a given style, and no other, or risk prosecution, I
should be confounded, and throw down my pen without writing at all. At
least I should either not write at all, or write in such a manner that I
might as well not have written at all, for I should most certainly never
be read. Good God! to leave a man the alternative of a particular style,
or an indictment for a libel, when he sat down to compose, would be like
placing a torpedo on his hand; for you cannot, as was most forcibly, and
beautifully said by Lord Erskine, "expect men to communicate their free
thoughts to one another under the terror of a lash hanging over their
heads;" and again, on another occasion, "under such circumstances, no man
could sit down to write a pamphlet, without an attorney at one elbow, and
a counsel at the other." Gentlemen, if you, sitting coolly and
dispassionately to give a deliberate judgment upon the manner and style
of an author's composition would find it difficult to form a certain
judgment, how great, how insuperable, must be the difficulty of the
writer himself. How is he when he sits down intent on his subject and
when vehement and ardent (as he must be, if he is in earnest, and that he
may persuade others of that, which he feels himself) and his ideas are
thronging and pressing upon him for expression--how is he to be select
and cautious and measured in his words? Would you not by subjecting the
freedom of political discussion to such a restriction run the hazard of
destroying it altogether? Upon this question of the difficulty of
distinguishing between propriety and impropriety in the style of writings
I can not abstain from reading to you a passage from a speech of Lord
Chesterfield, which was quoted by Lord Erskine, when he was at the bar,
upon a trial for libel. On that occasion, indeed, Lord Kenyon told him,
that he believed it flowed from the pen of Dr. Johnson, and _that_ Lord
Erskine took as a valuable concession; for from the frame of mind and
bias of that learned man on political subjects, he was certainly not a
friend to popular liberty, while Lord Chesterfield, I believe, acted
without deviation upon Whig principles, and was a constant advocate for
the freedom of the press. From Dr. Johnson, however, it was most
important, as it had the effect of an unwilling admission, and if Lord
Kenyon was correct in attributing the speech to Dr. Johnson, its
excellence is to be inferred from the fact, that Lord Chesterfield n