Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846Various
History
Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
do, but to avenge their wrongs, or perish with glory?"
Another portion of this paper contained an ode, in which all things were
represented as in a state of convulsion, all shaken by a tremendous
storm; but nature, either blind or cruel, sparing the head of the tyrant
alone:--still carrying on the parody of the Roman speech, it pronounces
that a poniard is the last resource of Rome to rescue herself from a
dictator. It asks, is it from a Corsican that a Frenchman must receive
his chains? was it to crown a traitor that France had punished her
kings? In another, a libel, which traced the rise of Bonaparte, and
charged him with the intention of assuming imperial power, concluded in
these words:--"Carried on the shield, let him be elected emperor;
finally, (and Romulus recalls the thing to mind,) I wish that on the
morrow he may have his 'apotheosis.'" This the Attorney-general
certainly, with every appearance of reason, pronounced to be a palpable
suggestion to put the First Consul to death; as history tells us that
Romulus was assassinated.
The defence by Mackintosh was a bold and eloquent performance. He
commenced by a spirited animadversion on the Attorney's speech, and then
extended his subject into a general defence of the liberty of the press,
which he pronounced to be the true object of attack on the part of the
First Consul. He followed the history of its suppression through all the
states under French influence, and then came to the attempt at its
suppression here. He then invoked the jury to regard themselves as the
protectors of the freedom of speech on earth, and to rescue his client
from the severity of an oppression which threatened the universal
slavery of mankind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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