The Standard having, in the simplicity of its heart, asked,
" When was any one hanged in England for mere libel?" I beg leave to refer the learned editor to the ease of John Twyn, a printer, who was tried before Lord Chief Justice Hyde, A a. 1663, for publishing a book en- titled " A Treatise of the Execution of Justice," Fec. ; and, being found guilty thereof, hanged as a traitor. This took place in the reign of that profitne, lascivious, and heartless profligate Charles the Second, for whose restoration our Book of' Common Prayer, on the special ground of reverence for " righteous and religious kings," is still pol- luted with mmmi appended form of thanksgiving. The great constitutional lawyer who passed the sentence, with a brutality not unworthy of a Jeffery or a Toler, in answer to his cry for mercy, exclaimed, with vir- tuous indignation, " I would not intercede for may own father in such a ease."—Correspondent of the Chronicle.
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