Gray's Odes, (which Johnson has damned fo completely, and, in my humble opinion, with so much justice,) as the standard of lyric excellence. He did not much admire the Gentle Shepherd. He preferred the Paftor Fido, of which he spoke with rapture, and the Eclogues of Virgil. I pled as I could for Allan Ramfay, because I regard him as the fingle unaffected poet whom we have had fince Buchanan.

Proximus huic, longo sed proximus intervallo.

He answered, "It is the duty of a poet to write like a gentleman. I dislike that homely style which fome think fit to call the language of nature and fimplicity, and fo forth. In Percy's Reliques too, a few tolerable pieces are buried under a heap of rubbish. You have read, perhaps, Adam Bell, Clym of the Cleugh, and William of Cloudeflie." I anfwered, Yes, "Well then," said he, "do you think that was worth printing?" He reflected with fome harshnefs on Dr. Goldfmith; and repeated a variety of anecdotes to fupport his cenfure.

They amounted to prove that Goldsmith loved a wench and a bottle; and that a lie, when to ferve a special end, was not excluded from his fyftem of morality. To commit thefe ftories to print would be very much in the modern tafte; but fuch proceedings appear to me as an abfolute difgrace to typography.

He never spoke but with ridicule and deteftation of the Reviews. He faid that it was not eafy to conceive in what contempt they were held in London. I mentioned a story I had read of Mr. Burke having feduced and difhonoured a young lady, under promise of marriage. "I imagine," faid he," that you have got that fine ftory out of fome of the Magazines. If any thing can be lower than the Reviews, they are fo. They once had the impudence to publish a ftory of a gentleman's having debauched his own fifter; and

upon inquiry, it came-out that the gentleman never had a fifter. As to Mr. Burke, he is a worthy, honeft, man. He married an accomplished girl, without a fhilling of fortune." I wanted to get the Gentleman's Magazine excepted from his general cenfure; but he would not hear me. He never, he faid, looked at a Review, nor even knew the names of the publishers.

He was fond of Pope, and had by heart many favourite paffages; but he difliked the private character of the man. He was, he faid, all affectation, and mentioned his Letter to Arbuthnot, when the latter was dying, as a confummate fpecimen of canting; which, to be fure, it is. He had also a very high opinion of Dryden, and loudly extolled his Fables. I mentioned Mr. Hume's objections; he replied, "You will learn more as to poetry, by reading one good poem, than by a thoufand volumes of criticism." He quoted fome paffages in Defoe, which breathed, as he thought, the true fpirit of English verfe.

He difliked Meikle's tranflation of the Lufiad, and efteemed the French verfion of that work as far fuperior. Meikle, in his prefence, has contradicted, with great franknefs, fome of the pofitions advanced in the Doctor's Inquiry, which may perhaps have difgufted him; but, in truth, Meikle is only an indifferent rhymer.

Dr. Sinith, with Lord Gardenftone, regarded the French Theatre as the ftandard of dramatic excellence.

He said, that at the beginning of the prefent reign, the diffenting minifters had been in use to receive two thoufand pounds* a year from Government; that the Earl of Bute had, (as he thought, most improperly) deprived them of this allowance, and that he supposed this to be the real motive of their virulent oppofition to Government. Glasgow.

This sum of money has been generally represented as seven thousand pounds a year.

ON

ON THE DOCTRINE OF LIBELS,

AS IT HAS BEEN REPRESENTED BY SOME JUDGES.

To the PRINTER of the PUBLIC ADVERTIser.

Mr. PRINTER,

February 15, 1792.

I CANNOT but rejoice to find, that Mr. Fox has refolved to employ his great abilities in endeavouring to afcertain the LEGAL DOCTRINES concerning LIBELS, and to correct them, if found to be detrimental to a just and moderate liberty of reafoning upon political measures. One of the points that will probably be the object of the House's confideration in the debate that will arife upon this fubject is, "the right of the jury to inquire into the intention of the writer, or publisher, of the paper profecuted as a feditious libel; and, into the tendency of the faid paper to raise fedition, or difturbance in the country, which is always ascribed to it in the Indictment, or Information, against the publisher, and conftitutes the very effence of the crime imputed to him." Now thefe points have been, by many modern Judges, confidered as matters of law, and therefore, say they, as matters to be reserved for the cognizance of the Judges only, and not for that of the jury, whose whole bufinefs is, to declare "whether, or not, the paper in question (such as it is, innocent or mischievous,) was published by the perfon accufed." Lord Mansfield, in particular has called the opinion, which a reader will form of the bad tendency of the paper, and of the wicked intention of the writer of it, from the perufal of it, an inference of law; as if the knowledge of the law were requifite to form fuch an inference. But, furely, this may be done without the

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fmallest acquaintance with either Lord Coke's Inftitutes, or his Reports, or Plowden's Reports, or any other fuch recondite learning, and by the mere affiftance of common sense, and an ordinary acquaintance with the business and transactions of the world, fuch as a juryman may be fup. pofed to be poffeffed-of. And, therefore, I fhould think it ought rather to be called an inference of reason, than an inference of law, and to be left to the cognizance of the jury; in the fame manner as, in a charge of burglary, or houfe-breaking by night, with an intention to commit a felony, the jury are to determine not only whether the prifoner at the bar broke into the house by night, but whether he did fo with an intention to commit a felony. These are inferences of reafon and common sense, and not of law, as Lord Mansfield, and fome other Judges, have represented them, for the fake of taking them out of the cognizance of the jury: though, in truth, if they were inferences of law, it would not follow that the jury would have no right to determine them; because " every point of law that is accidentally intermixed with matters of fact, in the complicated iffue, or question, referred to the determination of a Jury, is within their cognizance," as Littleton (the great oracle of the law) has expreffly declared, and all fubfequent lawyers have allowed. But, this is a point not neceffary to be infifted-on in confidering the doctrine of libels, because in thofe profecutions, all the points to be determined are mere matters of fact: to wit, 1ft, Whether the man published the paper-2dly, Whether he had a bad defign in publishing it-and 3dly, Whether the paper has a bad tendency, or is likely to produce bad effects; which last point is as truly a matter of fact, as, "whether a man who is charged with wounding another with a fword, touched him with a fword, or touched him with a fencing-foil with a button at the end of it," or as, "whether a person who is charged

charged with poisoning another, by giving him a glass of wine, gave him a glass of mere wine, or a glass of wine with arfenic in it."

This doctrine of Lord Mansfield, and fome other Judges, (but which Lord Camden has repeatedly condemned), " that these points are inferences of law, and, therefore, (as they too hastily conclude,) not within the jurifdiction of the jury," was not first invented by Lord Mansfield, but was laid-down by Lord Raymond, in the cafe of the King and Franklin, which was tried on the 3d of December, 1731; and it has been moft commonly, but not, I think, conftantly, adheredto by the Judges ever fince. But it was not the doctrine laid-down in the trial of the feven bifhops, in the year 1688, or the last year of King James the Second, nor by Lord Chief-Juftice Holt, in the reign of Queen Anne. For, in the trial of Mr. Tutchin, in that reign, for one of the most feditious libels that ever were known, that great ChiefJuftice addreffes the jury in thefe words: "Gentlemen of the Jury-this is an Information for publishing libels against the Queen and her Government ;" and then, after stating the proof of the publication of the papers, and reading fome paffages from them, he goes-on in this manner-" So that, "now you have heard this evidence, you are to confider "whether you are fatisfied that Mr. Tutchin is guilty of "writing, compofing, and publishing these libels. They "say, these are innocent papers, and that nothing is a libel "but what reflects upon fome particular person. But this "is a very strange doctrine, to fay, it is not a libel re"flecting on Government---to endeavour to poffefs the people, that the Government is mal-administered by corrupt perfons that are employed in fuch and fuch stations, "either in the navy or army. For it is very neceffary for every Government that the people fhould have a good "opinion of it; and nothing can be worse than to endeavour

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