“The early attitude of the courts upon this subject discloses an illiberality of opinion which is not reflected in the recent cases. Perhaps no one was more responsible for this early position than Lord Eldon, who refused to protect by injunction Southey’s “Wat Tyler” until the innocent character of the work was proved. _Southey_ v. _Sherwood_, 2 Meriv. 437. He assumed a like position in reference to Byron’s Cain (6 Petersdorff Abr. 558, 559), and expressed a doubt (which he hoped was reasonable) as to the innocent character of Milton’s “Paradise Lost”. “When Dr. Johnson heard of some earlier opinions to the same effect, he is reported to have said: ‘They make me think of your judges, not with that respect which I should wish to do.’ Judging from the fact that a jury held the publication of Shelley’s ‘Queen Mab’ to be an indictable offense (Moxon’s Case, 2 Mod. St. Tr. 356), it seems that jurors were no more liberal than judges in these matters. In commenting upon some of Lord Eldon’s judgments on the subject of literary property, Lord Campbell remarked that ‘it must have been a strange occupation for a judge who for many years had meddled with nothing more imaginative than an Act of Parliament to determine in what sense the speculations of Adam, Eve, Cain, and Lucifer are to be understood.’ 10 Campbell’s Lives of the Lord Chancellors, 257.” (_St. Hubert Guild_ v. _Quinn_, 64 Misc. 336, 339, 340.) But the spirit of censorship, thus for a time strangely revived, soon passed. Today therefore the courts apply simple tests, tests savoring of nothing that involves censorship, tests necessary only for the protection of the public against influences that directly, and without the necessity of argument in demonstrating their effect, bear upon public morals. It requires, therefore, but a few words to describe these tests as they are known to the law of this state today. In the first place, the words of the statute mean exactly what they say and require no subtlety of interpretation. In the words of Cullen, _C. J._, the statute “is directed against lewd, lascivious and salacious or obscene publications, the tendency of which is to excite lustful and lecherous desire.” (_People_ v. _Eastman_, 188 N. Y. 478, 480.) That being true, this simple test excludes others which, however subtle may be the argument in their support, however honest the intention of the people who urge them, inevitably lead to the thing which Seabury, _J._, has said,--but which everybody would know even if it had not been said by this particular Judge,--is outside the purview of criminal law as administered in English-speaking countries,--censorship by indictment.