the character, while the body is absent, constitute but one and the same act; and like so many grand sultans, whose power is supreme, whose word is law, and whose arguments are the scimitars and bow-strings of death, they are alike uncontrolled and uncontrollable by any considerations even approaching towards truth and justice. If defamation never meets with any thing to check it but the unheeded, unavailing complaints of the immediate sufferers from its diabolical spirit, it will {443} continue greatly to impair, if it does not utterly destroy one of the most copious sources of human happiness—I mean, the heart-cheering confidence, that all will acquire fair reputations by always acting in a manner to deserve them, and that nothing can bereave them of this inestimable blessing, but actual misconduct. It is true, that our laws hold out something like a remedy for slander by known individuals. But what is this remedy? While house-breaking and house-burning have often been made punishable by death—_character-breaking and burning_ have met with no other legal corrective than pecuniary fines, and these too, dependent on enactments hard to be applied to any particular case, and upon the capricious, ill-regulated, not to say, prejudiced, judgments of others. To mend the matter, public opinion generally attaches no small disgrace to the seeking this species of redress; as if to sue for damages to character, implied, on the part of woman, some strong probability of guilt, and on the part of man, a great presumption both of guilt and cowardice. Against the effect of inimical motives, calumnious opinions, and their underhand circulation, no law affords any protection whatever. These matters are entirely beyond the reach of all legislation, and unless they can be cured by moral instruction, moral discipline, and such a public sentiment as will keep alive in every bosom a strong sense of our obligations always to judge charitably and justly of each other, the members of our society, one and all, must still live exposed to this deep and deadly curse of secret defamation. Such is the baneful nature of this deplorable evil, that to fear or despise will only serve to aggravate it—while to live above it, although very comfortable to our consciences, can never entirely prevent the injuries it often has the power of inflicting upon even the best of mankind. The disastrous effects of it upon education, so far as this depends upon scholastic establishments, are incalculable; for although some particular schools might rise or fall a sightless distance above the hopes of their most sanguine friends—below the wishes of their bitterest enemies—without materially affecting the general cause of instruction; yet that cause cannot possibly flourish—cannot even approach its maximum of general good, without far greater protection from public sentiment. It _must_ protect, and with parental solicitude too, the reputation both of