Against libel, even of the grossest character, what can one do, as the law stands, which is not more disagreeable than silently to 'grin and bear' it? The great preliminary cost; the extreme uncertainty and irritation involved, the odious publicity necessarily incurred; the chatter, the comments, the cross-examination; the insolence and the jeers of the counsel for the defence, are all punishments which fall upon the plaintiff. What consolation is it for them that he may perhaps be awarded a thousand pounds damages, though it is more probable that he will receive only a farthing, and be left to the enjoyment of paying his own costs? In either result, is the game worth its very costly candle? Is the injury made less an injury? Is the combat not in every sense most unjust and unequal, being less a combat indeed than an assassination by a bravo? To what can we ever look for any remedy of this except from the unwritten law of opinion? But as the world is at present constituted it delights far too greatly in this garbage for it ever to rebuke the providers of it. Hogs do not rend the man who carries the swill-tub. In one of the Prince Consort's letters to his eldest daughter, then Crown Princess of Prussia, he tells her to set aside a portion of her money every year to meet the inevitable blackmail which will certainly be levied upon her. This blackmail is levied on every kind of success as well as on royalty. What is to be done? To submit to it, is repugnant to all one's sense of justice; to rebel against it, however such resistance be justified, is often ruinous. The true remedy would lie in a finer, juster, higher kind of public feeling; but where is there any likelihood of this arising in the world as it is? My own feeling is very strongly always against the anonymity of the Press. Everyone surely should have the candour and courage to put his signature after his opinions. But, unfortunately, the Press gains so much importance (fictitious importance) from its anonymity that it is hopeless to ask for an unwritten or a written law on this subject. The arrogant 'we' would soon fall to zero in its influence on the public if it were signed by a Tom, Dick, or Harry, who, as Matthew Arnold used to say, forms his opinions from what he overhears on the knifeboard of a city or suburban omnibus. It is, perhaps, worthy of a nation which treats duelling as a penal offence to countenance anonymous assertions, anonymous opinions, anonymous bravado, and anonymous insults; but the result cannot be beneficial to the national character.