The Sun. — 1841-06-24 (London, England)

THE QUEEN V. MaXON. This was an indictment against the defendant, who is an eminent bookseller in Dover-street, for having published a lalasphemous libel in a recent edition of the poetical works of Shelley. Three esstracts from the poem called. " Queen :Mato" e ere set out in the indictment, and some others were read by the Learned Counsel for the prosecution, as illustrating the ,seneral tenour and tendency of the whole work. Mr. THOMAs, upon the part of the prosecution, after having stated in a general way the nature of the provisions made upon the subject of blasphemy in the legislative and judicial systems of ancient and modern times, read the passages which had been extracted from " Queen MO," and set out upon the indictment. The first was taken from page 9of the volume lately published by Mr. Moxon, and edited by Mrs. Shelley, the vidow of the poet. Having made some observations upon the suture of the Christian religion, and the conduct and general character of its priest, the poet proceeded as follows: '1 hey have three words ; well tyrants know their use ; Well pay them for the loan, with usury Torn trom a bleeding world—God, Hell, and Heaven ! Avengeful, pitiless, and almighty fiend. Whose mercy is a nickname for the rage Of tameless tigers, hungering for blood : Hell a red gulf of everlasting fire, Where poisonous and undying worms prolong _Eternal misery to those hapless slaves Vtilose life has been a penance for its crimes ; And Heaven a meed for those who dare belie Their human nature, quake, believe, and cringe, Before the mockeries of earthly power !" The next passage which had been set out was in prose, in page ,19, and expressly denied the existence of God, or, admitting .that there was one, affirmed that he was vengeful as almighty, ::ad that Moses, who is in the passage called a " murderer," taused the death of Cora, Nathan, Dathan, and Abirans, for being so good and dauntless as to hurl defiance at the throne of Ged, girt as it was with power. he third was also in prose, and, like the second, was extracted from the notes upon the .p.em. It ridiculed the notion that " the Spirit which pervades ahis infinite machine begat a son upon the body of a Jewish woman, and all the miserable tale of the Devil and Eve and the Intercessor, together with all the childish mummeries of the (Sod of the Jews.' The Learned Gentleman called a witness to prove the publication, which closed the case upon the part of the prosecution. Mr. Serjeiest TALlsonen (with whom was Mr. Hayward). upon the part of the defendant stated that the passages which .had been made the subject of prosecution were extracted from a book containing twenty thousand lines, of which the iselected portions composed not the three-hundredth part. They presented, therefore, a very sorry and inadequate impression history of the whole, which was the of a great moral and intellectual phenomenon of the several successive stages of a great poetical genius from its infancy through its maturity to its early and sudden extinction. The effect which would be produced by a perusal of the whole would be therefore entirely different from that of some particular ,passages when taken out of their connexion with the rest. If prosecutions like the present could succeed, they must destroy the existence of the greatest ornaments of literature, ancient as well as modern. The Learned Gentleman Proceeded to recite several passages from ..Paradise hereLot' in which the devil is invested with a great variety oi f moral attributes and surrounded ta-Vh several magnificent iimetsor'ireas and in which the devil himself is represented as uttering what tee Learned Sergeant eliaracterised as being sublime defiances of the Almighty's power, with many satanic reflections up on She alleged goodness of the Omnipotent. All these portions of Milton's illustrious work would form as legitimate a ground for prosecution as the present Sphoemell, ,which was in fac at only of and w wohnidelsercfounitagienediun7orae the intellectual biography mighty, awful, and improving picture, proofs of the existence of a God that.' all that could be produced out of the stores of philosophy for that purpose. if the Jury were to find the present defendant. guilty, •they must equally condemn the publishers of the works tiltilton, Gibbon, Byron, Voltaire, Rousseau, Congreve, Wycherley, and even of Shakspeare himself. Lord