many times in express oppofition to the natural purport of the words, and this by virtue of the cant term inuendo, which, indeed, is a weapon against which there feems to be no defence. How then can this author fay in his preface, that his book might serve as an argument for the liberty of the press, since it fhews the little neceffity there is of any farther restraint upon it, by demonftrating, that every one who prints any thing with a mischievous intent does it at his peril? That is, in other words, this book will ferve as an argument for the liberty of the prefs, by fhewing the faid liberty to be a privilege that only fubfifts in imagination. Sending a letter privately, filled with provoking language, is deemed a libel, Vid. p. 2 & 3. For example, calling a man a rafcal and a Tom-fool, reprefenting a perfon in a ridiculous light, is libellous. General mifreprefentations of the government, or ftate of the nation, or mutinous hints which - tend to excite difcontent and fedition, are libels, and nearly approaching to treafon. Ironical expreffions are as libellous as downright flander-praising a man for the qualities he has not is a libel. The court even dives into the meaning of abbreviations, painting, allegory, irony, and allufion. They do not ftick to the literal fenfe of words; but they judge the quo animo of the author. To call a counsellor Daffa down dilly has been held actionable. Nay, the court holds plea of words spoke in languages which they do not underftand. If you call Mr. Auditor Mr. Fauditor, an action will lie. They even take upor them to interpret into libels hieroglyphics, anagrams, and rebufes-Things being fo circumstanced, we do not fee that any man is fafe to commit any thing whatsoever to paper or canvas, or wood or ftone, whether in verfe or in profe, in public or in private.—If a painter exhibits a monkey as a specimen of his art, it may be construed into a libel against Mr. A. whom, perhaps, the painter never faw, because, forfooth, the court may find fome refemblance betwixt that there picture and this here plaintiff-If a poet writes a fable of an afs, Mr. Alderman B. or C. or D. may clap the pack-faddle upon his own back, and lay an information against the author in Banco Regis, where it will be found a moft notorious and malicious libel: nay, if he should dedicate a book to 'Squire E. or F. or G. and extol his virtues in the ufual ftile of adulation, the faid E. or F. or G. or any of their friends, instead of tipping him with the dedication-fec, may indict him for a libel, and the court finding the patron praised for virtues which he never poffeffed, will punish the dedicator as a moft malicious libeller, by means of inuendo. A funeral fermon' may be a libel, though intended as a fulfome panegyric on the defunct; and fo may the Song of Solomon, the " prophecies of Ezekiel, and the Revelations. Even this that we are are now writing may, for aught we know, fubject us to pains and penalties, to pillory, fine, and imprisonment. We apprehend it would have been more to the fatisfaction of a British reader, if our author, inftead of quoting a few eternal truths touching liberty in general, and telling us that good laws never encourage robbery, with other fecrets of the fame kind, had entered into the circumftances and merits of the cafe, in certain remarkable trials, fuch as that of Zenger, the New-York printer, and Owen, the book feller by Temple-Bar, who were acquitted by honeft juries, in fpite of all the influence and pretenfions of the judges, who declared and repeated that they were not judges of the law, but of the fact. It is not the opinion of a Coke, a Bacon, a Fitzgibbons, a Jefferies, or a Page, that can reconcile contradictions, confound the ideas of right and wrong, which are immutable and eternal, and establish maxims of law on the ruins of common fenfe. We with our author had told us any good reason why the law fhould punish with equal feverity, and render equally infamous, a man of honour, who speaks or writes the truth of a wicked minifter or a worthless rafcal, and a most villainous incendiary, who forges calumny, traduces virtue, and perhaps deftroys the peace of half a nation, The law, it feems, confiders them both in the fame light: they may be both pilloried together, and perhaps fcourged at the cart's tail they are both recorded as libellers, and as fuch rendered infamous for life. But this feverity, we are told, arises from a tendernefs for the reputation or good name of individuals. To fome men (fays our author) their reputations are as dear as their lives, to moft as valuable as their property; why then fhould any kind of depredation upon them be encouraged? For our parts, we are so tender of good fame, that we think no punishment too fevere for thofe who unjustly take it away. But, furely it is no compliment to a good reputation, to put it on the fame footing with mala fama, by admitting the latter to the faine degree of protection. Befides, it amounts to a flat contradiction in terms, to punish a man for taking away that reputation which never exifted. We would afk, therefore, if, in any trial of libels, either judge or jury ever enquires whether the plaintiff had any reputation to lofe? Whether the libel was written and published by a notorious flanderer, or a man of unblemished integrity? Whether it was dictated by malice, or fuggefted by honeft patriotism ?-But even truth itself may be a fcandalous and falfe libel: the more true the reproach, the more cutting it is, and therefore the more felt by the party who bears it.-Felt by whom? Perhaps by a callous wretch, infenfible to the cries of the orphan, the widow, and the poor, whom he has injured; infenfible to the fcorn, contempt, and indignation of all honeft men.—The injured may feek redress at law-Perhaps they have not the means- -A powerful knave has twenty different ways of oppreffing his neighbours, without fearing the lafh of the law; but an appeal to the public makes him tremble in the midst of his fuccefs. Befides, there are fome crimes of the deepest dye which the law takes no cognizance of, fuch as ingratitude, falfe friendship, and many fpecies of perfidy, and inhuman indifference. We fhould gladly fubfcribe to a law that would punish flander with death, provided proper diftinctions were made between motives and characters: at the fame time, we think the accufed ought to be allowed to juftify his affertions by proof, in which cafe innocence would have nothing to fear: the injured party would triumph in the trial, and the libeller might be left to all the rigour of chaftifement.Lord chief juftice Holt was of opinion, that the law, as it now ftands, allows the party to juftify in an action even for written fcandal, 11 Mod. 99. Pl. 7. and it was faid by Sir Edward Coke, that a libel might be justified, if the contents of it were true; but this was denied by Hobart, Hob. 253 · - -Who fhall decide when doctors difagree? Here are Coke and Holt against Hobart. When these great luminaries are in oppofition, and occafion a fort of eclipfe, it is but natural to have recourfe to the light of reafon.-By the law of the twelve tables, the author or publisher of a lampoon which hurt the reputation of another, was punifhed with death.-" SF quis accentaflit malum carmen, five condidiffet, quod infamiam faxit, flagitiumque alteri, capital efto." By the civil law every perfon convicted of publishing a libel, was deemed infamous; but we apprehend the libellus famofus implied falfehood. King Alfred, in his body of laws, decreed terrible penalties against the forgers of flander, but this fuppofed falfehood; "Si quis publicum mendacium confingat." King Edgar has the fame provifo"Si quis alium injufte diffamare velit, ut five vita five fortunis pejor fit; fi alier refellere poffit, quod de eo quis afirmare velit, linguæ fuæ reus fit, nifi eam æftimatione capitis compenfare voluerit." The law of Canute the Dane has the fame tenor : "Et fi quis alterum injuria diffamare velit, ut alter utrùm vel pecunia, vel vita ei diminuatur, fi tunc alter eam refellere poffit, ut quis ei teftificari velit, perdat linguam fuam, nifi illam capitis æftimatione compenfare velit." Wilk. Leg. Angl. Sáx.From thefe inftances we have a fort of right to believe, that the doctrine which teacheth that falfhood is not neceffary to constitute a criminal libel, is of a modern date; we hope; therefore, every juryman will take this fubject into confideration, before he gives up the culprit to the mercy of the judge. In the 26th chapter of this performance, which treats of punishments, we find a paragraph which we do not rightly com prehend prehend; The court of Star-Chamber (fays he, p. 103.) has been held in great contempt, because it was abolished by act of parlia ment, 16 Car. c. 10. on account of fome infufferable abuses that had crept into it, all the cafes that had been adjudged there, on information for libels, were confequently of no authority; whereas the judgment given there, in matters properly cognizable before them, which libelling especially was, are allowed to be good law at this day, and are conftantly quoted as fuch in the court of King's Bench.' All the cafes of libels adjudged in the Star Chamber were of no authority, and yet the judgments given there in matters of libelling is allowed to be good law at this day—If this is not a flat contradiction, we know not what is -Instead of a panegyric on the court of Star-Chamber, which follows this paragraph, we wish the author had expatiated on the hardships of a man's being profecuted for a libel by information, which is the most vexatious and expensive method of profecution, and seems to be a remnant of that very tribunal, the fource of infinite oppreffion, whofe memory will ever be held in execration by every true Briton, who knows his own ineftimable privilege of being tried by a jury of his peers. Among other caufes of libels, our author mentions that of Doctor Middleton, who, in order to discharge his printer, who was fued for a libel, which the doctor had written, appeared in court, and confeffed himself author of the book, and my Lord Fortefcue fays this was an honourable action in Doctor Middleton -There was another Doctor precifely in the fame circumftance, for an article published in this very Review; and he, without being given up (which was the cafe with Dr. Middleton) voluntarily produced himfelf in court, and owned the article, in order to abfolve his printer-but no Lord Fortefeue reported it as an honourable action, though it was undoubtedly as honourable as that of Dr. Middleton; and this circumstance is entirely funk by our author, though he has not failed to record the conviction and the punishment in two different parts of his work. VI. A Free Difquifition concerning the Law of Entails in Scotland. TH 800. HE fubje&t of entails feems of late to have greatly employed the attention of the Scotch lawyers, and it is certainly a matter of infinite confequence to the prefent ftate of their VOL. XX. July, 1765. E country. country. We have already * reviewed a pamphlet written with learning and perfpicuity, in favour of entails. That before us anfwers it in a moft masterly dispaflionate manner, and (if we mistake not) has irrefragably proved, that entails in perpetuity, or, as they are called, perpetuities, are deftructive of civil fociety, and the extenfion of commerce. This pamphlet is written in the way of dialogue between three gentlemen, one of them a favourer of entails, another a lawyer, and the third a merchant, who are the opponents of the firft. It appears that, in autumn laft, the fociety of advocates in Edinburgh had a meeting upon this affair; and of forty-feven members, four only voted against the expediency of bringing in a bill to let the entails of Scotland die out on the demife of the poffeffors and heirs now exifting. The very great majority of this meeting was not for deftroying entails entirely, but for allowing every man to nominate what series of heirs he may think fit. They were, however, against limiting any of the heirs, other than thofe exifting at the time of making the en ́tail, from alienating, for a valuable confideration, or from charging with debt. The plain Englith of which is, that not man is to entail farther than he fees. The advocate against entails thinks that this amendment, confidering the confusion that entails introduce into fucceffions, would be rather a prejudice than advantage to the trade of the law; and he fupports the propriety of the measure by the example of England, where the lawyers abolished perpetuities when they introduced the method of breaking entails by recovery. He then fhews that the act of the Scotch parliament in 1685 (a year fatal to the liberties of that country) authorizing entails, reduced the feveral heirs of entail to the ftate of mere tenants for life. He next proceeds to explain the Roman law on this fubje&t; but we shall here omit his arguments, though they are both learned and accurate, for this plain reafon, that the Roman law has nothing to do in the question, which ought to reft entirely upon its own expedi ency. The conftitution of England was a moft deftructive aristocracy from the 13th of Edward I. (when the barons obtained the statute de donis, including a clause against alienations) to the reign of Henry VII. The unalienating claufe was intended to prevent the eftates of barons from even being forfeited in cafes of treafon. It had not, however, that effect; for forfeitures often took place, and the case of the earl of Salisbury, in the reign of Henry V. as it ftands upon the rolls of parliament, fhews how very difficult it was to reverse them. It is true, that, in Edward the *See Critical Review, vol. xix. p. 238. fourth's |