publications for which they are confined are in open and unmolested sale. Every means on our parts, as parties concerned, have been exhausted, to make the Ministers see this case in its proper light. Any thing like a month's unjust imprisonment would formerly have raised a Parliamentary outcry; but imprisonments of four, five, and six years have of late been so common for political purposes, that a detention for three years is looked at but as a trifle and a symptom of mercy. The last effort of the moral blasphemers in Newgate has been a petition to the House of Commons in the following words:-

To the Honourable the Commons of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament Assembled.

The petition of Thomas Riley Perry, Richard Hassell, William Campion and John Clarke, prisoners in Newgate, in the City of London, sheweth,

That your petitioners are the only remaining victims of the late prosecutions for the publication of books which investigate the merits of the Christian Religion.

That though your petitioners are still detained in prison for no other offence than that publication, similar acts are now recog nized by his Majesty's Government as lawful, or if not recognized as lawful, allowed to pass without opposition, and are daily and publicly occurring as matters of common trade, in various shops in this metropolis and throughout the country.

That your petitioners submit to your Honourable House, that their situation is an impeachment of the justice and humanity of his Majesty's Ministers, and a general stain on the administration of the laws of the country: and they therefore pray, that your Honourable House will grant consideration to their case, and apply such a remedy as to your Honourable House shall

seem meet.

THOMAS RILEY PERRY.
RICHARD HASSELL.

WILLIAM CAMPION.
JOHN CLARKE.

The above petition was presented by Mr. Brougham, on the last day of February, who observed, that he considered the prayer proper and the case entitled to the consideration of his Majesty's Ministers. At the same time was presented the nonsensical petion of Captain Hardman about the print of the God, which was not thought worthy of an observation. R. C.

THE REVEREND THOMAS BOWDLER, THE EXPUNGER OF NAUGHTINESS FROM OUR STANDARD BOOKS.

ABOUT six years ago, I was informed, that it was the intention of some editor and booksellers to publish an edition of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," with an omission of all the parts considered offensive, particularly with reference to his exposure of the rise and progress of Christianity. To counteract such a malicious and mercenary purpose, I published Gibbon's celebrated chapters on the rise and progress of the Christian Religion separately at three shillings. This pretended purification of Gibbon has been done by this Reverend Thomas Bowdler, who had before published to the same purpose a mutilated edition of Shakspeare's works. It is suggested to the Rev. Mr. Bowdler, as a test of his moral purity and sincerity, that he publish a new edition of a family Bible, with an erasure of all such passages as he has erased from Shakspeare and Gibbon; for so long as the Bible, as a whole, be read in families, there cannot be any thing found in Shakspeare or Gibbon that merits censure and omission. R. C.

TO THE EDITOR OF "THE REPUBLICAN."
SIR,

I HOPE you will have the kindness to insert in your Republican" the following lines in answer to Mr. R. T. C. E. S., or rather, as an apology to that gentleman, respecting that unlucky wight Shebago. I feel much obliged to the gentleman for the notice he has been pleased to take of my letters, and likewise for the wise second-hand advice which he was so kind as to bestow on me gratis; and you, Sir, ought to feel his goodness in guarding" The Republican" from the dangers of energetic or pointed expression, and for the apology which he made for the appearance of my unstudied articles. I confess to the gentleman, and the world, that it would pain me to sorrow; and that I should feel the punishment of a fault, were I to use any language that might injure the reputation of "The Republican ;" and let me insinuate, that I am not quite indifferent even to my own mode of writing. But "truth against the world," Mr. Carlile; the fault may be imputed to you if you carelessly. publish nonsense, balderdash, ribaldry, improper communication, or insipid common-place observation. I grant, that the language I use is nearly as strong as I can make it. I write from the heart, not from the head; and it may be said too, that it is rather poetical; but I beg leave to insist, that it is nevertheless just; and there have been, and are,

thousands who feel daily such miseries as no language of mine can express, or words convey an idea of. To be known, they must be felt! But it does not follow, that, because I endeavour to describe what I see or feel, that I am gloomy or disspirited; or that I am disposed to touch my own life or persuade others to destroy theirs. No; I could find vouchers for my cheerfulness and content of mind; but enough of this for the present. I inculcate not the gloomy doctrine of suicide. It is repugnant to my principles; it only suits fanatics, religious people, and abandoned Aristocrats. I could elucidate this by recent and well-known instances; but I scorn it. If I advocated it with all the powers of Goëthe, there is a better reasoner, and a more powerful advocate than Goethe, Mr. R. T. C. E. S., or all the Doctors of the Sorbonne, to plead against me: one, too, with whom, perhaps, I am on equal terms with the gentleman, with half the alphabet for a cognomen, God knows how he came by it; I mean NATURE.

I have not done with the article suicide, and with due deference and humility, I beg leave to say a few words on the tremendous subject of self-destruction, and the important one of self-preser

vation.

Self-preservation, they say, is the first law of Nature. Yet, we are taught to prefer death before dishonour; and I count him great who is ready to put the theory into practice, when a sufficient cause requires such a sacrifice. The following are axioms on the subject. A man who is reckless of his own life, will always command the lives of others. He who wishes to live with honour must not be afraid to die. To suffer is nobler than to cease to exist. To suffer with fortitude, and set danger, pain, and death, at defiance, is the greatest and utmost effort of the human mind. To consider our happiness as still belonging to the past, the present, and the future, is our duty. To esteem life only as it is useful and honourable; and to preserve it with determined resolution without being afraid to die. These are principles I would inculcate with all the ardour of a lover. But it does not appear that my hypercritic is acquainted with these simple Indian maxims, or that he has attended as a student, lounger, or familiar acquaintance, at the rooms, promenades, or toilet, of the above-mentioned lady-NATURE. He may, indeed, have seen her in her silks and finery; in the elegance of taste; in the pomp of state, or the lordly decorations of exorbitant wealth, or overweening power: figuring in a ball-room, gay as a peacock, or bending with smiles at a levee; but where she presides with stepdame frowns, forbidding peace, and banishing comfort; the scourge of poverty in her right hand-in her left, denunciations, and eternal oppression; where she rides undiscriminating in the whirlwind of despotism, and directs the unavoidable storm of calamity, and pale distress, and hopeless misery, he has not been. He

never felt the lash, nor saw it inflicted; else he never would say he did not believe such misery existed as I have only attempted to describe.

But I have felt more than I can describe, and have felt more for others than ever I had any reason to feel for myself; and those feelings kept me low, or were the cause which crushed me when I attempted to rise. If it were required, I could find instantly proofs of pure morality and vouchers for my independence of disposition; fearlessness of action, and regardlessness of consequences. Yet am I prone to error and sensible of it, open to conviction, and patient of reproof. I, too, have read the miserable, hacknied, mercenary, morals of the celebrated Dr. Franklin, whose plausible and thrifty maxims have debauched one quarter of the globe. To me, at least, they are useless. I have no vices to support, no children to maintain, and worse, I have no stock or capital, wages or income, to squander or abuse. I never neglected my shop, nor left it, I had none to leave. Perhaps, for any thing I know to the contrary, Mr. R. T. C. E. S. has had one of his own, and neglected or left it, and may feel black adders of the mind stinging him for abandoning his worldly welfare, and now inflicts his sapient advice from the fulness of his knowledge, or the ebullition of his vanity. Such things have been. One thing, I am anxious to state to the readers of "The Republican." I am known through inadvertence. I was neither withheld by fear, nor stimulated by conceit, for remaining in the' shade, or coming forward in propria persona. And if I have any friends, who are anxious on my account, this is to certify to them that no harm has accrued; that I am in no distress from the error, and only bent on gaining esteem by an equivalent of merit; on this let me stand or fall in "The Republican." I blush after writing the sentence; but I will not expunge it; let it stand against me. Mr., with the long string of initials, is not known, I presume. When he is I shall be proud to clean

his shoes, or brush his hat, though it or they should belong even to a Reverend, if his merits deserve such condescension from an unlettered Indian and Materialist, and I think Christian humility and forbearance could not require a greater mark of submission and respect.

Give me leave to notice, that I am at work as cheerful as the lark on a May morning, manufacturing a tale or work in my. rough way out of very rugged materials, which, if ever it comes forth, may, perhaps, meet more enemies than friends. It will contain character, circumstances, time, and place, and will help

I must confess that this sentence passes my understanding. I neither see its force nor its meaning. The morals compiled by Franklin are generally good, and have done much good. Let Shebago give specimens of the contrary character if he can.-R. C.

to illustrate what I have attempted to describe, and justify my assertions. I will display some miseries which I hope Mr. R. T. E. C. S. never will experience, and which I hope will be softened for others who must bear them.

Now, Sir, give me leave to subscribe myself Mr. R. T. C. E. S.'s much obliged humble servant, and let me really, in forma pauperis, beg, that he will not use any more of his insidious endeavours or doughty influence to eject me from the pages of "The Republican," of which I hold myself a legitimate correspondent, and ever so will remain, however circumstanced, a firm supporter, to the full extent of my capacity.

I am, Sir, with gratitude and respect, yours,

SHEBAGO.

A SHORT WAY OF SETTLING WITH MR. BEARD.

To Mr. Richard Carlile.

SIR,

March 11, 1826.

MR. BEARD has used a multitude of words to refute your argument, and that of Mr. Taylor on the falsehood of his religion, the whole of which will, before the torch of truth, melt like ice before a fire.

I do not like to use harsh expressions to a correspondent, but I here depart from that disposition for the sake of setting Mr. Beard a pazzle, which, if he fairly unriddle, I shall immediately say that he has the best of the argument. He says, or words to this effect (for I have not his letter now before me) that the Christian religion could not at first have spread so rapidly as it did unless it had been true.

Now, if Mr. Beard knows that Mahomedanism, Southcotianisın, which are notoriously false, and many other falsehoods have spread more rapidly than Christianity, then must he be a knave to assert the contrary; and if he do not know this, then is he a simpleton in historical matters, and not worth disputing with. If, therefore, he can prove, that his conduct, in this instance, evinces nothing in common with either of those characters then will Mr. Taylor's insinuations against him, as a Christian, be false' and his, Mr. Beard's, arguments be the best of the two.

There can be little doubt that dishonesty must father the fault; but what think you of " the morning stars singing together for joy (at the creation) at the news of a new-born world?" What think you of this I say in the line of Joblinism? What should we do, if, instead of whirling round their orbits, our earth and the moon were catched, with several other planets, huddled together, at a morning concert? What a pretty pickle should we be in, and Mr. Beard likewise, were our sun to forsake its post to-morrow, to go, like a Christian, to a love-feast, or a singing party. Affairs would not only be "desperate in a certain quarter," but in all quarters. If the former assertion bears any resemblance to knavery, what think you of this in the way of foolery?

"I hope I don't intrude" in stepping in to say, that I am, Sir, yours respectfully, CANDID.