and on the nation, a character of harshness and cruelty, which evidence of a mild administration of them will not entirely remove. Repeal silences the objection. Reasoning, founded on lenient exercises of authority, whatever its force may be, is not calculated to efface a general and deep impression. The removal of disused laws is a preliminary operation, which greatly facilitates a just estimate, and (where it is necessary) an effectual reform of those laws which are to remain in activity. Were capital punishments reduced to the comparatively small number of cases in which they are often inflicted, it would become a much simpler operation to form a right judgment of their propriety or necessity. Another consideration of still greater moment presents itself on this part of the subject: penal laws are sometimes called into activity after long disuse, and in cases where their very existence may be unknown to the best-informed part of the community, malicious prosecutors set them in motion; a mistaken administration of the law may apply them to purposes for which they were not intended,

and which they are calculated more to defeat than to promote; such seems to have been the case of the person who, in the year 1814, at the Assizes for Essex, was capitally convicted of the offence of cutting down trees, and who, in spite of earnest applications for mercy from the prosecutor, the committing magistrate, and the whole neighbourhood, was executed, apparently because he was believed engaged in other offences, for none of which, however, he had been convicted or tried.

This case is not quoted as furnishing any charge against the humanity of the judge or of the advisers of the crown: they certainly acted according to the dictates of their judgment; but it is a case where the effect of punishment is sufficiently shewn by the evidence to be the reverse of exemplary; and it is hard to say whether the general disuse of the capital punishment in this offence, or the single instance in which it has been carried into effect, suggests the strongest reasons for its abolition.

(To be continued.)

DOMESTIC.

RELIGIOUS.

THE British Critic is, we are glad to see, devoting itself to the Unitarian controversy. In spite of its misstatements and vauntings and reproaches, it will do good by leading some of its readers to the pure sources of truth. The Number for December contains a Review of an Answer to Captain Gifford's admirable Remonstrance to the Bishop of St. David's, (see Mon. Repos. XIII. 638-640,) by Mr. John Garbett, curate of Cardington, in the county of Bedford. The Critic decries the Captain's pamphlet which, by his own confession, he has never read, and equally cries up the Curate's: but there are some deductions from his praise of Mr. Garbett, whom he considers not quite sound in the "Athanasian Creed," and whom he gently rebukes for not speaking" with greater confidence of the genuineness of 1 John v. 7— after the powerful testimonies in its favour which have been lately produced." What can the writer mean? What new attempt is there to revive the credit of the exploded passage?

Law of Church Singing.-In a cause lately tried in the Court of Arches, Sir J. NICHOL referred to a case in which

an action was brought by the minister against the churchwarden; and the charge in the citation was "for obstructing and prohibiting, by his own pretended power and authority, and for declaring openly his intention still further to obstruct and prohibit, the singing and chaunting of the charity children of the parish." Here the churchwarden supposed that he had a right to direct when the children should sing and when they should not. The minister had directed the organ to play in certain parts of the service, and the children to chaunt at the same time: the churchwarden directed the contrary, and the organist obliged him in preference to the minister. The Court said, "that the right of directing Divine service was with the minister, and, for the churchwarden to interrupt or defeat it, was an offence and an innovation of the clergyman's rights, to be proceeded against by articles."

MISCELLANEOUS.

Dissenters' Marriages.-Petitions nu merously signed, have been sent by the Protestant Dissenters at Newcastle, t Earl Grey and Sir M. W. Ridley, to pre sent to each House of Parliament, praying that the Dissenters in England and Wale may celebrate matrimony in their own

and to whom he could appeal if he were in that House, before the bill was proposed, and they had agreed that the common law respecting blasphemy was not to be touched by it. He would not now touch the law of blasphemy, nor would he enter into the question whether blasphemy might not better be left to its own fate. He was sure of the concurrence of au honourable and learned gentleman on the other side, in the opinion that Christianity needed not the support of the civil power. He was perfectly satisfied that it would occasion no danger to our religion if every statute for its defence were done away, or had never existed in this country. Every government undoubtedly had the right to protect the religion which it established. But when Protestants contended against Catholics, they stood, precisely on the same foundation in Catholic countries as those who opposed the constituted authorities and the established laws respecting religion.

The Marquis of TAVISTOCK said, that the honourable and learned gentleman had this night, in a tone very different from that of his honourable and learned colleague on a former evening, brought forward a charge against those who contributed to the relief of Mr. Hone. He had hoped that, after what had passed in that House from time to time respecting the prosecution of that individual, it would not have been necessary for him to say one word upon the subject. He had thought it had been clearly understood, that whatever might be the opinion with respect to the conduct of government in that prosecution, there could be but one feeling of disgust with respect to the parodies. (Hear.) One of the honourable and learned gentlemen opposite had said, that it was owing to those who expressed their disapprobation of the prosecution of Mr. Hone, that blasphemy and sedition had gone unpunished. He (the Marquis of Tavistock) must request the indulgence of the House while he stated shortly what the motives of his conduct had been. Having seen others not only not prosecuted, but loaded with honours and pensions, after having published parodies of a similar nature, (loud cheers from the opposition,) only that they were in favour of the Government (hear, hear); and having seen, in the case of Mr. Hone, that if the parodies had not been against his Majesty's Government, we should not probably have ever heard of them; having seen three prosecutions carried on by the Attorney-General, and having observed that Mr. Hone, after the acquittal on the last of them, had given a promise-a promise which he had since

kept that he would not republish the parodies, he (the Marquis of Tavistock) thought it proper to mark his conduct of those proceedings, and his admiration of the abilities of Mr. Hone in conducting his defence against all the power and talents which had been arrayed against him. (Hear, hear.) He must beg to recall to the recollection of the honourable and learned gentleman [the SolicitorGeneral] the sentiments of his former, but perhaps less prudent days, and ask him whether a man might not entertain such sentiments in his breast, and yet feel the utmost abhorrence of blasphemy and sedition. (Loud cheers, which were continued for some seconds.)

The

Mr. SCARLETT.-Then came the case of Mr. Hone. One prosecution was for a parody on the Litany, another for a parody on the Catechism, and a third for a parody on the Athanasian Creed. When he was brought up, the information was read at great length, and every count but the last charged him with an intent to revile the Liturgy. He (Mr. Scarlett) thought that Mr. Hone would be acquitted, and he said so to Mr. Justice Richardson, who was then one of the counsel for the prosecution. His reason for so thinking, and he then stated it, was, that so many distinguished persons, bishops, deans and ministers of state, in all times and ages, had published parodies, that he did not believe that a jury could, on their oaths, conscientiously find a man guilty of blasphemy for doing what they had done before him. As he had foretold, Mr. Hone was acquitted. second prosecution was for a parody on the Catechism: this was something worse: but Mr. Hone had produced in his defenee a similar catechism, written by Dr. Arbuthnot, in the reign of Queen Anne, but which, by mistake, he had attributed to Mr. Wilkes. It was in fact written by Dr. Arbuthnot, in favour of the Government of that day, and was thought to be a very useful composition. Mr. Hone was again acquitted. As to the third parody, on the Athanasian Creed, he (Mr. Scarlett) had no sooner read the record than he asserted that he had no doubt of an acquittal. Indeed, a parody did not necessarily infer an intention to revile the thing parodied. How many parodies, for instance, had been published on Pope's Letter of Eloisa to Abelard? It was well known that Mr. Porson was very fond of a parody on that poem; but who would impute to him, or to the poem, any wish to revile the poetical character of Mr. Pope? He was one of those who thought that these compositions ought not to be applauded. He did not think the present an irreligious age :

if not so devout as former ages, it how ever paid the greatest attention to the outward forms and decorums of religion; and perhaps it was for this very reason that parodies, which appeared so innocent to our forefathers, were so shocking and offensive in our eyes. (Hear, hear.) But a jury to whom it was put as Mr. Hone put it, whether they could think he had a design of reviling or degrading the Christian religion, by doing that which bishops and ministers of state had done before him, or whether they thought that his object was purely political, could not in their conscience convict him of the former offence; and as to the latter, the Attorney-General, though certainly not deficient in courage, had not ventured to appeal to the jury for a political verdict. (Hear.)

Mr. R. MARTIN supported the bill, on the ground that it was necessary, by more severe enactments, to check the streams of sedition and blasphemy which had inundated the land.

Mr. BANKES believed that abuses of the press existed to such a degree as required the interference of Parliament. It had been urged by one honourable gentleman (Mr. Bennet) that he (Mr. Bankes), in expressing a doubt regarding the policy of extending education on the plan at present pursued, had opposed the spread of morality and religion. No man, he was convinced, could suspect him of such a design, and he thought it beneath him to answer such an insinuation. A man must in the House stand on his general character and habitual conduct, and if that did not protect him from such a charge, it would be vain to disclaim it in words. He had never declared education an eril. He had merely expressed a doubt on the policy and expediency, in the present condition of society, of carryng the system of educating the poor to the extent recommended by some of his friends, and with the rapidity with which the well-meant zeal of those who encourged it, pressed it forward. His reasoning was the following:-We put the people in a new situation by this general diffusion of education, and we are not perhaps aware of the effects to which this change may lead. This new condition which is created may lead to evils which additional restrictions on the press may be required to correct, as with the apacity of reading, facilities are afforded for spreading mischievous as well as moral and religious principles. If he was asked generally, whether education was a good, he should be a savage to deny it; but if interrogated further, whether be thought it should be spread so extensively and so rapidly as was the

wish of many benevolent persons whom he highly valued, he would beg leave to express a doubt; but because he did so, he ought not to be pointed out as a marked man, and accused of opposing the diffusion of morality and religion. During the progress of teaching, we could see what books were put into the hands of the young, but we could not regulate their subsequent studies, or determine the kind of food which their minds should receive.

MONDAY, DEC. 27.

Newspaper Stamp Duties Bill,

LORD SIDMOUTH.-The bills which had already become laws had, as he had already observed, produced the best effects. With regard to the measure under consideration, whatever tended to affect the press, even in the way of regulation, was a subject which called for great attention and caution. This their lordships would find had been observed in proposing this measure. What the danger to be guarded against was, their lordships would see from the preamble of the bill, which stated, that pamphlets and printed papers containing observations on public events and occurrences, tending to excite hatred and contempt of the government and constitution of these realms as by law established, and also vilifying our holy religion, had lately been published in great numbers, and at very small prices; and that it was expedient that the same should be restrained. The means by which it was proposed to effect this object he should now shortly explain. The first provision made all pamphlets and other publications not exceeding two sheets, published within intervals of twenty-six days, and at a price not exceeding sixpence, exclusive of the duty, liable to the same duty as newspapers. Religious tracts and books of instruction were, along with some other publications, excepted from the operation of the bill. The circulation of blasphemous and seditious libels, which had, during the last few years, the last few months, and even the last few weeks, been pushed into every hamlet and cottage in the kingdom, rendered some measure of this kind indispensable. The next provision to which he wished to call their lordships' attention was that by which any person printing a newspaper, or other political publication, is required to give a bond to the extent of 3007. in the capital, and 2007. in the country, with sureties to the same amount. This clause was introduced for the purpose of securing the payment of any fine which might, on conviction, be