The Bible shown to be no more inspired than any other book," &c.; the court of exchequer, without any reference to the motives which prompted the delivery of the lectures, held that a publication of the doctrines stated in the advertisements referred to, was blasphemy, and, therefore, the breach of contract was justifiable. An indictment setting forth certain passages from the poem of "Queen Mab," and a passage in prose from the notes thereto; a work described in the indictment as a "scandalous, impious, profane, and malicious libel of and concerning the Christian religion, and of and concerning the holy scriptures, and of and concerning almighty God, in which were contained certain passages charged as blasphemous;" Sergeant (afterwards Mr. Justice) Talfourd, himself a poet, addressed the jury for the defense, in a noble speech, in which he asked, whether it could be blasphemy in the publisher to present to the world, or rather to the calm, the laborious, the patient searchers after wisdom and beauty, who alone would peruse the volume, the awful mistakes, the mighty struggles, the strange depressions, and the imperfect victories of such a spirit as Shelley's, because the picture has some passages of frightful gloom? "In the wise and just dispensations of providence," said the accomplished advocate, in a passage which we may be excused for quoting, "great powers are often found associated with shall have hundreds of co-workers in this beautiful spirit photography. Yours, truly,

"WM. H. MUMLER." Mr. Gerry appeared for the prosecution; but the defendant, Mumler, was ultimately discharged, upon other grounds than those taken by the learned counsel.

1 Cowan v. Milbourn, L. R., 2 Eq. 230; 36 L. J. 124; 16 L. T. N. S. 230.

weakness or with sorrow; but when these are not blended with the intellectual greatness they countervail, but merely affect the personal fortunes of their possessors, as when a sanguine temperament leads into vicious excesses, there is no more propriety in unveiling the truth, because it is truth, than in exhibiting the details of some physical disease. But when the greatness of the poet's intellect contains within itself the elements of tumult and disorder; when the appreciation of the genius in all its divine relations and all its human lapses depends on a view of the entire picture, must it be withheld? It is not sinful elysium, full of lascivious blandishments, but a heaving chaos of mighty elements, that the publisher of the early productions of Shelley unveils. In such a case, the more awful the alienation, the more pregnant with good will be the lesson. Shall this life, fevered with beauty, restless with inspiration, be hidden? or, wanting its first blind but gigantic efforts, be falsely because partially revealed? If to trace back the stream of genius, from its greatest and most unearthly breadth to its remotest fountain, is one of the most interesting and instructive objects of philosophic research; shall we-when we have followed that of Shelley through its majestic windings, beneath the solemn gloom of 'The Cenci,' through the glory-tinged expanses of 'The Revolt of Islam,' amidst the dream-like haziness of Prometheus'—be forbidden to ascend with painful steps its narrowing course to its farthest spring, because black rocks may encircle the spot whence it rushes into day, and demon shapes, frightful but powerless for harm, may gleam and frown on us beside it?" It was urged also that the poem of "Queen Mab" was presented with the distinct statement that Shelley himself, in

mature life, departed from its offensive dogmas; that it was accompanied by his own letter, in which he expresses his wish for its suppression; that, therefore, it was not given as containing his deliberate assertions, but only as a feature in the development of his intellectual character. Was it not "antidote enough to the poison of a pretended atheism, that the poet, who is supposed to-day to deny Deity, finds Deity in all things?"

Lord Denman, however, told the jury that he and they "were bound to take the law as it had been handed down to them. The only question for their consideration was, whether, in their opinion, the work, which had been made the subject of prosecution, deserved the imputations that were cast upon it by the indictment, and whether the publisher had sent it forth deliberately into the world, knowing its character to be such. The purpose of the passage cited in 'Queen Mab' was, he thought, to. cast reproach and insult upon what, in christian minds, were the peculiar objects of veneration; it was not, however, sufficient that mere passages of an offensive character should exist in a work, in order to render the publication of it an act of criminality; it must appear that no condemnation of such passages appeared in the context. It had been said that the extraordinary poem in question was the production of a mere youth. Were the lines indicted calculated to shock the feelings of any christian reader? Were their points of offense explained, or was their virus neutralized by any remarks in the margin, by any note of explanation or apology? If not, they were libels on God, and indictable."

1

1 The jury returned a verdict of guilty; but the prosecutor abandoned all further proceedings on payment of his costs.

Still another class of works esteemed not innocent at common law were publications seditiously libelous

Rex v. Moxon, 2 Mod. State Trials, 362. Blackburn, J., alluding to this case in Reg. v. Hicklin (L. Rep., 3 Q. B. 374), says: "I hope I may not be understood to agree with what the jury found, that the publication of 'Queen Mab' was sufficient to make it an indictable offense." For Lord Lyndhurst's view of the prosecution, see Debates in the House of Lords, for 13th July, 1857. The prosecutor was Hetherington, who had, a short time before, been found guilty of publishing certain libels on the Old Testament (see Reg. v. Hetherington, 5 Jur. 529), and his object in instituting the prosecution against Mr. Moxon is not very clear. His counsel concluded his opening speech by expressing the satisfaction he should feel if the result of the trial were to establish that no publication on religion should be a subject for prosecutions in future (2 Mod. State Trials, 365); but Mr. Moxon's counsel treated the prosecution as one prompted solely by an indiscriminate desire, on the part of the prosecutor, of retaliating on some other person the punishment which he had himself suffered. And Blackburn, J., says of it: "I believe, as everybody knows, that it was a prosecution instituted merely for the purpose of vexation and annoyance " (Reg. v. Hicklin, L. Rep. 3 Q. B. 374; S. C. 37 L. J. 89, M. C.; 18 L. T. N. S. 395, nom. Reg. v. The Recorder of Wolverhampton. See also Patterson's Case, I Brown, 627).

Blasphemous publications are punishable either by indictment at common law or by criminal information. Persons. convicted were formerly compelled to stand in the pillory, besides suffering other punishments. The act of 56 Geo. III., ch. 138, which abolished the punishment of the pillory in most cases, provides (sect. 2) that the court may, in all cases where it was formerly used, pass such sentence of fine or imprisonment, or of both, in lieu of the sentence of pillory, as to it shall seem most proper.

The punishment by banishment was abolished by 11 Geo. IV. & 1 Will. IV., ch. 73, § 1.

The Scotch law is not different from the English law on the subject of blasphemous libels. An act of 6 Geo. IV., ch. 47, after reciting the expediency of making the crime punishable in the same manner as if committed in England, enacted that any person convicted of blasphemy shall be liable to be punished only by fine or imprisonment, or both, at the discretion of the court; and that if any person, after being so con

of the sovereign's royal person, of the parliament, or the constitution.

While the spirit of the law was to encourage a certain latitude of political discussion, or the disputations of learned men upon matters and shades of religious belief, it could not justify a wanton and gratuitous attack upon christianity in general,' or upon the king, the government, or the constitution in general. And so any man might, and still may

victed, shall offend a second time and be convicted, he may be adjudged, at the discretion of the court, either to suffer the punishment of fine or imprisonment, or both, or to be banished from the United Kingdom, and all other parts of the sovereign's dominions, for such term of years as the court in which such conviction shall take place shall order; and in case the person, so adjudged to be banished, shall not depart from the United Kingdom within thirty days after the pronouncing of such sentence, for the purpose of going into banishment, he may be conveyed to such parts out of the dominions of the sovereign, as the sovereign, by advice of the privy council, may direct. If the person sentenced to be banished, after the end of forty days from the time the sentence has been pronounced, is at large within any part of the United Kingdom, or any other part of the sovereign's dominions, without some lawful cause, before the expiration of the term for which the offender has been adjudged to be banished, every such offender being so at large and being thereof convicted, shall be transported to such place as the sovereign shall appoint, for any term not exceeding fourteen years. This statute still remains in force, with the exception of the provisions as to punishment by banishment, which are repealed by 7 Will. IV. & 1 Vict., ch. 5. Before the repeal of the acts of 1661, ch. 21, and 1695, ch. 11, by the 53 Geo. III., ch. 160, § 3, blasphemy was punishable, for the first offense, by public atonement in sackcloth to the parish where the scandal was committed; for the second offense, by payment of a fine of a year's rent of his real estate, and a twentieth part of his personal effects, and by imprisonment till the offender should again make satisfaction to the parish; for the third offense, with death.-Shortt, L. Lit., pp.