Murray had paid Byron £2710 for the three tragedies, and in order to protect the copyright, he applied, through counsel (Lancelot Shadwell, afterwards Vice-Chancellor), for an injunction in Chancery to stop the sale of piratical editions of _Cain_. In delivering judgment (February 12, 1822), the Chancellor, Lord Eldon (see _Courier_, Wednesday, February 13), replying to Shadwell, drew a comparison between _Cain_ and _Paradise Lost_, "which he had read from beginning to end during the course of the last Long Vacation--_solicitæ jucunda oblivia vitæ_." No one, he argued, could deny that the object and effects of _Paradise Lost_ were "not to bring into disrepute," but "to promote reverence for our religion," and, _per contra_, no one could affirm that it was impossible to arrive at an opposite conclusion with regard to "the Preface, the poem, the general tone and manner of _Cain_." It was a question for a jury. A jury might decide that _Cain_ was blasphemous, and void of copyright; and as there was a reasonable doubt in his mind as to the character of the book, and a doubt as to the conclusion at which a jury would arrive, he was compelled to refuse the injunction. According to Dr. Smiles (_Memoir of John Murray_, 1891, i. 428), the decision of a jury was taken, and an injunction eventually granted. If so, it was ineffectual, for Benbow issued another edition of _Cain_ in 1824 (see Jacob's _Reports_, p. 474, note). See, too, the case of Murray _v_. Benbow and Another, as reported in the _Examiner_, February 17, 1822; and cases of Wolcot _v_. Walker, Southey _v_. Sherwood, Murray _v_. Benbow, and Lawrence _v_. Smith [_Quarterly Review_, April, 1822, vol. xxvii. pp. 120-138]. "_Cain_," said Moore (February 9, 1822), "has made a sensation." Friends and champions, the press, the public "turned up their thumbs." Gifford shook his head; Hobhouse "launched out into a most violent invective" (letter to Murray, November 24, 1821); Jeffrey, in the _Edinburgh_, was regretful and hortatory; Heber, in the _Quarterly_, was fault-finding and contemptuous. The "parsons preached at it from Kentish Town to Pisa" (letter to Moore, February 20, 1822). Even "the very highest authority in the land," his Majesty King George IV., "expressed his disapprobation of the blasphemy and licentiousness of Lord Byron's writings" (_Examiner_, February 17, 1822). Byron himself was forced to admit that "my Mont Saint Jean seems Cain" (_Don Juan_, Canto XI. stanza lvi. line 2). The many were unanimous in their verdict, but the higher court of the few reversed the judgment.