“. . . . . I sometimes try to persuade myself that mine
is a Turkish sort of constitution, and that exercise and out-of-door air are
not needful for its well-being; but the body begins to require better
management than It did; It will not take care of itself so well as it did
twenty years ago, and I need not look in the
| 332 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 45. |
“It is a strange folly, a fatality, that men in power will not see the prudence of anticipating public feeling sometimes, and doing things with a grace for the sake of popularity, which must be done with ignominy upon compulsion. For instance, in Lord Cochrane’s affair, it was wrong to condemn him to the pillory; but if that part of the sentence had been annulled before popular opinion was expressed, the Prince would have gained credit, instead of being supposed to yield to the newspapers. There is another case in the suicide laws. . . . . And again in the matter of forgery; the law must be altered, and this not from the will of the legislature, but by the will of the London juries! The juries, however, if they go on in their present course, will do more than this,—they will prove that the very institution of juries, on which we have prided ourselves so long, is inconsistent not only with common sense, but with the safety of society and the security of Government. I wish when the question of forgery comes before the House (as it surely must do), that something may be said and done also for restoring that part of the system which makes the jurymen punishable for a false verdict.
“I have written shortly about the Copyright
question for the Q. R., and put in
a word, without any hope of a change in my time, upon the absurd in
| Ætat. 45. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 333 |
“God bless you!
