in the third year of that reign the court of
Star-Chamber was established. The press and its enemy are nearly coeval.
As no positive law against libels existed, they fell under the
indefinite class of misdemeanors. For the trial of misdemeanors that
court was instituted. Their tendency to produce riots and disorders was
a main part of the charge, and was laid in order to give the court
jurisdiction chiefly against libels. The offence was new. Learning of
their own upon the subject they had none; and they were obliged to
resort to the only emporium where it was to be had, the Roman law. After
the Star-Chamber was abolished in the 10th of Charles I., its authority
indeed ceased, but its maxims subsisted and survived it. The spirit of
the Star-Chamber has transmigrated and lived again; and Westminster Hall
was obliged to borrow from the Star-Chamber, for the same reasons as the
Star-Chamber had borrowed from the Roman Forum, because they had no law,
statute, or tradition of their own. Thus the Roman law took possession
of our courts,--I mean its doctrine, not its sanctions: the severity of
capital punishment was omitted, all the rest remained. The grounds of
these laws are just and equitable. Undoubtedly the good fame of every
man ought to be under the protection of the laws, as well as his life
and liberty and property. Good fame is an outwork that defends them all
and renders them all valuable. The law forbids you to revenge; when it
ties up the hands of some, it ought to restrain the tongues of others.
The good fame of government is the same; it ought not to be traduced.
This is necessary in all government; and if opinion be support, what
takes away this destroys that support: but the liberty of the press is
necessary to this government.

The wisdom, however, of government is of more importance than the laws.
I should study the temper of the people, before I ventured on actions of
this kind. I would consider the whole of the prosecution of a libel of
such importance as Junius, as one piece, as one consistent plan of
operations: and I would contrive it so, that, if I were defeated, I
should not be disgraced,--that even my victory should not be more
ignominious than my defeat; I would so manage, that the lowest in the
predicament of guilt should not be the only one in punishment. I would
not inform against the mere vender of a collection of pamphlets. I
would not put him to trial first, if I could possibly avoid it. I woul