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also that they had written it in the county of Middlesex. And not only was it out of the power of the attorney and solicitor to prove this, but it was in the power of the defendants to prove the contrary. For it so happened that Sancroft had never once left the palace at Lambeth from the time when the order in council appeared till after the petition was in the king's hands. The whole case for the prosecution had, therefore, completely broken down; and the audience, with great glee, expected a speedy acquittal.

The Crown lawyers then changed their ground again, abandoned altogether the charge of writing a libel, and undertook to prove that the bishops had published a libel in the county of Middlesex. The difficulties were great. The delivery of the petition to the king was undoubtedly, in the eye of the law, a publication. But how was this delivery to be proved? No person had been present at the audience in the royal closet, except the king and the defendants. The king could not well be sworn. It was, therefore, only by the admissions of the defendants that the fact of publication could be established. Several official men who had been in attendance on the council were called, and among them Samuel Pepys, Secretary of the Admiralty; but none of them could remember that anything was said about the delivery. As witness after witness answered in the negative, roars of laughter and shouts of triumph, which the judges did not even attempt to silence, shook the hall.

It seemed that at length this hard fight had been won. The case for the Crown was closed. Had the counsel for the bishops remained silent, an acquittal was certain; for nothing which the most corrupt and shameless judge could venture to call legal evidence of publication had been given. The chief justice was beginning to charge the jury, and would undoubtedly have directed them to acquit the defendants; but Finch, too anxious to be perfectly discreet, interfered, and begged to be heard. “If you will be heard," said Wright, "you shall be heard; but you do not understand your own interests." The other counsel for the defence made Finch sit down, and begged the Chief Justice to proceed. He was about to do so, when a messenger came with news that Lord Sunderland could prove the publication, and would come down to the court immediately. The countenances of the great multitude fell. Finch was, during some hours, the most unpopular man in the country. Why could he not sit still? His love of meddling, his ambition to make a fine speech, had ruined everything.

Meanwhile the Lord President (Sunderland) was brought in a sedan chair through the hall. He came into court, pale and trembling, with eyes fixed on the ground, and gave his evidence in a faltering voice. He swore that the bishops had informed him of their intention to present a petition to the King, and that they had been admitted into the royal closet for that purpose. This circumstance, coupled with the circumstance that, after they left the closet, there was in the King's hands a petition signed by them, was such proof as might reasonably satisfy a jury of the fact of the publication.

Publication in Middlesex was then proved. But was the paper thus published a false, malicious, and seditious libel? Hitherto the matter in dispute had been whether a fact which everybody well knew to be true could be proved according to technical rules of evidence; but now the contest became one of deeper interest. It was necessary to inquire into the limits of prerogative and liberty, into the right of the King to dispense with statutes, into the right of the subject to petition for the redress of grievances. During three hours the counsel for the petitioners argued with great force in defence of the fundamental principles of the Constitution, and proved from the journals of the House of Commons that the bishops had affirmed no more than the truth when they represented to the King that the dispensing power which he claimed had been repeatedly declared illegal by Parliament. Somers rose last. He spoke little more than five minutes; but every word was full of weighty matter; and when he sat down his reputation as an orator and a constitutional lawyer was established. He went through the expressions which were used in the information to describe the offence imputed to the bishops, and showed that every word, whether adjective or substantive, was altogether inappropriate. The offence imputed was a false, a malicious, a seditious libel. False the paper was not; for every fact which it set forth had been shown from the journals of Parliament to be true. cious the paper was not, for the defendants had not sought an occasion of strife, but had been placed by the Government in such a situation that they must either oppose themselves to the royal will, or violate the most sacred obligations of conscience or honour. Seditious the paper was not; for it had not been scattered by the writers among the rabble, but delivered privately into the hands of the King alone; and a libel it was not, but a decent petition, such as, by the laws of England, nay, by the laws of imperial Rome, by the laws of all civilized states, a subject

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who thinks himself aggrieved may with propriety present to the sovereign.

The attorney replied shortly and feebly. The solicitor spoke at great length and with great acrimony, and was often interrupted by the clamours and hisses of the audience. He went so far as to lay it down that no subject or body of subjects, except the Houses of Parliament, had a right to petition the King. The galleries were furious, and the Chief Justice himself stood aghast at the effrontery of this venal turncoat.

At length Wright proceeded to sum up the evidence. His language showed that the awe in which he stood of the Government was tempered by the awe with which the audience, so numerous, so splendid, and so strongly excited, had impressed him. He said that he could not agree with much of the solicitor's speech; that it was the right of the subject to petition; but that the particular petition before the court was improperly worded, and was, in the contemplation of law, a libel.

It was dark before the jury retired to consider of their verdict. The night was a night of intense anxiety. Some letters are extant which were despatched during that period of suspense, and which have therefore an interest of a peculiar kind. "It is very late," wrote the papal nuncio, "and the decision is not yet known. The judges and the culprits have gone to their own homes. The jury remain together. To-morrow we shall learn the event of this great struggle.

The solicitor for the bishops sat up all night with a body of servants on the stairs leading to the room where the jury was consulting. It was absolutely necessary to watch the officers who watched the doors; for those officers were supposed to be in the interest of the Crown, and might, if not carefully observed, have furnished a courtly juryman with food, which would have enabled him to starve out the other eleven. Strict guard was therefore kept. Not even a candle to light a pipe was permitted to enter. Some basins of water for washing were suffered to pass at about four in the morning. The jurymen, raging with thirst, soon lapped up the whole. Great numbers of people walked the neighbouring streets till dawn. Every hour a messenger came from Whitehall to know what was passing. Voices, high in altercation, were repeatedly heard within the room, but nothing certain was known.

At first nine were for acquitting, and three for convicting. Two of the minority soon gave way; but Arnold was obstinate. Thomas Austin, a country gentleman of great estate, who had

paid close attention to the evidence and speeches, and had taken full notes, wished to argue the question. Arnold declined. He was not used, he doggedly said, to reasoning and debating. His conscience was not satisfied, and he should not acquit the bishops. "If you come to that," said Austin, "look at me. I am the largest and strongest of the twelve; and before I find such a petition as this a libel, here I will stay till I am no bigger than a tobacco pipe." It was six in the morning before Arnold yielded. It was soon known that the jury were agreed, but what the verdict would be was still a secret.

At ten the court again met. The crowd was greater than ever. The jury appeared in their box; and there was a breathless stillness.

Sir Samuel Ashby spoke. "Do you find the defendants, or any of them, guilty of the misdemeanour whereof they are impeached, or not guilty?" Sir Roger Langley answered, "Not guilty. As the words were uttered, Halifax sprang up and waved his hat. At that signal, benches and galleries raised a shout. In a moment ten thousand persons, who crowded the great hall, replied with a still louder shout, which made the old oaken roof crack, and in another moment the innumerable throng without set up a third huzza, which was heard at Temple Bar. The boats which covered the Thames gave an answering cheer. A peal of gunpowder was heard on the water, and another, and another; and so, in a few moments, the glad tidings went flying past the Savoy and the Friars to London Bridge, and to the forest of masts below. As the news spread, streets and squares, market-places and coffee-houses, broke forth into acclamations. Yet were the acclamations less strange than the weeping. For the feelings of men had been wound up to such a point, that at length the stern English nature, so little used to outward signs of emotion, gave way, and thousands sobbed aloud for very joy. Meanwhile, from the outskirts of the multitude, horsemen were spurring off to bear along all the great roads intelligence of the victory.

It was vain to think of passing at that moment to any other business. Indeed, the war of the multitude was such that, during half an hour, scarcely a word could be heard in the court.

The acquitted prelates took refuge in the nearest chapel from the crowd which implored their blessing. Many churches were open on that morning throughout the capital; and many persons repaired thither. The bells of all the parishes were ringing. The ury meanwhile could scarcely make their way out of the hall. They were forced to shake hands with hundreds. "God bless

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you!" cried the people; "you have done like honest good-natured gentlemen; you have saved us all to-day." As the noblemen who had attended to support the good cause drove off, they flung from their carriage windows handfuls of money, and bade the crowd drink to the health of the King, the bishops, and the jury.

BUNYAN:

THE characteristic peculiarity of the "Pilgrim's Progress" is that it is the only work of its kind which possesses a strong human interest. Other allegories only amuse the fancy. The allegory of Bunyan has been read by many thousands with tears. There are some good allegories in Johnson's works, and some of still higher merit by Addison. In these performances there is, perhaps, as much wit and ingenuity as in the " Pilgrim's Progress." But the pleasure which is produced by the "Vision of Thirza," the "Vision of Theodore," the "Genealogy of Wit," or the "Contest between Rest and Labour," is exactly similar to the pleasure which we derive from one of Cowley's odes, or from a canto of Hudibras. It is a pleasure which belongs wholly to the understanding, and in which the feelings have no part whatever. Nay, even Spenser himself, though assuredly one of the greatest poets that ever lived, could not succeed in the attempt to make allegory interesting. It was in vain that he lavished the riches of his mind on the House of Pride and the House of Temperance. One unpardonable fault, the fault of tediousness, pervades the whole of the "Faery Queen." We become sick of cardinal virtues and deadly sins, and long for the society of plain men and women. Of the persons who read the first canto, not one in ten reaches the end of the first book, and not one in a hundred perseveres to the end of the poem. Very few and very weary are those who are in at the death of the "Blatant Beast." If the last six books which are said to have been destroyed in Ireland had been preserved, we doubt whether any heart less stout than that of a commentator would have held out to the end.

It is not so with the "Pilgrim's Progress." That wonderful book, while it obtains admiration from the most fastidious critics, is loved by those who are too simple to admire it. Doctor Johnson, all whose studies were desultory, and who hated, as he said, to read books through, made an exception in favour of the" Pilgrim's

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