The National Register.
London, England, 1808-05-01 00:00:00

'ME NATIONAL REGISTER.

" privilege to pervert the signification of words, and the nature
" of tbiags" (the infinitiva, to peeved, elegantly used instead of the
.41ettads of pirtierting), "Just as it suits the arbitrary and wick-
!d-visors nitilunpir oulbe-eisplay them, until their scandalous
." quibbles and intrigues have rendered language useless, or ra-
" Cher only a snare to mankind." By the last words in which
Ate,whole business of ruin to language is said to he already com-
pleted, it becomes evident, that in the earlier part of the sea-
. tence Grits. should have said, " Lawyers seemed to have claim-
" ed :" but Crito does not much tilibd so trivial an error as the
employment of a present tense for a perfect action, a part of
which action in the same sentence is declared in the perfect.
-111 s gentlemanly nod moderate phraseology, however, indepen-
dently of its grammar, is sure to be approved by the gentle-
pen of the Bar : for he says : " A becoming seal for the Tiber-
" ties of the public, and a reverence for truth, are pronounced
by these mercenary depredators, to be a violation of the laws,
" and a scaodaloui attack upon the solemnity of justice. We
" are called upon to renounce the best lessons we have imbibed
" in our infancy, to confound truth and falsehood, virtue and
" vice. and to witness, aids indifference, the worst crimes which
" can disgrace man and appal humanity ;" (elegant climax !)
" or if we presume to commisserate the murdered, and express
" our horror at the escape of the murderer, we are denominated
" libellers, and immediately subject ourselves to pains, penal-
" ties, and imprisonments, for the exercise of our humanity Is—
" we are called upon to surrender our senses to a jargon called
" law, by time-serving pleaders : to believe every thing in exact
" proportion as we cannot understand it, or as it appears pre-
" posterous and absurd : and allow that ulone to be law, which
" contradicts the first principles of truth and virtue !"
Yet not twenty lines further, this writer says : " By a liber-
ty of the press, my Lord, l would not infer a licentious free-
" dims to revile"--(of reviling)--" our lawful Governors and
" Magistrates, to traduce,"—(of traducing)--" the established
" laws and religion of our country, or any attempts to weaken
" and subvert, by opprobrious writings, that sacred respect and
" veneratior."—( What is the difference to tween respect and 11 C.•
n- ratio n )—" which ought ale ays to be maintained for persons
" inauthority."
Thus, then, we find a man professing a veneration for the este-
laws of his country, and for the persons in authority, at
-the same time that three4ourths of his letter are a string of in-
'vective against the great officers ofjustice, and an impeachment
of the laws for their contradiction of the first principles of truth
Ind virtue. Can any reasonable person regret that the Con-
sluctors of this Paper are about to be prosecuted fur their libel-
lous and almost unit ersally pernicious doctrines ?
This approaching prosecution fins, for a lung time past, occu-
pied tt very conspicuous place in the contains of The Indepen-
dent Whi.r. The Editors talk of it, as if any body cared about
it except themselves. They ;Aare Letters every week to Sir
Vicars. Gibbs, the Attorney General, who is ill brine forward
the matter; to Lord Ellenbaroessh, the Chief Justice, who is to
try the cause; to the Sheriffs, who are to impannel the Jury ;
and to the Public, who are requested to support the Paper with
money. "The expellees of law," they sae, " ate enormous,
" allallo private pitrse can brild out under them." Is not this a
malicious slander upon our laws ? It must he confessed that the
expellees of legal proceedings are !wavier than the friends of their
country %visit to see them : but it is shaniefol to propagate among
a set of uninformed persons, whose ears are alwa‘s open to any
thing that may discredit establishMent, an opinion that the legal
expences attending a petty prosecution arc matters too heavy
for private finances to sustain. This may have the effect of
procuring subscriptions for the Proprietors and Publisher,
which obtaining of subscriptions, under false pretenees, does
not appear to he very justifiable: but it certainly has the effect
of dissatifying the people, and making them believe, contrary
to all truth, that the expences of such a law-suit are to be a
matter like the costs of Lord Melville's impeachment. There
is something not a little entertaining in those parts of each dis-
sertation en the impending trial, which describe the enmity sup-
posed to be entertained by the Attorney General, and by two 4,11
the Judges (which Judges they indecorously and unconstitution-
ally call their assailants) towards the Conductors of The .frute.
pendant if hug; nor could we help laughing when we found these
Conductors observing, that while the public mind was agitated
by the present prosecutions. Sir Vicary Gibbs would have done
better in introducing no indictment bill, and that he was really
grown indiscreet and presumptuous. So little is the public tttirid
agitated, that we will venture to say, there are not nifty
creatures. except the people concerned iu the prosecutions, aria
the :eiders of The independent Whig, who ever heard that any
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