Source.—Parliamentary History, 1812. Vol. x., pp. 327-331, 338, 339.
My Lords; the Bill now before you I apprehend to be of a very extraordinary, a very dangerous nature. It seems designed not only as a restraint on the licentiousness of the stage, but it will prove a most arbitrary restraint on the liberty of the stage; and I fear it looks yet farther. I fear it tends towards a restraint on the liberty of the press, which will be a long stride towards the destruction of liberty itself....
... I am as much for restraining the licentiousness of the stage, and every other sort of licentiousness, as any of your lordships can be; but, my Lords, I am, I shall always be extremely cautious and fearful of making the least incroachment upon liberty; and therefore, when a new law is proposed against licentiousness, I shall always be for considering it deliberately and maturely, before I venture to give my consent to its being passed. This is a sufficient reason for my being against passing this Bill at so unseasonable a time, and in so extraordinary a manner[14]; but I have many reasons against passing the Bill itself, some of which I shall beg leave to explain to your lordships.... By this Bill you prevent a play's being acted, but you do not prevent its being printed; therefore, if a licence should be refused for its being acted, we may depend upon it, the play will be printed. It will be printed and published, my Lords, with the refusal in capital letters on the title page. People are always fond of what is forbidden. Libri prohibiti are in all countries diligently and generally sought after. It will be much easier to procure a refusal, than ever it was to procure a good house, or a good sale; therefore we may expect, that plays will be wrote on purpose to have a refusal; this will certainly procure a good house, or a good sale. Thus will satires be spread and dispersed through the whole nation, and thus every man in the Kingdom may, and probably will, read for sixpence, what a few only could have seen acted, and that not under the expense of half-a-crown. We shall then be told, What! will you allow an infamous libel to be printed and dispersed, which you would not allow to be acted? You have agreed to a law for preventing its being acted, can you refuse your assent to a law forbidding its being printed and published? I should really, my Lords, be glad to hear what excuse, what reason one could give for being against the latter, after having agreed to the former; for, I protest, I cannot suggest to myself the least shadow of an excuse. If we agree to the Bill now before us, we must, perhaps next session, agree to a Bill for preventing any plays being printed without a licence. Then satires will be wrote by way of novels, secret histories, dialogues, or under some such title; and thereupon we shall be told, What! will you allow an infamous libel to be printed and dispersed, only because it does not bear the title of a play?...
If poets and players are to be restrained, let them be restrained as other subjects are, by the known laws of their country; if they offend, let them be tried, as every Englishman ought to be, by God and their country. Do not let us subject them to the arbitrary will and pleasure of any one man. A power lodged in the hands of one single man, to judge and determine, without any limitation, without any control or appeal, is a sort of power unknown to our laws, inconsistent with our constitution. It is a higher, a more absolute power than we trust even to the King himself; and, therefore, I must think, we ought not to vest any such power in his Majesty's lord chamberlain....
... 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 the 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 that have it, and too often the only property they have to 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 and arbitrary restraint. I must own, I cannot easily agree to the laying of any tax upon wit; but by this Bill it is to be heavily taxed, it is to be excised;[15] 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....
[14] It had been rushed through the House of Commons at the very end of the session.
[15] Walpole's Excise Bill had been withdrawn under strong pressure four years earlier (see p. 22). Hence the cogency of this allusion here.
DEATH OF QUEEN CAROLINE (1737).
Her Character described by George II.
Source.—Hervey's Memoirs. Vol. ii., pp. 531-533.