occasion does not justify publication, which would then be actionable, and the verdict must be for the plaintiff.' The jury found for the defendant. In this charge it will be perceived that the Lord Chief Justice enunciated the principles which we contend to be the law of the land, and he left the case as a question of fact to the jury. It would, however, perhaps, have been better if he had drawn their attention more particularly to the misquotation of the letter from the Master of the Rolls. Had their minds been specifically directed to this fact, it is possible that the jury might have found a different verdict; for it will hardly be contended that the defendant 'exercised ordinary care' to state the effect of that document aright. The plaintiff intimated his intention to move for a new trial, but ultimately the parties compromised the matter, each paying his own costs. We have now considered the principal libel causes of recent years having a permanent interest from the legal doctrines which their mooting has caused to be laid down, and, we trust, have enabled our readers to form a judgment upon the English law of defamation by speaking, writing, or printing,-how far it attains its great object of preserving the sanctity of the statesman's honour and the citizen's character, while permitting 'freeborn men, having to advise the public, to speak free;' and we venture to hope that they will agree with us in feeling that, though not entirely free from blemish, it is a noble monument of the honesty and wisdom of our Legislature and Courts of Justice. Since this article was put in type, a Bill has been brought into the House of Commons by Sir Colman O'Loghlen 'To Amend the Law of Libel, and for more effectually securing the Liberty of the Press;' it contains-with several harmless and even beneficial provisions-others which would effect serious changes in the law, chiefly, we fear, for the worse. The most important clause is the third, which relieves the publisher of a newspaper reporting a speech made at a public meeting from responsibility for libellous matter contained therein, unless it is proved that the defendant has refused to publish an answer. With every respect for the motives of the amiable author of this measure, we must protest against its principle, which, we fear, would open a door to mischievous defamation, and, indeed, seriously impair the safeguards of character. The Bill proposes to transfer the responsibility, criminal as well as civil, to the speakers themselves; but this would be in many cases illusory, as as such persons are often mere men of straw; besides, the real sting is in the newspaper report. The actual auditors of a speech are but few, and those who hear of it at second hand not many; but when reported in the leading journals, the whole nation may be counted among its audience. Besides, to cast upon a speaker, who may be carried away by the zeal of debate and the excitement of oratory, the liability which fairly attaches to a deliberate writer, would be to introduce into the law a principle entirely new and highly unjust; and such a responsibility could not fail to limit seriously the freedom of debate. Surely an editor ought to exercise some discretion as to what he inserts in his paper! There is no reason why the privilege should go further than that already accorded, viz., the right to discuss freely subjects of public interest. The Bill proposes also to remove the obligation, now placed on a defendant who pleads the truth of an alleged libel, to set out in his plea the particular facts on which he relies as a justification of his charges, by providing that it shall be sufficient for him to plead simply that the alleged libel is true in substance and matter of fact; an innovation that, in cases where the charge are vague or general, would work much injustice upon plaintiffs and prosecutors, by depriving them of notice of the accusations which the defendant will bring against them at the trial. Another clause provides that belief by the defendant in the truth of a libel published without defamatory intent and with a lawful object, or bonâ fide as a fair comment on a matter in which the public are interested, shall be a defence, unless the plaintiff sustains actual loss, or unless the libel is calculated to cause loss or damage. The effect of this provision must be rather to restrict than to enlarge the liberty of the press, since it confers no immunity not already enjoyed (save, perhaps, under what may be held to be the pursuit of a lawful object'), while it seems to limit that immunity to cases where loss is not caused, or likely to be caused—a limitation now unknown to the law. The dangerous clauses of this measure are so much in favour of what may seem to be the immediate interests of the newspaper press, that it may be feared that the Bill will not be subjected to that searching and impartial criticism in the journals which is so valuable in eliciting the real bearings of a measure. It is therefore the more necessary that Parliament and the public should direct their careful attention to it. ART. ART. X.-1.' An Essay on the History of the English Government and Constitution, from the Reign of Henry VII. to the present Time. By John Earl Russell. New edition. London, 1865. 2. Parliamentary Government considered with reference to Reform. By Earl Grey. A new edition. London, 1864. 3. The Liberal Dilemma. A Letter addressed to the Editor of the Times.' By Charles Buxton, M.P. London, 1864. THE preface which Lord Russell has written to the new edition of his youthful work upon the British Constitution might have been a work of permanent importance, if it had not been written on the eve of a dissolution. There is much that Lord Russell could write that would have an interest for more than the politicians of the day. He has played no inconsiderable part in his generation; and the times in which he has lived have been eventful. He knows a good deal, if he ever could be persuaded to reveal it, of one of the most remarkable, because one of the most bloodless, revolutions in history. He could throw, if he pleased, many a gleam of light over the details of that singular combination of political audacity and skilful intrigue by which a dominant class were persuaded or terrified into signing the decree for their own deposition from power. He is now probably the only person living from whom such a contribution to the history of our century could come. The time, however, for such confessions, if ever it is to arrive, appears to be distant still. The epoch of the Reform Bill has not yet receded far enough into the past to be treated with impartiality; for it has not yet lost its value for the purposes of the present. So long as it can be made to afford material for the electioneerer it will not yield much that can be relied upon by the historian. Lord Russell in this case is thinking more of the present than of the future judge. He will be sufficiently consoled for any chance of an adverse judgment upon his preface from posterity, if it produces a favourable verdict at the polling-booth next July. An autobiography from Lord Russell would be a very interesting composition, if it was written with no other purpose but to convey information; but this specimen belongs to the class of autobiographies which are usually prefixed to a begging-petition. It is an autobiography of the most laudatory kind, such as candidates for railway-directorships, or coronerships, or Government livings, sketch with a free hand. It is designed not only to place the past leaders of the Liberal party in the most favourable light; but also to give at least a due prominence in the picture of Liberal triumphs to the imposing figure of the author. Such autobiographies must be be criticised on principles very different from those which apply to other forms of composition. You do not look in an advertisement for the qualities which belong to a history. It may be interesting to discuss how far the facts stated in the advertisement are accurate, or how far it has been necessary to distort or to overlay them; but it is not upon the accuracy of the facts that the merits of the advertisement will turn. If its If its appearance be opportune, and its treatment skilful, it has fulfilled the end of its being. We are far from denying to it the first of these two merits. There can be no question that the need for some such manifesto was pressing. Both on the private merits of Lord Russell, and on the public services of the Liberal party, public opinion in its present condition needs an energetic alterative treatment. There has been an active competition going on recently among distinguished statesmen for the reversion of the Premiership, which is likely before long to be disposable: and the name of Lord Russell does not stand high upon the list of favourites. No small part of the preface we are considering seems to have been composed with the design of leading the public to a healthier frame of mind upon that question. Lord Russell does not, however, for this purpose dwell much upon the transactions in which he has been prominently before the world during the last fifteen years. He does not say much about the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill-or the stab in the dark' which destroyed Lord Aberdeen's Government-or the Vienna negotiations-or the two abortive Reform Bills of 1854 and 1860. For reasons which are, no doubt, satisfactory to his own mind, he prefers to pass over these more recent claims to public confidence, and to revert to the days of Lord Durham and Lord Grey. He had been usually in the habit of holding himself out as the author of the Reform Bill of 1832, though he was not even a member of the Cabinet by which it was passed; but he certainly shows in these pages that he had sufficient justification for doing so. Most of the important clauses in the Bill were derived from suggestions of his own, submitted in a plan to Lord Durham, and through him to Lord Grey. In some respects Lord Russell's proposals were more conservative than the law ultimately passed. He proposed in new boroughs an alternative rate of voting of fifteen pounds, and in counties he would have put a stop to all manufacture of votes by Land Societies, by providing that no new rights of voting should be acquired in counties, except for properties of the yearly value of ten pounds. The Reform Act, however, in its main outlines corresponded closely with the project of Lord Russell. Whether the ideas he suggested were original, or whether they they were in any degree suggested by the chiefs who afterwards formally adopted them, cannot now be known. To Lord Russell at all events belongs the credit of having been the first member of the Government of 1830 to place them upon paper. Though a considerable portion of the preface is devoted to the theme 'quorum pars magna fui,' a larger part is occupied with a more general panegyric upon the Whig party. We are equally ready to admit the opportuneness of this part of the advertisement. The Whig party, materially speaking, is in a very prosperous condition; for it has been, with scarcely an intermission, nearly twenty years in office, and is in possession of all the influence which the exercise of patronage for so long a period can confer. But its position morally is embarrassing in the Its great victory of the Reform Bill, though loading it at the time with many spoils, laid upon it a burden which seemed light at first, but under which its strength is gradually giving way. It has been condemned since that time to serve two masters, with demands equally exacting, and with views diametrically opposed. The Whigs have always been essentially an aristocratic party. While its opponents have found their strength among the smaller gentry, the old county families of England, the Whigs have existed by virtue of the combination of a few powerful houses, the representatives of the victors in some one or other of the great convulsions through which the country has passed. From the dissenters they have at various times received much effective support. But the older race of Whigs never appealed to the democracy. Charles Fox attempted it, and he was rewarded by the loss of the best half of his adherents. As in the Reform Bill the democratic element became powerful, its allegiance was naturally paid to the party to whom it owed its power. For the time the combination between the magnates and the mob seemed to carry all before it. Even now, when the war in America has blown the whole fabric of Democratic theory into the air, that combination is vigorous enough to make head against the strong flow of Conservative feeling which the last five or six years have witnessed. But it has the essential weakness, which no numerical preponderance can heal, of uniting, in one force, directly antagonistic interests. The owner of half a county, and the heir of a long pedigree, can never desire the same distribution of political power, or the same adjustment of taxation, as the artisans of a manufacturing town. The tenacious organisation of party, and the zeal of those to whose ambition it ministers, may for a long time induce the wealthy duke and the populous borough to throw their vote into the same scale even after their interests have diverged; but the time must come when the hollowness |