Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 9.djvu/141

Rh I am confident, your lordship will be of my sentiments in one thing; that some short plain authentick tract might be published for the information both of petty and grand juries, how far their power reaches, and where it is limited; and that a printed copy of such a treatise might be deposited in every court, to be consulted by the jurymen, before they consider of their verdict; by which, abundance of inconveniences would be avoided, whereof innumerable instances might be produced from former times; because I will say nothing of the present.

I have read somewhere of an eastern king, who put a judge to death for an iniquitous sentence, and ordered his hide to be stuffed into a cushion, and placed upon the tribunal for the son to sit on, who was preferred to his father's office. I fancy, such a memorial might not have been unuseful to a son of sir William Scroggs, and that both he and his successors would often wriggle in their seats, as long as the cushion lasted: I wish the relator had told us what number of such cushions there might be in that country.

I cannot but observe to your lordship, how nice and dangerous a point it is grown, for a private person to inform the people even in an affair where the publick interest and safety are so highly concerned, as that of Mr. Wood; and this in a country where loyalty is woven into the very hearts of the people, seems a little extraordinary. Sir William Scroggs was the first who introduced that commendable acuteness into the courts of judicature; but how far this practice has been imitated by his successors, or strained upon occasion, is out of my knowledge. When pamphlets unpleasing to the ministry were Rh