Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 17.pdf/30

 YOUR AFFECTIONATE FRIEND, JOHN MARCH they are too generall, for that hee doth not shew anything that hee hath done to deserve it." As an example of hair-splitting distinc tions and ingenious perversions, note the defense set forth in the following quotation : "Benson brought an action against Morley for these words; Thou hast robbed the Church and has stollen the Leade of the Church. Upon not guilty pleaded it was found for the plaintiff, and it was moved in arrest of judgment, that the words were not actionable, because the Church shall be in tended the Universall Church, and the Church Militant cannot bee robbed and so the words are impossible: but by Popham chiefe Justice, the action will well lie, and so it was adjudged, because the words in this case cannot be intended of an invisible Church, as is objected, but of a materiall Church, as is explained by the subsequent words, and liast stollen the lead of the Church: which cannot be understood of the invisible Church." It is cheering to find that the ancient punster responsible for the next case met with his deserts: "The like Case, where one said of an Audi tor, that he was a Frauditor, was adjudged actionable." The next offense is similar, still we may hope that justice in this case was tempered with mercy, for the provocation may have been great: "One said of a Councellor at Law, that he was a Concealer of the Law, adjudged actionable." Then comes the decision of a most wise judge, and one cannot but wonder whether, in arriving at his conclusion, he was influ enced the more by his knowledge of the law or his knowledge of some lawyers. "And likewise in this case it was said by Hartley, Justice, that where one said of a Lawyer, that hee had as much Law as a Munkey, that these words were adjudged not actionable, because that he hath as much Law, & more also, than the Monkev

hath: but if he had said that he had no more Law than a Monkey, these words would be actionable." The next and last quotation is interest ing, not only because of the astonishing error of judgment of the unworldly Parson Prit, but because of the light it throws upon that time-honored chronicle, "Fox's Book of Martyrs." Apparently in those times the imaginings of some supposedly religious minds were, like the manners of the day, somewhat coarse, but the story told in this case is so absurd, and in its re lation to Mr. Fox and his famous book, so interesting, that it can hardly be omitted. "The case of Parson Prit in Suffolk was thus: In the Acts and Monuments of Mr. Fox, there is a relation of one Greenwood of Suffolk, who is there reported to have perjured himself before the Bishop of Nor wich, in the testifying against a Martyr, in the time of Queene Mary and that after wards by the judgment of God, as an exem plary punishment for his great offence, his bowels rotted out of his belly. "And the said Parson Prit having newly come to his benefice in Suffolk, and not well knowing his Parishioners, preaching against perjury, cited this story for an example of the justice of God, and it chanced that the same Greenwood of whom the story was written, was in life and in the Church at that time, and after for this slander brought an action, to which the Defendant pleaded not guilty, &c. and upon evidence all the matter appeared, and by the rule of Ander son Justice of Assize, he was acquitted, because it did appear the defendant spoake the words without malice, and this rule was approved by the King's Bench in this case." And to this day one may read in the "Book of Martyrs" this amazing tale of "one Greenwood," as well as many others quite as remarkable, and perhaps as authen tic. The delightful tone of intimacy and good will which pervades this book is empha sized in the closing sentences, where the