The time is rapidly approaching, I hope, that you, my Lord, may live to behold its arrival, when the Mahometan, the Jew, the Christian, the Deist, and the Atheist, will live together in one community, equally sharing the benefits which arise from its association, and united in the bonds of charity and brotherly love.--My Lord, you have condemned an innocent man--no crime was imputed to him--and you sentenced him to torture and imprisonment. I have not addressed this letter to you with the hopes of convincing you that you have acted wrong. The most unprincipled and barbarous of men are not unprepared with sophisms, to prove that they would have acted in no other manner, and to show that vice is virtue. But I raise my solitary voice, to express my disapprobation, so far as it goes, of the cruel and unjust sentence you passed upon Mr. Eaton; to assert, so far as I am capable of influencing, those rights of humanity, which you have wantonly and unlawfully infringed. My Lord, Yours, &c. FOOTNOTES: [41] See the Attorney General’s speech. [42] By Mr. Fox’s bill (1791) Juries are, in cases of libel, judges both of the law and the fact. [43] Shakespeare. [44] See the Attorney General’s Speech. [Decoration] PRINCE ALEXY HAIMATOFF.[45] [_Memoirs of Prince Alexy Haimatoff._ Translated from the original Latin MSS. under the immediate inspection of the Prince. By John Brown, Esq. Pp. 236, 12mo. Hookham, 1814.][46] Is the suffrage of mankind the legitimate criterion of intellectual energy? Are complaints of the aspirants to literary fame to be considered as the honourable disappointment of neglected genius, or the sickly impatience of a dreamer miserably self deceived? the most illustrious ornaments of the annals of the human race have been stigmatised by the contempt and abhorrence of entire communities of man; but this injustice arose out of some temporary superstition, some partial interest, some national doctrine: a glorious redemption awaited their remembrance. There is indeed, nothing so remarkable in the contempt of the ignorant for the enlightened: the vulgar pride of folly delights to triumph upon mind. This is an intelligible process: the infamy or ingloriousness that can be thus explained detracts nothing from the beauty of virtue or the sublimity of genius. But what does utter obscurity express? If the public do not advert even in censure to a performance, has that performance already received its condemnation?