Letters of Horace Walpole — Volume II by Horace Walpole
page 90 of 309 (29%)
page 90 of 309 (29%)
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system, that this is an age of abortions. Prosecutions were ordered
against the publishers and vendors, and there, I suppose, it will end. Yesterday was fixed for the appearance of Wilkes in Westminster Hall. The Judges went down by nine in the morning, but the mob had done breakfast still sooner, and was there before them; and as Judges stuffed out with dignity and lamb-skins are not absolute sprites, they had much ado to glide through the crowd. Wilkes's counsel argued against the outlawry, and then Lord Mansfield, in a speech of an hour and a half, set it aside; not on _their_ reasons, but on grounds which he had discovered in it himself. I think they say it was on some flaw in the Christian name of the county, which should not have been _Middlesex to wit_,--but I protest I don't know, for I am here alone, and picked up my intelligence as I walked in our meadows by the river. You, who may be walking by the Arno, will, perhaps, think there was some timidity in this; but the depths of the Law are wonderful! So pray don't make any rash conclusions, but stay till you get better information. Well! now he is gone to prison again,--I mean Wilkes; and on Tuesday he is to return to receive sentence on the old guilt of writing, as the Scotch would _not_ call it, _the_ 45,[1] though they call the rebellion so. The sentence may be imprisonment, fine, or pillory; but as I am still near the Thames, I do not think the latter will be chosen. Oh! but stay, he may plead against the indictment, and should there be an improper _Middlesex to wit_ in that too, why then in that case, you know, he did _not_ write _the_ 45, and then he is as white as milk, and as free as air, and as good a member of Parliament as if he had never been expelled. In short, my dear Sir, I am trying to explain to you what I literally do not understand; all I do know is, that Mr. Cooke, the other member for Middlesex, is just dead, and that we are going to |
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