[Footnote 1: Salvino Salvini Fasti Consolari dell' Academia Fiorentina, 1717, p. 548. Milton's stay of two months at Florence must have been to him a period of pure enjoyment, and seems to have been always remembered with delight:--"Illa in urbe, quam prae ceteris propter elegantiam cum linguæ tum ingeniorum semper colui, ad duos circiter menses substiti; illie multorum et nobilium sanè et doctorum hominum familiaritatem statim contraxi; quorum etiam privatas academias (qui mos illie cum ad literas humaniores assiduè frequentavi). Tui enim Jacobe Gaddi, Carole Dati, Frescobalde, Cultelline, Bonmatthaei, Chimentille Francine, aliorumque plurium memoriam apud me semper gratam atque jucundam, nulla dies delebit."--_Defensio Secunda_, p. 96., ed. 1698.] * * * * * PULTENEY'S BALLAD OF "THE HONEST JURY." On the application for a new trial, in the case of The King _against_ William Davies Shipley, Dean of St. Asaph (1784), wherein was raised the important and interesting question, whether in libel cases the jury were judges of the law as well as the fact, Lord Mansfield, in giving judgment, remarked in reference to trials for libel, before Lord Raymond: "I by accident (from memory only I speak now) recollect one where the _Craftsman_ was acquitted; and I recollect it from a famous, witty, and ingenious ballad that was made at the time by Mr. Pulteney; and though it is a ballad, I will cite the stanza I remember from it, because it will show you the idea of the able men in opposition, and the leaders of the popular party in those days. They had not an idea of assuming that the jury put it upon another and much better ground. The stanza I allude to is this:-- "'For Sir Philip well knows, That his _innuendos_ Will serve him no longer, In verse or in prose; For twelve honest men have decided the cause, Who are judges of fact, though not judges of laws.' "It was the admission of the whole of that party; they put it right; they put it upon the meaning of the _innuendos_; upon _that_ the jury acquitted the defendant; and they never put up a pretence of any other power, except when talking to the jury themselves." In Howell's _State Trials_ (xxi. 1038.) is a note on this passage. This note (stated to be from the _Speeches of Hon. Thomas Erskine_) is as follows:-- "It appears by a pamphlet printed in 1754, that Lord Mansfield is mistaken. The verse runs thus:-- "'Sir Philip well knows, That his innuendos Will serve him no longer in verse or in prose: For twelve honest men have determined the cause, _Who are judges alike of the facts and the laws._'"{148}