Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/396

356 3$6 EDWARD MOXON. to diffuse largely throughout this and other lands, and with them the sympathies which link the human heart to nature and to God, and all classes of man- kind to each other." Lord Denman, before whom the case was tried, instructed the jury, in his summing up, to administer the law as it undoubtedly stood, though he himself was of opinion that the best and most effectual method of acting in regard to such doctrines was to refute them by argument and reason- ing rather than by persecution. The jury accord- ingly returned a verdict of guilty, unaccompanied by any observation whatsoever. The illegal passages were eliminated for a time ; and thus the matter ended. The trial took place in June, 1841, at a time when Moxon was in great sorrow for the loss of his eldest son, and much sympathy was exhibited towards him. Shelley's name, however, was designed to be associ- ated with further publishing vexations. In 1852, Moxon issued a volume entitled " Letters of P. B, Shelley," with an introductory essay by Mr. Robert Browning. The usual presentation copies were sent to the papers, the " Letters" were generally noticed as being essentially characteristic, but the discretion shown in printing them was much questioned. Natur- ally Mr. Browning's essay attracted a large share of attention, though consisting of but forty-four pages,for it is his only acknowledged prose work (why, by the way, has it never been reprinted ?). He describes Shelley as a man " true, simple-hearted, and brave ; and be- cause what he acted corresponded to what he knew, so I call him a man of religious mind, because every audacious negative cast up by him against the Divinity was interpreted with a mood of reverence and adora-