intending to be complimentary, Some men are born to greatness,
others achieve it, and I had it thrust upon me.

Prosecutions for Blasphemy have not been frequent. Sir James Stephen
was able to record nearly all of them in his "History of the Criminal Law."
The last before mine occurred in 1857, when Thomas Pooley, a poor
Cornish well-sinker, was sentenced by the late Mr. Justice Coleridge
to twenty months' imprisonment for chalking some "blasphemous" words
on a gate-post. Fortunately this monstrous punishment excited public
indignation. Mill, Buckle, and other eminent men, interested themselves
in the case, and Pooley was released after undergoing a quarter
of his sentence. From that time until my prosecution, that is for
nearly a whole generation, the odious law was allowed to slumber,
although tons of "blasphemy" were published every year. This long
desuetude induced Sir James Stephen, in his "Digest of the Criminal Law"
to regard it as "practically obsolete." But the event has proved
that no law is obsolete until it is repealed. It has also proved
Lord Coleridge's observation that there is, in the case of some
laws, a "discriminating laxity," as well as Professor Hunter's
remark that the Blasphemy Laws survive as a dangerous weapon in
the hands of any fool or fanatic who likes to set them in motion.

In the pamphlet entitled _Blasphemy No Crime_, which I published
during my prosecution, and which is still in print if anyone is
curious to see it, I contended that Blasphemy is only our old friend
Heresy in disguise, and that, we know, is a priestly manufacture.
My view has since been borne out by two high authorities. Lord Coleridge
says that "this law of blasphemous libel first appears in our books--
at least the cases relating to it are first reported--shortly after
the curtailment or abolition of the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical