Page:The Scourge - Volume 5.djvu/48
36 Follies of the great.
state of the continental press; but if personal censure, or personal ridicule, subject its author to the puirsh* merit of libel, in what respect are the authors and politicians of the continent, more restrained or degraded, than those of England? Almost every subject of moment involves the personal character of an exalted individual: the rebellion in Ireland cannot become the subject of observation, without some allusion to a Camden or a Castlereagh, and the history of the Whig administration may possibly include some unpleasing comment* on Lord Ellenborough: the liberty of abstract discussion, is all therefore, that according to his lordship's opinion, can be safely allowed to the people of England; but this* liberty, the privilege of vague and general speculation, is equally permitted by the most despotic of the continental governments: and the office of a licencer, who prevents the publication of obnoxious works, is surely less cruel and ungracious than that of an Attorney General, who of his own mere motion may subject the most loyal and harmless writer to expence, and from whom the, unconscious libeller frequently receives the first intimation of his error.
But if Lord Ellenborough does not mean that to lash the follies of the great, as far as those follies are connected with political questions, or influence the safety and happiness of the realm is worthy of punishment; if he does not mean that a libel on the most atrocious miscreant,isequally criminal with a malignant attack on the man of virtue ; then he must be understood to insinuate that there is a manner of speaking the truth, by which the vengeance of the law may be evaded ; a mode of palliation or disguise, that exempts the libeller from the penalties of crime; and enables him to speak with the bitterest asperity of the possessors of political and hereditary honors, without alarming the sensibility of the Attorney General, or exciting the displeasure of the bench. The individual, for instance, who would be punished with severity, fer calling a person in office " a violator of his word,"