tings have a tendency to bring it into contempt should be fined and imprisoned! And that the assessed taxes are the best taxes ever imposed, and universal favourites-especially with the poorer sort of people and the middle classes-whatever the nobles and the millionaries may say against their unequal distribution! All this he must mean-though he does not say it in totidem verbis; for how could a Parliament so composed of honourable men, and so consonant to the wishes of the people, impose taxes on them which, at a blink of the True Sun, the people would rise up to put an end to, as well as an end to the House of Commons that had equitably indulged them with such a blessinga blessing not fleeting as are, alas! all other earthly enjoyments, but permanent, and secure, as it would seem, from any commutation that might serve to lighten the delightful

burden?

The advice given by the True Sun is rash and wrong, and altogether indefensible; but we do not believe that he who gave it meant to recommend as the Solicitor-General said the employment of physical force. Had he hinted-nay, plainly advised the use of it, he would have been doing no more than was done by some men now held in high honour by his prosecutors. The truth is, that Mr Bell, or the writer of the article, whoever he may be, knows that the people could not be now roused by any “ thunder" of his to attempt any thing half so foolish as physical force. The time for that is a little gone by; the Whig Reformers have got in; and threats of physical force-manifest or obscure-served their purpose who formerly encouraged themand alarmed, it is said, even Wellington, who was shocked to think for a moment that there might be a necessity in the last extremity-to shed the blood of the misguided and rebellious people. Rather than that that should be-for had there been a conflict of that kind, blood would have flowed in torrents-the Conservatives-the Tories would have ceased to oppose even a more deformed monster than the Bill. The Whigs knew the humanity of the true friends of the people; and there

fore scrupled not to excite the people to a madness which would have impelled them even upon the bayonets that no Tory government would have suffered to draw their blood. In charity we must believe that such was the Whig policy; for otherwise they must have been more cruel, though less cowardly, than we, who despise far more than we hate them, can ever be brought to think them by the Radicals whom they have outraged and enraged and to whom they would fain deny even the light of the Sun-nay, have they not condemned the Sun himself to be hidden in his vacant intersolar cave?

The True Sun was fortunate in its defenders-Sergeant Talfourd and Mr Kelly-(Mr Bell was his own advocate;) and beside theirs, flowing full between bank and brae, the Solicitor's speeches look as silly as a couple of buckets passing each other on their way down and up what was once a draw-well. Each on its reascent seems emptier than the other, and than itself before it went down; and you wonder what can have happened to the water. Sergeant Talfourd seems to have been an enthusiastic and imaginative reformer, and to have hailed the Bill as the herald of the millennium. We envy him even the memory of the dream he so eloquently describes; while we sympathize with the disappointment he must have experienced on awakening in "the light of common day." He speaks well of the intellect and imagination that within the last half century have glorified our land. But we cannot hold with him, that they were born of the great French Revolution, much less that they gave birth to the "late great measure." "Be that as it may, here is some true eloquence; and the argument it envelopes in a shining garb, puts to shame and shiver the naked impotence of the Solicitor's, and shews up to a nation's scorn the abject meanness of this tyrannical prosecution.

"Before I come to the consideration of the paragraphs which are immediately the subject of the Attorney-General's information, it is right I should call your attention to the circumstances under which these paragraphs were published, and the state of feeling which prevailed at

the time; to the condition of our moral and intellectual atmosphere at the period when the defendants were prompted to write them, and they were sent into the world. You know, gentlemen, whether you participated in those feelings or not; you know for how many years the fond and earnest hopes of the enthusiastic and the young had been excited in the cause of Parliamentary Reform; you know how many splendid promises had been held out, how many young imaginations had been lighted up and enkindled, how many fond wishes and fervent prayers had been called forth for the success of a cause which was to reconcile all anomalies, which was to remove all causes of just complaint, and which was to give to the mind and the genius of this great country a fit representative in the Commons' House of Parliament. You will recollect by what energies the accomplishment of that purpose was obtained; you will recollect by what power the momentary defeat of that object was swayed back; and you will not forget the consummation of those expectations which followed it, and in which all those fond and earnest hopes, all those yearnings of young and affectionate hearts, all those wishes which grave politicians had been incited to indulge-(and you cannot forget by whom, although they seem to have forgotten it) when all those bright prospects appear to have been realized, and when the great cause of liberty and peace, and truth, was about to begin! It was not unnatural, perhaps, under these circumstances, prompted and impelled as the public mind had been, that some extravagant expectations should be formed with respect to that assembly which was to be collected for the purpose of representing for the first time-not the great families, not the great interests, but the intellect of the country-of the Shakspeares, the Bacons, the Miltons, of all the great and stirring minds, in remembering whom we feel, the humblest of us, that we had a great ancestry, that we are sprung from earth's best blood, that we have their triumphant force to uphold and sustain us in our course, and bright examples which the highest may be delighted to fol

low. Gentlemen, it was not unreasonable, merely looking abroad at the age, considering what the awakened mind of this country was, that great expec tations should be formed-formed not only through the instrumentality of these accusers of to-day, for not only through their instrumentality had knowledge been diffused and spread abroad in the hands of the poor and the humble; not only had the might which slumbered in the peasant's heart been awakened; not only had there been an entirely new state and condition of things in the great mass of the people; but this also had been an age in which the great and predominant genius of the country had also been awakened up from its long slumber, and the long sealed fountains of silent genius had been broken open. Is it possible to look abroad, and see an age of literature inferior to none since the days of Elizabeth-is it possible to see the energies which have been developed, and the glorious triumphs of the imagination which have been achieved, the eloquence, the pathos, and the grandeur and the beauty which have been upturned in this conflict of opinions-is it possible to look at genius, which has shed its light on the lowest conditions, which has traced out the emanation of the world without from the world within us, and has shewn us that every thing around and about us is inseparably connected with the spirit of truth and good-is it possible, I say, for a man to find himself in an age like this, and not expect there should be a reflection of it in that House, which was for the first time to represent it-to adopt a metaphor of Shakspeare, as 'A gate of steel fronting the sun, receiving and rendering back its figure and its heat?' I need not advert to the consummation which followed. I grant that, looking at human nature as it is, and the imperfections which necessarily attend it, it was hardly to be hoped, under any circumstances, that expectations so high should be realized, but they were those which that great party had been perpetually awakening, they were hopes which their genius had awakened and fostered; it was a consummation which their power had achieved, and, at least, it was not for

strongly expressed, that this information ex officio was filed which they dared not trust to a grand jury? Or was it because the article in question had really a dangerous tendency? He would entreat the jury calmly and dispassionately to look at those paragraphs, and see whether they had any such tendency as was imputed to them." The learned Sergeant then proceeded to comment on the different passages of the "libel" with a masterly power of eloquence and sarcasm. It was difficult at times to subdue the strong feeling he excited through the Court. "His learned friend (the Solicitor-General) had most disingenuously taken advantage of a single word in the article, and said it was an attempt to excite the people to use physical force; whereas, in truth, it had no such tendency, and such an object was evidently not aimed at. The article began with reference to that vote of the House of Commons, and he should observe with respect to the gentlemen who were charged as defendants on this record, and to whom criminality was imputed, that their Paper had existed but a short time, and whatever might be thought of their political opinions, they had pursued a straight forward, manly, and consistent course; they had not pandered to any party in power, although they have been bitterly persecuted by those who pretended to be the friends of the people. The whole tendency of the articles in this paper was to make the people orderly, good members of society; and it would be seen that among the articles would be found some of the most beautiful and brilliant effusions of literature. He mentioned this to shew that the defendants were not among those who sought to destroy the framework of society, and to riot in confusion and desolation. They were sensibly alive to the benefits of society-they administered to its arts-they keenly enjoyed its refinements and its elegancies, and it was their object to extend the enjoyment of them as widely as possible. He would pass over the description of the House of Commons in the article, nor should he allude to Mr Burke's description of another House of Commons in his time, and

of which no notice was taken by the government of the day, but leave it to the reformed House of Commons to take advantage of the attack made upon them as they had done, though, but for attacks of tenfold bitterness made on their predecessors, they would not be where they now were. His learned friend, the SolicitorGeneral, had most disingenuously taken advantage of a single word in the article, and said that it was an attempt to excite the people to use physical force; but if the present government were really the friends of the people-if their power had its foundation in the affections of the people-they need not fear an attack ten times stronger. The article referred to the repeal of the malt tax, and called upon the people to agitate constitutionally; and yet here was a House of Commons, springing out of that very agitation of the people, which now sought to punish this Paper."

Mr Kelly is justly esteemed a most judicious as well as powerful pleader, and he puts certain cases to the Jury, sans fear of the Solicitor's reply, with a courage that might have seemed to border upon rashness, were it not that a bad cause generally makes its supporter a coward, till the once fast-wagging tongue is seen rather than heard, laboriously stuttering towards the receding close of an unhappy speech. So is it with the Solicitor. "My learned friend," says Mr Kelly, "has stated that he would not hesitate to prosecute Lord Milton, or any other person, who published or uttered matter like that forming the ground of this publication." We hate to say what might seem to be uncivil; but you must excuse us, Mr Solicitor, for avowing our inability to bolt that bouncer. You durst not have indicted that Lord or Earl for your ears. But

as

"the wish is parent of the thought," there could have been no thought of such a proceeding then; and now the Whig nobility, niggards as some of them are, (not Earl Fitzwilliam,) have not the same temptation they had to stop the supplies, and are patriotic enough to desire that the poor should pay all manner of taxes. Cannot the poor petition?

"My learned friend, as I before sta◄

ted, has said that he would not hesitate to prosecute Lord Milton, or any other person, who published or uttered matter like that forming the ground of this prosecution. Let us suppose that at such a time of excite ment as the one already referred to, a man of high rank and distinguished station, and a known supporter of the Government of the country, were charged with the matter which appears in this publication. Let me suppose that that which has been not improperly described as the leading Journal of Europe-a Journal before whose power Kings and governments have quailed, and one which has an almost unbounded circulation throughout England, Europe, and the civilized world-suppose, I say, such a Paper as that had published such a paragraph as the following:

"It may not be generally known, that during the late crisis, one person, and that one of station and rank, was ready to set a patriotic example in resisting a Government opposed to the just rights of the people. When a tax-gatherer called on Lord Milton last week, he requested the tax-gatherer to call again, because he was not sure that circumstances might not arise which might make it necessary for him to resist pay

ment'

"Now, here is an act" (continued the learned counsel)" done by the Times Newspaper-the Times holds up the patriotic example of the nobleman in question. My learned friend calls on you to deal with this prosecution by what he says, and he says that he would prosecute such a publication. Who was the Solicitor and Attorney-General when this paragraph appeared in a Journal, the influence of which is as one to a million compared with that of the Paper now under prosecution? Do not, I pray you, suppose that I blame the Solicitor-General personally, for supporting this most base and cowardly prosecution. Cowardly it is and you shall hear why. Gentlemen, if there were a paper of transcendent importance and irresistible power which published such an article as that I have read to you, and commended the conduct of the individual mentioned as being 'a patriotic example of resistance to a

Government opposed to the rights of the people,' why did not the Attorney-General (now not here) who was then Solicitor-General, prosecute that paper? Why did not the Government prosecute that paper? Because they dared not, not for their lives, or their places

which they value more, or as much. (Laughter.) They dared not prosecute. They certainly, according to their own statement, would have a right to complain of the conduct of the noble individual alluded to, but then he had at that time six votes in the House at the service of the Government. Have I not a right then, gentlemen, to say that this is a most cowardly and base prosecution?"

Here follows (taken from the Morning Post) some amusing reading to a Whig Solicitor conducting the prosecution of an old brother Reformer, for words having a tendency to excite the people to disregard the laws, and despise the United Wisdom.

"The people call throughout the United Kingdom for a full, prompt, and final reform of the House of Commons. Their plain sense tells them that they have not now a representative Government in any thing but name; that under the present system the Press and the Habeas Corpus Act are their only guarantees for the undisturbed enjoyment of the rights of person and property; and that, with a borough Parliament, rendered desperate by an exposure of its vices, and by a progressive abridgement of its opportunities of plunder, no man can tell how soon a regular warfare may be commenced against the two great bulwarks of English liberty."—(Times, April 5, 1831.)

"The people of England say that they are trampled upon by mock legislators, whom they have not appointed to make laws for them, and plundered by harpies, whom they have not authorized to take their money, and that such things ought to exist no longer. The Peers assert by their vote that it is lawful for the people of England to be so trampled upon and plundered."—(Times, Oct. 10, 1831.)

"Could any, besides Ministers known to the Constitution, be saddled in law with that responsibility