however, is only meant to bear upon the frank and open declaration of sentiment as to public men and public actions : it cannot be converted into a screen for falsehood and defamation: it cannot extend to any outrage, either by word of mouth, or through the medium of the press, upon the sacred privileges of domestic privacy. When a man descends, like a gladiator, upon the arena of the political world, he is fair game: he comes, or ought to come, with the usual weapons, prepared to give and take the blows, which fall in the chancemedley we are fully justified in attacking him, while he is there; but we must not follow him beyond the limits, or pursue him into a spot, where he should be consecrated from all assaults.

We think, then, that daily or weekly journalists, and writers in general, are not obliged to fight duels for candid straightforward remarks, however severe and pungent they may be, which they feel themselves bound to make, without going out of their way, upon the persons and events, that come naturally before them. But let it be borne in mind, that they are exempted in these cases from giving an account in the field of modern honour, not because they are editors, and derive any safety or sanction from their editorship; but because they merely exercise in print the common privilege, which every individual may exercise, and does exercise in conversation.

Moreover, although we say it, who should not say it, in an age, when the press has so mighty and universal an influence, the office of a periodical writer is an office of great use, and dignity, and importance. It is so, even now; and it may be made more so, in a ten-fold degree. While, therefore, we are anxious, that journalists and other authors should be kept within due bounds, and restrained by the proper checks; we have no notion, that they should be arrested in the efficient discharge of their-we confess, self-imposed-duties by any kind of outrage or intimidation, which would not be borne in the usual intercourse of private life.

Let us now apply these principles to the case of Mr. O'Meara, That gentleman publishes a book entitled "A Voice from St. Helena," in which it is insinuated, that the conductors of the Times newspaper had received a bribe for advocating the cause of the Bourbons. They, of course, resented the impu

tation with asperity and warmth. Mr. O'Meara in consequence takes his horsewhip in his hand, and falls foul upon the first person, whom he finds bearing the obnoxious name of the man whom he wishes to chastise, for vehemently repelling the charge of having been bribed into his opinions.

Again, when a writer in the Courier chooses to offer its strictures upon the rencontre between Sir Hudson Lowe and the young Las Casas, Mr. Holmes, a friend of Mr. O'Meara, immediately appeals to the favourite decision of the horsewhip and Mr. O'Meara himself, shortly afterwards, informs the editor of the same paper that he never uses a horsewhip by proxy.

:

Now this is really a little too much. We shall not stop to inquire into the rights of the particular cases. For at any rate they were questions of fact, and not properly questions of feeling. But the attempt to decide a question of fact by strength of arm and the horsewhip is a most glaring piece of folly at best: and may even cast a suspicion upon him, who resorts to such a method. Can Mr. O'Meara suppose, that his invariable recourse to the " argumentum baculinum" will prove any thing in his favour? This mode of ratiocination is indeed beating the truth into an adversary with a vengeance! Does he conceive, that the conductor of an English newspaper is only to be conquered by the same weapons, which, as Herodotus informs us, the Scythians used with success against their slaves? He must be informed, that the hectoring, and vapouring, and bullying system is here eminently ridiculous, and entirely out of place: that it is a system, in short, which must at once be scouted by all reasonable men. Mr. O'Meara may be very ready to fight: and he will find that English writers, in general, will be as ready to fight as himself, when it is worth their while. But if pistols, Primrose hill, and ten paces, are the word with every person, who is aggrieved, or fancies himself aggrieved, by the remarks, which they feel it imperative upon them to write in the regular course of their vocation, they may as well make their wills at once, if indeed they have any thing to bequeath; since they will have little else to do, than to run a-muck" with all the designing knaves and dishonest politicians in the British dominions. We may say, however, in

66

their names and in our own, as Johnson said to Macpherson, that "they will never be deterred from detecting what they think a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian." We have no scruple in assuring Mr. O'Meara, that our last two sentences have no personal reference to himself.

These observations, simple and obvious as they are, may, we think, be of some use; if it were merely because they carry us back to general principles, which it were well to acknowledge in theory, and in conformity to which it were well to act. They may serve to protect public men in the due and resolute discharge of their official duties; to instil caution and forbearance into the irritable breasts of public journalists and other periodical writers; yet at the same time to shield them from wanton outrage and unmerited aggression. It is possible that our own personal feelings in the business may be suspected to have given rise to some of our observations. Whether such suspicions will be entertained, we neither know nor care. We trust, that without forfeiting our claim to that animal courage, which can preserve honour and repress insult, we possess something of that moral courage, which will not be frightened out of the distinct avowal of honest sentiments by the fear of sarcasms and insinuations at once malicious and contemptible.

LETTER TO THE RIGHT REV. FATHER IN GOD, HERBERT,

MY LORD,

LORD BISHOP OF PETERBOROUGH.

We have for some time had it in contemplation to address your Lordship on the subject of your Examination Questions ; and only deferred doing so, that we might neither appear to countenance a clamour, which partook too largely of factious abusiveness; nor appeal to you at a period, when, on account of the treatment you experienced, you might be pardoned for recoiling from all who approached you in the character of advisers. It is the error of most people, that when they would reform another, they in effect go over to his enemies;

their remonstrance is no other than his exposure. The consequence is that their admonitions persecute, instead of mending; and the weight that would otherwise attach to their remarks, is lost by the injudicious manner in which they are made. We, my Lord, have taken up that position in society; which among other duties, will compel us to discover GREAT FAULTS IN GREAT FRIENDS; but we hope always to perform this task—which must be at best a painful one-and to perform it more peculiarly in the case of such a person as your Lordship, with that guarded and respectful tone of language, which is most consonant to the real feelings of our hearts. We have already shown, that we subscribe to that part of your speech in the House of Lords on the presentation of a petition against your Examination Questions, on June 7th, 1822, in which you assert, that

"The voice of faction has been raised against these Questions, and in the outcry Episcopal authority has been treated with insolence, and ecclesiastical discipline has been set at nought."

We deplore the necessity for the statement subjoined, by note, to this sentence

"That more ABUSIVE pamplets have never been written than those which have been written by CLERGYMEN against these Questions :"

we concede that the motion for referring the petition to a committee was utterly unworthy of support, inasmuch as the allegations of the petition are proved beyond dispute to contain a monstrous alloy of falsehood. But all these concessions touch the manner only, in which your Lordship has been assailed; that the warfare is conducted in a barbarous spirit is not conclusive evidence that the contest is unjust.

Does it not cause you some misgiving as to the NECESSITY of your deviation from the common course, that none of our venerable and devout prelates have thought fit to follow in your track!—the duty of one bishop is the duty of another; they are EQUALLY appointed to keep watch over the fold, and those that tend the flock; does it not strike you, therefore, that that degree of vigilance which your brethren and predecessors for ages have exercised; and under which their

charge has flourished, has some authority on the side of its being the meet and proper degree?

To justify yourself, it is indispensable that you impeach your brethren. The fruits of their carelessness must vindicate your precaution. Are you prepared to prove that from any large proportion of our pulpits, or even from a small number-doctrines subversive of the church, or actually calculated to lead men astray from "the way of Life," are promulgated?

Do not the assaults which you endure, which of themselves, we allow, might even testify the value of your perseverance, in conjunction with the fact of your receiving no countenance from those who, if you are in the right, ought to rally round you in your need; do not these assaults, under these circumstances, cost you some serious doubts of the justice as well as the policy of your deviation?

Does not the compulsion to partial change and modification to which your scheme has been subjected, shake your confidence in its present superiority as a test of sound doctrine? At page 9 of your printed speech we learn, that "these 87 Questions were originally proposed only to candidates for orders, and are now confined to them again," since you have "substituted 36 for 87 Questions in the examination of curates," to whom it seems the latter number has been in the middle of the business proposed. These 36 Questions are described in a note on page 10, as 66 ANOTHER Set of Questions:" at page 12 we find the following note—

My original object in sending the Examination Questions to candidates for orders, before they appeared in the Ember week, has been greatly misunderstood: and that which was intended as an act of kindness, has been represented as an act of harshness. I sent the Questions that the candidate might have time to consider them, and answer them at his leisure; that if his answers were found to be at variance with the doctrines of the Established Church, I might have an opportunity of writing to him, and explaining in what respect he deviated from the doctrines of the Church; and lastly, that if he persevered in doctrines which were irreconcilable with the Liturgy and Articles, he might be refused, without undergoing the public disgrace of a rejection in the Ember week. But my conduct in this respect has been so misunderstood, and the openness with which I acted has by many persons been so abused, THAT I HAVE BEEN COMPELLED TO RELINQUISH IT."

And at page 14 you state

"When I was Bishop of Landaff, the Questions were accompanied with