ous reign. But the great majority of these must have fallen to
the ground, for, in 1791, the then attorney-general stated that, in the
last thirty-one years, there had been seventy prosecutions for libel,
and about fifty convictions, in twelve of which the sentences had been
severe--including even, in five instances, the pillory. The law of libel
was extremely harsh, to say the least of it. One of its dogmas was that
a publisher could be held criminally liable for the acts of his
servants, unless proved to be neither privy nor assenting to such acts.
The monstrous part of this was that, after a time, the judges refused to
receive any exculpatory evidence, and ruled that the publication of a
libel by a publisher's servant was proof sufficient of that publisher's
criminality. This rule actually obtained until 1843, when it was swept
away by an act of Parliament, under the auspices of Lord Campbell. The
second was even worse; for it placed the judge above the jury, and
superseded the action of that dearly prized safeguard of an
Englishman's liberties, it asserting that it was for the judge alone,
and not for the jury, to decide as to the criminality of a libel. Such
startling and outrageous doctrines as these roused the whole country,
and the matter was taken up in Parliament. Fierce debates followed from
time to time, and the assailants of this monstrous overriding of the
Constitution--for it was nothing less--were unremitting in their
efforts. Among the most distinguished of these were Burke, Sheridan, and
Erskine, the last of whom was constantly engaged as counsel for the
defence in the most celebrated libel trials of the day. In 1791, Fox
brought in a bill for amending the law of libel, and so great had the
change become in public opinion, through the agitation that had been
carried on, that it passed unanimously in the House of Commons. Erskine
took a very prominent part in this measure, and, after demonstrating
that the judges had arrogated to themselves the rights and functions of
the jury, said that if, upon a motion in arrest of judgment, the
innocence of the defendant's intention was argued before the court, the
answer would be, and was, given uniformly, that the verdict of guilty
had concluded the criminality of the intention, though the consideration
of that question had been by the judge's authority wholly withdrawn from
the jury at the trial. The bill met with opposition in the House of
Lords, especially from L