 conscientiously in his vocation, is turned out of his 
 place penniless and disgraced, only because he is fit for 
 it. He is first tortured till he groans with the pain, 
 and then throttled for groaning. If such a case may 
 happen once, it may happen frequently, it may happen 
 always ; but there never was a Government whose popu- 
 larity could survive the shame of having made itself 
 the tool and executioner of such ignoble vengeance. 
 
 Is it contended that a chief may be allowed to make 
 what complaints he pleases against a subordinate, be- 
 cause there is no one to question and control his 
 
SUBORDINATION. 241 
 
 actions j while a subordinate shall have no opportunity 
 of reply or defence ; that he may not vindicate him- 
 self by stating the truth ; while his bread and character 
 may at any time be basely slandered away in secret 
 and confidential despatches to head- quarters? This is 
 to maintain that some officials may defend themselves 
 against just accusations by meeting facts with false- 
 hood; and that others may not defend themselves 
 against unjust accusations by meeting falsehood with 
 facts. The recent example of a " Stafif Officer's" book 
 goes even further than this. It shows that some men may 
 be punished for having been supposed to have written 
 admitted truths against their superiors, and that others 
 have been promoted and honoured for having been 
 known to have written admitted falsehoods. If this is 
 to be the rule, it would be well to know in which grade 
 of the public service a man may enjoy the advantages 
 of lying with impunity, and reap rewards from his 
 malignity ; and in what rank, or under what circum- 
 stances, he forfeits the right to use his reason to pro- 
 tect himself. It would be charitable to tell the public 
 service in what rank a man must suffer unmerited 
 anguish in silence without supineness, or suspicion of 
 demerit; in what rank self-defence is infamy, and 
 retribution crime. 
 
 That which might be thought really desirable, is not 
 that certain men should be aided and abetted in the 
 exercise of insupportable tyranny, but that the public 
 service should be conducted as efficiently as possible. 
 
 If we could conceive the character of a man in power 
 to be perfect, all checks upon his conduct would be a 
 
242 SUBORDINATION. 
 
 nuisance. If notj the stronger and more efficient those 
 checks are the better ; so that, no matter how bad and 
 fooUsh he may be, he shall be able to do as little evil 
 as possible. Chiefs, if they are men, have their own 
 interests and happiness at heart more than those of the 
 public. Power, in whatever hands it may be lodged, 
 is almost certain to be abused; checks, therefore, so 
 long as they do not defeat the good purposes for which 
 the power has been given, can never be too many or 
 too strong. 
 
 It is obvious, also, that the greater the respect any 
 man receives by right of office, and independently of 
 good behaviour, the less good is his behaviour likely to 
 be. It is, therefore, the interest of the public that 
 the respect to men in office- should be proportioned as 
 nearly as possible to their deserts. High rank and 
 high salaries go together — -this is surely enough. Let 
 us keep our veneration for good services. The first 
 object of good government is not that a few persons 
 should be made absolute over the rest, but that all 
 orders of men should be good and happy. If all chiefs 
 were wise and experienced elders, and all subordinates 
 rash and inexperienced youths, a chief could hardly 
 have too much power. But it often happens that the 
 superior is a hot-brained, irritable gentleman, while his 
 inferior in rank is old enough to be his father, and in 
 sense as superior to him as a parent to a child. The 
 one may be a peer, the other a peasant's son ; but it is 
 not fortune that makes the essential difference between 
 men, it is nature. Among the shepherds of Lusitania 
 was born that Viriatus who out-generalled Pompey ; 
 
SUBORDINATION. 243 
 
 the gladiators of Thrace produced a Spartacus; the 
 marriage of an innkeeper and a washerwoman produced 
 the last of the Tribunes ; Napoleon was the son of an 
 obscure Corsican. The difference between ranks is 
 only outside. If any system, thereforCj can require 
 that young and improper men should be placed by 
 favouritism or unworthy arts in places of authority, 
 they should at least be instructed by their patrons to 
 conduct themselves with decorum towards abler and 
 better men, to whom fortune has been less propitious, 
 or to whom nature has denied the tongue of the flat- 
 terer and the mind of the helot. This is, moreover, 
 only goodnatured. A man of real merit can seldom 
 be a sycophant, even with the best intentions; and this 
 not because he is too proud, but because he is too 
 modest. He may be prudent enough fully to under- 
 stand the advantage of abasing himself before all in 
 authority, but he may be too diffident to suppose that 
 by constantly thrusting himself forward he will become 
 agreeable to his superiors. An empty-pated oaf, how- 
 ever, with a great opinion of himself, soon pushes him- 
 self into favour. Authority too often sees itself in him, 
 and becomes enamoured of its own image. Nothing 
 consoles misfortune like reflecting on the character of 
 those who have won success. Grant, however, that as 
 merit is commonly disagreeable to those in power, they 
 may consign it to contemptuous neglect. This is the 
 old ' story. Merit must devour in silence its accus- 
 tomed diet of hopes which sicken, and of sighs which 
 choke. But is there any reason why superiority should 
 be privileged to embitter its food and exhaust its 
 
 r2 
 
244 SUBORDINATION. 
 
 patience by coarse vituperation, by unmannerly blas- 
 phemy ; that command over it should include even the 
 right to maim, and the right to pistol it, for daring so 
 much as to be seen ? 
 
 Those who put regulators into watches do not intend 
 to destroy them. Subordination is a very good thing, 
 but it should have bounds and limits. The discipline 
 of our public schools is zealously kept up ; it extends 
 even to the right of birch. But a master who worries 
 the boys is barred out. Even orthodox Oxford has her 
 theatre and its hisses for impropriety in proctors, and 
 Cambridge has her senate-house. The discipline of our 
 soldiers is rigidly preserved, but the most popular 
 prince of the blood we have yet seen in office has 
 recently used his power to decide that anonymous 
 writings attributed to officers in the army cannot be 
 officially questioned by irritated superiors called to 
 account in them. In so doing. His Royal Highness 
 the Duke of Cambridge has shown an enlightened and 
 statesman-like intellect. 
 
 No institution of which we have any knowledge is 
 more admirably organized than the French army. 
 Nowhere is obedience to all in command more strictly 
 enforced ; but the French military code especially 
 provides that officers of the highest rank shall be cour- 
 teous to all below them. Any general who failed to 
 perform his duty in this respect would draw down on 
 himself a severe reprimand. No excuse about infirmity 
 of temper can be pleaded, and none is required. Such 
 a plea is, indeed, always frivolous; it cannot be put 
 forward in private life. No one can go about cursing 
 
SUBORDINATION. 245 
 
 and jumping with passion in the drawing-rooms of his 
 acquaintances, and then allege that he is so extra- 
 ordinarily organized that his humours can conform to 
 none of the usages of civilization. 
 
 Let us have, therefore, no nonsensical violence and 
 savage fury hallowed with respect and veneration, no 
 cowed and abject trembling enforced under the name 
 of duty. The public service requires no such cruel 
 and ridiculous machinery. To pretend that it should 
 be in the power of any man to make himself a for- 
 midable scourge to all beneath him on so very easy a 
 condition as pronouncing the word "subordination," 
 is the mere prattle of the magpie in oflBce. Not two 
 centuries ago this principle, now happily confined to 
 a part of the public service, was in force throughout 
 all England ; it was called passive obedience, or non- 
 resistance. It nearly made England a French province ; 
 it kept Scotland and Ireland in continual spasms of 
 revolt. It was an engine by which abuses in all shapes 
 were constantly manufactured, to an extent absolutely 
 unlimited. 
 
 As public expediency is the foundation, it should also 
 be the measure, of civil obedience. Submission grows 
 a crime when it surrenders the right of a nation, and 
 serves only to encourage corruption, to increase the 
 weight of our burthens, and to bind them the faster. 
 
 Were there even as much danger as there is security 
 in being just to all classes of our public servants, it 
 would be only right to brave it. Whether England 
 shall perish at last, is a matter in the hands of God. 
 If He decrees that we are to be overcome, we must 
 
246 SUBOKDINATION. 
 
 stifle our groans and submit. But that we should 
 perish waging war against knowledge and capacity, for 
 the benefit of ignorance and folly; that we should 
 perish persecuting with monastic bigotry all who speak 
 out to warn us of our danger, because a few old women 
 may be prematurely alarmed by the outcry; that we 
 should calmly give ourselves up to be ruined by anility 
 and pride upon stilts, would be too melancholy a ter- 
 mination of so much glory and renown. 
 
 To sum up the relations between chiefs and their 
 subordinates, it may be laid down that a subaltern can 
 never, under any circumstances, be justified in betraying 
 confidence which has been either officially or privately 
 reposed in him. Professional feeling, and the feelings 
 which guide the intercourse of gentlemen, alike forbid 
 it. There is a tacit trust implied in all personal rela- 
 tions between men of honour, even where secrecy has 
 not been expressly stipulated. Wherever reliance has 
 been placed, the trust should be held sacred. But if a 
 rash and incapable superior has forgotten his own 
 duties, as well as the duties of others, and jealously en- 
 deavoured to keep his humbler colleague in ignorance 
 of everything he ought to have known; if his col- 
 league must be infallibly inculpated in the disgrace of 
 failure, has he no right to protest against the fatal 
 course of blindness and folly ? has he no right to ex- 
 onerate himself from all participation in acts of which 
 he plainly foresees the disastrous consequences ? If 
 affairs he is appointed to transact obviously go wrong, 
 and all knowledge of them is anxiously kept from him, 
 does it not become his duty to warn the nation against 
 
SUBOKDINATION. 247 
 
 a course of proceeding which is plunging it into des- 
 perate difficultieSj and which must be improper, or it 
 would not be hidden ? If he has done so ; if he has 
 rigidly performed every official duty that could be re- 
 quired of him, however humiliating and unusual ; and 
 if he has only raised his voice in his private capacity 
 against things which required simply to be known to 
 meet general condemnation ; should the people he has 
 served cheer on those who persecute him, because, in 
 spite of aU attempts to blind him, he has discovered 
 and boldly denounced iniquity ? In such a case, 
 surely the highest attribute of the supreme power 
 in the State is to defend the weak, and not to uphold 
 the oppressor. The question, if mooted at all, should 
 not be whether the subaltern has passed censure on his 
 superior, but whether that censure was deserved. Not 
 whether there has been a quarrel, but how the quarrel 
 originated. Children are taught to obey their parents, 
 wives to submit themselves to their husbands ; but it 
 has never been maintained that even relationships so 
 sacred would warrant any in abetting a crime or in 
 sanctioning and countenancing a wrong. 
 
 Squabbles between chiefs and subordinates are said 
 to be disgraceful. But those who mean to be just 
 should ask who has begun the fray. The real disgrace 
 of the squabble is in the attack, not in the defence. 
 If a man puts his hand into another's pocket to take 
 his property, is he disgraced who prevents the theft ? 
 Inferiors are always ready enough to be submissive to 
 their superiors, and foul must be the oppression, and 
 long continued, which rouses them even into the sem- 
 
248 SUBORDINATION. 
 
 blance of a protest. But if they are to bear ruin, 
 ignominy, and degradation in submissive silence, to be 
 accused of impossible oifences by senseless enmity and 
 rancorous jealousy, the real disgrace would have been 
 to submit J and men are to be honoured, not punished, 
 ■who come forward, contrary to their inclinations and 
 to their interests, to oppose those masters they would 
 willingly obey, but who have tarnished their dignity by 
 corruption and injustice, till obedience became con- 
 nivance, and meekness pusillanimity. 
 
 Disobedience may even become a moral duty, and 
 obedience a legal crime, as was the obedience of Hamilton 
 and Glenlyon to Dalrymple. It was highly important 
 to the Master of Stair to hush up the butchery of the 
 Macdonalds. But shall every man in authority have 
 the absolute power of suppressing the knowledge of all 
 facts not personally agreeable to him, however important 
 and necessary the knowledge of such facts may be to 
 the national welfare ? Shall the talisman of his com- 
 mand over a few cringing wretches paid by public 
 money, convert the support of misrule into a duty and 
 a right ? 
 
 If these sly regulations are infringed, and facts which 
 may concern our salvation as a people are made known 
 to us, shall the punishment fall on our unworthy ser- 
 vant, or on those by whom his unworthiness has been 
 proved? If on the latter, the word subordination is a 
 double appellation, intended to cloak political rascality 
 and secure impunity to the worst offences. 
 
 Admit the principle that the misconduct of all chiefs 
 is to be overlooked and rewarded, while all who expose 
 
SUBORDINATION. 249 
 
 their delinquencies shall be punished, and the result 
 which will soon be brought about is evident. By a 
 regular trained body of official accomplices, a chief may 
 defend himself successfully against the most hideous 
 crimes. Black may be declared white ; mismanage mentj 
 success ; mortality, health ; disgrace, honour ; notorious 
 experienced imbecility, consummate skill. But this is 
 a dangerous political trick indeed. It is spoiling the 
 iable to win the game. 
 
 Government may, indeed, by the carelessness of the 
 people, ultimately make of our of&cials what Gustavus 
 Adolphus made of his Diet — drill them to speak and to 
 hold their tongues at the word of command. But what 
 does this state of things amount to in the end ? 
 
 To put the question fairly, any minister prepared 
 to maintain it must hold some rather singular opinions. 
 He must practically assert that reward for con- 
 cealing the truth has no tendency to promote insin- 
 cerity; promotion given to connivance at corruption, 
 and withheld in case of non-connivance, is not reward 
 for connivance; that punishment for speaking the 
 truth is not punishment improperly inflicted; that 
 insincerity is not vice but virtue, and as such ought to 
 be promoted ; that it is consistent with and necessary 
 to good government, to extort money from poor and 
 rich to be applied as rewards for doing nothing, or for 
 doing but a small part of that which is done by others 
 for a small portion of the same reward ; finally, that 
 reward should be bestowed on idleness and incapacity, 
 to the exclusion of labour and ability, and that a vast 
 majority of the public servants should be kept in a 
 
250 SUBORDINATION. 
 
 paiaful state of degradation for the profit and glory of 
 a few. 
 
 Persons now partaking, or who may at any time be 
 likely to partake, of the business and profit of misrule, 
 must be allowed to continue to do so without protest or 
 molestation. All abuses, as well future as present, 
 must continue without remedy. The most industrious 
 labourers in the service of mankind must experience 
 the treatment due to the wholly worthless. Disgrace 
 must be the reward of the most exalted virtue ; per- 
 petual honour, as well as power, the meed of the most 
 pernicious vices. The idea of guilt will then no longer 
 be attached to the commission of crimes, but to com- 
 plaints against criminals. On condition of his telling 
 a lie, and being able to gag all who could tell the 
 truth, it will be in the power of any creature in 
 command to act precisely as he pleases, to gloat over 
 the pangs of soldiers dying in loathsome hospitals one 
 day, to sacrifice an army another, now to insult a hero, 
 and then to give royal rewards to a tribe of parasites. 
 Meantime, are we instructed to regard his crimes and 
 misdemeanors with respect and admiration. Such 
 arguments are fit only for the most benighted of our 
 species ; for the deluded victims who cast themselves 
 under the chariot-wheels of an idol, the fanatics who 
 fancy they can lash and stripe themselves into the 
 favour of God, and the furious bigots who have neither 
 sense nor mercy. Under such a system, when every 
 abuse has a determined patron in power, and that patron 
 can drill a set of subordinates into such an abject state 
 as to become his tools, misrule may swell to such a 
 
SUBOKDINATION. 251 
 
 pitch, that the country may be on the brink of ruin 
 ■without our knowing anything whatever of the causes 
 which got us into mischief, or being able to fix on any 
 person for punishment. 
 
 With respect to mere private quarrels between 
 superiors and inferiors, it is really difiScult to under- 
 stand how the supreme power can feel concerned in 
 them. No authority with a proper sense of self-respect 
 will interfere with private disputes. Personal and pro- 
 fessional quarrels arise from such a multitude of causes; 
 both parties are usually so obstinate and so hopelessly 
 in the wrong, that disputants foolish enough to rush 
 into them, should be allowed to flounder out in their 
 own way. Sensible folk should keep the peace. Others 
 have no right to expect help in getting out of scrapes 
 into which they had no business to tumble. High 
 and grave power should disdain to mix itself up 
 with the absurdity and recriminations of two violent 
 wranglers. 
 
 Warren Hastings was, perhaps, the most powerful 
 viceroy who has ever ruled in British India. His 
 success as a statesman had raised him to the highest 
 pitch of authority. His services were of incalculable 
 value to the Company which employed him. But at 
 his very council sat a Mr. Francis, who, if not the 
 author of some scurrilous writings, was almost unknown. 
 That Mr. Francis bearded the great viceroy, and 
 thwarted and insulted him in every possible way. But 
 not even so great a man as Warren Hastings supposed 
 that the East-India Company would take up his 
 private squabbles with a colleague of inferior rank; 
 
253 SUBORDINATION. 
 
 and the most powerful subject in the world challenged 
 his tormentor and fought with him. Lord Clive, 
 in the zenith of his fame and influence, found himself 
 equally powerless, officially, to punish his private 
 enemies. 
 
 It would be impossible, however, to cite an opinion 
 on such a subject so respected as that of the late Duke 
 of "Wellington. It is especially important, because he 
 had held every office of importance in the State, , and, 
 indeed, once all of them together. He was a Con- 
 servative in the strictest sense of the word ; a soldier 
 competent to judge the exigencies of a commander and 
 the value of obedience. A higher authority cannot be 
 brought forward ; and fortunately the duke's decision is 
 perfectly clear. 
 
 Admiral Cockburn had a quarrel with his Royal 
 Highness the Duke of Clarence, then heir to the 
 crown and Lord High Admiral of the kingdom. The 
 prince demanded the dismissal of his subordinate, and 
 threatened, if his request were refused, to withdraw his 
 support from Government. The Cabinet were deeply 
 embarrassed on the Catholic question. The loss of the 
 co-operation of the heir-apparent was almost a coup de 
 grace ; but the Iron Duke never, hesitated a moment, 
 and told the prince who was one day to become his 
 sovereign, "That it would never do to dismiss an 
 English gentleman from his employment at the pleasure 
 of his royal highness." In this decision Sir Robert 
 Peel entirely concurred, and the Duke of Clarence then 
 resigned his command, and renounced his connection 
 with the Government. 
 
SUBORDINATION. 253 
 
 The principle involved in such a case was far too 
 serious and evident to escape eyes so keen and states- 
 manlike as those of him who was emphatically called 
 " The Great Duke." 
 
254 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 DISMISSALS. 
 
 If tlie liberty of the British Press can be still 
 endangered, it must be by a series of punishments for 
 free writings. Therefore, although the disgrace and 
 ruin of a single man for free writing may be but a small 
 matter, the principle therein avowed by his judges is a 
 great one. A large class of valuable men will begin to 
 grow weary of the ofBce of public instructors if, after 
 having detected and exposed evils without reward, they 
 may be punished without justice. Our public servants 
 will degenerate into hypocrites and malcontents, if they 
 are not allowed to appeal freely, under all circumstances, 
 to the laws, the liberties, and the common rights of 
 their countrymen. Supposing an official to be sus- 
 pected of having written a book displeasing to his 
 superiors, can he be legally or justly punished by dis- 
 missal ? If so, his case becomes altogether deplorable 
 and exceptional. If a clergyman or a doctor could be 
 even proven on the clearest evidence to have done the 
 same thing, they would have acted at the peril of their 
 purses, not at the risk of their professions. The whole 
 bench of bishops could not strip the one of his gown ; 
 the whole college of physicians could not deprive the 
 other of his diploma. The Lord Chancellor and all the 
 judges together could not forbid a barrister to practise. 
 
DISMISSALS. 255 
 
 or strike an attorney off the rolls, because he was 
 believed to be the author of an anonymous publi- 
 cation. 
 
 In the degree of punishments to be inflicted for any 
 offence, it is proper to take into consideration the 
 general state of manners and opinions. The utmost 
 legal punishment, therefore, now inflicted in such cases 
 is not ruin, but a fine. 
 
 It cannot be maintained that dismissal is not punish- 
 ment : it is more than punishment, — it is punishment 
 sharpened by injustice, — it is illegal punishment. 
 Degradation is as severe an evil as bodily pain ; not to 
 enjoy is to suffer. 
 
 The morality of dismissals may be easily summed up. 
 A man, perhaps, complains to the judge that he has 
 been plundered and beaten. " Very well," says the 
 judge, blandly, " then I will starve you, and give your 
 bread to one of my cousins. You have suffered much ; 
 the man who has maltreated you is a notorious high- 
 wayman. Therefore I see no possible means of settling 
 the matter satisfactorily but by ruining you for bring- 
 ing him to justice.^' 
 
 Once make subordinate officers removable at the will 
 or caprice of their superiors, and all the little passions 
 of human nature will be let loose. A superior might 
 ruin an able man, to push the fortunes of his son or of 
 his toady. Colleagues would pull each other down in 
 the fierce struggle for pre-eminence. Jealousy is the 
 sbadow of talent. If talent may be thrust out of the 
 public service immediately it begins to excite jealousy 
 by sbowing itself, the public service must be entirely 
 
256 DISMISSALS. 
 
 composed of tyrants and toadies. Also, if the public 
 service is to be made less sure than a trade or profes- 
 sion, it will soon become less honourable. If com- 
 missions are to depend entirely on the capricious 
 likings and dislikings of superiors, what man will enter 
 it whose abilities can command any other market ? 
 
 It is the supposed permanence of Government employ- 
 ments which makes them sought, and so lures greater 
 ability than the State could otherwise command into its 
 service. Shall we destroy this feeling of security at the 
 bidding of the first man who turns his office into a 
 pandemonium, and seeks to ruin all who will not worship 
 him as its divinity ? The loss of bread is a stern penalty 
 for such a crime as this. 
 
 It may be still inflicted. Men may attain power 
 who have neither feeling nor reason to guide them in 
 its exercise. It may be still inflicted, because men in 
 power accustomed to decide, disdain to argue ; but it 
 will soon lose its sting. The country will understand 
 tliat infamous punishments are mismanaged among us, 
 if an author may be degraded on suspicion of writing 
 useful truths. Such a course must ultimately expose the 
 practice to mockery. People will cry out that dismissal 
 from office had better be applied to the clandestine sale of 
 places, than to fearless publication of facts ; to flagrant 
 abuses of authority, rather than to their exposure; to 
 systematic neglect of duty, and to gross and notorious 
 corruption in the exercise of patronage. Why, they 
 will, reasonably demand, reserve shame for good and 
 useful men — reward fpr idlers, triflers, and rogues ? If, 
 on the other hand, dismissal from the public service 
 
DISMISSALS. 257 
 
 under such circumstances continue to mean disgrace, 
 and disgrace is to be allotted as the meed of labour in 
 every noble cause, how shall our public servants keep 
 their faith with their country and with their fame ? 
 
 It will, however — it must be — soon considered an 
 honour to be dismissed from any employment, if it can 
 only be retained by neglect of duty towards the public, 
 and by improper compliances expected from the station. 
 
 The object of punishment is to prevent and expose 
 crime ; but how is this new crime to be defined ? Why 
 is honesty punishable? Is it proved to be guilt by 
 dismissal and starvation? If not, what argument do 
 these terrible inflictions serve to illustrate ? The best 
 way to try their justice, is to ask any minister whether 
 he would dare exert illegal authority to have a man 
 imprisoned a single night on a charge of anonymous 
 truth-telling. If not, is the permanent loss of bread 
 and character, the rendering a man useless and infamous 
 for life, inflicted by dismissal, a less evil than a single 
 night's imprisonment ? 
 
 After the age of thirty all the liberal professions, all 
 honourable new means of obtaining a respectable live- 
 lihood, are virtually closed to a man. Therefore, dis- 
 missal from the public service may reduce him to 
 absolute beggary. The most bigoted friend of any 
 abuse would hardly now like to hear of its exposure 
 being punished with chains and whips. It is surely, 
 however, no milder gratification of intolerance to 
 punish it with a debtor's jail. Newgate, under circum- 
 stances not disgraceful, would be better than that. 
 The love of a man for his profession is a feeling too 
 
258 DISMISSALS. 
 
 valuable to society to be discouraged. It is that whicli 
 among the greater portion of mankind distinguishes 
 the labourer from the idler, the honest man from the 
 dishonest. The sentence, therefore, which deprives a 
 man of his calling, when he can no longer turn with 
 rational hope to other studies, is one which, in all 
 human probability, renders him nothing but a burden 
 to his country, and consigns him to ruin, uselessness, 
 and vexation for the rest of his days. 
 
 It is the height of absurdity to employ disgrace and 
 starvation for the purpose of putting down opinions, or 
 suppressing facts, and then to shrink from employing 
 other punishments for the same purpose. It is plain, 
 that if punishment ought to be inflicted at all, it ought 
 to be severe enough to effect the purpose for which it 
 is applied. The pain caused by punishments is pure 
 unmixed evilj and never ought to be inflicted except 
 for the sake of some good. It is mere foolish cruelty 
 to provide penalties which torment the criminal without 
 preventing the crime. 
 
 Now, in the history of the world it has been repeatedly 
 proved to be possible by sanguinary persecution, unre- 
 lentingly inflicted, to suppress facts and opinions. In 
 this way the fair promise of the Reformation was blighted 
 in Italy and in Spain, and the horrors of the Bastille 
 were long hidden in France. But no single instance has 
 ever been known in which a petty system of annoyance 
 and dismissals has succeeded in anything but arousing 
 opposition in the public mind against those by whom 
 such chastisements were inflicted. 
 
 The power of dismissal rests plainly on the assumption. 
 
DISMISSALS. 259 
 
 that a minister's authority over his subordinates is 
 absolute. If this is really the case ; if compliance with 
 the whimSj and even connivance at the crimes, of any 
 minister for the time in office be an indispensable quali- 
 fication for a small public appointment ; if the eternity 
 of mystery, and the consequent perpetuation of igno- 
 rance among the people, be a principal end of govern- 
 ment; if it be the duty of a minister to employ his 
 authority for that end ; if his authority extends to the 
 infliction of arbitrary punishment on mere suspicion ; 
 if hanging be, as most assuredly it is, a very effectual 
 mode of silencing obnoxious persons and preserving 
 secrets, why shall he not hang ? If he may hang, he 
 may hang all the first gentlemen in the kingdom. 
 The more strictly, indeed, such premises are reasoned 
 on, the more absurd must be the conclusions drawn 
 from them. Now if good sense and goodnature recoU 
 from the inferences to which any theory leads, it may 
 be fairly pronounced impracticable. 
 
 Spoliation cannot be sweetened by (?ivility, nor in- 
 justice varnished by forms. The victim will look at 
 the unrighteous judge with reproachful eyes, and up- 
 braid him in language learned by most Englishmen 
 upon their mothers' knees. " Sittest thou here to 
 judge me after the law, and commandest thou me to 
 be smitten contrary to the law ? " He will even have 
 the right to cry out in still holier words, " If I have 
 spoken evd, bear witness of the evil ; but if good, why 
 smitestthou me?" 
 
 If any Englishman oflFend against the law, he is 
 amenable to the law ; but where there is no law, there 
 
 s3 
 
260 DISMISSALS. 
 
 is no offence. ''That which is not prohibited/' says 
 Delolme, "is allowed." It is not the authority of the 
 Government, it is the liberty of the subject, which is 
 supposed to be unbounded. All the acts of individuals 
 are supposed to be lawful till the law is pointed out 
 which makes them otherwise. The onus probandi is 
 transferred from the subject to the Government; the 
 subject is not at any time bound to show grounds for his 
 conduct. When the magistrates think proper to exert 
 themselves, it is their business to find out and produce 
 the law in their own favour, and the prohibition against 
 the subject. 
 
 Soldiers, indeed, are subject to special laws, and fall 
 under the jurisdiction of courts-martial, but the power 
 of these courts does not extend over persons employed 
 in the civil serdce. Civil servants, therefore, have a 
 right to be tried by the common law of the land. If 
 a civil servant were condemned to imprisonment, he 
 might then be dismissed as incapable of performing his 
 functions ; but it is certainly a harsh and improper 
 thing to dismiss him without a full and sufficient trial; 
 because, if this could be done, the position of our civil 
 servants would be altogether extraordinary. They 
 would indeed be outlaws. This point was very clearly 
 laid down in 1697. A bill was then brought before 
 Parliament for the regulation of the Press. " Papers," 
 it was said, " frequently contained mischievous matter." 
 "Then why are they not prosecuted?" was the answer. 
 " Has the Attorney-General filed an information against 
 any of them ? If not, is it not absurd to ask us to give 
 a new remedy by statute when the old remedy is left 
 
DISMISSALS. 261 
 
 untried ?" On the question, whether the bill should 
 be read a second time, the Ayes were 16 and the Noes 
 200. Again, on the persecution of Sir Richard Steele 
 by the House of Commons, — "Why," asked Walpole, 
 " is the author answerable in Parliament for the things 
 which he wrote in his private capacity ? And if he is 
 punishable by law, why is he not left to the law ? By 
 illegal proceedings in the House of Commons, Parlia- 
 ment, which used to be the scourge of evil-doers, is 
 made the scourge of the subject i The ministers," he 
 added, " are sufficiently armed with authority ; they 
 possess the disposal of the privy purse, the grace of 
 pardoning, and the powers naturally arising from their 
 situation ; but," he continued, " the liberty of the Press 
 is unrestrained. How, therefore, shall a part of the 
 legislature dare to punish that as a crime which is not 
 declared to be so by any law framed by the whole ? 
 and why should that House be made the instrument of 
 such a detestable purpose ? " 
 
 It was on this occasion also that Lord Finch made 
 the most successful of maiden speeches. He rose to 
 address the House on behalf of Steele, but, embarrassed 
 by an ingenuous modesty, sat down again in visible 
 confusion ; murmuring, however, so as to be overheard, 
 " It is strange I can't speak for this man, though I 
 could readily fight for him." 
 
 In the House of Peers, Lord Halifax, ever on 
 the weaker side, also defended Steele. He told the 
 ministry plainly that he believed, if they would recom- 
 mend "The Crisis " to her Majesty's perusal, she would 
 think quite otherwise of the book than they did. 
 
262 DISMISSALS. 
 
 That which such men as Halifax and Walpole de- 
 clared could be done neither by the ministry nor 
 Parliament, can surely hardly be done by Downing 
 Street in 1857. 
 
 A silly objection to these views has been sometimes 
 offered. " The minister confers appointments/' it is 
 urged, " and he can therefore take them away." Not 
 so. The Crown possesses more power than any single 
 minister ; it represents the united power of all. The 
 Crown appoints judges, but it has no power to dis- 
 possess them, or even to punish them in the slightest 
 degree for censuring its acts. 
 
 Moreover, this argument is altogether unsound. 
 Although a minister has the right of nomination, ap- 
 pointments must be confirmed by the Crown. If a 
 minister cannot appoint a public servant without the 
 consent of the Crown, how can he have the sole power 
 to dismiss? The Government possesses the highest 
 power known to the constitution, but it cannot make 
 the law, and it is not above it. 
 
 The exercise of true ministerial discretion, is to dis- 
 cern in the law that part of it which may be applied to 
 particular instances. It is not to evade, nor to scorn, nor 
 to exceed, nor to go below it. A minister must not 
 introduce whatever novelties he thinks proper into the 
 constitution of the kingdom. He must neither follow 
 the dictates of personal enmity or displeasure, party 
 interest or private influence. 
 
 A minister, moreover, in our age and countiy, has 
 really no excuse whatever for exceeding his authority. 
 As long as he consents to act legally, he is one of the 
 
DISMISSALS. 263 
 
 most powerful men in the world ; dii'ectly he ceases to 
 do so, he is nothing at all. 
 
 The good fame of every man is protected by the 
 lawsj if it is worth defending ; why seek to go beyond 
 them ? Injustice will not mend a broken reputation, 
 but only damage it farther. 
 
 The worst and most malignant men also will find the 
 legal attainment of their bad ends more safe and easy 
 than any illegal indulgence. The power of enforcing 
 the law exists at all times ready to aid in gratifying 
 private vengeance or political hostility. The best cause, 
 however, will never protect an individual who arrogates 
 to himself the power of writing his adversary's death- 
 warrant. 
 
 We have always thought it necessary to take extra- 
 ordinary precautions against the dangers which un- 
 avoidably attend the power of inflicting arbitrary 
 punishments; for we have felt that unlimited power 
 only corrupts its possessor, and where law ends there 
 tyranny begins. The office of legislator, party, and 
 judge, cannot be united even in a minister. 
 
 The only circumstance that could possibly save a dis- 
 missing minister, therefore, from the consequences of 
 his harshness, would be the silent submission of his 
 victim. The first Englishman who ever resists autho- 
 rity, when illegally exercised, always carries the nation 
 with him. The most powerful minister need only refer 
 to the case of Captain BaiUie, already cited, to under- 
 stand that any attempt to tyrannize over the smallest 
 subordinate would not only prove abortive, but that it 
 would infallibly ruin him in pubhc esteem, and call 
 
264 DISMISSALS. 
 
 down immortal censure on his head from the most 
 eloquent lips in the land. 
 
 If his object should be a puerile revenge, or a silly 
 desire to make his displeasure felt, he would be signally 
 foiled. The elder Pitt was dismissed from an ensigncy 
 in the army for making himself obnoxious to Govern- 
 ment. The Prince of Wales immediately employed 
 him, and he became at once a celebrity. Any act of 
 injustice towards an Englishman always redounds ulti- 
 mately to his advantage. The case of Mr. Kennedy is 
 stiU recent, and has not Sir James Graham done a 
 great deal towards making Sir C. Napier M.P. for 
 Westminster ? 
 
 With all these instances before him, a minister should 
 anxiously pause before he ventures to overstrain his 
 authority. Englishmen may generally be led with a 
 silken thread, but the humblest among them will hardly 
 be illegally coerced. We are a stiff-necked race, who 
 will go, as we have often gone, to the stake and the 
 block in defence of a right. We all have in our very 
 nature that principle of stubborn endurance which made 
 Napoleon say we never knew when we were beaten. 
 We always meet force by force. The soul of an 
 Englishman is like a well-built arch, which grows 
 firmer in proportion to the weight of the burthen which 
 presses on it. What pubUc man, knowing this, would 
 imprudently attempt to force his way where he might 
 win it ? Why should he court humiliation, and show 
 himself in the hateful guise of a petty despot ? His 
 attempt to inflict punishments at his own good pleasure 
 would be a worthless triumph over the liberties of his 
 
DISMISSALS. 265 
 
 countrymen if it succeeded. If it did notj — if it were 
 met, as it almost certainly would be met, by resistance, 
 he would have placed himself in a most painful position, 
 however his dependants might flatter and console him; 
 for he must either submit to be defeated in an ignoble 
 squabble with a subordinate, or he must plainly break 
 the law. 
 
 He may assert, indeed, that he has a right to act 
 illegally, for that previous ministers have insolently 
 placed themselves above the law, and therefore he 
 may, if he pleases, take example by some of the worst 
 and weakest of his predecessors. What, however, is 
 that right worth which, when exercised, inflicts a 
 wrong ? 
 
 Even supposing such an illegal right could possibly 
 exist, and could be made out in the clearest manner, 
 a man's character with his fellow-creatures does not 
 depend upon his rights, but upon a discreet exercise 
 of those rights. A man may persevere in doing what 
 he has a right to do, tiU the Chancellor shuts him up 
 in Bedlam or the mob pelt him. All men invested 
 with rights must use them according to the dictates of 
 common sense. Idiots have no rights. 
 
 The right then recedes farther and farther as we 
 come to handle it, and nothing but the power remains. 
 Power and right, however, are not convertible terms : 
 a rogue may have the power to rob, but stealing is a 
 crime. Power, therefore, without right, is aU that 
 belongs to the minister in such a case. Now power 
 without right was pronounced by the great minister 
 Lord Chatham, as "the most odious and detestable 
 
266 DISMISSALS. 
 
 object that can be offered to the human imagination. 
 It is not only pernicious to those who are subject to it, 
 but leads to its own destruction. It is res detest'abilis 
 et caduca." 
 
 If it be said with a smile or a sneer that a parlia- 
 mentary majority can sanction anything ; that a 
 minister so supported may be just as wicked, mali- 
 cious, and unjust as he pleases; let men in power 
 beware how they stretch a principle obviously so dis- 
 heartening too far. If a parliamentary majority enables 
 any man or men in power to set all decency at defiance, 
 there is, happily for the liberties of Englishmen, still 
 strength and honesty in the Press sufficient to ruin 
 any public man who plainly attempts to make him- 
 self a despot. He may succeed once, but it will cost 
 him dearly. He wUl pass away into history with a 
 reputation blackened by the condemnation of all the 
 thoughtful and judicious men of his time, and he will 
 raise among us a question never again to be set at 
 rest till answered. " If a parliamentary majority can 
 virtually change the constitution, which it is the holiest 
 duty of Parliament to preserve, — if it can practically 
 change our government into a despotism, and capri- 
 ciously enable ministers to defy the laws of the land, 
 is it not surely time that some very stringent measures 
 were taken to reform such a Parliament, and to pro- 
 vide for a healthier representation of a good, a great, 
 and a free people ? Would it not be well to enable 
 constituencies to expel members who betray the sacred 
 trust committed to them for the smiles of a minister ; 
 to replace them by men with a higher sense of honour. 
 
DISMISSALS. 267 
 
 and who better understand tte duties they owe to their 
 country and to themselves ? 
 
 There is nothing more unsafe than absolute power, 
 even supposing it could be attained. It is among those 
 things which whosoever desires ardently is certain 
 to lose. In 1758, the Chevalier Barras was burned 
 to death at Amiens for singing an irreverent song; 
 thirty-five years afterwards the Christian religion was 
 abolished in France, and all the estates of the Church 
 confiscated. In 1782, Louis XVI. was in possession 
 of unrestrained power. Richelieu's dream had been 
 realized. The nobles were mere courtiers, the people a 
 rabble ; ten years afterwards the king had been mur- 
 dered, and France was a republic. 
 
 Whenever any arrangement in the State exists by 
 which the greatest happiness of the greatest number is 
 not best secured, it is the duty of every man to try to 
 abolish it ; for what possible problem can we poor 
 mortals have to solve but how to make ourselves con- 
 jointly as good, and therefore as happy, as possible ? 
 Reason, and not authority, should guide our judgment. 
 He who in place of reasoning employs authority, makes 
 no secret of the opinion he entertains of the people. 
 He must suppose them wholly incapable of forming 
 any judgment of their own; and if they submit to 
 the insult, they tacitly acknowledge its justice. There 
 appears to be, however, a class of persons, so infatuated 
 with error, and so fearful of the consequences of all 
 improvements in the theory or practice of government, 
 that to reason with them is idle. They have but one 
 reply to all argument : " Do not make us relinquish a 
 
268 DISMISSALS. 
 
 folly that will lead to our ruiiij because, if we do so, 
 we must give up other follies ten times greater than 
 that." 
 
 A statesman worthy of the name, also, should set 
 himself to create good precedents as well as to follow 
 them. He should seek to make his course regular, 
 that men may know beforehand what they are to 
 expect from him. He should be neither positive nor 
 peremptory, and always have sound reason for his acts. 
 He should preserve the right of his place, but be 
 cautious of stirring questions of jurisdiction. He 
 should carefully preserve the rights of inferior places, 
 and think it more honour to direct in chief than to be 
 busy in the affairs of all. 
 
 If the practice of dismissals for free writings could 
 be proved, both in accordance with law and custom, it 
 should nevertheless be abolished. What reason is 
 there for rejecting the services of any man because he 
 differs in opinion from those in power ? As long as he 
 obeys their commands, they have no right to inquire 
 into his thoughts or writings. To infer even that a 
 man will act ill because he thinks ill, is a fallacy old 
 enough to have been exposed by Locke. 
 
 There are two intelligible courses which may be 
 followed with respect to the exercise of private judgment 
 in politics : the course of the despotic government, which 
 interdicts private judgment because of its inevitable 
 inconveniences ; and the course of the liberal govern- 
 ment, which permits private judgment in spite of its 
 inevitable inconveniences. Both are more reasonable 
 
DISMISSALS. 269 
 
 than a government which would have private judgment 
 without its inevitable inconveniences. The despot pro- 
 duces repose by means of stupefaction. The liberal 
 encourages activity, though he knows that where there 
 is much activity there will be some aberration. A man 
 who wishes to combine repose and activity, stupefaction 
 and intelligence, might as well wish to be in two places 
 at once. 
 
 Moreover, is Government to desire dignity and safety 
 by means which render it impossible for any man who 
 has the least spark of honour to step forth and serve it ? 
 Is the time come when obedience to the law and cor- 
 rectness of conduct are not suf&cient protection to a 
 large body of men, but that they must also bear insult 
 and injustice, select their expressions, and adjust their 
 words according to ministerial ideas of propriety ? 
 
 Of all the publications offensive to governments that 
 have ever been written, perhaps " Drapicr's " Letters 
 were the most offensive ; but not even a minister so 
 powerful as Walpole ventured to hint at depriving 
 Dean Swift of the deanery of St. Patrick's. All the 
 Government could do, even in the fiercest heat of party 
 warfare, was to injure the public by preventing the most 
 gifted author of his generation from being made his- 
 toriographer. A notable device. 
 
 Sidney Smith alludes to the poor crown living of 
 Foston-le-Clay, in Yorkshire, as giving him the first 
 feeling of independence and security he had ever 
 enjoyed. It was in fact, he said, "a permanent pro- 
 vision." He could scarcely have said this if he had 
 
370 BISMISSALS. 
 
 supposed it possible that Archbishop Markham had 
 the power of depriving him of it for his next unor- 
 thodox squib in the Edinburgh Review, more especially 
 as this primate had not half liked that one of the 
 inferior clergy should be so much in possession of his 
 faculties as the tremendous curate showed himself 
 when dining at Bishopthorpe. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott, as we have said, held two distinct 
 appointments under Government when he wrote the 
 Letters of Malachi Malagrowther. They contained a 
 violent attack on Lord Melville, the one-pound notes, 
 and Government generally. The cabinet were surprised 
 and offended ; Mr. Croker replied ; but nobody thought 
 of dismissing Scott from his employments, and Sir 
 Robert Peel almost immediately afterwards paid him 
 the generous and graceful compliment of appointing 
 him one of the commissioners for inquiring into the 
 state of the Scotch colleges. 
 
 To turn out even a tenant for personal or politi- 
 cal reasons, has always made the landlord unpopular, 
 and is invariably held the infallible sign of a bad 
 heart and a weak head. But taking away commis- 
 sions and depriving men of all honest means of live- 
 lihood on such grounds, cheating their creditors and 
 driving their families into the streets, is a practice 
 fallen out of general use in England since the days of 
 the Star-chamber. A good way to test its justice is 
 this : If the power of so acting should ever be formally 
 taken away from ministers, would any human being 
 ever wish to see it re-established? Religion is a far 
 
DISMISSALS. 271 
 
 more important affair than politics, and such a rogue 
 as Jeffreys might lose the favour of such a master as 
 James II., for refusing to hecome an apostate. But 
 the veriest old woman would now be ashamed to 
 punish heterodoxy in religion. To punish supposed 
 heterodoxy in politics is mere drivelling. Much 
 mischief, however, it may certainly do. The power 
 inadequate to all other things is often more than suffi- 
 cient for this. But when the system of coercion is 
 complete, when some department of the public service 
 is brought into a cowed and trembling submission to 
 the win of auy man chance may have placed at its 
 head, is it not a little preposterous to seek to make it 
 unserviceable, in order to keep it obedient ? 
 
 The true principles on which punishment may be 
 inflicted have been long known and clearly determined. 
 It is certain that it can never be righteously imposed 
 when groundless, from there being no real mischief to 
 prevent ; when inefficacious, because it cannot prevent 
 the mischief against which it is directed ; when unpro- 
 fitable, because the mischief it would produce would be 
 greater than that it prevented; and when needless, 
 because the mischief may be prevented without it. If 
 the punishment of dismissal from small employments, 
 for free writing, is proved to be groundless, because free 
 writing is on the whole a blessing to the country ; if it 
 is inefficacious, because it cannot prevent free writings ; 
 if it is unprofitable, because the mischief it produces is 
 greater than any it could possiblyprevent ; if it isneedless, 
 because the mischief maybe prevented by so simple a pro- 
 
273 DISMISSALS. 
 
 ceeding as an action for libel ; the reader will, perhaps, 
 consider that its impropriety is fully established. 
 Finally, if it could be the interest of one individual to 
 write that which ought not to be written, it would be as 
 surely the interest of others to expose him. But if a 
 minister must needs take part in the controversy, 
 argument is the proper weapon to combat error, and 
 not authority. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 PRINTED By cox AND WYMAN, GREAT QVEBN STREET.