may suppose that a leaning towards the fashions of a Court is sometimes hard to be avoided. It may be very difficult to make one, who is every day at Court, believe that to be a vice or folly, which he sees daily practised by those he loves and esteems. By custom even deformity itself becomes familiar, and at last agreeable. To such a person, let his natural impartiality be never so great, that may appear to be a libel against the Court, which is only a most just and a most necessary satire upon the fashionable vices and follies of the Court. Courtiers, my Lords, are too polite to reprove one another; the only place where they can meet with any just reproof, is a free though not a licentious stage; and as every sort of vice and folly, generally in all countries, begins at Court, and from thence spreads through the country, by laying the stage under an arbitrary Court-licence, instead of leaving it what it is, and always ought to be, a gentle scourge for the vices of great men and courtiers, you will make it a canal for propagating and conveying their vices and follies through the whole kingdom.

From hence, my Lords, I think it must appear, that the Bill now before us cannot so properly be called a Bill for restraining licentiousness, as it may be called a Bill for restraining the liberty of the stage, and for restraining it, too, in that branch which, in all countries, has been the most useful; therefore I must look upon this Bill as a most dangerous encroachment upon liberty in general. Nay, farther, my Lords, it is not only an encroachment upon liberty, but it is likewise an encroachment upon property. Wit, my Lords, is a sort of property; it is the property of those who have it, and too often the only property they have to

wit;

depend on. It is indeed but a precarious dependence. Thank God! we, my Lords, have a dependence of another kind; we have a much less precarious support, and therefore cannot feel the inconveniences of the Bill now before us; but it is our duty to encourage and protect wit, whosoever's property it may be. Those gentlemen who have any such property, are all, I hope, our friends. Do not let us subject them to any unnecessary or arbitrary restraint. I must own, I cannot easily agree to the laying of any tax upon but by this Bill it is to be heavily taxed, it is to be excised; for, if this Bill passes, it cannot be retailed in a proper way without a permit, and the Lord Chamberlain is to have the honour of being chief-gauger, supervisor, commissioner, judge, and jury. But what is still more hard, though the poor author, the proprietor I should say, cannot perhaps dine till he has found out and agreed with a purchaser, yet, before he can propose to seek for a purchaser, he must patiently submit to have his goods rummaged at this new excise-office, where they may be detained for fourteen days, and even then he may find them returned as prohibited goods, by which his chief and best market will be for ever shut against him, and that without any cause, without the least shadow of reason, either from the laws of his country, or the laws of the stage.

These hardships, this hazard, which every gentleman will be exposed to who writes anything for the stage, must certainly prevent every man of a generous and free spirit from attempting anything in that way; and, as the stage has always been the proper channel for wit and humour, therefore, my Lords, when I speak against this Bill, I must think, I plead

the cause of wit, I plead the cause of humour, I plead the cause of the British stage, and of every gentleman of taste in the kingdom. But it is not, my Lords, for the sake of wit only; even for the sake of his Majesty's Lord Chamberlain, I must be against this Bill. The noble Duke who has now the honour to execute that office has, I am sure, as little inclination to disoblige as any man; but, if this Bill passes, he must disoblige, he may disoblige some of his most intimate friends. It is impossible to write a play, but some of the characters, or some of the satire, may be interpreted so as to point at some person or another, perhaps at some person in an eminent station. When it comes to be acted, the people will make the application, and the person against whom the application is made will think himself injured, and will at least privately resent it: at present this resentment can be directed only against the author; but, when an author's play appears with my Lord Chamberlain's passport, every such resentment will be turned from the author, and pointed directly against the Lord Chamberlain, who by his stamp made the piece current. What an unthankful office are we therefore by this Bill to put upon his Majesty's Lord Chamberlain ! an office which can no way contribute to his honour or profit, and such a one as must necessarily gain him a great deal of ill-will, and create him a number of enemies.

The last reason I shall trouble your Lordships with, for my being against the Bill, is that, in my opinion, it will in no way answer the end proposed: I mean the end openly proposed; and I am sure the only end which your Lordships propose. To prevent the acting of a play which has any tendency to blasphemy,

immorality, sedition, or private scandal, can signify nothing, unless you can prevent its being printed and published. On the contrary, if you prevent its being acted, and admit of its being printed, you will propagate the mischief: your prohibition will prove a bellows, which will blow up the fire you intend to extinguish. This Bill can therefore be of no use for preventing either the public or the private injury intended by such a play; and consequently can be of no manner of use, unless it be designed as a precedent, as a leading step towards another for subjecting the press likewise to a licenser. For such a wicked purpose it may indeed be of great use; and in that light it may most properly be called a step towards arbitrary power.

Let us consider, my Lords, that arbitrary power has seldom or never been introduced into any country at once. It must be introduced by slow degrees, and as it were step by step, lest the people should perceive its approach. The barriers and fences of the people's liberty must be plucked up one by one, and some plausible pretences must be found for removing or hood-winking, one after another, those sentries who are posted by the constitution of a free country, for warning the people of their danger. When these preparatory steps are once made, the people may then, indeed, with regret, see slavery and arbitrary power making long strides over their land, but it will be too late to think of preventing or avoiding the impending ruin. The stage, my Lords, and the press, are two of our out-sentries; if we remove them, if we hood-wink them, if we throw them in fetters, the enemy may surprise us. Therefore I must look upon the Bill

now before us as a step, and a most necessary step too, for introducing arbitrary power into this kingdom: it is a step so necessary, that if ever any future ambitious King, or guilty Minister, should form to himself so wicked a design, he will have reason to thank us, for having done so much of the work to his hand; but such thanks, or thanks from such a man, I am convinced, every one of your Lordships would blush to receive, and scorn to deserve.

FIRST SPEECH ON THE GIN ACT.

MY LORDS,

FEBRUARY 21, 1743.

THE Bill now under our consideration appears to me to deserve a much closer regard than seems to have been paid to it in the other House, through which it was hurried with the utmost precipitation, and where it passed almost without the formality of a debate; nor can I think that earnestness, with which some Lords seem inclined to press it forward here, consistent with the importance of the consequences which may with great reason be expected from it.

It has been urged, that where so great a number have formed expectations of a national benefit from any Bill, so much deference, at least, is due to their judgment, as that the Bill should be considered in a Committee. This, my Lords, I admit to be in other cases a just and reasonable demand; and will readily allow that the proposal not only of a considerable number, but even of any single Lord, ought to be fully examined, and regularly debated, according to the