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and her government, the late happy revolution, and the Protestant succession.' On the 27th of February, 1710, he was brought to trial in Westminster Hall. The opening of the trial was quite a spectacle. The Queen occupied a private box. The House of Lords was seated in the centre of the Hall. The House of Commons were on one side and a galaxy of ladies on the other. The evidence was summed up by Mr. Lechmore, a man of parts, but a most 'vile stinking Whigg,' as Hearne calls him; Sacheverell's defence being, it is thought, the composition of Bishop Atterbury, to whom the Doctor afterwards bequeathed 5007., though John Wesley also claims the credit of it for his father. Sentence was given on March 24, when, out of 121 members, he was condemned by a majority of 17, majority of 17,-7 bishops voting against, and 6 for him. It was only by a majority of 6 that he was suspended for three years, whilst the motion that he should be incapable of further preferment was lost by a majority of 1. The leniency of the sentence was regarded by his friends as a great triumph. The sermons themselves were condemned to the flames, and with them a decree of the University of Oxford, passed July 1683, maintaining the absolute authority of princes, and which Sacheverell had used in his defence. Lord Campbell considers the prosecution as the most suicidal thing the Government could have done. But Burke, in his Appeal from Old to New Whigs,' takes a very different view :

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'It was carried on for the purpose of condemning the principles on which the Revolution was first opposed and afterwards calumniated, in order by a juridical sentence of the highest authority, to confirm and fix Whig principles as they had operated both in the resistance to King James and in the subsequent Settlement, and to fix them in the extent and with the limitations with which it was meant they should be understood by posterity.'

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One of Sacheverell's opponents, the author of Robinson Crusoe,' had got himself into trouble a few years before the impeachment of the High Church Doctor. In 1702 he published The shortest way with the Dissenters; or, proposals for the establishment of the Church.' Though in reality a satire of exquisite irony from beginning to end, its true nature was 80 cunningly concealed as at first to deceive both high and low churchmen alike. When, however, its real object was discovered, the indignation against the author was intense. De Foe was prosecuted for libel, and condemned to pay a fine of 200 marks to the Queen (his expenses altogether amounted to more than 3,5007., and brought him to ruin), to stand three

times in the pillory, to be imprisoned during the Queen's pleasure, and to find securities for his good behaviour for seven years. Besides this, the book was, by an ordinance of Parliament of February 25, 1703, ordered to be burnt by the hands of the hangman in New Palace Yard, as full of false and scandalous reflections on the Parliament, and tending to 6 promote sedition.'

Along with De Foe's, another name has been immortalised in the Dunciad :'

'Earless on high stood unabash'd Defoe,

And Tutchin flagrant from the scourge below.'

Tutchin, in the times of James II., had endeavoured to help on the rebellion of Monmouth by a pamphlet, for which he was sentenced by Judge Jeffries of famous memory to be whipped through certain market towns in the West of England. The executioner used such energy in his work that Tutchin, after the first instalment of his punishment, petitioned the King that he might be hanged. This favour was not granted, and in revenge he lived to write a most virulent attack upon the 'memory of that unfortunate monarch.'

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The year 1762 is famous for the appearance of the first number of a publication which was soon to acquire great notoriety, The North Briton.' It was started by John Wilkes, assisted by Mr. Charles Churchhill, one contributing most of the talent, the other the abuse. Virulent, however, as were its principles, and gross its attacks on Lord Bute, it continued its career undisturbed till its forty-fifth number. By that time the seven years' war, which added 60,000,000l. to our National Debt, had come to an end, and a treaty of peace signed at Paris, February 10, 1763. On the dissolution of Parliament on the 19th of April, the King, alluding to this treaty, said in his speech, My expectations have been fully answered by the happy effects which the several allies of my crown have derived from this salutary measure. The powers at war with my good brother, the King of Prussia, have been induced to agree to such terms of accommodation as that great prince has approved; and the success which has attended my negotiations has necessarily and immediately diffused the blessings of peace through every part of Europe.' On the 23rd appears Wilkes's comment on it. The infamous fallacy of the whole sentence is apparent to all mankind, for it is known that the King of Prussia did not only approve, but actually dictated as conqueror, every article of the terms of peace. No advantage of any kind has accrued to the magnanimous prince from our negotiations, but he was basely deserted by the Scottish

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• Prime Minister of England.' Wilkes was arrested, but released on his privilege of Member of Parliament, and went to France. The House of Commons expelled him, and ordered the obnoxious publication to be burnt by the hangman at the Royal Exchange. This was carried into effect on December 3rd, but the mob was so incensed at the indignity shown to their champion that they drove the authorities from the field. Several other persons,' says Malcolm, had reason to repent the attempt to burn that publicly which the sovereign people ⚫ determined to approve, who afterwards exhibited a large jack'boot at Temple Bar, and burnt it in triumph unmolested, as a species of retaliation.'

What happened after this may be given in the words of Lord Mahon:

'It was also observed and condemned as a shallow artifice, that the House of Lords, to counterbalance their condemnation of Wilkes's violent democracy, took similar measures against a book of exactly opposite principles. This was a treatise or collection of precedents lately published under the title of "Droit le Roy [or a digest of the rights "and prerogatives of the Imperial Crown of Great Britain, by a "member of the Society of Lincoln's Inn. Jan. 1764."] The Peers, on the motion of Lord Lyttelton, seconded by the Duke of Grafton, voted this book "a false, malicious, and traitorous libel, inconsistent with "the principles of the Revolution to which we owe the present happy "establishment;" they ordered that it should be burnt by the hands of the common hangman, and that the author should be taken into eustody. The latter part of the sentence, however, no one took pains to execute. The author was one Timothy Brecknock, a hack scribbler, who twenty years afterwards was hanged for being accessory to an atrocious murder in Ireland.' †

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This work is sometimes quoted as the last instance of a book having been burnt,' but apparently not quite accurately. One other instance, of somewhat later date, may be given- The Commercial Restraints of Ireland Considered,' printed at Dublin 1779. The author of this anonymous publication was the Hon. Hely Hutchinson. It was consigned to the hangman, and is now so scarce that the late Mr. Flood, in a speech made in the House of Commons, said he would give 1,000 for a copy.

In several cases the Vice-Chancellors of the two universities were required to burn books that had been condemned by authority, but one or two instances may be given in which obnoxious books were committed to the flames by the Uni

* Anecdotes of London, 1808, p. 282.
† History of England, vol. v. p. 175.

VOL. CXXXIV. NO. CCLXXIII.

versity of Oxford, without any such monition. The indignation caused by the discovery of the Rye House Plot, and the triumph for the time of the Tory party, led to many works being very summarily dealt with which denied in any way the divine right of kings. On the day on which Russell was beheaded for his supposed complicity in the plot, the University ordered the works of Buchanan, Milton, and Baxter to be burnt in the School Quadrangle.

In 1690 Arthur Bury, Rector of Exeter College, published a book called An historical Evidence of the naked Gospel,' in which he advocated what were considered Socinian views. The heads of houses held a meeting, and six of them were nominated a committee for examining the book. They had no difficulty in picking out passages which were pronounced to be contrary to the doctrines of the Church of England. On the 19th of August the book was burnt in the School Quadrangle. Trelawney, Bishop of Exeter, visitor of the College, suspended the author from the rectorship, but he was soon afterwards restored.

In 1693 the second volume of that most valuable work Anthony a Wood's Athena Oxonienses' was burnt in the Theatre Yard by the apparitor of the University, in pursuance of a sentence of the University Court. The charge against the biographer was that he had been guilty of a libel against the memory of the Earl of Clarendon.

Hearne's Diary, under the date October 3, 1713, will supply us with another instance:

'There having been no Terræ filius speech, this last act, quite contrary to what the Statutes direct (occasioned by the contrivance of the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors), there hath been one since printed, in which the Vice-Chancellor and some other heads of Houses, are severely reflected on, nay ten times more severely than ever happened at the theatre or elsewhere when the Terræ Filius was allowed to speak; which hath so nettled the Vice-Chancellor and others, that on Thursday, in the afternoon, both he and other heads of Houses met in the Apodyterium, and resolved that it should be burnt. And accordingly, yesterday, at two o'clock in the afternoon, there was a convocation in which the Vice-Chancellor was continued for another year, and the speech was proposed to be burnt. And accordingly the said speech was burnt, which act, however, is only generally laughed at, it being a certain sure way to publish it and make it more known.'

Here we pause; not because we have exhausted the subject, for the materials we have left unused are very extensive, but because we hope we have said enough to induce some one, with sufficient leisure and access to libraries, to give us what we say again is a great desideratum in English bibliography-an English Peignot.

ART. VII.—1. The Descent of Man and Selection in relation to Sex. By CHARLES DARWIN, M.A., F.RS. 2 vols.

London: 1871.

2. Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection. By A. R. WALLACE. Second Edition. London: 1871.

3. On the Genesis of Species. By St. GEORGE MIVART, F.R.S. London: 1871.

SINCE

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INCE the publication of the Origin of Species' in 1859, no book of science has excited a keener interest than Mr. Darwin's new work on the Descent of Man.' In the drawingroom it is competing with the last new novel, and in the study it is troubling alike the man of science, the moralist, and the theologian. On every side it is raising a storm of mingled wrath, wonder, and admiration. In elegance of style, charm of manner, and deep knowledge of natural history, it stands almost without a rival among scientific works; and its popularity must be a keen pleasure to its author, if he be not lifted above the level of popular praise and blame, by his previous high achievements. The subject is of the very highest importance. In the Origin of Species,' the principles of the doctrine of natural selection were laid down, and in part had to be taken in trust because the whole of the evidence was not laid before the reader. The Variation under Domestication' formed the first instalment of the proof, in which Mr. Darwin showed how wonderfully plastic animals and plants become under the care of man, and how new breeds and varieties may be developed by constant selection, which he believes to be equal in classificatory rank to those ordinarily termed genera and species in nature. The present work contains the first application of the theory to a given case the evolution of man, chosen by the author himself. As a crucial test therefore of the truth of his theory of creation, this work is of high value. But it has a higher claim on our attention than even this, for Mr. Darwin does not confine his argument to the origin of man's body from pre-existent forms; he ventures to carry it into the region of mind, and to account for man's spiritual powers by a process of natural selection from rudiments in the lower animals. It is indeed impossible to over-estimate the magnitude of the issue. If our humanity be merely the natural product of the modified faculties of brutes, most earnest-minded men will be compelled to give up those motives by which they have attempted to live noble and virtuous lives, as founded on a mistake; our moral

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