CALCUTTA MAGAZINE. No. VII.-JULY, 1830. Contents. I. ORIGINAL PAPERS. Page. III. GLEANINGS,-LITERARY AND MISCELLANEOUS. Character of Sir Samuel Romilly-Poetry-The Sounds made by Insects-The Subscribers are requested to observe that the Calcutta Magazine is divided into four distinct departments, and that the numbering and form of the pages are so ar- ranged as to admit of the matter being bound into four separate volumes at the end of the year. Two volumes will consist of ORIGINAL PAPERS-a third of the SPIRIT OF THE ENGLISH PERIODICALS and the GLEANINGS-and a fourth will form a com- plete BENGAL GENERAL REGISTER. At the end of the year separate Title Pages and Indexes to each volume will be ON SWIFT'S LIBELS, AND HIS IDEA OF A FREE PRESS. Swift may be considered as the most eminent libeller in the English language. The powers of Junius, indeed, were not inferior, but they were exerted during the short period of three years; whereas Swift's shafts were thrown at short intervals for more than thirty years, and in three successive reigns. If he had suffered according to the estimate of such offences which prevailed in those days, it would not be easy to calculate the amount of fine, imprisonment, and pillory, which would have been heaped upon him. That he escaped such punishments was not owing to respect for his sacred profession, but sometimes to the protection of powerful friends, at others to the dread inspired by his popularity with the citizens and populace of Dublin. But as he must often have been visited with apprehensions for himself, and with compassion for his printers and publishers, it might have been expected that one who claimed unbounded licence for his own pen would have seen the reasonableness and equity of allowing the same latitude to others, and have on all occasions resisted interferences with the press, and constructions of the law of libel, to which his own writings were so obnoxious. A short review of his conduct will however satisfy us that he delighted in having all the reciprocity on one side; and that when his party were in power he advised measures of more rigorous restriction than a Tory House of Commons would sanction. In 1713, in reply to Steel's Crisis, Swift published "The public spirit of the Whigs set forth in their generous encouragement of the author of the Crisis; with some observations on the seasonableness, candour and erudition of that treatise." The only part of this pamphlet which gave offence was an attack on the Scotch nobility and nation, ridiculing their poverty before the union, and not imputing to them any vices or bad qualities whatever. The sting of this reproach of poverty was, however, most acutely felt. Lord Wharton complained of the libel to the House of Lords as a breach of privilege, and Morphew the Book-seller, and Barber the Printer were ordered into the custody of the Black Rod. The former declared he did not know who was the author, and the latter refused to answer questions that might criminate himself. Lord Wharton proposed that Barber and his servants should be closely interrogated, and freed from personal consequences; but the Minister, (Lord Oxford). to screen Swift, directed a prosecution against Barber persone ally. The Scotch Peers went in a body to the Queen with the Duke of Argyle at their head, and required that a proclamation should be issued offering a reward for the discovery of the author. The same demand was made by Lord Wharton in the House of Lords; and a proclamation promising a reward of £300 was issued. In the mean time no one was in doubt as to the real author. Lord Oxford secretly indemnified Morphew and Barber; discharged the prosecution against the latter; and quashed the offer of a private informer to discover the author. In resentment of the oppressive and humiliating laws regulating the commercial intercourse of Ireland with Britain, British Colonies, and Foreign countries, Swift published, in 1720, “ A proposal for the universal use of Irish Manufactures, &c. utterly rejecting and renouncing every thing wearable that comes from England." The spirit and object of this pamphlet deserved the warmest approbation of every Irishman and of every just and intelligent Englishman; but in those days patriotism was a rare virtue among the Irish aristocracy, and the grand-juries of the county and city of Dublin had the baseness to present the tract as a seditious, factious, and virulent libel. On the trial of the Printer, Waters, the petty-jury brought in a verdict of not guilty. They were threatened by Chief Justice Whitshed, and sent back to reconsider their verdict nine times, till worn out by eleven hours confinement and want of refreshment they brought in a special verdict. Further proceedings were postponed from time to time, and on the arrival of the Duke of Grafton, discontinued. This conduct drew on Whitshed the severest chastisement from Swift's pen. To select only one sentence out of a multitude of attacks in prose and verse, take the following: "laying it therefore down for a postulatum, which I suppose will be universally granted, that no little creature of so mean a birth and genius had ever the honour to be a greater enemy to his country and to all kinds of virtue than he, &c." In 1724, Swift published the Drapier's letters on the subject of Wood's Half-pence. For the fourth letter the printer, Harding, was thrown into prison, and the Lord Lieutenant, Lord Carteret, who lived on terms of friendly intimacy with Swift, and knew him to be the author, issued a proclamation offering a reward of £300 for the discovery of the author. "Two Kingdoms just as faction led To sell him for six-hundred pound." Before the grand-jury met, Swift published a paper entitled "Seasonable Advice to the Grand Jury," exhorting them to remember the story of the league made by the wolves with the sheep, on condition of their parting with their shepherds and mastiffs, after which they devoured the flock at pleasure. At the same time was circulated an apt quotation from scripture. "And the people said unto Saul, shall JONATHAN die who has wrought this great salvation in Israel," &c. 1 Sam. c. xiv. v. 54. In spite of Whitshed's exertions the grand-jury ignored the bill. The next grand-jury presented Wood's scheme as a fraud and imposition on the public; and finally his patent was surrendered, and he was indemnified by a grant of £3000 for twelve years. In this case the only grievance was that the patent had not been issued by the advice, and under the authority of the Irish Privy Council and Parliament; that was, no doubt, grievance enough; but there was no loss, or tax occasioned by the difference between the intrinsic value of the copper coin, and that at which it was issued from the Mint; and nothing can be more absurd than the manner in which Swift multiplies the imaginary plunder that would result from the circulation of coin whereof a pound weight worth 13 pence had been coined into 30 pence. In England, at that time, a pound weight worth 18 pence, was comed into 23 pence. The following are specimens of the Drapier's political economy. "He has laid a tax upon the people of Ireland of 17 shillings, at least in the pound: a tax, I say not only upon lands, but interest of money, goods, manufactures, the hire of handicraft and men, labourers, and servants." "If it succeed in all the consequences naturally to be expected from it, it must sink the rents and wealth of the kingdom one-half, although I am confident it would have done so five-sixths." "For it is a maxim which no man at present disputes that even a connivance to admit £1000 in these half-pence, will produce in time the same ruinous effects, as if we openly consented to admit a million.” Is it, was it, can it, or will it ever be a question, not whether such a kingdom or William Wood should be a gainer, but whether such a kingdom should be wholly undone, destroyed, sunk, depopulated, made a scene of misery and desolation for the sake of William Wood? God of his infinite mercy avert this dreadful judgment !" In 1733, in a satire ridiculing the dissenters for pretending to the title of "brother protestants and fellow christians," the Dean introduced these lines, "Thus at the bar the booby Bettesworth Though half a crown o'erpays his sweats's worth, Calls Singleton his brother Serjeant." Mr. Bettesworth threatened to cut off the Dean's ears, and had a very angry altercation with him at Mr. Worrall's house. The inhabitants formed a guard for the protection of the Deanry; and sent a deputation requesting permission to take vengeance |