But no, gentlemen, they must leave you in uncertainty and doubt, and ask you to give a verdict, on your oath, without furnishing you with any rational materials to judge whether you be right or wrong. Indeed, to such a wild extent of caprice has Lord Ellenborough carried the doctrine of crime in libel, that he appears to have gravely ruled, that it was a crime to call one lord “a stout-built, special pleader,” although, in point of fact, that lord was stout-built, and had been very many years a special pleader. And that it was a crime to call another lord “a sheep-feeder from Cambridgeshire,” although that lord was right glad to have a few sheep in that county. These are the extravagant vagaries of the Crown lawyers and prerogative judges; you will find it impossible to discover any rational rule for your conduct, and can never rest upon any satisfactory view of the subject, unless you are pleased to adopt my description. Reason and justice equally recognize it, and, believe me, that genuine law is much more closely connected with justice and reason than some persons will avow. Gentlemen, you are now apprised of the nature of the alleged libel; it is a discussion upon the administration of public men. I have also submitted to you my view of the law applicable to such a publication: we are, therefore, prepared to go into the consideration of every sentence in the newspaper in question. But before I do so, just allow me to point your attention to the motives of this young gentleman. The Attorney-General has threatened him with fine and a dungeon; he has told Mr. Magee that he should suffer in his purse and in his person. Mr. Magee knew his danger well. Mr. Magee, before he published this paper, was quite apprised that he ran the risk of fine and of imprisonment. He knew also that if he changed his tone--that if he became merely neutral, but especially if he went over to the other side and praised the Duke of Richmond--if he had sufficient gravity to talk, without a smile, of the sorrow of the people of Ireland at his Grace’s departure--if he had a visage sufficiently lugubrious to say so without laughing, to cry out “mournfully, oh! mournfully!” for the departure of the Duke of Richmond--if, at a period when the people of Ireland, from Magherafelt to Dingledecouch, are rejoicing at that departure, Mr. Magee could put on a solemn countenance and pick up a grave and narcotic accent, and have the resolution to assert the sorrow of the people for losing so sweet and civil a Lord Lieutenant--why, in that case, gentlemen, you know the consequences. They are obvious. He might libel certain classes of his Majesty’s subjects with impunity; he would get abundance of money, a place, and a pension--you know he would. The proclamations would be inserted in his paper. The wide-street advertisements, the ordnance, the barrack-board notices, and the advertisements of all the other public boards and offices--you can scarcely calculate how much