“. . . As for Portugal, with all our good luck, we are now clearly paying millions for a few periods in the H. of C.—that Canning, &c., may twit one man and praise t’other, and tell us how ‘every Frenchman that falls is in itself a gain,’ &c., &c. It would be a dear bargain if Pitt were the speaker; but such driv’ling as we pay for is past all bearing.
“I don’t know Cobbet, or I would send him a good motto from Dr. Johnson about special juries and imprisonment. The lines are very pat in themselves as a quotation, but coming from Johnson they are still better; and they clearly contain his opinion, at least on special juries, for they occur in his ‘London,’ imitated from the 3rd Satire of Juvenal, and the original passage has nothing parallel.
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“‘A single jail in Alfred’s golden reign
Could half the Nation’s criminals contain;
Fair Justice then, without constraint adored,
Held high the steady scale, but sheath’d the sword;
No spies were paid—no special juries known—
Blest Age! but ah, how diff’rent from our own!’”
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