Toleration, 1 Will. and Mary, sec. 1, c. 18 (confirmed by 10 Anne, c. 2), all persons dissenting from the Church of England, except Papists and persons denying the Trinity, were relieved from such of the acts against nonconformity as prevented their assembling for religious worship, or otherwise restrained their religious liberty, on condition of their taking the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, subscribing a declaration against transubstantiation, and in the case of dissenting ministers, subscribing also to certain of the Thirty-nine Articles. This limitation, however, ceased after the "Act to Strengthen the Protestant Interest." The Toleration Act does not protect clergymen of the English Church who, being members of the Church, violate the precepts thereof.* Whoever, by word, teaching, preaching, or writing, denies the truth of the Christian religion, the Divine authority of the Holy Scriptures, and the Trinity, is, according to 9 and 10 Will. III. c. 32, declared incapable of all offices. In case of a second offence he incurs three years' imprisonment, and becomes incapable of conducting all civil actions, of discharging the office of guardian and executor, and unable to acquire inheritances and legacies. The statute 53 George III. c. 106, sec. 2, removes the penalties relative to the denial of the Trinity, thereby placing Unitarians on the same level with other dissenters.

The Test and Corporation Acts were abolished under the reign of George IV. Since the accession of the House of Hanover it had, however, fallen into desuetude, inasmuch as a bill of indemnity was passed annually qualifying dissenters for most offices. The statutes 7 and 8 Vict. c. 102, and 9 and 10 Vict. c. 59, have mainly done away with the older statutes against dissenters. 18 and . 19 Vict. c. 86, abolishes penalties for the non-registration of dissenting chapels. The fact of registration, however, still secures many privileges; for instance, the exemption of the clergyman from serving on juries. The services of dissenters conducted in secret and with closed doors are prohibited. Of late years, also, dissenters are admissible to the universities. In regard to political rights, since the removal of the Test and Corporation Acts, and 9 George IV. c. 17, they are placed on the same level as members of the Church of England. If elected to a municipal office they have to subscribe a declaration to the effect that they

So decided on 12th Feb. 1742 (Burns ii., 188).

will not use their office to the injury of the Established Church. Dissenters and Catholics, who become mayors of corporations, are not allowed, under a heavy fine, to visit in their robes of office the chapels of their respective religious creeds.* A bill for the abolition of the declarations was thrown out by the Upper House in the year 1861.†

As far as Quakers are concerned, their marriages, when conducted according to their religious usages, are valid; since 22 George II. c. 46, a solemn "affirmation" has been substituted for the usual oath.

In the middle ages the Jews were treated according to the arbitrary authority of princes; a special fiscal regulation having been introduced for the levying of taxes from them. Edward I. banished all Jews, and Cromwell was the first to allow their return to England. A rich Jew of Amsterdam, Manasseh-ben-Israel, had previously petitioned in vain the "Long" and the "Barebones" parliaments. Cromwell was more tolerant; he succeeded, notwithstanding the violent opposition he had to contend with, in establishing that, by his special commission, Jews might settle in England. Manasseh-ben-Israel received a pension from the Protector. Their worship has not been subjected to any restriction; their marriages, concluded in conformity with the Mosaic provisions, have always been valid; until the introduction of the Divorce Act, 1857, their marriages, like that of all other members of the community, could only be dissolved by an Act of Parliament; Jews might, however, by a judgment of the ecclesiastical court, have been separated, a mensâ et thoro,§ Jews who have lived seven years in any English colony are naturalized, ipso jure. The statute 26 George II. c. 26, of 1753, which the Pelhams introduced, and which allowed Jews to be naturalized by an Act of Parliament, without their being obliged to take the sacrament, was, in consequence of the clamour of the excited population, withdrawn. ||

*Parl. Rem., vol. ii., 133.

+ Parl. Rem., vol. ii., 44.
Carlyle, Cromwell's Speeches and

Letters.

§ Burns ii., 336.

The populace were wont to shout "No Jews, no Jews! no wooden shoes!" -the token of serfdom. Walpole capitally describes the agitation against the

Jew Bill in his Memoirs (1753):-" Truly this holy excitement only seized the populace and the lower class of the clergy; but they had so much at heart the honour of the prophecies which foreboded misfortune and eternal confusion to the Jews, that they seemed to fear lest their fulfilment might be prevented by an Act of Parliament, and nothing was

The words "on the true faith of a Christian," were, by 10 George III. c. 4, s. 18, omitted in favour of Jews, on their taking the oath of abjuration.* But this form of oath remained in force for members of parliament, and Jews were thereby excluded from the lower house. Finally, the oath of abjuration, with the other oaths of allegiance and supremacy being removed, by 21 and 22 Vict. c. 48, and the denial of the Pretender being set aside as obsolete, a new oath of allegiance was introduced. Either house of parliament, by the succeeding statute, 21 and 22 Vict. c. 49, was empowered to omit, in favour of a Jew, the words "upon the true faith of a Christian," and qualify him thereby to sit in parliament. The same act excludes Jews from such offices as Catholics are not allowed to assume, and enables the Archbishop of Canterbury to exercise the rights of presentation to any living acquired by a Jew.t

As the oath of abjuration has fallen out of use, and the formula above indicated is only applicable in case of being elected to parliament, Mohammedans are also enabled, since 1858, to discharge public offices. In the year 1858 Comrooden Tyabjee, a Mohammedan, was admitted as an attorney in London, after prolonged argument, Lord Campbell releasing him from the necessity of taking the oath.‡

These tolerant measures have not, however, deprived the Church Established of her rights as the State Church. Jews and Catholics, like all other Englishmen, are subject to the ecclesiastical courts. Those who do not belong to the Established Church, i.e., one half of the population, are bound to pay tithes and church-rates, whenever the latter are imposed by the vestry. To the due observance of the Sunday all religious parties are

wanting to their zeal save the sending of a petition to both houses to determine the fulfilment of these prophecies. The village parsons preached against the bishops, because they had proved themselves untrue to the Gospel, and aldermen got tipsy at the county clubs in honour of religion, as erewhile they had done for King James's sake. The ministers gave in to this unreasonable cry, and allowed the bill to be withdrawn in order to secure their measures." Hogarth, also, in one of the "Election" sketches, has famously hit off the pious zeal of these drunken heroes of the Faith.

*Burns ii., 1858, 183.

+ The pertinacious opposition against the admission of Jews to Parliament had partly a secret reason; it was feared that if the formulæ of religious oaths were removed, opulent Mohammedans and Hindoos might succeed in buying their way to Parliament; hence, only by special resolution of either house are the words "on the true faith of a Christian" omitted in favour of Jews; the entrance to Parliament remaining still barred to Mohammedans and Hindoos.

Ann. Reg., 1858, 183.

alike compelled; the first ordinances in this particular appeared under James I., who forbade shoe-making or shoe-mending on the Sabbath. Charles I. dispensed with the regulations in the case of carriers, butchers, and drovers, who required the Sunday for the pursuit of their calling. 29 Charles II. c. 7, enacts that no tradesman, artificer, workman, labourer, or other person whatsoever, shall do or exercise any worldly labour, or business, or work of their ordinary calling upon the Lord's Day (works of necessity or charity only excepted), and that every person of the age of fourteen years offending in the premises shall forfeit five shillings: all contracts coming within the operation of this statute are illegal. The contracts prohibited by the statute are not every contract made on Sunday, but contracts made in the exercise of a man's ordinary trade or calling. 48 George III. c. 70, s. 5, forbade the baking of bread after one o'clock in the morning, printing, and meetings on Sundays.* Playing at cards and music were forbidden on the Sundays in places for which a license is required; these prohibitions have repeatedly been reinforced by royal proclamations.

The exclusiveness of the established clergy is sufficiently demonstrated by the fact that they do not allow the bodies of dissenters to be interred in their churchyards. It would seem that there is no objection to the burial, in such churchyards, of dissenters who have been baptized in infancy; the only service, however, allowed at the burial is that of the Church of England. A bill tending to modify this was thrown out in the last session.

Statutes against blasphemy have been in force even in our century. In 1824, eleven clerks at Carlisle were sentenced to fines and imprisonment for having sold Tom Paine's works. The Lord Chancellor Eldon, in 1822, refused protection to the copyright claimed in Byron's "Cain," because the book was of a blasphemous nature. The same Lord Chancellor, in the following year, rejected the prayer of Dr. Lawrence, the celebrated physician, for protection against the infringement of copyright of his lectures, because he denied therein the immortality of the soul.† Under the same system Shelley was even deprived of the guardianship of his own children, as being a blasphemer,

Burns, ii. 32.

+ Miss Martineau, ii. 6.

CHAPTER VIII.

LIBERTY OF THE PRESS AND OF SPEECH.

The Press according to the Common Law Free.-The Statute " De Scandalo Magnatum."-Censure Regulations.-Conception of "Libel" in the reign of James I. -Milton.-Sketch of the Censorship under Charles II.-Its Removal after the Revolution.-William III. and the Danish Ambassador.-Disparagement of the Freedom of the Press by Parliament.-Parliamentary Reports.-Parliamentary Publications.-Disfavour of the Judges in regard to the Liberty of the Press. Penal Laws against the Press continued under the House of Hanover.-Later Legislation. Meaning of the word "Libel."-Formerly every Blaming of the Government was called "Libel."-Scandal.-Difference between the Punishment of Libel and Scandal.-Restriction of Powers of the Jury in Prosecutions for Libel.-Fox's Libel Law.-Timidity in Instituting Prosecutions for Libel.Actual Circumspection of the Press.-Aversion of the Government from Instituting Press Prosecutions.-Responsibility of the Printer and Seller.-Confiscation of Publications.-Censorship of Plays.-Licenses for Playhouses.-Anxious supervision of Theatres during the time of the French Revolution.

"No law," says Selden, "can prevent the printing of a book; only by a decree of the Star Chamber can a book be forbidden."* The Star Chamber, in the opinion of Selden, and all people of an independent mind, was an illegal institution. Hence it cannot be doubted that, by the common law, the liberty of the press was more ancient than parliamentary government, inasmuch as the common law was unacquainted with the licensing of books.

The oldest enactments against the liberty of writing, and speech, and their misuse, were the statute of Westminster, 3 Edward I., against the spreading of false news and intelligence, and the statute of "scandalum magnatum," 2 Richard I., against the spreading of "false" and "monstrous" lies.

Under the Tudors, very stringent laws against the liberty of the press and speech were passed, an instance of which has been previously exhibited. Only in Oxford, Cambridge, and London might printing-presses be erected. The civil authorities supervised the sale of books, and even private libraries were liable to be searched by them. Every publication had to be submitted to

* D'Israeli's Curiosities of Lit., ii. 191.