portant or exalted--for of that I do not
complain--but no person so humble, harmless, and retired as to
escape the defamation which is daily and hourly poured forth by the
venal crew to gratify the idle curiosity or still less excusable
malignity of the public. To mark out for the indulgence of that
propensity individuals retiring into the privacy of domestic
life--to hunt them down and drag them forth as a laughing stock to
the vulgar, has become in our days with some men the road even to
popularity, but with multitudes the means of earning a base
subsistence.'

Soon after this trial and another provincial one connected with the same
'libel'--one gets quite sick of the word--in which the defendants were
found guilty in spite of Brougham's exertions in their behalf and the
previous verdict of the London jury in the case of the Hunts, a debate
arose in the House of Commons on the subject of _ex-officio_
informations generally, and especially with regard to their
applicability to the case of newspapers. In the course of this debate
Lord Folkestone charged the Government with partiality in their
prosecutions, and said: 'It appears that the real rule which guides
these prosecutions is this: that _The Courier_ and the other papers
which support the ministry of the day, may say whatever they please
without the fear of prosecution, whereas _The Examiner_, _The
Independent Whig_, _The Statesman_, and papers that take the contrary
line, are sure to be prosecuted for any expression that may be offensive
to the minister'--an accusation which was decidedly true.

In 1812 the Hunts were again prosecuted for a libel upon the Prince
Regent, and sentenced to be imprisoned two years, and to pay a fine of
L500. Bat the imprisonment was alleviated in every possible way, as we
gather from Leigh Hunt's charming description of his prison in his
Autobiography.

'I papered the walls with a trellis of roses; I had the ceiling
colored with clouds and sky; the barred windows were screened with
venetian blinds; and when my book cases were set up with their
busts and flowers, and a pianoforte made its appearance, perhaps
there was not a handsomer room on that side of the water.... There
was a little yard outside, railed off from another belonging to a
neighboring ward. This yard I shut in with green palings, adorned
it with a trellis, bordered it with a thick be